Once the doom began, it seemed impossible to stop, and mortals, who thought that the days of good weather would last forever, could not believe that only a few years later, the furnace of extinction broke.

Billowing black smoke, mixed with the ashes and turbid souls formed by the incineration of humans, continued to gush out from the cracks of the furnace of extinction, forming a foul-smelling and ominous black cloud of smoke in the sky, constantly expanding and moving, but all mortals, animals, monsters, holy spirits, and even plants that came into contact with this black cloud either died or transformed into evil spirits - and more ferocious, more despicable, and even more penetrating in appearance than the demons that occasionally appeared in ancient times.

The "Evil Ghost Chapter" in "Foreign Objects: Inhuman" records this:

In the first year of the ghost catastrophe, the extinguishing furnace was broken, the cause was unknown, and after a loud noise, the smoke was discharged. This smoke seems to have a mind, but it gathers to the living creatures, once entangled, all those who lack cultivation will die, and the rest will roll to the ground, covering their faces and wailing, and after a while, their appearance will be distorted and deformed, their bones will be exposed, and if they look at it, they have all turned into evil ghosts, and their human form has been lost.

Another book dedicated to the statements of the survivors, the "Devil's Words", also has a partial record of the historical facts of the period when the furnace of extinction was ruptured:

Osa'er, a villager from a weaving village on the outskirts of the former Western Regions Lesai Kingdom, said that the residents of the weaving village were extremely eye-draining because they were rushing to make cloth at night all year round, so there were a large number of blind people. In the autumn of the seventh year of the Ghost Tribulation, the black smoke from the direction of the capital of the Western Regions swept through the weaving village, and most of the villagers were unable to avoid the black smoke due to their inconvenience, and were eventually killed. Laughing like crazy, after about half an hour, the skin of these people began to fester, and large eyes began to grow at the wounds, and not only that, but they also gouged out the eyes of the animals that had been kept in captivity and stuffed them into their mouths...... Needless to say, there will be further changes in these "people", but in order to save his life, Osael chooses to leave his hometown as soon as possible.

The number of demons in the years when the furnace burst was innumerable, and the number of demons increased by leaps and bounds, so the year when the furnace burst was called the year of the "demon calamity", and the greatest misfortune in the world began.

The turbid souls in the black clouds are still souls, and the early mortals did not find a way to seal the souls, so they could only watch the black clouds mixed with a large number of turbid souls invade and destroy their territory, but the mortals who have experienced countless disasters will no longer give up hope, they believe that even if thousands of people were executed in the furnace of extinction, the turbid souls in the black clouds will eventually run out one day-

So, even though a large number of people die in a painful and ugly way every day, even though there seems to be no end in sight to the days of flight, people still wait, waiting for the day when the dark clouds will disperse.

First, it is more than 30 years of time.

After 37 years of the Demon Tribulation, the black clouds finally cleared, and the problems that seemed to plague mortals seemed to disappear, but no one rejoiced, because in the past thirty-seven years, about a third of the people had either died or become evil spirits - and evil spirits, even if the black clouds disappeared, they still existed.

Maybe it's because most of the main forces of the Three Clans Alliance were transformed into evil ghosts by the black clouds on the day the Extinction Furnace broke, maybe it's because the turbid souls of the Yu Gong clan are too powerful, and they still retain their strong will even if they are attached to other lives, or maybe because there are a large number of evil ghosts that can reproduce offspring, the dissipation of the black clouds not only did not reduce the number of evil ghosts, but increased year by year.

Death continues, and mortal territory is still draining.

Half of the "mortal world" was soon left, and the other half became a dark place of death, with the howls of evil spirits all day long.

All day long, endlessly.

――

Until one day, in the midst of all this howling, unexpectedly, mixed with a wail, desolate, powerless, that is the sound that only dying creatures make.

An evil spirit died.

Standing in front of the corpse of the dead demon is a group of people who call themselves "rangers". Until then, they had been silently patient, waiting for the invincible black clouds to clear before they could confront the demons head-on and show their power—the power of the ancient gods.

This year, 71 years after the ghost tribulation, a faint, but ready light of hope illuminates the mortal world.

In this year, a group of strongmen who specialized in slaying evil spirits formed a group, calling themselves "rangers", and they taught those who were destined to master the power of the gods, and took this opportunity to start the martial arts in the world.

Since then, although the mortals have not taken advantage of the situation to regain more territory, they have not been taken more territory by the demons, and the situation has been stabilized thanks to the increasing number of rangers and the defense line on the western frontier that they have desperately built.

Of course, there are many more changes taking place: the once-broken production system in the mortal world is back in operation - though very different from the previous ones - and there are "places of enlightenment" dedicated to teaching the art of rangers, and as people have mastered the power of the gods, some previously undetectable dangers are gradually being explored, and of course, many never-before-seen resources and even rare treasures have been discovered.

Today, it has been 127 years since the furnace broke (i.e., 127 years after the Demon Tribulation). Most of the people who witnessed the horrors that took place in the West have passed away with their horrific stories.

"Courage", "hope", and "fighting spirit" began to take root in the mortal world - the number of people who used to regard "rangers" as a profession that killed themselves began to decrease, and the number of people who did not want to succumb to evil spirits and who were inspired to become rangers began to increase: many factions, organizations, and tribes rose one after another, and different weapons, skills, and theories crisscrossed one after another.

With the power of the old and the new wisdom, people began to believe that the souls who thought they would never be able to conquer, who were banished from the path of samsara, who should have "died", would one day return to dust.