In the 243rd year of the Clovis reign, armies from the Zhen Dynasty attacked cities on the eastern coast of the Human Kingdom. Due to a recent war with the neighboring Demon Kingdom, and from having no knowledge of the Zhen Dynasty’s existence across the ocean, the Human Kingdom stood no chance against the mysterious force they were suddenly pressed against. From boats that reached almost a mile in length, hundreds of thousands of Zhen soldiers poured out, conquering everything in their path.

The largest armies of the Human Kingdom were still busy eliminating the remnants of the Demon Kingdom’s Seven Demonic General Armies and couldn’t move their troops fast enough to intercept the foreign soldiers. By the time messengers arrived at the Human Kingdom’s farthest army, Saint Nero’s Legion of Holy Swords, the capital had already fallen to the invaders. However, since the three heroes of the Human Kingdom were with Saint Nero’s Legion of Holy Swords and didn’t know about the collapse, they rushed to the capitol’s aid.

Abandoning their supporting soldiers and forgoing all regulations, the three heroes traveled as fast as they could. To travel across the Human Kingdom, which spanned almost 5,000 miles from end to end, it took the heroes less than a month. As they passed burning fields and the marching armies of the Zhen Dynasty, the heroes hoped their capital would still be standing.

Once arrived at the capital, the heroes were greeted by ash. The magnificent stone wall, which once surrounded the entire city, were crushed like they were made from sand. Homes for hundreds of thousands of people, which surrounded the palace at the center of the city, were still burning in some parts. The palace, a magnificent feat of architecture and design, no longer stood where it once was for hundreds of years. Instead, a pile of a rubble occupied the center of the city.

The heroes, greeted by this scene and surrounded on all sides by Zhen Dynasty soldiers, went berserk. They fought for eight years to protect their beloved kingdom, but now everything was gone. The capital survived eight years of demonic onslaughts, only to be felled by an unknown enemy.

Fueled by rage, the heroes separated and devastated the Zhen Dynasty armies. One magician went to the sea, to destroy the ships which had transported the soldiers to their kingdom, and the other magician went with the swordsman to destroy as many soldiers as they could. Each of them knew they were facing something they had no chance of defeating. The Demon Kingdom had forces only slightly greater to those of the Human Kingdom. The Zhen Dynasty had unfathomable power at their disposal.

Within a week, the swordsman died. The Zhen Dynasty soldiers were simply too strong when it came to close range, easily wiping out mountains and humans alike. Though the swordsman had techniques to deflect the force of a boulder falling from a cliff, he could do nothing against the force of an entire mountain falling on him. The magician, seeing his comrade killed so easily, fled from the encounter.

For days, the magician hid in the swamps near the south of the capital. Though the Zhen Dynasty soldiers had enough physical power to uproot a tree with one punch, they lacked the magical ability to create a forest of stone pillars with a thought. Gradually, the magician killed off soldiers until one could be captured.

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With the captured soldier, the magician learned the secret to his power. With a strange and foreign power, Cultivation, the soldier could augment his body to have the strength of a hundred men. This power came from something called a Dantian, an organ the magician had never heard of. When the magician tried to free the soldier of his dantian, he was met with infinite protests.

Removing the soldier’s dantian caused him immense pain, but the magician pulled through. He gave no regard to the soldier’s disdain, and eventually completely removed the dantian. The soldier immediately died, his body aging dozens of years in a matter of seconds.

Even after killing the Zhen Dynasty, the magician gained little knowledge over the mysterious organ and power contained within it. To further his research, he needed to gather more test subjects. Soldiers had to cross the swamp periodically, and the magician stole one from every convoy. In an army of millions of soldiers, just one going missing on a supply mission meant nothing, and the magician operated for months without being found.

However, the magician was eventually caught while trying to destroy the dantian of a passing Zhen Dynasty soldier. The soldier cried out as the magician pulled his dantian from his body, alerting the other members of his convoy. Suddenly, hundreds of soldiers surrounded the magician.

In that area of the swamp, a complete freeze might only happen during unusually cold winters. But, a complete freeze happened then too. The magician sent ice magic into the water of the swamp, freezing everything for a mile. Most of the Zhen Dynasty soldiers near the magician were incapacitated, unable to move their frozen legs, but some of the ones further away were able to react before the magician's spell fully froze the swamp.

Though a hundred soldiers were taken out of the fight in an instant, hundreds more were still closing in for the attack. The magician began running away, fleeing for his life. The soldiers kept coming, ignoring their comrades who fell to haphazardly fired magic from the magician.

When the first Zhen Dynasty soldier landed a hit on the magician, he was met with his dantian exploding. The magician turned around, now knowing he could not outrun the soldiers. Another soldier tried to punch the magician, but he too got his dantian destroyed.

Reinforcements came from the Zhen Dynasty soldiers, and soon thousands of cultivators were attacking the magician. Needless to say, the magician didn’t last long. However, in the last few seconds of his life, the magician lashed out with his own mysterious power.

The magician feared using his soul to power his spells would drastically reduce his lifespan, but that was a fear of the past. Surrounded by tens of thousands of enemy soldiers, his lifespan was limited to a single digit number of days. Using all the mana and soul power he had, the magician desperately fought off the horde of cultivators by destroying their dantians.

By the time the magician had run out of energy, he was already dead. He didn’t know when he died, all he knew was that his physical body no longer existed.

“What now?” The magician asked the void surrounding his astral form.