Cataclysm: Undead Dragons and Zero Empire

Howard's assassination plot shocked the world. The Death Party publicly claimed responsibility for the operation and spread the news far and wide.

Despite the intense turmoil caused by the major earthquake at the time, the event still sparked widespread discussion.

Anyone with access to the Rebuild Network is talking about Bazeir's death. The chairman of Glorious Heavy Industries had lived for so long using life extension technology that he had become an abstract symbol, leading people to believe that he would live forever.

The fall of a legend seems to further confirm the demise of the old order, and that the world needs to usher in a new order and a new way of governing.

The earthquake destroyed the old order as easily as a child knocking down a sandcastle, but the sand remains, waiting to be reshaped into a new form.

The once-thriving Internet is indeed gone, and the world has been forced to regress to the era of local area networks, but technology has not disappeared into thin air.

The internet is a mirror, reflecting the thoughts and lives of everyone who surfs the web. Now it has been shattered, but every fragment still reflects the image of those who gaze at the internet.

Now, every major company, and even every organization, big or small, with its own hidden agenda, is building its own local area network. These networks are independent of each other and are no longer subject to any constraints or regulations. Sooner or later, like a spider weaving its web, they will once again bind everyone who falls onto the network.

The same group of people still dominate the world, and this rule and surveillance have become increasingly stringent with the disappearance of the Internet and the establishment of local area networks, as if the new order is mocking the cowardice of the old order, and any resistance is futile.

At this crossroads in the development of the times, the infamous Death Faction produced explosive news: the head of a giant company was assassinated.

No one cared who the assassin was, nor did anyone care about the Death Faction's audacity. All eyes were drawn to Radiant Heavy Industries, like a pack of hyenas smelling the blood of a lion, eager to determine the severity of the beast's injuries.

However, Guanghui Heavy Industries' public relations department has yet to issue a formal statement, and a subtle atmosphere has begun to quietly spread around the world.

As the slogans for disaster relief and production recovery gradually faded, the voices of hatred that had been suppressed by the earthquake rose again. Everyone seemed to realize that we were in the midst of World War II, and that the outcome was still undecided.

Initially, everyone was quite restrained and continued to promote the joint peace statement, since large-scale mobilization was very difficult given the traffic restrictions and the nascent regional network.

However, everyone knew that this was a silent battle. The severity of the earthquake damage was uneven, and the balance of power between the forces had been disrupted. Before the wounds could heal themselves, the less injured side wanted to kill the more injured side.

As a result, sabotage and infiltration operations have become more frequent, creating chaos, gathering intelligence, and even hindering disaster relief, causing more intense turmoil. The intensity and scale of this contest are gradually escalating.

The world situation is becoming increasingly tense, and before military action is brought to the forefront, there are already undercurrents of tension online.

The infighting between regional networks is extremely destructive. Unlike the Internet era, there is no need to consider the impact on oneself. Hackers from giant companies will stop at nothing. Network viruses that were once stuck in the experimental stage are now being released into the network fortresses they have built without any scruples.

In Howard and Terrence's conversation, the leader of the Death Faction referred to this phase as the War Behind the Scenes, and remarked that pressure and constraints have always been the two flints that spark inspiration, and that humanity has created more and more attack methods, even making further progress in network technology.

Artificial intelligence programs have rapidly moved beyond civilian applications such as data centers and entered the military domain, with programs lurking deep within the network waiting to launch an attack at the most opportune moment.

As for loosening the shackles that bind the beast of artificial intelligence, no one will stop for the sake of risk until the consequences actually occur.

With the major earthquake as a dividing point and the assassination of Bazel as the trigger, World War II officially turned into a corporate war, which developed in full swing and was far more intense than before.

The conflict quickly spread from the virtual network to the devastated reality, and escalated rapidly. The giant corporations poured all their resources and means into it, rendering the joint peace declaration a worthless piece of paper, and the hot war began.

Cutting-edge weaponry technology was rapidly put into practical use, and the corporate war escalated to large-scale slaughter in a very short time. Before the ruins caused by the earthquake had been completely cleared, more ruins were added to the surface, and the original ruins were turned into flat land.

People lost their families in World War II, their homes in the earthquake, and now they are about to lose even more in the corporate war. It seems they have nothing left to lose except their incredibly fragile lives.

Water pollution, bloodshed more common than clean water, food shortages, and the restoration of production seem like a pipe dream. From raw materials to processing plants, no link has been rebuilt. Only military factories are producing weapons and equipment day and night, as if trying to exhaust all of humanity's remaining productivity.

The cities where civilizations reside are the most impoverished, while the lives of people in primitive tribes remain largely unchanged. They have no resources to be plundered; they only need to hunt and gather to meet their most basic survival needs, without having to consider anything beyond spiritual fulfillment.

Ordinary people wouldn't know why the corporate war happened, even though they were all driven by the hatred that was incited beforehand, either actively or passively, and together they started World War II.

They could only wander among the earthquake ruins, struggling to survive. Amidst the daily conflicts of emerging organizations, associations, and gangs of all sizes, they were suddenly confronted with a corporate war, and the false hatred of the past was long forgotten.

The company war consumed all of life, and in the shadows unnoticed, the Death Faction, which ignited the war, continued to fight silently for their cause.

Howard sat atop the tank, bouncing across the vast plains that had once been filled with grains, a scene of golden waves during harvest season. Now, to him, it was a desolate wasteland, overrun by shrubs and weeds.

This is an army that does not belong to any giant corporation. It flies the banner of "Holding the Hand of the Flame," and its tanks and armed helicopters form a formation that resembles an iron torrent.

"The Knights of Death," a name Terence coined, has gradually become a well-known name under Howard's leadership, standing out even more amidst the chaotic corporate wars.

Terrence and Howard officially stepped into the spotlight. At first, no one paid attention to this group of eccentric believers. They had always been unknown in the relatively obscure Death Faction, but now they had assassinated the head of a giant corporation and publicly declared their independence from the Death Faction, establishing their own armed forces and throwing themselves into the corporate war.

The more radical and ambitious members of the death faction accomplished nothing; all they could do was instigate internal strife. Faced with the death toll accumulated from the insane fighting in the company wars, the internal strife stirred up by the ambitious members could not cause a ripple.

The name "Death Faction" was increasingly equated with Terence's faction in the eyes of the public and corporations, who took advantage of the war to massacre heretics and did not even spare those ambitious individuals who attempted to climb the ladder of chaos.

Howard could only glean glimpses of the brutality of this religious conflict from the fragments of conversation, but he had no intention of getting involved; there were many other things he needed to do.

Along the route his army took, a great famine was taking place.