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In the dimness, Tang Yu slowly opened his eyes, a wave of soreness spreading through his body.
He barely managed to prop himself up as dust mixed with small shards of stone trickled off his body.
"Am I... still alive?"
In his memory, the Demonized Beasts surged like a tide, breaking through the Sanctuary's defenses, and countless survivors perished amidst screams, turning the world blood-red.
This was the apocalypse. It had arrived a month ago.
He was about to graduate then, had already found a job, just waiting to officially start, and yet, disaster struck without warning.
Red mist filled the sky, the ground split open with massive chasms, and creatures named Demonized Beasts crawled out from the Abyssal Rifts, massacring humanity.
These Abyssal Rifts marked the advent of the apocalypse!
On that day, Tang Yu happened to be on the school campus and witnessed firsthand the ground cracking open to swallow an entire building, while the teachers and students around were utterly terror-stricken, each one being torn to pieces by the Demonized Beasts amidst the screams. At that time, he was relatively far from the Abyssal Rift, avoiding the first wave of slaughter by the Demonized Beasts, and, by sheer luck, encountered a large group of survivors fleeing the chaos, which, after many twists and turns, brought him to this small Sanctuary.
With an endless number of Demonized Beasts, even the full strength of the Military could not match them. Humanity retreated step by step, barely managing to protect certain significant areas.
And the Sanctuary represented the last line of defense for humans.
This small Sanctuary was established using a resort as its base, housing thousands of survivors, and was the safest place within tens of miles. Although not as secure as large Sanctuaries guarded by the Military, it possessed firearms, ammunition, human strongholds, and was located far from Abyssal Rifts. When Demonized Beasts occasionally attacked the Sanctuary, they would be dealt with swiftly.
This was what he had thought, until the Demon Tide surged and drowned the Sanctuary. Only then did he realize that the Sanctuary, in this apocalypse, was so... fragile.
Tang Yu surveyed his surroundings.
On either side, collapsed houses formed a recess, leaving him uncovered, inadvertently saving him from disaster. A touch with his hand revealed a blood-red palm; this wasn't his blood but the blood of an unlucky soul pierced through the chest and lungs by an iron pipe beside him, staining the ground red.
This was not the only one.
Through the gaps, Tang Yu could see the corpses strewn outside, more tragically than the unlucky soul pierced by the iron pipe.
Tang Yu felt a pang of sorrow.
He had survived by luck, but it did not mean much. As an ordinary person, without weapons and not being an Awakener, encountering even the weakest Demonized Beast would be enough to take his life.
"If only I were an Awakener..."
Those with good aptitude awakened naturally, while those slightly less gifted might awaken under the pressure of adversity, becoming Awakeners capable of self-preservation in the apocalypse.
Some people, with average aptitude, couldn't awaken through their own efforts. However, it wasn't entirely hopeless; the Sanctuary had a kind of special auxiliary Awakening Device that could help survivors awaken. But Tang Yu found himself in a difficult situation; his aptitude was at the lowest end, lacking any qualification for awakening.
There were many like him, and when danger struck, it was almost a death sentence.
"So, am I just supposed to wait for death?" Tang Yu muttered to himself, feeling a sense of unwillingness, but seemingly resigned to fate.
Suddenly, a shiver ran through him.
"Ding-dong! Doomsday Lord System activated. Please, Lord, establish a Lord's Castle as soon as possible to define the Territory range."
What was that sound!
He should have heard something just now. Was it possible that a Demonized Beast had discovered him, or was it just auditory hallucinations?
"Ding-dong! Please, Lord, establish a Lord's Castle as soon as possible..."
The voice came from his mind; this time, Tang Yu was certain this mysterious voice did exist.
The voice was mechanical, just looping over and over in his mind. He soon realized he could either block the voice or ask it questions mentally. Though the information was limited, at least he understood what it was.
A system!
Tang Yu recalled the name "Doomsday Lord." It was a game he used to play to pass the time before the apocalypse. Excited, the concept of systems was not unfamiliar to him; rather, it was something he knew very well, his mind easily conjuring hundreds of novels with systems.
Instantly, he thought of the plots of those novels, then philosophy, then life, and finally the game itself.
Doomsday Lord was essentially a third-rate strategy game, roughly set in a fantasy apocalypse setting, where the world was breaking down, humanity was on the brink of extinction, and the castles built by the players preserved the last spark of humanity, requiring the players to...
Tang Yu shook his head abruptly; in the face of life and death, he was thinking about a game background!
"System, since you're a system, at least let me awaken!"
"Cannot."
"Give me some bodyguards, or summon a group of subordinates?"
"Cannot."
Tang Yu: "..."
At least give me a plan to solve the current crisis!
"Ding... ding-dong, when establishing a Lord's Castle, two Puppet Guards will be provided to solve the Lord's present crisis."
"Then let's do it immediately, build it now!"
"Ding-dong! Establishing a Lord's Castle requires the Lord to choose a location and pay one hundred units of Source Crystal. It's detected that the Lord doesn't have any Source Crystal, and thus cannot establish a Lord's Castle."
"..."
He had something to say, unsure if it was appropriate!
Other systems typically offered a starter gift package, but this broken system offered nothing, not even the main base—it had to be built by oneself, without resources! He had never seen such a thing in all his years of playing strategy games!
Now then, where was he supposed to find one hundred units of Source Crystal?
Source Crystal was an extremely precious strategic resource, with a small chance of forming within a Demonized Beast, and some claimed naturally occurring Source Crystal Veins existed in the wild. Both were hard to obtain, only available to Elite Combat Personnel or Awakeners. Tang Yu was merely a low-level survivor, who could neither own Source Crystal nor had ever seen it.
Under normal circumstances, he would never acquire it.
But now...
Tang Yu thought for a moment and realized there was a slim chance... Since the Sanctuary was breached, the place where Awakeners lived must have left behind some Source Crystal.
He didn't know if this guess was correct, nor if there were one hundred units of Source Crystal left behind, but for this slim hope, he had to fight!
Taking a deep breath, calming his complex thoughts, "The Awakeners and high-ranking members of the Sanctuary lived in the villa district on the hillside, part of the Sanctuary's central area. I intended to escape inward during my flight, now that my position is close to the center of the Sanctuary, not far from the villa district, which is an advantage. The disadvantage is..."
Tang Yu smiled bitterly, his body already weak, without any weapons, a disastrous start indeed, with only the system to rely on, which could not be of help for now.
Then he patted his cheeks, looking determined.
Fortunately, where he'd been buried, the stones weren't tightly packed. Tang Yu searched around and observed the environment outside, ultimately finding a relatively large gap through which he crawled out.
Ahead was an open area, originally set up with numerous makeshift houses and tents. Now, of course, it was a chaotic scene, with many corpses left in fragments, remaining only in parts, the stench of blood thick in the air.
Yet, he saw few Demonized Beasts' corpses, knowing the entire Sanctuary had little resistance against the Demon Tide and was easily overrun.
Holding his breath, he cautiously moved forward, checking multiple times with every few steps.
The blazing sun hung high, with sweat dripping from his nose, evaporating upon hitting the ground. Tang Yu panted carefully, luckily finding fewer Demonized Beasts than he had imagined; he only saw a couple from afar, seemingly gnawing on something.
Skirting around the ruins, hiding in the bushes, Tang Yu did everything possible to avoid the Demonized Beasts. Thankfully, the entire Sanctuary's ruins having just undergone slaughter, the pervasive stench of blood effectively masked his scent, depriving the Demonized Beasts of their most potent tracking tool.
Advancing step by step, gradually, the villa district was almost within reach.
......
Approaching the villa district, the surroundings were even more ravaged, with ruined houses everywhere.
Charred marks from explosions, bullet craters left in the ground, walls torn asunder, every sign spoke of the fierce battle fought here.
Tang Yu saw numerous bodies, human Awakeners, and Demonized Beasts mixed together, resembling a chaotic scene.
He cautiously stepped forward, squatting to search through a body's remains.
The pungent smell swirled around his nose, hands already smeared with blood, yet Tang Yu didn't care. Half crazed, half calm, he rummaged through.
A Type 54 pistol.
Along with two magazines.
Combined with the short dagger he found earlier on his way here, these were the best weapons he could locate. He knew these arms were hardly effective against Demonized Beasts, but the cold metal in his hand still increased his sense of security considerably.
In the distance, he also noticed some firearms, seemingly intact, but they lay in open spaces, making them risky to obtain. With caution as his principle and Source Crystal as his primary goal, Tang Yu decided not to take unnecessary risks.
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