The Black Marrow Era

By the end of the twenty-second century, terrestrial oil reserves have run dry, and nuclear waste has piled up into a disaster. Humanity is forced to venture into the deep sea, building underwater cities near the Mariana Trench in the Pacific to mine a mysterious combustible-ice-associated mineral known as “Black Marrow.” Black Marrow can efficiently purify nuclear waste and provide virtually unlimited energy. But it has a fatal side effect: it can read the deepest fears in the human subconscious and give them physical form as entities known as “sea wraiths.” Sea wraiths are divided into “shells,” which cause physical mutations, and “vortices,” which contaminate cognition. They lurk in the lightless depths, feeding on human fear. Seven megacorporations monopolize Black Marrow mining. On the coast of the East Sea lies an ancient fishing village: Shen Village. The Shen clan once served as tide watchers on Zheng He’s ocean voyages, and possesses a secret art that lets them “listen to the pulse of the sea.” The corporations exiled them to the most dangerous deep-sea mining zones, where they became the lowest-ranking mining slaves. Sixteen-year-old Shen Xun witnesses his father, Shen Guangzhi, crumble into dust and vanish during a sea-worship ceremony. Before dying, his father carves a curse-like mark into his palm. It is the seed of a sea wraith, and the thousand-year-old pact between the Shen ancestors and the deep sea. Shen Xun discovers that the spread of the Black Marrow veins matches the sea charts in Zheng He’s star maps from a thousand years ago. The so-called sea wraiths are actually ancient deep-sea intelligences polluted by humanity’s collective subconscious. They mean no harm; they are simply responding to human fear, like a mirror. As resources dwindle and sea wraith uprisings grow ever more violent, the corporations decide to blow up the mineral veins and abandon the underwater city. Shen Xun must make a choice in the abyss