On his way back to Hope Town, Zhang Yi casually opened the leaderboard and noticed that after a night of relentless grinding in the Undead City, he had reached level 15 with 32% experience, successfully squeezing into the top ten of Zone 886's Heaven Ranking, currently sitting at fifth place!

It seemed that reaching the top spot wouldn't be too difficult for Zhang Yi if he set his mind to it.

However, Zhang Yi wasn't particularly driven to claim the number one spot, as being first on the Heaven Ranking didn't offer any tangible benefits.

The first place was still held by Storm Angel, who was at level 16 with 12% experience. However, his lead was being quickly closed by the second place player, likely because his fatigue had hit the limit and he had to rest. Otherwise, with his leveling speed, it shouldn't have taken him a whole night to go from level 15 with 70% experience to level 16 with 12%.

Closing the leaderboard, Zhang Yi casually opened the Regional Chat Channel and noticed that as time dragged on, more players were realizing that the current situation was likely more than just a logout bug in the game Apocalypse by Tianyun Group—

[Fire Dance Whirlwind] (Male, Level 14 Assassin): "What's going on? Why hasn't the logout bug been fixed yet? It's been over a day since the server opened! (Question) (Question) (Chat Emoji)"

[Jun Bujian] (Male, Level 15 Archer): "Haven't you realized yet? This isn't a bug! We're truly trapped in the world of Apocalypse, and dying here means real death!"

[Meng Lei] (Male, Level 15 Knight): "It's true. Several of my friends used up their revival chances and then died, and they just disappeared. They really died! (Fear)"

[Kawaii Yi] (Female, Level 14 Mage): "(Crying) (Crying) Don't scare me like this. Why is this happening? I want to log out, I want to go home, I want to eat my mom's braised pork (Crying)..."

[Call Me Tiga] (Male, Level 13 Beastmaster): "Eat what? If your mom didn't enter the game last night, she's probably dead by now. Haven't you noticed? All the NPCs in this game are people who didn't enter the game in real life. This isn't just a game anymore; it's an apocalyptic disaster!"

Reading these chat logs, Zhang Yi felt no particular emotion.

However, he knew that soon, the people from King's World would begin to fully implement their plan to take over Hope Town. Up until now, Zhang Yi had only delayed their plan but hadn't completely changed the course of events.

Closing the chat channel, he continued on his way.

Along the way, he saw many players grinding and leveling up against bio-monsters ranging from level 10 to 15 on the roadside.

After beginning to suspect that this was a real post-apocalyptic world, players started desperately leveling up to increase their strength, hoping to ensure their survival in this world.

When you're just trying to make great content at pawread.com .

Just as Zhang Yi was passing a crossroads, he suddenly heard the sound of a dispute coming from the right side of the intersection.

"What do you want? Get out of the way!"

Looking in the direction of the sound, he saw a large group of players forming a circle, surrounding a few other players, each with a tense and aggressive demeanor.

Zhang Yi immediately understood the situation.

Most likely, the larger group of players wanted to rob the others. Such things were common for Zhang Yi, who had survived in the world of Apocalypse for eight years in his previous life.

Besides killing monsters and completing quests, killing other players was also a way to gain benefits, often more effectively than the former.

What surprised Zhang Yi slightly was that the players committing the robbery all had IDs starting with "King," indicating they were from King's World!

King's World had indeed begun implementing their plan to take over Hope Town.

Zhang Yi remembered that in his previous life, King's World did the same thing, starting half a day earlier. They began killing solo players in the wild from noon, plundering their resources, strengthening themselves, and instilling fear in countless solo players, making them gradually afraid to resist.

Here, the four players surrounded by about fifteen or sixteen King's World players were three men and one woman, consisting of a Knight, an Assassin, an Archer, and a Priest, all at a mid-level of 14.

The surrounding King's World players were also at level 14, with one even reaching level 15!

Level 15 Assassin, King's Killing God!

Currently, anyone reaching level 15 would rank at least in the top 100 of Zone 886, considering Zhang Yi was ranked fifth with 15 and 32%.

The highest-level player, King's Killing God, seemed to be the leader of this group of King's World players.

Playing with a valuable-looking, at least 2-star, blood-red dagger, King's Killing God looked at the group with a frivolous expression and said, "Hand over all your valuable items, equipment, money, and enhancement stones!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a young knight in black armor with the ID [Guan Yunzhang] among the surrounded players glared at the King's World players and said, "Can't you earn resources by doing quests and killing monsters? Robbing others, what kind of skill is that?"

"You've got it wrong." King's Killing God smiled faintly, "Being able to rob others is the real skill. After all, anyone can kill monsters."

After that, the Assassin youth [Liu Xuande] next to the Knight youth [Guan Yunzhang] said, "Aren't you afraid of ruining King's World's reputation by doing this? Bullying civilian players and extorting resources from them, despite being a thousand-strong battle team!"

"What's reputation worth in this apocalyptic world?" King's Killing God said indifferently, "Surviving is the most important thing, isn't it? This is no longer a game world. If you want to live, hand over all your resources, or don't blame us for being rude!"

Handing over equipment and resources would truly be a dead end. Among the four, the oldest-looking Archer, [Qing Feng], who seemed to be about twenty-four or twenty-five, firmly said, "No way, unless you step over our dead bodies!"

"Refusing a toast only to drink a forfeit!" King's Killing God snorted coldly, "Fine, then we'll kill you and loot your equipment!"

"Brothers, kill them! Don't spare the girl either, no need for mercy!"

With King's Killing God's command, the surrounding King's World players charged at Qing Feng and his group.