The Oxygen-Free Era

Oxygen was once the cradle of life. Now it has become the ultimate prison holding back human evolution.

In the future, humanity uses genetic evolution agents to dominate the stars, yet crashes headlong into the limit known as the Oxygen Barrier, landing at the bottom of the interstellar food chain. Zhang Ke, a “failure” cast aside by the mainstream evolutionary system, accidentally discovers a fragment of a jade slip from the ancient East amid the ashes of burned books.

As technological civilization struggles under the shackles of oxygen, he chooses a forgotten path: the “Way of the Oxygenless,” a profound art rooted in Daoist teachings. He draws the universe's free-floating energy into his body, refining essence into qi and qi into spirit... What surges through him is no longer biological energy dependent on oxygen, but “qi” powerful enough to tear apart the heavens.

From the blood-and-fire trials of Earth's laboratories to surviving in a vacuum through fetal breathing in the depths of space; from tearing apart silicon-based colossi with his bare hands to withstanding the energy of stars with his own body... Every breakthrough Zhang Ke makes pushes the limits of human understanding. He does more than break the chains of oxygen within himself: he ignites a civilizational revolution that sweeps across the sea of stars.

As the silicon empire's gravity cannons roar, the psionic race's soul-devouring purple light flashes, and the Erasers unleash laws that wipe existence from reality... blue Daoist flames that need no oxygen blaze around him. Before the fleets arrayed across the stars, he makes a declaration that shatters the heavens:

“This is the Oxygenless Era!”