“The destruction of the world…”

“Rebirth…”

After a long while, John Shepherd finally emerged from the tragic emotions of witnessing the destruction of the world in his previous life.

Since he was here, he had to adapt.

He had already become a skeleton in the game world, and he would have to live out this existence as best as he could.

John didn’t know if, ten years from now, the real world would be destroyed as he had predicted. What he did know was that his greatest immediate crisis was the arrival of players three months from now!

The Fourth Calamity was no idle threat.

Once the players descended, all monsters would become their targets.

Not to mention him—a lowly skeleton at the bottom of the undead hierarchy—even powerful beings like the Skeleton King, Death Knights, Liches, and Wraith Queens would struggle to fend off the relentless attacks of thousands of players!

He needed to level up!

Evolve!

Only by becoming powerful enough in the next three months would he stand a chance at survival. Only if he grew strong enough to rival the gods could he even begin to think about that apocalypse ten years in the future!

……

From a lowly skeleton at the bottom of the undead race to one strong enough to withstand the player invasion—even with ten years of gaming experience from his previous life, this was an almost insurmountable challenge for John.

But fortunately, there was still hope.

When he first checked his status panel, John had already found the key to his growth.

His Talent!

In Second World, talents were usually racial traits.

For example, Elves had the racial talent of Nature Affinity, which allowed them to easily communicate with plants and hide deep within forests; Dwarves had the talent of Smithing, enabling them to forge higher-quality equipment with ease; Orcs possessed the Berserk talent, which allowed them to enter a frenzied state in battle after reaching a certain rank, becoming unstoppable...

And so on.

Such widespread racial talents were not uncommon.

In fact, apart from humans and the undead who had fallen from other races, most races in Second World possessed their own racial talents.

Individual Talents were a different matter.

Most individual talents represented immense potential for those who possessed them. Whether or not that potential could be turned into actual strength depended largely on the individual's ability to utilize their talent.

John’s talent was a Unique Talent:

Corruption!

John didn’t know where this talent had come from.

Perhaps it was because his soul had mutated after transitioning from a player to a monster. Or maybe it was a gift from the world, given that he had returned from the future. All he knew was that this unique talent was the key to his growth!

“Unfortunately…”

“There’s no description of the talent on the status panel.”

“I’ll have to figure out how the Corruption talent works on my own.”

John sighed quietly in his heart as he lifted his head and gazed into the distance.

This place was known as the Graveyard of Bones.

As the gathering place for the skeleton race, it was only natural that John wasn’t the only skeleton here.

He had been reborn on the outskirts of the Graveyard of Bones, a region where many weak skeletons like himself roamed. Deeper within the graveyard, the death energy was far more potent, giving rise to much stronger skeletons.

In fact, at the very core of the graveyard, it wasn’t uncommon to encounter skeleton warriors, terrifying wizards, bone knights, or even death knights—undead of mid-tier and high-tier levels.

This was merely the beginning.

……

Crunch.

Crunch.

Soft sounds echoed as John began to move.

Having transformed from a player in the real world to a skeleton in the game world, aside from the lightness of his steps, he didn’t feel much discomfort.

Even his field of vision wasn’t much different from when he was a player.

After walking a few steps to adapt to his new body, John picked up a femur from the bone-covered ground and began moving toward a nearby skeleton.

He was hunting.

To evolve from a low-level skeleton to a mid-tier or even high-tier undead, hunting was essential. And here in the Graveyard of Bones, there was no better hunting target than the countless other skeletons.

John slowly approached.

The skeleton he had chosen as his prey stood motionless, its vacant gaze betraying its lack of awareness. As a low-level skeleton, it had no memory, no consciousness. It would only instinctively attack when sensing the presence of the living and retaliate when attacked.

This made hunting all the more convenient for John.

Step.

Step.

Step.

When he was just half a meter away, John raised the femur in his hand and, using all his strength, smashed it down on the skeleton’s skull!

Crunch!

With a crisp sound, the femur in John’s hand snapped in two, and the skull of the other skeleton shattered. The gray-white bones that made up its body swayed slightly before scattering across the ground.

“You’ve killed a ‘Weak Skeleton.’”

“You’ve gained 10 experience points.”

As the skeleton collapsed, two lines of text flashed across John’s status panel.

Thanks to his monster template, he didn’t need to manually absorb the soul flame—the essence of the skeleton. The slain skeleton’s soul flame automatically transformed into experience points and merged into his body.

“Killing a low-level skeleton gives me 10 experience points.”

“That means I just need to kill nine more skeletons to level up from 1 to 2.”

“Not bad.”

“However…”

Glancing at the updated status panel, John’s feelings were somewhat mixed.

After killing the skeleton, he felt an inexplicable attraction toward its remains—the pile of scattered bones left behind.

“Could it be… becoming a skeleton has given me some strange new cravings?”

Conflicted, John hesitated for a moment.

In the end, he gave in to the urge and crouched down next to the pile of bones.