Watching Zhang Rui leave, Lin Ye had a wry smile on his face.
Looking closer at the somewhat run-down shop, he felt a burst of nostalgia.
"A thousand years, huh? I can't believe I'm actually back."
"However, this time a lot of things are going to change!"
With firm eyes and clenched fists, Lin Ye began to examine the store.
Coated in ruby red paint and a few cartoon drawings on it, a giant 'Toy Wonderland' sign hung above this small bungalow.
As a kid, he remembered Uncle Zhang would always allow him to play with the toys when his parents came over to buy things in the nearby stores.
Thinking of this, Lin Ye unknowingly had a smile on his face as he began to reminisce about the old times.
"Haha, what am I thinking about?"
"No time to think about the past, I need to prepare for the future."
Shaking his head, Lin Ye knew he had to focus on his current task.
If his memory served him right, the whole of City B, the current city he's staying in, would suffer two months after the global awakening.
And this would happen none other than because of their arrival.
Dungeons!
Dungeons, unlike what people might associate from reading novels and comics, these dungeons were completely different.
If anything, Lin Ye would rather call them war outposts or slaughter grounds.
As the global awakening happened, races in the universe who wanted to claim the benefits from Earth created small spaces and tried to use them to invade Earth.
Unfortunately, due to the will of the Earth's protection, none of them could fully come through, and even if they did, there would be great restraints on their powers.
So much so that an alien normally capable of destroying a large hill with a punch would only be able to create a small crack on it after the Earth's suppression.
So, in order to achieve their goals of coming to Earth while avoiding suppression, under the top ten races' command, dungeons were invented.
After connecting the small space to the Earth with their advance army, the space, or now dungeon, would begin to synchronise with the Earth's environment.
Making it so that as the level of synchronisation increases, the level of suppression by the Earth would reduce within the range of the dungeon.
And unfortunately for inhabitants of the Earth, the longer the dungeon stays, the larger its range increases.
Thankfully, with the help of the will of the Earth, all dungeons would be sealed for thirty days no matter how well-built they were.
Within thirty days, it was up to awakeners to go into the dungeon and slay all the monsters; if not, a dungeon break would occur.
Dungeon break!
With the appearance of each dungeon break, it could be called a disaster that claimed thousands of lives, sometimes billions.
And in City B, where he was, an A-level dungeon would descend two years from now.
At that time, the characteristics of dungeons were still unknown, resulting in the city officials closing up the surrounding dungeon area for them to investigate.
Unfortunately, that was their biggest mistake.
Like City B, other cities and counties where dungeons had appeared around the world all broke at the same time, resulting in massive casualties.
That day, all over the world, the screams of human beings torn apart by the different aliens' vanguard army resounded.
From the cyclops and wyverns that came out of the A-class dungeons to the dire wolves that came out of the F-class dungeon.
All launched a fierce attack against humanity, who was caught unaware, resulting in a thirty percent loss of the overall population.
Three billion lost lives.
That was the estimated death toll by the news stations back then.
A day so horrific that even a thousand years later, it was named a cosmic holiday for all humans on Earth in the universe called 'All Souls Day.'
A day when we, as humans, remembered the billions of humans sacrificed to achieve what we currently had.
However, thinking of this, Lin Ye couldn't help but laugh at the hypocrisy behind it.
Back then, one day after becoming a high-level awakener and impersonating a government official to go get some documents.
He unexpectedly found some detailed records of that day and how the will of the Earth had already contacted the heads of state of all countries and given them a warning about the upcoming dungeon break.
However, the heads, who were already scared of the upcoming rise and power of the current set of awakeners, decided to use this as an opportunity to purge most of them.
By doing this, they not only achieved their goal of reducing the current population of awakeners, but they also consolidated their positions by showing their official might when they launched a counterattack.
The CFH.
These various heads of state later united to form the Cosmic Federation of Humanity.
However, while they did lead to the growth of humanity to an extent, the things they did on the back end were so monstrous that even the future Lin Ye had thought of destroying them many times.
It was only his identity as a human race that stopped him from doing something which could weaken the human race as a whole, allowing other races to take advantage of.
Unfortunately, later down the line, the human race, which he had protected a number of times, betrayed him.
Thinking back to the various kings and awakeners of the human race in the ten thousand races alliance,
Lin Ye strengthened his determination to live for himself alone this time around.
Don't worry, Uncle Zhang, this time you won't die!
This time I'll definitely sweep away anyone who stands in my way.
Murmuring in a low voice, Lin Ye promised himself not to lose anyone close ever again.
However, just when he was thinking about how to save Zhang Rui, a hearty laugh sounded from the store.
"Haha, what is it, Ye boy, why the serious face?"
"Check these costumes out, let me know which one fits your taste."