The Haze Years After the Nuclear War

In 2103, the smoke of nuclear war has long since cleared, leaving Blue Star shrouded in eternal haze. Sunlight takes on a faint purple hue as it passes through the clouds, and radioactive dust hardens into a crystalline shell on the ground. The cities of old have become nests for mutated creatures: three-meter-tall cockroaches gnaw at steel rebar, while winged rats swoop over the charred rooftops. Their snarls are the new soundtrack of this planet.

Lin Ye huddles in a rusted camp inside an abandoned subway station, able to make tiny metal fragments tremble with his fingertips. This is a “gift” from nuclear radiation, and a curse: when his emotions surge, the metal spins out of control like crazed thorns, piercing his companions' throats. He protects a group of the old and infirm, trading scrap copper and iron from the ruins for expired canned food. When their last water-purification cartridge runs out, he has no choice but to enter the forbidden zone known as the “Crystal Forest.”

There are radiation sources that bloom like flowers, their petals revealing blue skies and smiling faces from before the nuclear war. Half-buried mechanical wreckage holds the secret of “Zone Zero” in its chips. They say the zone contains a device that can stabilize supernatural abilities, as well as the truth behind the outbreak of nuclear war. The girl traveling with them can understand the whispers of mutated vines, while scales are growing over the old doctor's healing wounds. Their footsteps rouse the shadows lying dormant: not only monsters that track the traces of those with supernatural abilities, but also a mysterious organization seeking to reshape humanity with radiation.