Cataclysm: Undead Dragons and Zero Empire

The sky cleared up for the first time, and the bright sunshine added a touch of vibrant color to the snow-white earth.

The steam tower has completed its seventh renovation, and the heat is delivered to every corner of the city through alloy pipes. Howard is standing on the observation platform in the command center, quietly watching the good weather today, with ice flowers winding into frost on the inside of the glass.

On the console screen, the fitted population curve finally flattened out, no longer plummeting to the ground like a kite with a broken string.

When human civilization was pushed into the Ice Age, it faced the challenge of survival of the fittest, and the population experienced another sharp decline. Today, the remaining humans have finally gained a foothold on this frozen land and are gradually adapting to the new environment.

The engineer's daily report came through the communicator: the tower's output power remained stable, the pressure range was no longer pushing against the design limits, and the pump was running in the background, emitting a low hum.

Howard's gaze swept over the pipes extending from the steam tower. Through repeated major renovations, the efficiency of heat utilization had increased year by year. These were the results of engineers abandoning electronic technology, reviving steam technology, and continuously developing along this path.

Modern cities have a steampunk feel to them. If there were no oil in the land beneath our feet after we entered the steam age, would human civilization have developed into this? Unfortunately, the oil reserves have been destroyed in a major earthquake, and they can no longer mine them. They can only live on precious coal.

With the incessant sirens finally fading from the command center, Howard felt a little more at ease. As he sipped his coffee, it felt like he was back in the days of relaxing at his private clinic. So many years had passed, yet it still felt like yesterday. He wondered if the kind and gentle Dr. Agnes was still alive.

Together with the Death Cavalry, he fought for his ideals, personally weaving a vast network for human civilization. With towering towers as its heart and steam as its lifeblood, it pulsated tenaciously beneath the frozen ground. Lifeline transport was interconnected in scattered settlements, much like the advanced highway infrastructure of the pre-disaster era.

The settlements were gradually transformed into semi-underground structures. This wisdom, which originated from the ancients' desire to avoid extreme weather, makes modern human civilization seem to have returned to the Banpo era.

Admittedly, choosing steam technology was a step backward for human civilization that had already entered the information age, but this choice was not accidental. The precision manufacturing industry and power grid of the pre-disaster era had completely collapsed in rounds of wars and natural disasters.

As technology advances to a certain level, its drawbacks become apparent. Engineers and researchers have long been accustomed to the assembly line division of labor between upstream and downstream companies, with everyone using products made by others to complete their own products. The era of brilliant minds in early human civilization, where one person held titles such as mathematician, physicist, and chemist, is now history.

The Death Knights possess excellent engineers, but even with complete blueprints in hand, they cannot rebuild the industrial chain in a short time. The survival crisis is imminent, and the remaining time is like sand flowing through the holes of an hourglass.

Steam technology is simple in principle and has a rough structure. The manufacturing of components such as boilers, pipes and gears does not require complex micro-level precision machining. It can be achieved simply by repairing old-fashioned machine tools and hand polishing by old craftsmen. Open-pit coal mines became the best solution for survival.

"It wasn't that we chose steam, it was that it took us in," an old engineer once told Howard.

This pragmatic choice, like the ancients' method of making fire by drilling wood, is crude, yet enough to become the spark of civilization.

After this spark was not extinguished by the wind and snow, human civilization began to actively embrace spiritual power, and the future took different paths.

Beyond its initial mysterious appearance, humanity began to delve into the nature of this unknown energy, and Terence and his Death Faction were undoubtedly the most authoritative figures in this field.

In an era when divine authority was greater than royal authority, and mysticism and science were not yet separated, priests were the group that possessed knowledge—both conservative and progressive. Now it is their turn to guide the future of human civilization.

After a period of silence, Terrence approached Howard and introduced him to the research results of the Death School. Psionic energy finally unveiled its mysterious veil, becoming known and usable by people, and gradually developed into a mature system like building blocks, which could be learned by later generations.

The first to emerge were the old techniques of the Death Sect. Starting from the Dragon Dream Syndrome of the past, they attempted to resonate with the omnipresent death psychic energy in the atmosphere by meditating on the image of the Lord. They were then surprised to find that the profound techniques recorded in the Death Sect's ancient texts had become much easier.

The stronger one's faith in the Lord, the further one can go on this path. Terence called it "divine magic," meaning the grace of the Lord. It is the Lord's blessing that enables dull-witted humans to cross the threshold of mysticism and glimpse extraordinary mysteries.

The other path appeared later. In the intense atmosphere of death psychic energy, Terence still glimpsed the original state of psychic energy. After removing the imagery of death, psychic energy became more inert, like flowing tree sap dripping into amber.

By stimulating his primal psychic powers through active thinking, Terence became increasingly aware of the essential connection between thought and consciousness and psychic power. He abandoned his habitual talents and already formed "divine magic" abilities, and instead observed those who had just awakened their psychic powers, watching them use their crude psychic power to form weak psychic energy, and then throw stones again and again.

The theory of psychic energy quietly emerged from the trajectory of the stone being enveloped by psychic power and flying. Thoughts are the reflection of the world on the soul. Each person's thoughts are their own miniature world, carried and limited by the physical body, and guided by consciousness.

Body, consciousness, and soul are a trinity, of equal value. Consciousness can be forged and honed just like the body, until it becomes the greatest tool in the hands of humankind.

The hand that holds this tool is the soul. Terence pioneered a new way of using psychic energy, or in other words, this is the orthodox origin of a civilization embarking on the path of psychic energy.

As the founder, Terence named it "Magic" to commemorate the long history of human civilization's yearning for the mystical. These psychic awakeners were like the wizards or magicians of ancient times, able to summon wind and rain, and control lightning and thunder.

Magic theory is rigorous and precise; the melody that plays in the soul is like mathematics. Compared to divine magic that relies on faith, studying magic requires more talent, and even intelligence.

These two systems gradually became widespread, and divine magicians and sorcerers began to appear on the stage of human civilization. They used their divine magic and sorcery by wearing marks or staffs inlaid with black stones as catalysts, and used their power to benefit mankind.