The year was 3099. Humanity had conquered the stars—or so the world leaders claimed.
In truth, Earth was a shadow of its former self. Towering megacities gleamed with neon lights and hovering traffic, but just beneath their shining layers, slums festered like open wounds.
In the ruins of Old Beijing, a boy stumbled through narrow alleys drowned in rainwater and trash. His name was Lian Feng, fifteen years old, thin as a reed, with eyes far too sharp for a child.
He carried a sack of scavenged scraps on his back, metal and wiring stolen from abandoned drones. If he could sell it tonight, he might eat. If not—he would go hungry again.
"Stop him!" a voice thundered from behind.
Lian Feng's body tensed. A gang of older boys, their ragged jackets marked with the crimson wolf insignia of the Red Fang gang, emerged from the shadows. They were armed with pipes and stun-batons—salvaged tech that hummed with static.
"You've been stealing from our scrap zones again, orphan," the tallest sneered. His augmented eye glowed faintly red. "Hand it over, and maybe we'll let you keep your legs."
Lian Feng's jaw tightened. He knew the rules of the slums: weakness invited death.
"I found this in the wastelands. It's mine."
The gang roared with laughter. "Yours? Orphans don't own anything."
The tallest boy lunged forward, pipe swinging down. Lian Feng dodged by instinct, years of street fighting guiding him. He twisted, kicked the boy's knee, and ducked under another swing. But numbers mattered. The others rushed him, surrounding him like predators.
A sharp blow landed against his ribs. He gasped, vision blurring, but still he refused to let go of the sack. His fingers clenched it tighter, as though his very life depended on it.
Because it did.
---
The beating only stopped when a deafening explosion thundered in the distance. The ground trembled violently, knocking the boys off balance. Red Fang scattered like rats, shouting in panic.
Lian Feng coughed blood, dragging himself against a wall. He raised his head—and froze.
Far above the skyline of Neo-Beijing, the night sky split open.
A colossal rift of searing white light tore through the heavens, like the universe itself had been wounded. From within, a black object descended slowly, wreathed in flames. Its size dwarfed skyscrapers, its shape alien, jagged, pulsating with energy.
An artifact, burning through the atmosphere.
The city erupted in chaos. Sirens wailed. Anti-air batteries on floating defense towers opened fire, sending streaks of plasma at the falling object. But the artifact ignored it all, crashing down into the northern wastelands with an impact that shook the city for miles.
A shockwave rippled outward, shattering windows, knocking people off their feet.
Lian Feng's ears rang, his chest ached, but his eyes burned with something new.
Hope.
---
Hours later, while the military sealed off the impact site, Lian Feng crawled out of the slums. His ribs screamed in pain, but hunger and curiosity drove him forward.
The northern wastelands were a forbidden zone—bombed flat during the Alien War two decades ago. Even gangs avoided it, fearing radiation and stray drones. But Lian Feng had nothing to lose.
He stumbled across cracked earth and twisted steel, guided only by the faint glow in the distance.
At last, he saw it.
Half-buried in a crater lay a black sphere, no larger than a human head. Its surface rippled like liquid metal, patterns of starlight dancing across it. The air around it hummed, vibrating with strange energy.
Lian Feng's heart pounded. He had never seen anything like it. Was this… alien technology?
Cautiously, he reached out a trembling hand.
The instant his fingertips brushed the sphere, it pulsed—
and his world went dark.
---
Lian Feng's consciousness drifted in a void. Stars stretched endlessly around him, galaxies blooming and collapsing in silence. Time had no meaning here.
A voice echoed in his mind, deep and ancient.
"Cosmic Core detected… Host compatible… Synchronization initiated."
Lian Feng gasped, clutching his chest. He felt something sink into him, threads of starlight burrowing into his veins, his bones, his very soul. It burned—hotter than fire, sharper than blades—yet he could not scream.
Visions assaulted him: titanic beings striding across galaxies, civilizations rising and falling, worlds consumed by endless wars. And at the center of it all, a path. A path that stretched beyond life and death, beyond universes.
The path of ascension.
When his eyes snapped open, Lian Feng was back in the crater. The sphere was gone. No—
It was inside him.
His body pulsed with faint light, his wounds knitting together before his eyes. For the first time in years, he felt strength. Real strength.
Rain began to fall, sizzling as it touched the scorched earth. Lian Feng rose slowly, fists clenched.
He didn't understand what had happened, but he knew one thing: his life would never be the same again.
Somewhere in the city, military sirens blared louder, signaling the search for the fallen artifact.
But it was too late.
The Cosmic Core had chosen its host.