In the third year of the rust's spread, geologist Chen Ji set out from the sunken steel jungle with a star-chart compass pointing toward Kunlun.
Behind him were Su Wan, a retired military medic with heterochromatic eyes that could see the life energy within living things; A Jiu, a taciturn boy carrying the secrets of a laboratory; and the last heir to a Silk Road camel caravan. Their vehicles rolled over more than broken roads. They crossed a new world that breathed, grew, and moved: zombies migrated with the tides of energy, the earth's plates rearranged like building blocks, and forests of glowing crystals devoured the civilization of old.
From the ruins of the Yangtze River to the edge of Tibet, from the vine-choked Shu Road to the ancient caves of Hexi, every brush with death revealed a deeper truth about the cataclysm: this was not the end of the world, but a birth that was far too violent. At the summit of Kunlun, what awaited them was not a button to save the world, but an ultimate choice that would redefine the meaning of "humanity."
At the end of the road, civilization was about to take a turn.
