Chapter 617: with translation of chapter title

A brief loss of consciousness, and space shifted.

Unlike the first time, which felt like crossing through death's darkness.

After a significant increase in strength, the two quickly adapted to the weightlessness.

"Return successful!"

The system prompt sounded, and the next second came Xiong Hanzi's loud voice.

"I'm Hu Hansan! I'm back again!!"

He was excited.

Before he could steady his footing, Zhang Tie, whose vision had just returned, shouted excitedly.

However, the base troops expected to be stationed outside the cave were nowhere to be found.

Dust covered the ground.

Before him was a gray, cluttered small room; at the tightly shut door, faint traces of dried blood could be seen.

"Holy shit, what the hell is going on!!"

He turned pale with shock.

Zhang Tie stared blankly at the scene before him, the smile on his face freezing.

Lin An, who had quickly regained bodily awareness beside him, also felt a jolt in his heart.

This...

This is definitely not the rear mountain cave!

Out of instinctive vigilance, Lin An suddenly burst forth with mental power, trying to scan the surroundings to figure out where he was.

However, the moment he just spread his mental power, the system prompts sounded in succession.

"Beep, system notice: Current warzone: 【Korea-Fushan Warzone】"

"Beep, detected new? Doomsday player, data being processed on system panel."

A sudden fluctuation in data turbulence occurred, and before Lin An could react, his system personal panel issued consecutive alerts.

"Error."

"Player strength exceeds the system's initial limit of Rank 0 (15 points)..."

"Error..."

"Unable to obtain past data based on player information..."

"Reorganizing... updating player information..."

His vision swam.

A flood of error prompts sounded, and then the system panel regenerated a completely new personal profile.

He had just come to his senses.

Lin An stared in disbelief at his system panel, which gradually turned into the appearance of when he had just become an Awakened One.

Apart from his attributes being retained, all his talent traits and equipment were actually reset to zero.

His heart jolted.

After seeing that the Savior System panel remained unchanged, Lin An finally loosened his reverse grip on the sword hilt a little.

He still thought something serious had gone wrong.

Everything was still there, just not displayed in the Doomsday System.

He frowned.

Is this, reloading my identity information?

With his highly efficient thinking, Lin An quickly realized.

This is probably what Chu An meant by "whitewashing."

Did it give me a new identity?

No, it replaced my current identity with the one I had before triggering the loophole.

Thoroughly whitewashed.

So... do I no longer have to worry about punishment missions?

Zhang Tie beside him was a bit flustered, not from fear but from being at a loss as he looked at the warzone prompt before him.

"Captain Lin! How did we end up back in this crappy warzone!!"

"What the hell is going on!!"

He wanted to cry but had no tears; fortunately, he had enthusiastically helped Youwei exchange a few trinkets that little girls would like.

He had been gone for two or three months, and he really missed Long'an Base.

"No..."

He had just been about to say he didn't know.

In a flash, Lin An's face twitched strangely, and he suddenly realized why he had appeared here.

His cleverness backfired.

Feeling not so good, Lin An helplessly turned his head to look at Zhang Tie:

"My problem."

"It's because I was too eager..."

"Do you still remember where we appeared when we entered the secret realm?"

"The coordinates of the secret realm correspond to the real world."

"Our return point wasn't a desolate village..."

"So, when we returned from the Blood Corpse Base... it likely corresponds to this place in the real world."

I made a mistake.

I actually took the system's 24‑hour stay allowance as a trap, and without thinking I went straight back to reality.

Who knows if staying there would trigger a mission?

But looking at it now.

Clearly, the idea is to spend those 24 hours returning the same way to the barren village, then head back to the base's rear mountain.

That makes sense.

The secret realm world is in a replay phase; he can only rush along.

The sand worms' 'broken hole' actually also hints at this.

For the first time, Lin An felt he was overly cautious, which only brought himself more trouble...

"Lin Dui..."

Zhang Tie spoke in a muffled voice, looking at him with a pained expression:

"What should we do then?"

"Should we run all the way back?"

"That's tens of thousands of li of distance..."

Though he said that, Xiong Hanzi also let out a sigh of relief.

As long as we're still on Earth.

Over ten thousand kilometers, even if we rush nonstop without rest, it's less than two days.

With physical attributes pushed to the limit, it's not a big problem.

Lin An saw what Zhang Tie was thinking and shook his head slightly.

"This isn't the secret realm."

"In the real world, there are oceans."

"The Linjiang theater is inland; even from the nearest Dongshan theater peninsula coast, the ocean along the route exceeds 1,900 kilometers."

"The mutants and unknown dangers in the ocean..."

He furrowed his brow, and Lin An let out a sigh.

That means even with his current strength, he doesn't dare venture into the ocean.

As the ocean covering 70.8% of Earth, after the apocalypse it becomes a death zone.

Otherwise, to avoid zombies, we could build sea platforms.

If not running on land, just using the sky‑stepping skill, his speed would drop significantly.

Perhaps there is a burst of instant speed.

But the key is... the consumption is too great.

Recalling the ocean dangers from his past life memories, Lin An felt a headache.

Special events and unknown creatures are too many—so many as to be frightening.

If it weren't for these things staying in the ocean, at least in the early apocalypse they wouldn't have come ashore.

Where could humanity still have a chance to survive?

He glanced at the black dragon feigning death on his wrist, and Lin An began to communicate with it in a helpless whisper.

After a moment, under Xiong Hanzi's expectant gaze, he could only shake his head slightly.

The black dragon can at most maintain its youthful form for a 100‑kilometer flight; for the distance they need to cross, that's merely a drop in the bucket.

"Then, Lin Dui... what should we do?!"

"We can't just be stuck here, can we?"

Stammering.

Xiong Hanzi couldn't help but feel a little panicked, and couldn't resist gesturing.

Unlike Zhang Tie's worry and fluster, Lin An merely relaxed his expression and smiled:

"Nothing to worry about."

"Just have the people from Long'an Base come pick us up..."

"The air force base should have been taken over by now, right?"

"After flying over, we'll directly use the ghost infant to teleport back."

As they spoke, Lin An opened the private message channel he had voluntarily closed, his expression relaxed as he prepared to send a message.

In this life, I am indeed an overlord.

Mobilizing a few fighter jets to pick us up—what's the big deal?

Just when sending the private message, Lin An's expression froze.

Can I send it out?

... almost forgot.

Communication across zones is prohibited; only by physically crossing the war zone can one act as a signal relay.

After sending a test message, the system notification that came let him breathe a sigh of relief.

That was close.

Fortunately, safe zone members have privileges; even when crossing zones they can send one message per day to members of the same base.

However, there are still limits on the text.

Thinking about it this way, this also counts as system protection between war zones.

Long'an Base.

The outer city square was packed with people, a solemn scene.

Under the podium stood a fully equipped and ready-to-deploy force of 170,000 troops from the Fourth Army Corps.

On the podium, Jing Tian, who was drafting the battle plan, suddenly froze, and the manuscript he had prepared slipped from his hand with a slap, falling to the ground.

Standing to the side, Wen Ya, who was preparing to add explanations, also stared blankly at the glowing private message.

This is!!?

Upon seeing that glowing avatar, the two exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with excitement and ecstasy.

"Dismiss the meeting!! Cancel the operation!!"

The crowd below was stunned.

In the eyes of the many survivors, the usually composed and expressionless Jing Tian could no longer maintain his composure at this moment.

He trembled with both hands, turned and sprinted madly, sending private messages frenziedly while rushing straight to the core of Long'an Base.

For a moment, hundreds of high-level Awakened Ones of the base, big and small, who had just received Lin An's return message, were instantly stunned.

Regardless of how important the task at hand, all personnel stopped in unison and rushed straight to the core Meeting Room.

Lin An.

He has returned.