The Truth of Extinction: Cheap Human Lives

The dominant force in the world of wizards is the wizards themselves.

They grasp the truths of existence.

They toy with the laws of nature.

Yet, in the distant ancient past,

the rulers of the world were the deities birthed by nature itself, and the land where their power converged and reigned was the very heart of the world.

It was known as the Plateau of Gods.

The mightiest wizards were no lesser than these gods—some even stood above them.

Conquest, suppression, annihilation, subjugation.

The wizards rose to prominence in this world, then transcended it.

Legendary wizards who ascended to the Seventh Circle would embark on a journey to explore the infinite planes of existence, seeking even greater heights.

Those below the Seventh Circle chose to root themselves in the world of wizards, slowly accumulating knowledge and time, nurturing the next generation of their kind.

This is the history of the wizards' world.

And this is the origin of the Plateau of Gods—

a symbol of the wizard civilization's conquest over the divine.

Mid-to-high-tier wizards often erected their towers here, establishing their core domains.

But now—

"To think it would fall into ruin before the outside world did."

The heavens and earth were shrouded in gloom, cold and desolate.

Blood-red lightning tore through the darkened clouds.

Storms ravaged the land.

As if some colossal force had descended, effortlessly obliterating everything on the plateau, leaving behind only wreckage and ruin.

The bone dragons of immense power, the Sixth-Circle Wizard Towers that once suppressed entire nations—

the pinnacle of the world, described in the most grandiose terms—

now lay in decay and disarray,

presented before Xu Xi in such a state

that he stood frozen, unable to regain his composure for a long time.

……

[After years of arduous travel, you have finally reached the heart of the world—the Plateau of Gods.]

[Before arriving, you had many theories.]

[Perhaps the mastermind behind this devastation was hiding here.]

[Or maybe the missing mid-to-high-tier wizards had taken refuge here, evading the world's encroaching doom.]

[You were wrong.]

[There was no mastermind, nor any other wizards.]

[Only desolation and ruin stretched before you.]

[Unease gripped you.]

[With disbelief and confusion, you ventured deeper into the plateau alongside Servia, searching for any useful clues.]

……

[You were fortunate. Though the Plateau of Gods seemed lifeless, fragments of knowledge remained.]

[Despite the faded writings and broken artifacts, you pieced together fragments of the truth through relentless deduction.]

[Too late, you realized the ritual to summon the Netherworld had long concluded.]

[The falling sun and moon you witnessed were signs of its completion.]

[The mastermind had achieved his goal.]

[He was a supreme Sixth-Circle Wizard who orchestrated the collision of two worlds, using the death of the wizards' world as a stepping stone to reach the Seventh Circle.]

[He succeeded.]

[As the world began its descent, the powerful wizards who refused to become undead fled this realm.]

[The fate of annihilation was sealed—there would be no reversal.]

In the central region of the Plateau of Gods,

Xu Xi and Servia descended upon a relatively intact stretch of ruins, gazing down at the shattered bricks beneath their feet.

It was hard to imagine

that these had once been part of Fifth and Sixth-Circle Wizard Towers.

"I suspected it might be a ritual to ascend to the Seventh Circle, but confirming it still feels surreal."

"An entire world."

"All living beings."

"Reduced to mere sacrifices."

Xu Xi crouched, scooping up a handful of gravel from the ruins, rubbing the coarse grains between his fingers.

The Seventh Circle represented the apex of the wizard system—

the unification of truth, soul, and life and death.

Achieving such a realm through sheer comprehension was near impossible.

Thus, someone chose a different path—forging a road to immortality through the annihilation of an entire world and the fate of billions.

The horror of this method was unmatched.

Only wizards of the Fourth Circle and above would survive—all others were doomed to perish.

Humans, elves, goblins, orcs…

Magical beasts, dragons, goblins, slimes…

Intelligent or mindless, it mattered not.

All existence faced a silent, forced extinction—stripped of emotion, self, and thought, reduced to mindless undead.

"Life… is worth so little?"

Xu Xi stood.

His fingers loosened, letting the gravel slip through.

His eyes followed the grains as they scattered, falling back to the barren earth with faint, rustling whispers.

Xu Xi despised this outcome.

Beside him, the Hero shared his revulsion.

"Wizard…"

"I cannot accept this."

Her voice was hoarse, choked with grief and fury.

Servia could not accept that all suffering and tragedy stemmed from someone’s mere desire for greater power.

Her own body’s transformation into undeath, the desolation of her homeland, the cries of her parents, the desecration of Hansen and his wife’s remains…

Too much misery had befallen the land.

Those memories bled,

dripping at the feet of every survivor, a relentless reminder of sorrow.

Servia could not accept that such piercing agony existed for no reason beyond another’s ambition.

It shouldn’t have been this way. It was never meant to be.

The girl who grew up on tales of "Heroes" trembled violently before this blood-soaked truth.

Not from fear—

but rage.

She turned to Xu Xi, her soulfire too turbulent to form words.

Yet he heard them.

The weeping from the depths of her soul.

Pleading, grieving, her shattered spirit clinging to him as the only anchor keeping her from collapse.

Xu Xi reached out, gently wiping the emerald glow of tears from her eyes.

……

[The truth was too cruel.]

[The weight the girl carried—the origin of countless tragedies—was nothing more than a whim of another.]

[Her parents’ love, her family’s warmth, the reverence of her people.]

[All that was beautiful turned to ash.]

[Everything, even the world’s destruction, happened simply because someone sought greater power.]

[Servia could not accept such a reason.]

[She could not accept that the fate of the world, the lives of those she knew, were twisted and broken for this.]

[You understood her fury.]

[But you knew—blind rage was meaningless.]

[The mastermind had already ascended to the Seventh Circle, leaving the wizards’ world behind. No amount of anger would reach him now.]

[What mattered was the present.]

[To plan the next step.]

[With the world on the brink of ruin and the undead multiplying daily, you needed to grow stronger—to survive the coming calamity and carve a path to vengeance.]

[After a long silence, you decided to scour the ruins first.]

[The wizards had fled in haste.]

[Amid the fallen towers, there were still usable artifacts and fragmented records—valuable resources for a mere Third-Circle Wizard like yourself.]