Ash Emperor

"Thanks for playing!"

Looking at the screen, at the ending message signifying a successful clear and the celebration of the game's completion, Liao Ji let out a long breath from his chair.

The game he had just finished playing was called Falling.

It was a simulation game set against the backdrop of a wasteland.

Players must take on the role of a survivor leader in the wasteland, recruiting partners step by step, cultivating characters, establishing their own organization and shelter base, fighting against various natural disasters, and carving out a sanctuary in a wasteland filled with mutated monsters and the pollution of the Abyss of Corrupt Calamity.

The game boasted an extremely high degree of freedom; every plot point was calculated in real-time based on the various decisions made by the player. Furthermore, the art was stunning and the modeling was exquisite—it could be said to be flawless in every aspect.

Except for one thing.

It was just too damn hard!

Extremely scarce resources for cultivation, hellish monsters lurking throughout the wilderness, and scavengers eyeing everything with greed. These were just the initial hardships, and they were enough to give any player a headache.

On top of that, the extreme randomness of Falling, where natural and man-made disasters could strike at any moment, meant that there was no such thing as following a walkthrough to clear the game. Everyone's world was completely different, making it incredibly difficult to copy someone else's strategy.

It was said that according to official statistics, the number of global clears was less than one thousand.

And the number of people who had achieved a "perfect clear"—all achievements, all collections, and all exploration—had always been zero.

Oh, wait.

That number should have changed to "1" now.

At the end of the game, there was a bonus "family portrait" CG, which summarized the five strongest Corrupted characters of their respective classes that he had cultivated during this playthrough.

Corrupted was a specialized term in Falling.

It specifically referred to those who had mutated due to the pollution of the Abyss of Corrupt Calamity in the wasteland but still retained their sanity, and they were divided into five different classes based on the abilities their mutations produced.

If a player wanted to gain a foothold in the wasteland, recruiting and cultivating powerful Corrupted was absolutely the top priority and the core gameplay of this game.

As a qualified straight man, Liao Ji naturally only raised "waifus," and he strove for a diverse family.

Therefore, the five female Corrupted in the CG were all distinct in style and came from different races.

The priest-class nun, Stia.

The esper-class succubus, Rena.

The guard-class dragon girl, Tang Jiuyou.

The archer-class machine maid, Zero.

And finally, the protector-class elf knight, Anno, whom Liao Ji often shouted at, "Mom, save me!"

Some of them were enchanting and charming but flat-chested, while others were pure and icy yet dizzying to look at; some were tsundere and cold, while others were gentle and reserved.

But the one thing they all had in common was that their beauty was absolutely top-tier!

However, for Liao Ji, after seeing so much beauty, it had become somewhat mundane. What truly left an emotional imprint in his heart were the memories behind them.

Thinking back, no matter which one of them it was, each had played a pivotal role during different periods of his gameplay.

They were the ones that made him, at the time, want to pour all the best resources into them.

However.

As the environment and periods in the game changed, Liao Ji's needs for the Corrupted shifted, causing them to start "losing their jobs" one after another.

Take Stia, the "healer" who had saved Liao Ji from the brink of death countless times during the early exploration phase.

But once he had established a firm footing and reached the mid-game, as his influence began to grow and expand, the role of a pure healer became less and less useful, until Liao Ji eventually left her in storage indefinitely.

Replacing them were powerful physical damage dealers who could help Liao Ji conquer territory—the guard Tang Jiuyou and the archer Zero.

But gradually, while these two could easily slaughter light-armored enemies like "scavengers," as the difficulty of Liao Ji's enemies increased, they began to face "base guards" equipped with high-quality weapons and both high defense and high attack.

The two physical damage dealers who were once able to slaughter everything began to feel like they were merely "scratching" the enemies.

Liao Ji had no choice but to put them back into storage, strip them of their resources, and invest everything into new characters: the succubus Rena and the elf Anno.

The former's powerful esper abilities could easily handle the enemies' heavy armor, while the latter's nature magic and shields held off the enemies' terrifying firepower for Liao Ji, providing the most solid defense and space for output.

After the last wasteland faction was defeated and surrendered, Liao Ji truly achieved the unification of the entire wasteland.

The Ash Empire.

It was from this moment that it was officially established.

As an aside, "Ash" was the ID Liao Ji gave himself in the game.

From then on, after integrating the major racial factions, Liao Ji, as the Ash Emperor, led his army to reclaim territory occupied by monsters step by step, and began to declare war on the source of the wasteland, the culprit behind the disaster: the Abyss of Corrupt Calamity.

However.

Even though his strength was countless times greater and his resources were so abundant they were overwhelming—far exceeding the difficult survival at the start—Liao Ji actually felt less joy than he did at the beginning of the game. The interactions between him and the Corrupted he had raised also decreased sharply.

For one, once it turned into an all-out war against the wasteland monsters, the role of the army outweighed individual strength. For another, as Liao Ji became more powerful and comprehensive as the "protagonist," he no longer needed to rely on the Corrupted in battle.

Instead, leaving them in the rear to manage "infrastructure" and improve the production efficiency of the entire empire and its cities was the optimal choice.

For example, Stia:

[Dark Light (scales with level): When "Stia" is placed in a "Church" type building, it provides +15% mental corruption resistance to the city and reduces the Corrupted rampage rate by 10%.]

[Saint Healer (scales with level): When "Stia" is positioned in the rear (non-combat queue), the incidence of disease and plague for the entire faction is reduced by 30%.]

So, his decision to bench them didn't mean he had truly given up on them.

Even if they couldn't make it to the battlefield, the powerful "infrastructure" capabilities of the five Corrupted were enough for him to keep feeding them resources, ensuring they always maintained the training level of a top-tier main force.

"."

Pfft.

Liao Ji couldn't help but laugh at himself for thinking this way.

It sounded so noble, but in reality, wasn't he just squeezing out their remaining value? He wasn't even taking them out to play anymore, yet he still made them work day and night in the "factory" at the rear. Weren't they just pure tools?

He shook his head.

Just then, in the corner of his eye, a thick stack of notebooks beside the computer desk caught Liao Ji's attention.

Opening them, he saw pages filled with dense, tiny handwriting. These were all handwritten by him to calculate various growth yields, the cost-effectiveness of each dungeon, planning for future decisions, and the drop locations and distributions of various rare materials and equipment.

It could be said that these records combined were essentially the game insights of an ultra-hardcore player.

Liao Ji had planned to organize and summarize these after finishing, then post them online, hoping that the lessons he'd learned over ten thousand hours would help newcomers avoid detours and perhaps even save this game's precarious sales?

However, after staring at these manuals he had recorded stroke by stroke for a while, Liao Ji sighed.

He began to reflect.

Had he been focusing too much on strength?

Because he had "benched" them for so long, the favorability of many had dropped significantly. In the game, strangely, favorability didn't seem to have much use; it felt like a useless attribute, so Liao Ji had never paid it any mind.

It wasn't until he saw it displayed in the CG screenshots that Liao Ji realized it was a major regret after clearing the game.

Of course, there were exceptions, and Stia was one of them.

Even though she was the first one he benched, the one who had been silently working as a tool in the rear, and the first one he stripped of her equipment to give to other women.

Yet, just like her gentle nature as a priestess and nun in the lore, she never felt any resentment toward him. Her favorability had never changed since it reached 100%.

If this were reality, she might be the type who, even if her husband had been away on a "business trip" for a long time without coming home, would still set the table, arrange the cutlery, and prepare a meal for two every single day, just waiting for the day her husband might remember this home and return, so she could smile and say, "Go wash your hands."

Huu!

Exhaling a long, stale breath, Liao Ji shook his head, mocking himself for being obsessed and projecting so much drama onto a 2D character written by a program.

However, Liao Ji still decided that when he posted his guide later, he must add one sentence at the beginning for all the newcomers.

[Strength is only temporary, but the wives you raise are for a lifetime!]

That was about it.

It was time to end it.

Liao Ji's parents had passed away when he was very young, but fortunately, they left behind a large inheritance, which meant he didn't have to worry about food or life, though it also fostered his reclusive personality.

Perhaps the birth of "games" was meant to provide a spiritual sanctuary for people like Liao Ji?

Looking at the record in the bottom corner of the CG image, his total playtime in Falling had unknowingly reached over ten thousand hours.

No matter how reluctant he felt, Liao Ji finally moved the mouse with the emotion of saying goodbye to an old friend and pressed the confirm button to end the game.

However, to his surprise.

[Congratulations, it has been detected that you have met the requirements to unlock "New Game Plus". Would you like to enter?]

Liao Ji: ".!?"

New Game Plus meant letting the player clear the game again. Some conscientious developers usually added extra content in the second playthrough to flesh out the world-building and improve the player's experience.

Of course, there were also those legendary major studios that could even make players feel like they were playing an entirely new game in "New Game Plus".

Liao Ji certainly didn't expect the developers of Falling—whose sales had flopped and who were rumored to have already run away—to achieve the latter, but even the former would be enough to surprise him.

After all, neither on the official website nor on the forums had Liao Ji ever heard that this game had a New Game Plus.

After choosing "Yes" with great curiosity and anticipation, the game didn't start immediately; instead, a new dialog box popped up.

[Friendly reminder: The difficulty of New Game Plus is extreme. You cannot save, you cannot restart, and you will inherit the five "Corrupted" you cultivated in the CGs to begin. Please choose carefully.]

That's it?

For a single-player game, the inability to save certainly spiked the difficulty, and "cannot restart" meant, did he only have one chance to enter "New Game Plus"?

But compared to the latter, these were nothing.

"I can even inherit data!? I can bring the characters from this playthrough with me?" Liao Ji couldn't help but be shocked in front of the screen.

This didn't seem like the style of Falling, a game known for its "discouraging" difficulty.

He knew that the five Corrupted he had raised were all at the pinnacle of their respective professions. Even the weakest one, Stia, could easily destroy a city under his control.

Now that he could "inherit" them into his New Game Plus, wouldn't that mean he would start the game with five world-class powerhouses by his side?

Wouldn't this just be a straight path to crushing everything!?

Good heavens!

After the initial shock, Liao Ji quickly "understood" what the developers meant.

It was very simple.

This was clearly designed to provide "satisfaction"!

The developers must have realized that one cannot have both the empire and the beauties, so they anticipated his current regrets and provided a second playthrough, allowing him to make up for the time he previously sacrificed with his wives in pursuit of power.

Well done!

Excited, Liao Ji slapped his thigh, wishing he could give the developers a huge thumbs-up.

His past self had been blinded by the pursuit of strength, but this time, Liao Ji made up his mind: regardless of power creep or infrastructure development, he was going to keep his wives by his side at all times! He would max out their affection levels!

With this gaming philosophy in mind.

Liao Ji pressed the [Confirm] button without hesitation.

The next instant, a flash of light swept by.

Darkness swallowed Liao Ji's entire field of vision.