Elegy Beneath the Firmament

In Year 30 of the New Era, genetic coding split the world apart. The New Gods of the floating city of Eden control the power of evolution, while the “Swinefolk” on the surface struggle to survive radiation and purges.

Seventeen-year-old Lin Yu watches his mentor, Chen Mo, get arrested by the Tribunal during a genetics class. Before he dies, Chen Mo implants the key to the Ark Project into Lin Yu's genes. While on the run, Lin Yu discovers strange codes hidden in his DNA: silver blood that devours mechanical insects, pupils that can crack the floating city's firewall, and a memory that has been erased. He is the symbiotic partner of Su Yao, a mechanical test subject who supposedly “died” twenty years ago.

An underground organization leads him to an abandoned gene bank, where hundreds of clones identical to him await. Ling Shu, chair of the Blue Star Alliance, reveals the cruel truth with a cold laugh: the Ark Project is meant to turn humanity into biological weapons. As fabricated evidence engulfs the tribunal and swarms of nanobugs take on the remnants of Su Yao's consciousness, Lin Yu tears apart the antigravity ring in the sky. His bones turn to metal in the rain, and the light of his shattered genetic lock pierces the clouds. The bloody experiment that has lasted thirty years is finally about to reveal the truth: the so-called gods are merely the first prisoners to awaken inside a genetic cage.