Most of the survivors had been swallowed by the loathsome Tide of Darkness. Only a few who had figured out the trick survived like lonely ghosts, barely keeping the spark of civilization alive."
Lin Zhichen understood. The so-called "trick" was nothing more than having Natural Persons live alongside NPCs, with the NPC population vastly outnumbering them. Such a civilization had essentially lost all hope; given enough time, it would be no different from an NPC Faction.
"How are things for you? How many survivors are still around?" he asked.
"Very bad. Take our homeland, Padlan, for example. The Natural Person population has fallen below a hundred million. We can barely maintain our civilization's legacy. We've managed to use NPCs to build a complete industrial Production Line, and that's the only reason we've been able to hold on," Kaster sighed.
"Our situation is still one of the better ones. The other surviving civilizations are in even worse shape. Eighty years ago, when the Civilized World Alliance was on the verge of collapse, it had planned ahead and built more than a thousand Secret Bases of various sizes to preserve the seeds of civilization. But now, of all those survivor bases, only about seventy remain in contact with us."
"There may be only a few dozen left in a few decades. I'm afraid every trace of civilization will have disappeared by then."
Without a certain population, there was no way to support a powerful civilization.
The survivors had to face NPC Factions on every side. Even resisting the monthly sweeps would slowly bleed them dry until they were wiped out.
"Has it really come to this?" Lin Zhichen sighed and nodded. "As you can see, the Empire has established a safe zone on the edge of the Galactic Arm. Survivors from the