Monsters Besiege the City, Every Inch a Battlefield

On the night crimson spores fell like a rain of blood, humanity finally understood that it was not the master of the universe. The alien creatures known as “Star Eaters” tore through the ionosphere. Their biological warships could devour the energy of nuclear bombs, and their flexible silicon-based tentacles could crush main battle tanks in an instant. Even more horrifying was how they reproduced: they transformed living humans into writhing incubator pods, while the city’s sewers filled with grotesque half-human, half-monster mutants.

Former special forces soldier Lin Feng rescued surgeon Su Qing while fleeing, 97 hours after the regular military had collapsed. They took shelter in a subway tunnel, with alien hounds that could sense life through vibrations on their heels, armed with nothing but a shotgun and a scalpel. When Su Qing dissected an alien larva and discovered that its nerve bundles were sensitive to infrasound, this ragtag squad of teachers, auto mechanics, and a retired police officer began hacking through ventilation ducts with fire axes and making crude bombs from gas cylinders. In a maze of steel and concrete, they dug out humanity’s last path to survival.