In 2147, quantum physicist Chu Heng tears through the underlying dimension that holds space stable while conducting an experiment to observe beyond the Planck scale. During the seventy-two hours that follow, later known as the “Great Collapse,” the Pacific seafloor rises like the spine of a giant beast, while continental plates grind against each other like shattered eggshells. When survivors build domed cities along the “Breathing Line” at an altitude of four thousand meters, they discover that the most terrifying things are neither the dried-up oceans nor the radically transformed terrain. Some humans have begun to undergo quantum-state mutations. These mutants, who can sense spatial rifts, are both the key to the new world and a possible threat to its last spark of life.
While surveying an underwater canyon, geologist Shen Zhao discovers a strange quantum resonance between the fossil record of the Triassic mass extinction and the current disaster. The “Dimension Stabilization Towers” built by those in power keep draining the mutants’ life force, while engineer Qi Yue’s quantum dialysis machine lets humanity taste clean water filtered of radioactive dust for the first time. On this new continent blanketed in salt and alkali, humanity will use the wisdom it has evolved over three million years to fight the wrath of the laws of dimensions themselves.
