More than a decade has passed since the "Day the Great Wall Collapsed." For the inhabitants of the Land of Holy Light, these have been the darkest and longest days in their history.

The conquest of the Holy Star Empire was like an inextinguishable, all-consuming plague. The Empire's war machine displayed a dual form of terror that the native inhabitants of this world could neither comprehend nor resist.

On one side is an endless army of demons led by the First Demon General, Lilith. They are the embodiment of pure, chaotic, and primal destruction. Wherever the black demonic tide passes, the earth is corrupted, the rivers are polluted, and the forests turn into weeping, withered trees. They carry out the most brutal policies of racial cleansing and enslavement, uprooting and crushing the civilization of the old era into fragments.

On the other hand, there is the true core strength of the empire—a cold yet highly efficient technological legion remotely commanded by Marshal Qin Lan.

Once the demon army has utterly destroyed the resistance in a region, massive, mountain-like Imperial landing ships will tear through the sky and descend upon the land. Following closely behind are tens of thousands of "Divine Craftsman" series construction golems and fully automated engineering machines. With near-miraculous efficiency, they will level the ruins destroyed by the demons, then erect imperial-style fortified cities and resource gathering bases on the spot, all designed for the purpose of war.

The fate of the elves became the first tragic song to be sung in this war of conquest.

Their three isolated and picturesque kingdoms—Silvermoon Forest, Sylvanas, Emerald Dreamland, Los Lorian, and High Heaven City, Elphaheim—could not even survive for half a year under the dual blows of the demonic tide and the Imperial Tech Legion.

The elves of Sylvanas are trying to use their age-old natural magic to awaken the sleeping guardians of the ancient tree in order to resist the invasion of the demons.

However, when Lilith herself descended, enveloping the entire forest with her "All Things Wither" aria, imbued with millennia of resentment, the ancient trees that had lived for thousands of years were drained of all their life force within minutes, turning into fragile, shattering grayish-white skeletons. Then, the Deinonychus army easily trampled their city, constructed of vines and giant trees.

The elves of Lothlórien, relying on their powerful illusions, attempted to conceal the entire kingdom in mist and illusion.

However, the Empire's "Sky Eye" orbital reconnaissance satellites had already accurately transmitted their true coordinates to the command center of the Empire's heavy artillery forces in the form of a three-dimensional image.

The next moment, hundreds of "divine punishment" tungsten rods, originating from geosynchronous orbit in outer space, rained down like the wrath of God. Each rod carried terrifying kinetic energy comparable to a tactical nuclear weapon. They easily tore apart the illusionary barrier that the elves were so proud of, completely erasing the dreamlike valley, along with all the life within it, from a physical perspective, leaving only bottomless, terrifying craters with edges vitrified by intense heat.

The last "high-altitude city," Elphaheim, put up a most tragic resistance. Their city was built atop several massive floating islands and possessed the powerful aerial force, the Griffin Knights. However, they faced the true interstellar power of the Empire—the First Expeditionary Fleet, led by three "Godmight"-class space destroyers.

It was a duel between arrows and lasers, a clash between flesh and blood and a steel behemoth. The outcome was predictable.

The elven griffon riders couldn't even get close to the energy shield surrounding the destroyers before being precisely targeted and killed one by one by the dense array laser turrets, turning into dazzling bursts of flesh and blood fireworks in the air. Finally, as the main guns of the three destroyers fired simultaneously, three torrents of energy, each over a hundred meters in diameter and capable of melting everything, easily vaporized the elves' last home, those beautiful floating islands.

The fall of the three great elven kingdoms marked the complete disappearance of the most elegant and ancient civilization of the old era into the dustbin of history.

Fewer than a million elves survived. Most of the males were reduced to playthings, like pets, favored by the imperial nobles.

Women, on the other hand, became the most precious "resource" in the empire's gene pool, and were continuously sent to the capital of Chengtian as a reward for meritorious officials, contributing their wombs to the empire's reproduction.

After the elves came the dwarves.

Their underground kingdom was equally vulnerable to the "soil-penetrating bullets" of the burrowing worms and the Imperial engineering forces.

The dwarves' prized forging techniques seemed like a primitive joke compared to the Empire's "Forge of All Things," capable of reconstructing matter at the atomic level. Their men, with their powerful physiques, became the most sought-after mining slaves on the Empire's resource planets.

Now, in the Land of Holy Light, only a few human kingdoms remain, trembling and barely clinging to life under the onslaught of the demonic tide.

The capital of the Griffin Kingdom, Glory Keep, has now become the last hope for all survivors in the Land of Light.

This majestic city is backed by the most precipitous "Dragon Tooth Mountain Range" on the mainland, and surrounded on three sides by the treacherous "Endless Throat" Grand Canyon. It is connected to the outside world only by a narrow "Hero's Long Bridge".

Over the past six months, the remaining rangers who fled from the elven homeland, the dwarven engineers who broke out of the underground kingdoms, and the remnants of other destroyed human kingdoms have all gathered here. Hatred and despair have made them set aside their racial differences and form an unprecedented and tragic "Freedom Alliance."

The commander of the allied forces was King Leonard III, the white-haired ruler of the "Griffin Kingdom." He was a respectable old man, but everyone knew he was not the hero capable of leading the allied forces to create miracles. What they were doing was nothing more than a desperate struggle of cornered beasts.

Until that young man appeared.

His name was Leo, an unknown young man from a frontier settlement. No one knew his origins; he seemed to have appeared out of nowhere on this desolate battlefield.

He first came to public attention during the Battle of the Weeping Plains. At that time, a thousand-strong knightly order responsible for covering the evacuation of civilians was surrounded by tens of thousands of Direclaws and Gargoyles and was about to be wiped out.

Just when everyone thought there was no hope, Leo appeared.

Alone, holding a seemingly ordinary longsword and wearing a tattered leather armor, he calmly walked between the Knights and the demonic tide.

Everyone thought he had gone mad.

However, the next moment, golden light shot up from his body! That light was so pure, so warm, so sacred! Under the illumination of that light, all the surviving knights felt their wounds healing rapidly, and their exhausted bodies were filled with strength again.

The monstrous creatures, upon contact with the golden light, were like ice and snow encountering raging fire, letting out shrill screams as their bodies emitted black smoke and rapidly melted and purified!

“This is… Holy Light! Such pure… Holy Light!” An elderly chaplain, his eyes brimming with tears of emotion, knelt down and cried out, “It’s the hero! The legendary hero has descended!”

Leo didn't speak; he simply raised his longsword slowly and swung it gently at the black tide of demons.

A golden sword aura, a kilometer long and composed of ultimate holy light energy, swept out. That sword aura, like the first ray of dawn, tore through the dark sky composed of gargoyles and cleaved through the steel torrent composed of direclaw beasts.

With a single sword strike, thousands of demons vanished into thin air.

At that moment, an eerie silence fell over the entire battlefield.

All the surviving soldiers looked at that young figure, bathed in golden holy light, with the eyes of someone looking at a god.

The news of the "hero's" appearance spread like wildfire throughout the entire Land of Holy Light. It was like a shot of adrenaline, injecting new life into the numb and despairing hearts of all the survivors.

In the following months, Leo created one miracle after another.

He single-handedly charged into the "Black Iron Fortress," which had been occupied by the demons, killed the abyss lord guarding the fortress, and freed tens of thousands of dwarven slaves.

In the Valley of Sorrow, he single-handedly withstood the attack of 100,000 demon troops led by three high-ranking succubi under Lilith's command, buying precious three days for the strategic transfer of the main force of the allied forces.

He can even purify land contaminated by magical energy, and bring withered forests back to life.

He became the faith in everyone's hearts, the only light in the darkness. Countless warriors spontaneously followed him, forming a knightly order called "Dawn of Light." Elven arrows, dwarven battle axes, and human shields rallied tightly around him.

Under Leo's leadership, the allied forces swept away their defeat and miraculously stabilized their position on the Dragon Tooth Mountain defense line, even launching several successful counterattacks.

A legend of a "brave warrior" is rising on this scorched earth.

The Holy Star Empire, with its capital at Chengtian City, the Nine Heavens Moon-Embracing Palace.

Lin Feng was lounging lazily on his enormous throne, which was made of a single piece of "Star Tear Stone."

Before him, a huge holographic projection played reports from various departments of the empire, just like flowing water.

“The ‘Wangshu Project’ is progressing smoothly. The vegetation coverage on the lunar surface has reached 19 percent, and a preliminary ecological cycle system has been established.”

"The first generation of Merfolk interstellar pilots for the 'Atlantis' project completed their assessments yesterday. Their perception of 'repulsive fields' far surpasses that of humans."

"The Empire's total population has surpassed 14 billion, of which 'hybrid newborns' born from unions with 'second-class citizens' have reached 8.83 billion. According to genetic tracking reports, 3% of these newborns have exhibited benign genetic mutations, demonstrating an extraordinary affinity for 'ether' (i.e., magical elements)..."

These were glorious achievements that should have excited any emperor, but to Lin Feng, they were like chewing wax, leaving him completely unmoved.

He hadn't felt the emotion of "surprise" for a long time.

The entire empire was like a perfectly programmed, incredibly precise machine, executing every instruction he gave flawlessly and efficiently. Everything was exactly as he had anticipated.

This absolute control initially brought him ultimate satisfaction. But as time went on, all that remained was an endless, lonely emptiness and boredom at the top.

He was like a player who had completed a game and activated an invincible cheat. Everything in the game had lost its challenge and meaning for him.

"Your Majesty," the cold voice of the AI ​​"Pangu" echoed in his mind, "Is this the 73rd emergency report from the 'Holy Light Land' war zone? Would you like to review it?"

"Urgent battle report?" Lin Feng didn't even lift his eyelids. "Is it that woman Lilith again, complaining about logistical supplies, or requesting more 'spoils of war' to please me?"

“Neither, Your Majesty.” Pangu’s voice contained a very subtle fluctuation, representing “abnormal data.” “In the past thirty-two standard hours, our army has suffered thirty-seven tactical defeats on the front lines. The thirteenth, seventeenth, and twenty-fourth demon legions under the command of the First Demon General Lilith were annihilated as complete units. The Empire’s third and fifth long-range support fleets lost a total of one hundred and seventeen ‘Punishment’-class frigates and more than one hundred thousand ‘Divine Punishment’ drones.”

"oh?"

This time, Lin Feng finally slowly opened his pale golden eyes.

A faint interest, like a pebble thrown into a stagnant pond, stirred a small ripple in his heart.

In his plan, the conquest of the "Land of Holy Light" should have ended a year ago. The reason it has been delayed until now is simply because he tacitly allows Lilith to slowly savor the pleasure of her revenge in a way that is almost like "torture."

A tactical defeat was something that should not have happened.

“The reason,” he uttered.

“Data analysis points to a key variable, a…undocumented, high-energy, independent life form.”

Pangu's computing power was instantly boosted to its limit. Countless battlefield data and video footage converged and reassembled before him.

Finally, the image freezes.

It was the back view of a young man wearing tattered leather armor and holding a longsword. Around him burned a pure golden holy light, never before recorded in Pangu's database.

In the scene, the young man used only one sword strike to cleave a colossal abyss beast, over a hundred meters long and so powerful that even the plasma cannons of the Empire's main battle tanks could not penetrate it with a single blow, in two from head to tail.

In another video, he hovered in mid-air, arms outstretched, a colossal golden shield of holy light enveloping the entire Glory Keep. The Imperial fleet's "Heavenly Punishment" tungsten rods, launched from orbit, struck the golden shield as if hitting an invisible, indestructible wall, propelled high into the sky by the immense recoil. Several even struck friendly escort ships that couldn't evade them in time.

"Based on the remaining mythological documents from the Land of Holy Light, and the extraction of mental information from prisoners of war... this life form is what they call... 'the hero'," Pangu concluded.

"Brave?"

Lin Feng smiled.

He slowly rose from the throne.

It was a genuine smile, brimming with joy and excitement. The deathly stillness and indifference in his eyes, like that of an ancient glacier, melted away completely at that moment, replaced by a fervent, possessive light, like that of a hunter who has spotted prey worthy of his own!

"Hahaha...hahahahahaha!!"

A hearty laugh, brimming with domineering arrogance, echoed through the empty Yongguang Palace. The entire Jiuxiao Lanyue Palace seemed to tremble slightly at his sudden emotional outburst.

Boring, so incredibly boring!

He was already tired of this game of crushing ants. What he longed for was a real "opponent" who could stand opposite him!

He had assumed that such beings no longer existed on this backward planet. But unexpectedly, just as this war of conquest was drawing to a close, and he was about to completely lose interest, this world offered him such an interesting "surprise"!

A mortal who dared to rebel against "God"!