Skill Extraction: Exploring Dungeons-Chapter 624 - 548: The Changes of Time

The sky still holds that eternal and unextinguishable Golden Bridge.

Among the emitted golden rays, there's a warmth that nourishes both flesh and spirit.

Such a great presence just from the surface, and along with its all-encompassing golden light on the earth, it brings a blessing-like reinforcement.

It's hard not to have these intelligent beings worship him, after all, both humans and the alien race tend to revere their own, incomprehensible existence.

Once the territory of the Red King.

One of the Twin Star Cities, Zorolostan, can no longer be called a Twin Star City now.

After all, the other of the Twin Star Cities has already been destroyed, and Heideline has evacuated all the civilians out of it.

The people in such a big city might not even fill one-sixth of its area; the whole city looks empty, like a ghost town.

And its location is extremely unreasonable; at one point Kane suspected that the city was merely a replica created by the Red King after the great success of Zorolostan.

Except for the central high platform, the other places could be said to be identical.

To the extent that, for convenience in city building, the Red King made the surrounding areas exactly the same.

The situation with fewer people is the same even in Zorolostan, although it might reach the capacity of one-fifth at best.

Both could barely be said to be on par.

The reason for keeping Zorolostan is because of the central tower in Zorolostan, which serves as the garrison for the Steel Wings legion.

Many civilians from the other city were also moved from Zorolostan.

The merging of civilians from the two cities barely brought a trace of life to this city.

Now, whether in the territory of the White King or the Black King, as long as there are still intelligent beings present, they have almost all settled in the domain of the Red King.

The Black King's territory was turned into a domain of souls by the Authority of Death of the Black King, and his soldiers fueled with black flames ravaged across, leaving charred marks throughout the land.

As for the White King's territory, it doesn't deserve the name of Authority of Life at all; the White King lived there, never once considering nourishing his land with his authority.

Instead, it's even more lacking in life force and ruinous compared to other areas.

Because the life force from the White King's territory was all used by the White King to transform his subordinates. Calling it transformation is more like the White King using them as practice materials for his authority.

In the later stage, to quickly grasp his authority, the White King took all the citizens of his territory as tools to increase his proficiency.

It wasn't until Longbei and Heideline's soldiers took over the White King's territory that they found out all civilians, except the very young, had been transformed.

Regarding why the Gray King's territory wasn't mentioned, it's because it has become a dead zone, completely uninhabited, not to mention civilians, there's not even any life.

It's among the worst of the territories of the kings; even Heideline and surrounding alien races fighting alongside didn't know the territory had turned into this state.

Plus, seeing the environment, it's unclear how many hundreds of years it has been like this.

Those soldiers continuously fighting with the alien races were not even living humans but were flesh puppets.

These flesh puppets were originally ordinary humans, but now without souls, only their flesh remains alive.

As for their souls, it's self-evident that all have become the strength of the Gray King.

In Liruru's explanation, souls that die naturally wouldn't drift towards her, nor would souls from elsewhere, which drift directly towards the Golden Bridge.

This made her grasp of authority indefinitely prolonged, not to mention gaining stronger power.

To enhance her power and quickly grasp authority, she resorted to extracting the life of her own territory.

This so-called life even included trees, flowers, and ordinary animals.

The Gray King's territory now could completely rival the center of the Black King, or even surpass it.

According to Liruru's perspective, repairing this land might take an immeasurable amount of time, and could even turn entirely into a desert in the future.

Speaking of which, Kane only now realized that such a vast continent surprisingly lacks deserts and gobis with overly harsh environments.

The current harsh areas were almost entirely created by the various kings and could truly be called the source of sin.

At this time, the central tower of Zorolostan had already been moved closer to the city wall.

The central area has become the administrative zone.

Heideline's office is also located here.

Not far from the administrative zone, there is a small manor, which is Kane and their temporary residence outside the city.

Kane fought hard for this area; at the time, Heideline and Kane's subordinates insisted on building an imperial palace for Kane, or at least a castle.

As His Majesty, how could living in a mere manor be incredibly shabby, and it was simply an affront to their dignity.

But in the end, Kane distracted them with the reasoning that he could personally create it, later saying he would build these things truly for the King of Platinum, as doing so now would be a waste of time.

With this, Kainder and these subordinates moved past the topic.

When stepping out of the Guild Hall earlier, they appeared in the living room of the manor house, accompanied by Mo Yi.

This indicated that Mo Yi also entered the guild in the living room.

Immediately upon emerging, Kane slightly extended his perception, discovering that the manor was empty.

Not only Kane lived there, but also his teammates rested within the manor.

Apart from Longbei and Meizike who were out on business, Kreya and Liruru were also not within the manor.

Next to him, Mo Yi seemed to sense Kane's puzzled state and said, "Your Majesty, Kreya and Lady Liruru have already headed over there."

"Oh, really? Then we should get going too."

Kane said as he started moving towards the outside.

Upon stepping outside the manor, this region could be considered one of the bustling areas within the city, where one could see city residents coming and going.

Apart from humans, there were also some alien races from the dungeon.

As Kane appeared, most of the civilians around had already recognized him.

They bowed their heads and bent forward to greet Kane: "Your Majesty."

Kane nodded slightly to them and then quickly walked toward the administrative district.

There was no other way; Kane, having mastered this Dungeon, had to make frequent appearances so that most of the civilians would remember him and recognize him.

Thus, almost all the civilians and soldiers recognized Kane. Although other places might not know, the people of Zorolostan now almost all acknowledge Kane as their king.

At least it allowed Kane and them to improve their progress in mastering the Dungeon, as the intelligent beings surviving in the Red King's territory now basically accounted for one-third of this continent.

It's unclear whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

It can only be said that blessings and misfortunes are intertwined.

Upon entering the administrative district, there were far fewer civilians here, and all one could see were government employees in uniform hurrying back and forth.

Many of them were not very experienced and were almost all dragged up from various places, with Heideline picking the tallest among the dwarfs.

Most of them had only a little management experience.

However, fortunately, there weren't many people left, at least preventing them from becoming overwhelmed.

When they saw Kane, they all stopped and bowed.

Finally, Kane reached the tallest building in the administrative district. Saying it's the tallest, it's actually only six or seven stories high.

Kane entered the building, circled around, and finally arrived at Heideline's office.

Upon entering the office, Kane found that there were already quite a few people standing inside.

Besides Kreya and Lilulu, it was unclear when Meizike had also returned.

In addition, there was Waldri, who Kane had met before, Heideline's former subordinate who was a plant person.

Kane looked at Meizike and said: "You're back, how did it go? Are they willing to join?"

Hearing Kane's words, Meizike nodded.

"It's alright, they've all joined."

Hearing Meizike's words, Kane also nodded.

Recently, Meizike's task had been to have those Alien Races join Kane and their forces.

Compared to Kane and the humans, the Alien Races trusted Meizike more.

These were remnants of issues from the Platinum Country due to the existence of the Golden Bridge and its church.

Even after the world shattered, the kings were exceptionally averse to the Alien Races, so the Alien Races essentially did not trust human words.

With four hands, Meizike was viewed by them as part of the Alien Races, coupled with his previous status within their community, which enabled him to mediate between both sides.

Even the ambassadors sent by Heideline were former Alien Races who lived in her town.

Thanks to Meizike's mediation and Kane and the others not belonging to the humans of this Dungeon, along with the four kings being taken down, the Alien Races eventually all joined.

Among them, it must be said that Meizike rendered the greatest credit. During the time he didn't join up with Kane and the others, Meizike gained substantial prestige among the Alien Races.

The Fireborn almost fully obeyed him, and since they were the strongest among the Races, this led many Races to also trust Meizike.

This means that Meizike's busy efforts in this period bore fruit and results.

"Your Majesty, you've arrived," said Heideline, standing up.

She then led Kane and the others to the conference room beside them.

After Kane and the others settled into their seats, Heideline began to speak.

"So now..."

Just as Heideline began, she was interrupted by the sound of a door being pushed open.

Though it wasn't yet visible who had entered, the gruff voice already revealed the person's identity.

"Good brother, I'm back."

The visitor was Longbei.

Just as Kane left the Guild Hall, he had inquired via the Ruby Lapel Pin.

At that time, Longbei was still on the Steel Falcon, and Kane initially thought he wouldn't make it, but he did.

During this time, Longbei's work outside involved aiding the civilians in the White King's territory in recovering their bodies.

Kane and the others initially wanted to migrate these civilians over, but restricted by the peculiarities of their bodies, they were unwilling to leave.

Initially, Kane thought the modified parts of their bodies consisted of animal limb piecing and assembly.

Upon reaching the site, Kane discovered it was far more tragic than he could have imagined, causing him to regret letting the White King die so painlessly at the time.

Thus Longbei, holding the White Gemstone, took nearly a month to finally be able to utilize the authority it contained.

It wasn't that Longbei comprehended the rules of life himself but that he could use the White Gemstone to employ its authority.

This ability only required about a month to master, akin to learning how to use a tool.

Hence, Longbei used the White Gemstone to employ its authority, restoring those residents. However, Kane heard that some residents had minimal modifications, which were beneficial, and over the years they had become accustomed, so they declined restoration.

Of course, these types of people were in the minority.

As Longbei completed his work, those residents also started officially migrating to the Red King's territory.

Longbei came over and sat directly beside Meizike, picked up the water on the table, and began drinking.

Kane waved his hand, controlling the door to close automatically, then signaled Heideline to continue.

Heideline coughed, cleared her throat, and reorganized her words.