In 2028, seven thousand-meter-tall gates appeared on Earth. Beyond them lay another world where technology didn't work. The monsters' cores could grant humans superpowers, but they also concealed a trap that could destroy everything: the more cores flowed into the world, the faster the two worlds merged.
As the truth was buried, people around the globe poured through the giant gates. Then, one day, Earth and the other world collided with a thunderous roar, and civilization collapsed overnight. Guns fell silent, electricity vanished forever, and half of humanity perished beneath a blood-red dawn.
Seventeen-year-old high school student Lin Mo swallowed his first core to save a loved one, stepping into a wasteland where the strong ruled and human nature mingled with animal instinct. Under the law of the survival of the fittest, he chose to clutch fire in his hands and kindle a glimmer of hope for the innocent. He met Su Wanqing, a swordswoman who fought at his back with frost and blade. Together, they carved a path to survival through despair.
From school to the wasteland, from standing alone to joining the Watchers, they fought monsters and the corruption of human hearts. Those in power treated lives as bargaining chips; thugs reveled in slaughter; even a close friend might betray them in the next moment. And behind it all, the blood-red eyes of a high-level monster watched this game of raising poison with elegant amusement.
These were the worst of times: civilization reduced to ash, morality in ruins. They were also the best of times: fire burned in people's palms, and some were willing to throw a punch for the cries of strangers. Deep in the apocalypse, Lin Mo and his companions kindled a flame that refused to die out, not to become the new rulers, but simply to prove that what makes us human remains, even when hell descends: our backs are still straight.
