Xu Xiao's consciousness was caught in the ebb and flow of cause and effect, his true spirit enveloped by inner demons, calamities, and the karmic consequences, and he instantly lost consciousness.
When Xu Xiao opened his eyes again, he found himself sitting in a bright classroom.
The sunlight streaming through the window shone brightly on the mathematical formulas on the blackboard.
" Xu Xiao! What are you daydreaming about? Come up here and solve this problem!" The math teacher tapped the blackboard, his tone stern.
Xu Xiao instinctively shrank his neck in fear and lifted his head off the desk.
"I... fell asleep? Was that a dream?" he murmured to himself, his mind a blur, as if he were still half asleep.
What are you daydreaming about? Did you fall asleep in class and are still half asleep?
"Go stand at the back. Come to my office after class."
"Oh!"
Xu Xiao, somewhat dejected, moved to the back of the classroom to stand as punishment, leaning against the wall with his eyes somewhat lost in thought.
That dream felt so real! Did I... forget something?
Xu Xiao, 16 years old, is an ordinary high school student. His parents are working-class people and they live in an old neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.
He gets up early every day to catch the bus to school, copes with the heavy workload of high school, and his happiest moments are occasionally going to internet cafes with a few close friends to play games after school.
During this time, however, Xu Xiao lost interest in his favorite internet cafes, because his attention was entirely focused on his daily dreams.
He would occasionally have strange dreams—dreaming of surviving in the apocalypse, dreaming of killing people in other worlds, dreaming of fighting with gods, but upon waking, those images would vanish like Utakata.
"Why have I been having these kinds of dreams lately?" Xu Xiao rubbed his temples and stuffed his notebook into his schoolbag.
Fatty Wang sitting next to me, leaned over and asked, "What's wrong? Did you dream about Immortal Ascension again?"
"Get lost, stop talking nonsense." Xu Xiao laughed and shoved him.
Days passed by like Tenten, until--
Doomsday
It was a Friday, Xu Xiao went to the internet cafe after school as usual.
I had barely sat down when an emergency news report suddenly appeared on the internet cafe screen:
"Urgent Notice! An unidentified virus has appeared across the country, and infected individuals are exhibiting severe mutation symptoms. Citizens are urged to return home immediately and refrain from going out..."
Xu Xiao frowned, and before he could react, a scream suddenly came from the street outside.
He peered out from the crowd of onlookers and saw people running frantically down the street.
Behind them, several enormous wild dogs were tearing at passersby, their eyes glowing with an eerie red light, their fangs dripping blood.
"Holy crap!" What's going on?!
Xu Xiao's heart suddenly raced, and a chill ran down his spine.
Pushing aside the stunned onlookers, Xu Xiao plunged into the fleeing crowd and began his escape with the flow of people.
And this was the beginning of his nightmare!
The apocalypse came too suddenly; for unknown reasons, plants and animals around the world began to mutate, or rather, evolve.
The city was completely paralyzed, power was cut off, and communications were disrupted. Because of the completely random mutation, many governments disappeared overnight, and human civilization was brought to a standstill.
Xu Xiao's parents were separated in the chaos, leaving him to fend for himself.
The arrival of the apocalypse presents both danger and opportunity!
Aside from the monsters that failed to mutate at the beginning, some lucky humans did not become monsters after undergoing mutation, but instead gained superpowers.
These people are the superhumans. After surviving the initial six months of chaos, the superhumans who have grown up began to build up their forces and restore civilization.
Xu Xiao was lucky; he survived. However, he wasn't so lucky either; he didn't become a mutant.
Without superpowers or special talents, he can only struggle like an ordinary person.
Whenever he felt a sense of relief during the apocalypse, Xu Xiao would still have that dream, a dream somewhat similar to his current experience.
However, when he woke up from the dream, those dreams receded like the tide, leaving only fragments of memory mocking him.
'It seems I still crave power too much; but what's in a dream is never real.'
Shaking his head, Xu Xiao packed up his belongings and began searching for supplies to survive in the city.
Cities are safer than the wilderness. Although there are many infected people who have failed to mutate and are wandering around, they are still much easier to hide from than mutated Beast in the wild.
In addition, there are plenty of resources to collect in the Upper City, so many people who lack the ability to survive in the wild wander around the city and are called scavengers.
A month later, he encountered his first squad of survivors.
"Kid, come with us." The middle-aged man leading the group looked honest and took pity on Xu Xiao, a young man about the same age as his son.
"A person doesn't live long."
Xu Xiao hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
This small team consists of seven people, all ordinary people, who barely survive in the apocalypse by sticking together.
They taught Xu Xiao more survival skills—how to identify mutated plants and animals, how to set traps, and how to avoid those bloodthirsty "infected" individuals.
But this good fortune didn't last long.
Two months later, the team encountered a group of Predator.
It was a bloody battle. Xu Xiao watched helplessly as his teammates fell one by one. In the end, he was the only one who managed to escape with his life, thanks to the cover provided by his teammates.
"This is the end of the world..." Xu Xiao huddled in the ruins, trembling all over.
The evil in human nature is magnified infinitely in the apocalypse.
He had been a lone wolf and also a band of friends. From a teenage student, Xu Xiao transformed into a desperate outlaw who dared to fight to the death with others. The apocalypse was changing everyone, and he was no exception.
A year later, Xu Xiao heard the news of the establishment of the " Human Alliance " coming from an old radio.
Subsequently, like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, human forces, led by superhumans, began building cities and launching a counterattack against the apocalypse.
After experiencing numerous hardships, Xu Xiao arrived at the nearest refuge, a city under construction— Vanguard City.
This is a post-apocalyptic Human Alliance, controlled by a group of superhumans and former militants dispatched by the alliance, and is considered the refuge that most survivors dream of.
Although still under construction, the separation between the slums outside the city and the "upper-class" living area inside has already been designed.
"Name?" The guard at the registration desk didn't even look up.
" Xu Xiao."
"Ability?"
"... none."
The guard sneered and tossed him a tattered card.
"As a scavenger, you must participate in at least 10 hours of production work each day, or you will be driven away."
Xu Xiao silently accepted the card and stepped into the post-apocalyptic city.