Only three hours had passed since the sky broke. It already felt like a different planet. Downtown Chicago, once filled with impatient commuters and honking traffic, had become a battlefield. Military trucks blocked major intersections while soldiers erected makeshift barricades from overturned buses and concrete barriers. Helicopters thundered overhead, relaying reports from one Gate to another as columns of smoke rose from districts that had failed to contain the first wave of monsters.
The panic of the first hour had faded because humanity had realized panic accomplished nothing. At least for the military who threw a chaotic Hail Mary using pre-existing infrastructure. The masses were still panicking and the government was trying their best-ish to contain them.
Across the world, governments declared states of emergency. Rival nations that had spent decades competing with one another opened emergency communication channels; intelligence, satellite imagery, biological samples—everything was shared. Just like back during the pandemic days, humanity faced a common enemy.
This global sharing of intelligence was far from a flawless alliance; it was a chaotic, panicked data-dump that left networks lagging and servers crashing as researchers screamed over a flood of unverified files.
Deep beneath research facilities and military headquarters, scientists worked around the clock. The monsters looked nothing like any organism on Earth. Their flesh possessed no recognizable cellular structure. Blood samples rapidly decomposed into fine particles moments after extraction, while severed limbs slowly crumbled into ash-like dust.
"Preserve everything!"
"Don't let the tissue disappear!"
"Record every reaction!"
Researchers rushed between microscopes and containment chambers, trying to understand creatures that seemed to reject the very rules of terrestrial biology. Then... every human on Earth heard the same mechanical voice inside their mind.
[Emergency Stabilization Complete.]
Conversations stopped. Vehicles slowed. Entire cities fell silent.
[Beginning World Briefing.]
Even the soldiers standing before active Gates unconsciously listened. The System continued.
[Your world has been classified as a Scattered World.]
Scientists immediately began typing. Questions flooded every command center: What was a Scattered World? Before anyone could ask aloud, the System answered.
[Scattered Worlds are young worlds that have not yet begun producing natural Qi.]
Several physicists frowned. Natural... Qi?
[Without Qi, native civilizations remain incapable of cultivation.]
Cultivation. The word sounded absurd. Yet after monsters appeared from holes in space... nobody dismissed it anymore. The explanation continued.
[The dimensional Gates connecting your world to foreign dimensions are artificial constructs.]
A translucent image appeared before every person's eyes: a tiny crack floated in empty space, and streams of pale energy slowly leaked through it. As the energy accumulated, the crack widened, then widened faster until it became a massive dimensional passage.
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[Qi leaking through the Gates strengthens them continuously.]
The animation continued. As the Gate expanded, larger monsters emerged—then larger still, until entire armies marched through.
[If left unchecked...]
The image ended with the complete destruction of a planet.
[Complete invasion is inevitable.]
Nobody spoke. Children stopped crying, and adults simply stared. The next announcement arrived.
[The Salvation System has selected 0.1% of humanity as Champions.]
[Champions have been deployed into the World governed by the invading civilization.]
The image changed again. Millions of tiny lights appeared inside a massive enemy world—small, insignificant, yet impossible to ignore.
[Champions function as Anti-Invasion Anchors.]
A Gate began expanding once more, then it stopped. Another image appeared. Half the lights vanished, and the Gate resumed growing slowly.
[Each surviving Champion suppresses Gate expansion.]
[Complete Champion survival halts all Gate growth.]
[If half of all Champions perish...]
The Gate resumed expanding at half its previous speed.
[Returned Champions will strengthen your world's future defenses.]
Hope flickered inside countless hearts. The Champions... they weren't abandoned. They would come home. The System delivered one final clarification.
[Warning.]
[Gate suppression does not reduce current Qi output.]
[Existing Gates continue releasing Qi at maximum capacity.]
[Monster emergence remains unaffected.]
The announcement immediately ignited another wave of discussion inside every emergency command center.
"If Qi is constantly leaking into our atmosphere..." one physicist murmured, "...then Earth itself is changing."
Another scientist nodded, rapidly filling an entire whiteboard with equations. "The concentration is still incredibly low compared to wherever the Champions were sent, but it isn't zero anymore."
"So the Gates aren't just invasion routes," a military researcher concluded. "They're contaminating the environment."
"No," the physicist corrected quietly. "Transforming it."
The room fell silent. Outside reinforced laboratory windows, technicians in protective suits carefully collected shimmering particles drifting from a sealed Gate. The strange energy passed through steel as though the metal barely existed, yet every measuring instrument reacted violently to its presence. Humanity wasn't merely fighting an invasion; the fundamental laws of their world were beginning to change.
The hope dimmed. Stopping future expansion didn't stop today's invasion. Earth still had to survive.
Military headquarters erupted into activity. "Increase perimeter defenses!" "Keep every Gate under observation!" "If expansion has stopped, we buy time!"
Scientists worked even harder. Entire university departments were commandeered—particle physicists, biologists, materials engineers, chemists, and medical researchers. Every discipline turned toward a single objective: understand Qi.
Prototype weapons capable of harming monsters were drafted within hours. Protective equipment was redesigned. Research facilities attempted to contain the strange energy constantly pouring from the Gates. Humanity adapted with astonishing speed. Perhaps... there was still a chance.
Then the first pillar of light descended. It appeared in the center of a refugee shelter outside New York. People instinctively stepped back as brilliant white radiance gathered into the shape of a young woman. The light faded, and she collapsed onto the floor—alive, uninjured, but confused.
"...Where..."
"...am I?"
Medical personnel rushed toward her. "Easy!" "You're safe!" "What happened over there?"
The woman stared blankly at them. "I... I died."
Silence swept through the shelter. Another beam descended, this time in Germany, then Brazil, India, Egypt, Japan, Russia, and South Africa. Within only a few hours... hundreds of thousands of Champions had returned at least. None had returned victorious; every single one had returned because they had died.
The implications struck humanity harder than any monster attack. If death returned them... then those still fighting remained trapped.
The System interrupted the growing despair.
[Champion Survival Rate Updated: 70%.]
Around the world, people watched active Gates. At first, nothing happened. Then, almost imperceptibly, the shimmering dimensional tears widened—only slightly, yet undeniably.
The mechanical voice continued.
[Current Gate Expansion Rate: 30%.]
Military officers exchanged grim looks, scientists lowered their heads, and families searched desperately for the names of loved ones among the surviving Champions. The battle had already begun, and humanity was already losing.