The Silent Ruins

In a ruined world where the “inverse-entropy spirit substance” has reshaped the laws of nature, humanity fears that terror will attract the mental corrosion of invisible “Dark Entities.” Even worse, they fear these beings will gather and take physical form, bringing slaughter into the material world. The remnants of civilization huddle in underground city-states, where the “Fortress Empire” maintains order. Its radical “Iron Fortress faction” proposes that if they can control the inverse-entropy spirit substance, they might create the ultimate weapon against the monsters.

After surviving an encounter with a corporeal Dark Entity, patrol officer Wanqi Yinxiao is recruited by the Empire, only to stumble upon a core secret. He learns of a sealed living experiment, code-named “Twenty Minus Two” (Nian Jian'er). She is the only successful “vessel,” capable of generating and controlling inverse-entropy spirit substance on her own. Her power manifests as eighteen specialized Dark Entities called “War Shadows,” each wielding an ancient weapon. The records show that when she lost control, she razed an entire outpost.

When the Empire issues a warrant for his arrest, Yinxiao escapes to the hellish surface wasteland with stolen classified data. His goal is not to save her. He has glimpsed a fatal flaw in the Empire’s theories: civilization may have misunderstood the inverse-entropy spirit substance from the very beginning. The girl defined as a weapon is both the cruel product of that mistake and perhaps the only key to overturning all despair and finding humanity a true way forward.

A tribute to the Metro series and Dmitry Glukhovsky. This is a story about finding a true way forward for civilization while trapped in a prison of perception.