1 — The Moment the World Shifted
It began at 2:14 a.m. Beijing time.
Not with an explosion.
Not with an earthquake.
Not with a warning.
It began with light.
A faint shimmer at first, drifting across the horizon like pale fireflies… then blooming into impossible curtains of color. Auroras—violet, crimson, deep ocean blue—spread across the sky over nations that had never seen them in their history.
Over deserts.
Over jungles.
Over oceans.
Over cities smothered in smog.
People woke in confusion. Videos flooded dead social media apps—only to freeze mid-upload. The lights seemed to pulse in rhythmic breaths, as if the sky itself were inhaling.
And the pulse echoed underground.
Deep, too deep.
Beneath stone. Beneath fossil. Beneath memory.
Then the world snapped.
---
2 — Beijing Airspace, 2:17 a.m.
Captain Li tightened his grip on the plane's controls.
"All systems failing—!"
Static swallowed the cockpit. Warning lights burst alive across every panel. Altimeters spun. Gyroscopes died. The sky outside flared with neon green arcs of light, dancing so close they illuminated the pilot's horrified face.
Then—
Everything shut off.
A dead plane in dead air.
Passengers screamed.
But the sky, strangely… hummed.
---
3 — Beijing, Streets Below
People filled rooftops and balconies.
Phones wouldn't turn on.
Radios only crackled.
Cars with electric engines stalled in the middle of the road.
For the first time in human history, civilization held its breath together, watching lights ripple overhead in complete silence.
And then—
Boom.
A tremor.
Followed by another.
But this wasn't an earthquake.
This came from the sky.
Like something massive had knocked on the atmosphere from the outside.
---
4 — Inside the Cavern Beneath the Great Wall
Jianyu didn't hear the world collapsing above.
Not at first.
He heard only the roots.
They were screaming.
The cavern shuddered violently, the ancient stone groaning as black roots whipped and twisted, slamming into walls and pillars. Dust rained from the ceiling in thick clouds.
Jianyu shielded his face.
"Stop—!"
His voice vanished under the roar.
The pedestal at the heart of the chamber shook violently, the black book vibrating like a living heart. Symbols raced across its cover, glowing white-hot.
A sound pierced Jianyu's skull—
A whisper layered beneath a thousand voices:
"Witness… witness…"
He staggered back.
But the roots weren't attacking him.
They were escaping.
Pulling back toward the Earth like a storm retracting its wind.
"Jianyu!" a voice screamed from above.
He looked up—two rescue workers at the top of the shattered opening, reaching down.
"We have to go now! The whole structure is collapsing!"
Jianyu looked at the book.
It had opened by itself.
Pages flipping in a violent blur—
Ancient scripts
Unknown constellations
Diagrams of roots wrapped around continents
Something enormous rising through darkness
And then—
One symbol glowed.
A circle with branching lines.
A mark like a tree turned upside down.
Or a world cracking open.
It burned into Jianyu's eyes.
The book lifted.
Floated.
Straight toward him.
"No—wait—"
He held up a hand, but it didn't matter.
The book hit his chest with a force like a punch—
and then it melted through his skin.
Jianyu screamed and stumbled to his knees.
White-hot light surged across his arms, veins igniting like glowing tattoos racing up toward his collarbone. His pulse pounded so hard it felt like the Earth itself was beating inside him.
Workers yelled in panic.
"Pull him up! NOW!"
The cavern floor ruptured, roots bursting upward like black, living spears. Jianyu leapt, grabbing the rescuers' hands as they hauled him through the crack with seconds to spare.
The moment he reached the surface—
The cavern imploded.
A shockwave blasted outward, rattling even the Great Wall above.
Jianyu was thrown onto the ground, coughing, trembling, clutching his burning chest.
A squad of armed soldiers surrounded him instantly.
"Secure the perimeter!"
"Block the entrance! No one gets in!"
A tall woman in a dark suit stepped through the dust with unshakable calm.
She wore a badge with no agency name.
Only a sigil—a vertical line crossed by three horizontal bars.
Jianyu recognized it from rumors and old, buried research papers.
Project Vein.
She crouched in front of him.
"You survived contact with the Artifact."
Her voice was steady, almost too steady.
"Unusual."
"I—" He winced, pain flaring across his skin as the symbols pulsed.
The agent's eyes darkened.
"It has already marked you."
Jianyu's breath caught.
The black, shifting lines crawled along his arms like living ink, trying to spread further. He pulled down his sleeve instinctively, but the symbols burned through the fabric as if mocking him.
"What… what does this mean?" he whispered.
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she leaned closer, lowering her voice so only he could hear.
> "It means the Awakening has identified you."
His blood iced.
"Identified me as what?"
Her lips tightened.
> "A conduit."
Behind her, soldiers shouted as another tremor hit. Dust rained down from the ancient stones of the Wall.
Someone yelled:
"Ma'am! The roots are moving again!"
The agent stood.
"Bring him in! Don't let him out of sight!"
Two soldiers grabbed Jianyu by the arms.
"No—wait—"
He pulled against them, desperation rising. "You don't understand, that book—!"
"We understand enough," the agent said coldly.
"And Project Vein has been waiting for this moment since before you were born."
The symbols on Jianyu's skin suddenly flashed white.
The agent froze.
Everyone froze.
Jianyu gasped, clutching his chest as his vision fractured—
A tree made of galaxies
A voice echoing through stone
A shadowed figure kneeling beneath roots older than Earth
And the world splitting apart
Then everything snapped back.
The agent stared at him with something new in her eyes.
Fear.
---
PART I FINAL CLIFFHANGER
Heat surged across Jianyu's arms—
and the black symbols began climbing up his neck, branching like veins of ink, forming a pattern ancient and alive.
He screamed.
Soldiers stumbled back.
The agent whispered:
> "God help us… it's starting."
And overhead—
the auroras twisted into a shape that looked almost like an eye.
Watching.
Seeing him.