[Apocalypse + little ones + System + growing up + no romance + everyone’s darling + bonds + slow-burn growth + reincarnation across parallel worlds + choose which parallel world to read]
Protection is not possession, and symbiosis is not enslavement. Also known as: Growing New Flowers Amid the Ruins
In the twelfth year of the apocalypse, I became the most useless five-year-old in the Rust District. My brother chewed on dry biscuits and repaired mechs just to trade for a single nutrient drink for me. Then, in a garbage heap, I found a little gray fox on the brink of death.
[Ding! Dying, intelligent spirit beast detected. Little Guardian System binding complete!]
I fed it half a biscuit.
I thought that was all I could do, until one day
The “cleanup squad” from the safe zone came to take me and all the “heretics” away.
At the brink of despair, the Wolf King of Shadow Canyon smashed through the walls, the Rhino King of the Black-Armored Wasteland overturned tanks, and the Spirit of the Withered Woods raised a shield to protect me. They lowered their heads, baring their most vulnerable necks to me, and let out a deep, resonant call:
“Little one, don’t be afraid.”
“We’re taking you home.”
Later, the apocalypse was reshaped because of me.
In the self-destructing laboratory, the director of the Apocalypse General Institute screamed in a frenzy:
“We made weapons, but you… raised them as family?!”
I sat on the warm back of the Shadow Wolf King and watched a new city, built by humans and spirit beasts together, beneath the setting sun. I smiled softly.
“That’s right.”
“Because from the very beginning, the one I wanted to protect was never just this world.”
“It was every life in this world willing to shine, even just a little.”
