Chapter Thirty-Three: The Kingdom Era of the Ancient Ape Civilization

Of all the changes, none was more pronounced than in the tribe of the ancient apes.

In the real world, a single day amounted to a hundred and ten years in the aquarium world—a span of time that, for the ancient apes, was as enduring as an age. To put it in perspective, the darkest era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms in the history of China had lasted barely fifty-four years.

Now, surveying the scene, one saw that the once scattered, star-like pattern of tribes across the vast Black Earth Continent had vanished, replaced by colossal city walls. These fortifications, constructed entirely of black earth, towered as high as hills, with widths broad enough for twenty or thirty ape soldiers to march side by side atop them. The walls rose imposingly in four directions, joined together, overlooking the land much like the bleak northern regions when winter descends.

At the very heart of these walls stood an enormous black-earth fortress, its silhouette dominating the landscape. Around this citadel sprawled countless smaller fortresses, clustered like satellite towns encircling the central stronghold.

“Have they evolved into the age of kingdoms?” Fang Zhuowei raised an eyebrow, a mix of surprise and doubt flickering across his face. With a mere thought, ripples appeared before his eyes like waves spreading across water.

Once his created civilization reached a certain level, Fang Zhuowei had gained the ability to turn back time. Through this, he could easily replay the major and minor events of his small world, as if watching a film. Of course, this power was limited to the world he had created and could not affect its normal progression.

Under the gaze of time reversed, the scene before Fang Zhuowei shifted back to the arrival of eternal night the previous evening.

The young ape, Chi, who had once stumbled upon the centipede’s corpse, had, unsurprisingly, survived a decade-long ordeal of extreme cold and lived to see the dawn. When daylight returned, he commanded his kin to sweep the cave clean of all the precious ore within. Moreover, Chi spent nearly half a year extracting a broken, pointed fang from the massive centipede’s carcass.

He named this weapon “Beast’s Fang,” a constant reminder of the terror of giant creatures, always keeping himself alert.

As dawn’s light bathed the land, Chi, wielding the Beast’s Fang, led his remaining dozens of tribesmen out of the cave. They first attacked several small tribes, and under the power of Beast’s Fang, Chi became ever more valiant and undefeatable in battle. Though slight and lean in stature, he possessed extraordinary strength, and his compact frame gave him remarkable agility.

Most crucially, under the edge of Beast’s Fang, an ancient ape’s body was like paper—gaping, bloody wounds could be carved with ease. Casualties mounted swiftly; death on the battlefield became commonplace.

Death cast its shadow over many tribes of the Black Earth Continent. Spurred by blood and corpses, the chieftains of these tribes had little will to resist.

For over a decade, Chi marched north and south, annexing tribe after tribe. In the eighty-third year of the tribal era, he had become the second greatest power on the continent.

By then, only one goal remained for Chi: the last surviving tribe on the Black Earth Continent.

This was the strongest and most populous tribe, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, with more than a hundred thousand adult male apes.

Undoubtedly, this would be Chi’s hardest and most perilous campaign.

In all, Chi launched seven wars, spanning nearly twelve years—later known as the Battle for the Deerfields. Through these seven wars, nearly a hundred thousand of his soldiers fell; Chi himself narrowly survived. The chieftain of the Earth Tribe proved far stronger than Chi had imagined—a veritable prehistoric beast, unrivaled in might. Not even with the Beast’s Fang in hand did Chi gain the upper hand.

Yet fortune favored him.

In the one hundred and third year of the tribal era, the final Battle for the Deerfields erupted. By the banks of the Zhulu River, Chi slew the Earth Tribe’s chieftain, Jie, with his own hands.

The following year, after decades of relentless warfare, peace finally descended upon the Black Earth Continent.

On that day, Chi, over sixty years old—a remarkable age for his kind—unified nearly all the tribes, forging a single super-tribe reminiscent of the Earth Tribe, and named it Li.

In the third month of the first year of Li, Chi, following his advisors’ counsel, transformed the tribe into a kingdom, thereafter known as the Kingdom of Li. The next January, he conscripted hundreds of thousands to construct his own palace city, Zhongli, on the continent’s flattest and most fertile eastern plain.

In his early years of rule, Chi was both courageous and wise. He governed diligently, unafraid of threats from within or without, and focused on expanding his territory. Through his efforts, the borders of Li stretched to the Eastern Sea, the Shifting Sands, and the Ghostly Capital, claiming nearly eighty percent of all the plains.

By the twelfth year of Li, Chi was over seventy—double the average lifespan of his kind.

However, with age, Chi grew increasingly autocratic and obstinate. He imposed an unprecedented dictatorship, ruling with an iron fist and keeping military power tightly in his grasp. Any who dared defy him met a swift and total end.

In the second month of the eighth year of Li, Chi abruptly decreed a division of the population into three classes.

First came the royalty and nobility, who held all administrative power. These ancient apes formed the ruling class, enjoying special privileges; even murder in plain sight went unpunished, and they received abundant food and women without labor.

Second were the commoners, mostly from the tribes Chi had first absorbed, making up nearly sixty percent of the population. Though lacking privileges, they enjoyed relative personal freedom, held their own fields, and could earn military merit and perhaps one day rise into the ranks of the nobility.

The last class was the slaves. Most were from the final tribe Chi had conquered—the only one to cost him dearly. Though he had initially pardoned them, Chi now revoked this mercy.

Slaves were the lowest tier of society, regardless of age or gender. They had no personal freedom; even being beaten to death in the street brought neither attention nor pity. They could not serve in the military nor own personal property.

Under this brutal and crude system, the strongest male slaves were sent to dig and farm day and night without rest. The young and beautiful women were sent to Chi’s personal palace for his pleasure; those less attractive went to his nobles, and the rest were dispatched to the slave market, where commoners could buy them with grain.

As for the old, weak, sick, or disabled—no one cared for their fate. Perhaps a kind soul might offer them a morsel of food, but inevitably, they would become bleached bones scattered across the fields in this age of darkness.