Is There Still Hope for a World Like This

For mortals, eating is a combination of teeth, tongue, and throat.

But for the world, eating is the crushing interplay of rules, laws, and order.

As time passed, Xu Xi grew increasingly adept at using his spiritual sight, perceiving more of the world's transformations at a fundamental level.

It was the conversion of the tangible into the intangible.

A distortion where the cycle of life and death was forcibly overturned.

The world of wizards trembled like a lone leaf adrift on a boat, barely functioning amidst the chaos.

In contrast, the boundless Netherworld was staggeringly vast—not merely a larger vessel, but the churning ocean itself.

Infinite expansion.

Infinite reach.

Even the faintest shadow cast by its chaos was enough to slowly consume the wizards' world.

Once this fragile leaf finally sank into the abyss,

everything within the wizards' world—be it laws or living beings—would be assimilated by the Netherworld.

Even if some survivors clung to life,

they would no longer recognize their homeland, only a grotesque and twisted realm of the undead.

"Great Wizard… is there truly no hope left for this world?"

Flickering soulfire pulsed beneath her cloak as Servia, clad in armor, spoke in a somber tone.

She was already dead—an undead untouched by the Netherworld’s influence. Even if the wizards' world fell, she would remain unharmed.

But the girl was kind-hearted.

She couldn’t bear to see people suffer so.

In this dark and frigid world, life was agony, and death offered no escape.

"Perhaps there is."

Xu Xi answered thus.

With a swing of his staff, a roaring fire dragon surged toward the withered forest below, reducing countless undead to ashes and saving a group of fleeing survivors.

He didn’t linger to hear their grateful cries.

Instead, he urged his phantom raven onward, soaring toward the heart of the wizards' world, cutting through the sky beneath the black sun and blood-red moon.

In this world, nothing was truly impossible.

Especially in the realm of the extraordinary.

The mightiest could redefine existence itself.

But alas, Xu Xi was only a Third-Circle Wizard.

With the entire wizards' world in flight, he lacked the power to save it.

Before him lay only two choices:

"Stay here, forsake the living, and become a necromancer."

"Or flee alone to a safer plane of existence."

Xu Xi gazed at the dying sky.

From its gloom, he gathered a wisp of death energy—twice as dense as when he had left the mountains.

"Neither option appeals to me…"

He opened his palm,

letting the death energy disperse once more, drifting across the land.

Bathed in the eerie crimson moonlight, the world below was a tableau of despair—strewn with corpses and echoing with the wails of the living.

The dead found no peace.

The living found no respite.

Whether he stayed in this hell or chose to flee, Xu Xi felt a weight in his chest.

Not out of a desire to play the hero or savior.

But simply,

he wanted to help two elders—the Hansen couple, whose remains had been desecrated—and spit in the face of this twisted, monstrous world.

"Servia."

"Yes, I’m here."

"Sharpen your sword well. When we find the one behind all this, we’ll be cutting them down many, many times."

"Understood!!!"

……

[Servia grew uneasy with the world’s decay. Faced with rivers of blood and endless darkness, she felt sorrow and rage, her sword never resting.]

[The Hero asked you:]

[Is there still hope for this world?]

[You couldn’t give her the answer she wanted.]

[This calamity was beyond your power.]

[Even Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth-Circle Wizards could only flee. How could a mere Third-Circle like you turn the tide?]

[You recalled the goal of this simulation:]

[To study death, to study the soul.]

[Thanks to Servia’s cooperation and the unique nature of the Life-Death Cycle trait, your research had progressed smoothly. You were confident that, upon returning to reality, you could better wield the power of death.]

[You were satisfied.]

[Yet you didn’t wish to end the simulation yet. You wanted to explore further, to grow stronger, and to uncover the mastermind behind this tragedy.]

[You wanted to kill them.]

[This was why you had always sought to reach the Divine Plateau—the heart of wizard civilization.]

[You believed that, in the place where wizards gathered most densely, you might find useful clues.]

……

[Simulation Year 11, Age 28]

[The world’s corruption accelerated. The undead you encountered grew in number—not just the resurrected dead, but creatures emerging from the Netherworld itself.]

[You felt nothing.]

[You were a powerful Third-Circle Wizard, well-versed in necromancy.]

[Though not yet a Fourth-Circle Wizard bearing the title of "Calamity," your strength was enough to render ordinary undead insignificant.]

[Simulation Year 12, Age 29]

[The wizards' world continued to rot.]

[You and Servia passed through a fallen kingdom, where a murky yellow river flowed—ethereal, carrying countless lost souls into the distance.]

[You explained to the girl:]

[That was the River of Souls, flowing through the infinite Netherworld, linking the deaths of countless planes.]

[Normally, the wizards' world couldn’t perceive it. But with the Netherworld’s encroachment, such phenomena had begun to manifest.]

Step by step,

journey after journey,

it was as if the tales of legends had come to life.

Xu Xi and Servia rode the phantom raven, soaring over ancient kingdoms and ruins, witnessing towering mountains and crossing stormy seas.

"Great Wizard, please… don’t look at me…"

When thunderstorms came,

Servia still curled up, trembling, clutching her head.

Xu Xi chuckled softly, casting a spell to mute the thunder for the undead girl, easing her through the storm.

"Great Wizard, please use my body."

During rest,

Servia would willingly remove her armor, allowing Xu Xi to study her skeletal frame, delving deeper into the mysteries of life and death.

In the silent night, the Hero’s scarred face held a hollow beauty.

"Great Wizard, please drink."

"Great Wizard, thank you for the deathcap mushrooms."

"Great Wizard, thank you…"

Brave.

Fearless.

Strong in silence, fierce in wrath.

Servia followed Xu Xi, watching the world’s collapse with her one remaining eye, walking beside him through the ruins.

In the 14th year of the simulation, at age 31,

the outline of the Divine Plateau finally appeared in the distance.

"Great Wizard, is that the center of the world?"

"More accurately, it was the center," Xu Xi stood atop the phantom raven, gazing ahead as the distance closed.

Channeling his soul’s power, he cast a long-range observation spell, magnifying the blurred image of the Divine Plateau.

"This…"

Xu Xi froze.

What met his eyes was not a thriving wizard civilization,

but the shattered remains of multiple bone dragons,

their twisted, broken forms embedded in the ruins of the plateau, having crushed most of its structures.