A few days later.
On the Antarctic ice sheet, a stunningly beautiful woman in a white dress gazed sadly at the land and murmured to herself.
"Jiang Yang, you bastard, where on earth have you hidden yourself? Soon, I'll be leaving too. But I'm taking Ania with me. If you're not dead, you must come find me someday."
With the withdrawal of the last group of human warriors, no trace of human presence remained on the Antarctic ice sheet.
And with Nidhogg's death, the monsters slowly returned to the depths of the sea, no longer appearing on land.
Perhaps they slumbered in the sea, awaiting the dawn of the next civilization.
Some monsters, however, had been the first to receive Nidhogg's instructions and had changed their way of life, thus remaining on land.
Perhaps, in the future, they would enact new legends.
What remained of Human Civilization suffered devastating casualties in this battle.
When Human Civilization's warriors beheaded Nidhogg, monsters across the world frantically searched for human shelters. Most found nothing and returned to the ocean.
But a small number stumbled upon several shelters. Most of the shelters' fighting forces had gone off to battle, and those left behind were only strong enough to protect themselves.
By the time Human Civilization's expeditionary army returned and wiped out these monsters, Human Civilization's population had suffered another devastating blow.
Human numbers plummeted to fifty thousand!
And that was the combined population of all of humanity's Seven Great Refuges.
Amid the harrowing despair, the first light of victory finally dawned.
With the Flame King Jiang Yang's heroic sacrifice and Nidhogg's beheading, the monsters on land finally retreated into the ocean.
Under Chen Ping'an's leadership, Human Civilization's Seven Great Refuges united and cleared away most of the monsters that still remained on land.
During this time, there was another piece of good news: Li Xiaowa successfully broke through to King-Rank, becoming the eighth Transcendent King in Jiang Yang's place-the King of the Earth.
Li Xiaowa's breakthrough meant that Yisha of the Northern Refuge no longer had to oversee the safety of two shelters, allowing her to breathe a great sigh of relief.
Not having to run back and forth between the two places made things much easier for her. Years earlier, out of guilt toward Jiang Yang, she had volunteered to take responsibility for the Great Snowfield Shelter's security, and these years had thoroughly exhausted her.
After clearing the monsters from the land, humanity's leader, Chen Ping'an, began considering the issue of Human Civilization's reproduction.
Human Civilization's population had fallen below fifty thousand, and most of those remaining were awakened individuals and children.
The awakened were themselves transcendent humans with long lifespans. If they broke through to King-Rank, their lifespans were virtually endless.
Thus, having children was far more difficult for them than for ordinary humans.
Moreover, many of them had lost husbands or wives in battle after battle. Getting them to form new families and have children was hardly possible either.
Therefore, restoring Human Civilization's population to its peak through the reproduction of these fifty thousand people was simply impossible.
Gazing at the vast, peaceful land, Chen Ping'an nearly worried his hair white.
In the end, he made a difficult decision: activate the Human Gene Bank and artificially breed new humans!
Someone had actually proposed this idea long ago, but there was one fatal problem.
With the arrival of doomsday, a different kind of element seemed to have appeared between heaven and earth. This was precisely what had caused awakened individuals to emerge among humans.
However, these elements seemed to have had some sort of effect on humanity's seed bank.
They had altered certain genes, making the humans bred from them vastly different from the humans of the past.
They could scarcely be called the same human species anymore, although there was no reproductive barrier between the two.
The probability of awakened individuals emerging among these new humans was extremely low. According to the scientists' estimates, even one in a hundred thousand would be a good result.
Moreover, their intelligence also seemed inferior to that of the old humans. To reach an intellectual level like that of the new humans, they would still need to reproduce and develop for many, many generations.
But even so, they were still humanity's legacy!
Chen Ping'an ultimately made his decision: introduce new humans throughout the world!
Devoting most of their resources to the effort, they introduced a hundred thousand people into each region, with each region's shelter responsible for their supervision and education.
As the new humans were born, reproduced, survived, and developed, a new human era began.
This was what later became known as the Sixth Era!
A thousand years later, the new humans had multiplied to several million. At that moment, within the ice of the Antarctic Continent, a pair of golden eyes slowly opened.
"Who am I?"
"I am Jiang Yang! The King of Flame!"
Before you continue