MTL - Evolved From Polluting the World - Chapter 53 Punishment comes

After his village was destroyed by an E-Ranked demon horde, Augustus was titled the failed lord and mocked by other noble lords.Until, he died.Augustus regressed with the knowledge of the future and his SSS-Ranked skill “Talent Evolution,” fighting to change the D-Ranked village of Iona into an S-Ranked Empire.Need resources? His villager's 10x Resource Multiplier Talent was evolved into 100x! Enemies coming? His champion's Two-Hit Critical Attack was evolved into a One-Hit Critical Attack! Gods? He reared a couple in his courtyard.While other lords slept on their villagers’ talents, Augustus’s villagers transcended gods. While they mocked him for picking a dead village, he would transform it into an oasis.

Known as the youngest academician-level senior engineer, Zhao Guoyang was reborn in the 1990s. In this era of economic globalization, with his extraordinary wisdom and extraordinary insights, he created one miracle after another and became a name that shocked the world!

Wisdom is condensed every bit, brilliance is created by sweat, and witness the rise of a great power!

- Description from novelbuddy

Birth rates are decreasing. Hope is vanishing. The world has gone gray.Humanity, drifting in quiet collapse, receives an email.Every person on Earth. Simultaneously.The Aegis Mandate.Disguised as a cosmic aptitude test, it triggers The Incident of Separation—a global psychic cataclysm that erases identities, wipes memories, and divides all survivors into three factions: Law, Neutral, and Chaos. Overnight, cities become battlegrounds. Apartments become dungeons. Ordinary people become monsters—or the ones who hunt them.Ragnar Vhagar was just a loner university student. Now, thanks to a system he didn’t ask for, he’s a newly minted Demon King, locked in a crumbling apartment with goblins under his sofa and a glowing soul crystal next to his frozen peas. His new job? Build a deadly domain, defend it from invading “Heroes,” and somehow level up fast enough to not die.Alongside him is Isabelle Thorne, a razor-sharp warrior of few words and one very sharp sword. Their reluctant alliance, born in blood and snark, evolves into trust—and maybe something dangerously close to affection—as they rise together through the layers of the game-like world they’re trapped in.With each conquered domain and defeated boss, Ragnar realizes the truth: the dungeons aren’t meant to crown a winner. They’re meant to break the players. The Law faction wants control. The Chaos faction craves destruction. But Ragnar? He wants something they’re all too afraid to say out loud:Freedom.In the ruins of Kanta’s ogre stronghold, Ragnar and his misfit warband take their biggest step yet—claiming a kingdom, unifying a fractured system, and preparing for what comes next. The Heroes are watching. The gods are stirring. The world is watching a war.And somewhere deep beneath it all... Ragnar is rewriting the rules.

Scream out.Awake and pour out the grudge left in you onto me.Then, I shall save you.