"Gone?"
"How can it be gone?"
Shi Feng was stunned when he heard Watery Rose's report.
Although there were over a hundred kingdoms across the entire Divine Realm, their power was no joke. The Purple Thorn Kingdom, in particular, was classified as a mid-tier kingdom and was no smaller than the Star Moon Kingdom — its national strength was roughly comparable as well. It was hard to imagine anything that could destroy a kingdom of that caliber.
In his previous life, the rise and fall of kingdoms in the Divine Realm hadn't begun until the realm was populated with large numbers of Tier 4 powerhouses, when some had even started pushing toward Tier 5 Classes.
And now, in an era where there wasn't a single Tier 4 Class user, let alone anyone attempting to advance to Tier 5, destroying a kingdom should have been completely impossible.
If he didn't know Watery Rose well enough to trust that she wouldn't joke about something like this, he would have assumed she was pulling his leg.
"The details are still unclear," Watery Rose continued. "All we know so far is that the entire Purple Thorn Kingdom has been cut off — there's no way to contact anyone inside. According to the players who managed to escape before the barrier went up, all kinds of powerful monsters suddenly appeared throughout the kingdom. The NPCs above Tier 3 in the cities either vanished entirely or fell into some strange state where they couldn't fight, and the towns were overrun with powerful monsters attacking players."
"Any player killed by those monsters had their souls fall into an extreme state of weakness. Not only were they unable to log into the Divine Realm for ten days, but they also lost ten full levels. And either they turned into companions of the monsters or became their food, making those creatures even stronger."
"This has already shaken the entire Eastern Continent. Every major power is scrambling to send people to investigate. Even several neighboring kingdoms and the Black Dragon Empire have dispatched NPC armies to probe the outskirts of the Purple Thorn Kingdom. But so far, there's been no useful intelligence — just a lot of players sent to investigate who ended up being killed by the monsters."
Watery Rose didn't quite know how to describe it. Even she had been shocked when she received the news. She had never imagined that something like this could happen in the Divine Realm.
An NPC city being destroyed was one thing, but the destruction of an entire kingdom was simply inconceivable.
And to this day, none of the major powers knew what had actually happened to the Purple Thorn Kingdom to cause all of this.
As a result, players in the surrounding kingdoms and empires had grown more nervous than ever, terrified that their own nations would become the next Purple Thorn Kingdom. All the time and resources they had invested in building foundations within those kingdoms and empires would go up in smoke. The major powers that had been expanding within the Purple Thorn Kingdom were practically on the verge of losing their minds.
To develop within the Purple Thorn Kingdom, these powers had purchased vast amounts of real estate and constructed guild cities. But with the kingdom's fall, all of it — the NPC city properties, the guild towns — was gone. Entire guilds had been wiped out overnight…
Just thinking about it sent a chill down her spine.
"Turning into monsters or becoming food to make them stronger?" Shi Feng couldn't help but think of one person, but he quickly shook his head. "The Beast Emperor may wield the Evil God's Legacy, but he shouldn't have the power to render NPCs unable to fight, let alone bring down an entire kingdom in a single night."
In his previous life, the Evil God had indeed caused considerable damage to the Eastern Continent, but that had been when the mainstream player base already boasted many Tier 3 Class users, and Tier 4 users had been numerous.
Moreover, creating beast servants required enormous amounts of time to accumulate strength. Even during the Evil God forces' peak, they couldn't have destroyed a kingdom in an instant — let alone now, when there wasn't a single Tier 4 Class user in the entire Divine Realm.
"Guild Leader, because of this whole affair, the guild has descended into chaos," Watery Rose said, her voice tinged with helplessness. "Hidden forces and superpowers across various regions are making moves everywhere. The refugees fleeing from the Purple Thorn Kingdom — both factions and individual players — have triggered massive battles and resource wars across every corner of the Star Moon Kingdom. The whole kingdom is in utter disarray… And because of all this, a great many Star Moon Kingdom players have started migrating to more distant kingdoms and empires. The populations in all our major cities have plummeted, and commerce has absolutely collapsed…"
"I understand. Have Fire Dance and the others get ready — we're heading back to the Star Moon Kingdom now," Shi Feng nodded.
He had originally planned to join forces with the Azure Commerce Alliance to explore the neutral seas beyond the Silver Moon Empire. The goal had been to seize an island and build a small town on it, establishing a foothold for Zero Wing's development on the Western Continent's waters.
After all, all the prime locations and resources on land had already been claimed by the major superpowers, leaving virtually nothing for Zero Wing to develop with on the Western Continent. The only viable path forward would have been through the level-100-plus neutral zones or at sea — but developing in those neutral zones was incredibly difficult, something even the local superpowers struggled with, let alone Zero Wing with no foundation to speak of. That was why he had chosen to start in the neutral seas. But now that plan was dead in the water…