The Year 2109.
Humanity had reached heights once thought impossible. Dreams of the past became the realities of the future—holograms that blurred the line between imagination and reality, flying cars that soared above crumbling highways, towering mech warriors that dwarfed cityscapes and stood as the ultimate testament to human engineering. Diseases that once ravaged millions were eradicated, and death itself was defied by miraculous medical advancements.
Yet, for all their achievements and progress, humanity failed to conquer its oldest and most unrelenting enemy—itself.
The fractures between nations deepened into chasms of mistrust, greed, and ambition. The East and the West, long embroiled in a cold war of propaganda and covert skirmishes, finally reached the breaking point. Words failed. Treaties burned. And when diplomacy died, the world chose war.
What began as regional disputes over resources and influence escalated into a global conflict that consumed the planet. The United States, Europe, and their allies formed one bloc; China, Russia, and their allies stood in opposition. Neutrality became a death sentence. Nations that refused to take sides were crushed under the boots of both.
The destruction spread faster than anyone anticipated. Nuclear arsenals, dormant but waiting, were unleashed with cold precision. Missile silos erupted, painting the skies with the fiery plumes of mushroom clouds. The world's most advanced militaries unleashed mechanized titans, hovering drones with laser-guided precision, and autonomous war machines that hunted survivors like predators stalking prey.
Entire continents became uninhabitable wastelands.
Africa's lush jungles were scorched into toxic deserts by experimental weapons. The Middle East, long a region of turmoil, became a glassed-over graveyard of radioactive craters. Asia's sprawling cities, once symbols of technological dominance, crumbled into rubble. Europe's historic landmarks, symbols of a bygone era, burned until their ashes were swept away by acidic winds. The Americas fared no better, their fertile lands transformed into barren plains where nothing grew.
But the war's horror didn't stop with the land. It reached into the hearts of those who fought it.
On the frontlines, chaos reigned supreme. Soldiers—both human and machine—clashed in battles so fierce they often lasted for days without pause. Rivers ran red with blood as corpses piled high. Men, women, children, and the elderly were swept up in the brutality, none spared. Starvation gnawed at the survivors, turning even the most moral into scavengers, thieves, and cannibals.
In the cities, once-glimmering towers of glass and steel now stood as tombstones of a lost civilization. Streets were littered with charred remains, faces frozen in eternal expressions of terror. The air reeked of death and decay, a stench so pervasive it clung to the skin of anyone who dared to breathe it.
For those who survived, life became an unending nightmare.
Famine spread like wildfire. Supply chains obliterated, entire populations were left to starve. A single loaf of bread became worth more than a life. Families turned on one another in the name of survival. Disease, too, played its part. With medical infrastructures destroyed, even minor injuries became death sentences. Plagues swept through the remnants of humanity, leaving their victims to die in agony.
Yet the greatest plague of all was human greed.
When the bombs stopped falling and the victors lay dead beside the vanquished, humanity's curse persisted. Survivors, hardened by years of suffering, didn't rebuild—they fought. Tribes rose from the ashes, each claiming dominion over the ruins they inhabited. Their banners flew over poisoned rivers and crumbling cities, each proclaiming sovereignty over the lifeless earth.
And the goal of these tribes? Power.
They fought with brutal efficiency. Spears fashioned from rusted metal pierced flesh with ease. Guns scavenged from the dead barked deadly songs in the night. Explosives rigged from scraps tore apart fortresses, leaving survivors to sift through the rubble for what little could be salvaged. Captives became tools—enslaved, tortured, or executed to send a message. Women and children were no exceptions, their cries echoing across the wasteland as grim reminders of humanity's cruelty.
This was the world he was born into.
He was young, just another face in the crowd of despair, one of fifty-three souls bound by blood and struggle. Together, they called themselves a clan. Together, they tried to carve out a fragile existence in this hell. But the world is merciless.
One by one, they fell.
Slain by rivals, consumed by starvation, or swallowed by disease. Fifty-three became forty. Forty became twenty. Twenty became five. And eventually, fifty-three became one. He stood alone, the sole survivor of a family wiped out by cruelty and chaos.
For years, he fought to live—not for vengeance, not for hope, but because survival was all he had left.
By the age of twenty-three, even that began to fade. The weight of his losses, the endless battles, and the bleakness of the world crushed him. On the brink of surrender, he stared at the wasteland around him and felt only emptiness.
But the world was not done with him yet.
In his darkest moment, a voice called to him—a whisper in the void, cold and unyielding. It was not salvation, but a promise. "The System" awakened.
It offered him power—cruel, miraculous, and absolute. It demanded tasks, tests of strength, cunning, and resolve. In return, it promised everything: wealth, weapons, armies, and above all, the means to conquer.
He made his choice.
He would not die. He would not fade into the endless night. He would seize this broken world with an iron fist. Those who remained would have only two options: submit and follow, or die.
In a land where survival was a bloodsport and trust a weakness, he would become the one thing the world feared most—a force of domination, a devil forged in the fires of an apocalypse.