They used to call it survival of the fittest.
But now, even that law had bent.
In this new world, strength wasn't enough. Intelligence, mutation, memory, and madness — all had their price, all had their place. Three months after the bloody rain, the world had reshaped itself. Cities were no longer cities. Roads were hunting grounds. Language was no longer the only form of communication — the infected had calls, the beasts had signals, and the mutants had dreams.
Somewhere in this chaos, three wanderers moved through a forest where trees bled sap the color of mercury and frogs whispered in unison before dawn.
Li Wei led the way, but no longer alone in mind.
Rui, now fierce and agile beyond her years, had grown from a small, clever girl to something far more dangerous — and still heartbreakingly cute. Her voice was soft, her laughter rare, but her presence crackled like live electricity.
Chen Yu? A menace. A shadow wrapped in comedy. He joked about setting a trap with exploding pineapples. Then actually did it. They worked.
But even he wasn't laughing now.
Two Weeks Later – Ruins of Kunyang
The trio stumbled across a scene more disturbing than any zombie encounter.
A circle of towering black stone pillars surrounded a pit of ash and bone. Standing silently in the center were two humanoids. Naked. Still. But breathing. Not infected, not fully human either. Their eyes glowed faintly, and long lines of branching bone split from their backs like crude wings.
Rui reached for her knife.
Li Wei whispered, "Wait."
The creatures didn't attack.
They just watched.
Above them, perched like kings, were crows — hundreds — all facing inward toward the two figures like disciples at church.
"They're not the leaders," Chen Yu muttered. "They're priests."
Rui tilted her head. "Then who's their god?"
The question hung in the air like fog.
They left that place before nightfall, but the feeling clung to them — that they were not at the top of the food chain anymore.
Not even close.
The Rise of the Three Factions
Over the following month, as they journeyed from ruined suburbs to overgrown train tunnels, from mutated farmland to long-abandoned bunkers, the truth became clear:
This was no longer a war of humans vs. zombies.
The world had split into three dominions:
The Packborn — beasts that had mutated into intelligence. They were led by a giant wolf with a human face and golden eyes, rumored to control other species telepathically. The Packborn operated in absolute coordination — animal minds upgraded with eerie cunning.
The Hollowed — zombies who had survived the rain and changed. These were not mindless. Some could speak. Some had developed identities. Many built colonies, twisted parodies of human towns, where they fed on captured survivors in rituals. They believed the virus was divine
. The Ascended — mutated humans, often with powers like Li Wei and Chen Yu, who had either lost their minds or built cults of superiority. Some saw themselves as gods. Some hunted other humans like prey. Some, perhaps, tried to rule.
Rui said one night, curling up beside the fire, "So who are we?"
Chen Yu leaned back, hands behind his head. "Ragtag freak squad? God's last meme? Roadtrip apocalypse edition?"
Li Wei didn't answer. He stared into the flame and saw something move behind it — his own reflection, but with glowing eyes and blood dripping from his jaw.
The Power Awakens
In an abandoned government facility, buried under a hill, they found a chamber still humming with weak electricity. Rui activated the main panel using only her hand.
"I didn't touch it," she said.
"You didn't have to," Li Wei answered.
Inside were stasis pods — shattered. Notes. A map labeled Infection Stability Zones. Files that described test subjects matching their descriptions.
One name was highlighted across dozens of reports: Subject 0107 — Rui.
Rui backed away. "I don't remember any of this…"
Li Wei placed a hand on her shoulder. "You weren't meant to."
Then, without warning, something inside Chen Yu exploded.
A console flared. The lights snapped off. He dropped to his knees, clutching his skull, laughing and crying at once.
"I can see numbers! I can hear wires breathing! Bro, I can hear this building talk and it's angry!"
Lightning arced from his fingers to the ground — searing a line through the concrete.
Li Wei pulled him back. "Focus."
And then Li Wei's own mutation snapped.
He lifted his hand — and the air crushed inward, like space had folded. A box ten feet away imploded without a sound.
None of them spoke for a long time.
What Comes Next
The mutations had bloomed.
But so had the war.
Beasts claimed forests.
Zombies built nests in craters.
Ascended humans rallied warbands and ruled over camps like lords.
And scattered among them were survivors, whispering tales of monsters that spoke like prophets, children that bent fire, and rain that still fell in places — black and burning.
The trio moved carefully now. They spoke less. Even Chen Yu's jokes had an edge.
At the edge of a cliff overlooking what was once a city, now swallowed by fungus and shadow, Rui said:
"What happens when this world finishes mutating?"
Li Wei answered:
"Then it starts choosing."
Three Days Later — Outskirts of Tianshui
The rain hadn't fallen again since that night, but its fingerprints were everywhere.
A field once used for soybean farming had turned into a graveyard of petrified trees, each twisted into bone-like spires. The air smelled like rust and rotting citrus. A herd of deer passed them in silence, but their antlers pulsed faintly like heartbeats, and their eyes were completely white.
Chen Yu didn't even joke.
"That's… new."
Rui whispered, "They're watching us. They've been following for half a day."
"They?" Li Wei asked.
"The deer," Rui said. "The one in front… he's the smart one."
The deer blinked once. Then all of them turned, in unison, and walked away.
Li Wei had no words for it.
By nightfall, they reached a survivor outpost rumored to be safe — Camp Zao. Smoke curled from chimneys. Music drifted faintly from speakers powered by salvaged solar panels. Men stood on guard with rifles, some even in patched military gear.
It felt like a miracle.
It wasn't.
They were welcomed warmly at first. A woman named Auntie Lin offered food. A teenager named Bo asked Rui if she knew any songs. Chen Yu played dice with a group of ex-miners and won a knife, a watch, and a mango.
Li Wei stayed quiet. Something was off.
It was on the third night that the truth came out.
Bo never blinked. Auntie Lin never slept. The soldiers never reloaded.
At 3:00 a.m., Rui sat up straight and said, "They're Hollowed. I can smell the rot."
One of the guards stepped into their hut. Smiled. His jaw unhinged too wide.
"We let you rest," he said. "Now you stay."
Li Wei reached for his machete. Rui moved faster.
What followed wasn't a battle. It was a massacre.
The Hollowed were strong — coordinated, like puppets sharing a single master — but they weren't expecting three apex wanderers.
When the last one fell, twitching in firelight, Chen Yu wiped blood from his neck and whispered, "So much for the mango."
Whispers in the Wild
As they continued eastward, word of them began to spread.
They passed a trader caravan whose leader bowed and offered dried meat and maps without asking for trade. "They say you killed a dozen Ascended with one look," he said. "They say the girl controls wolves. They say your blood burns the undead."
Rui cocked her head. "We did none of that."
Chen Yu grinned. "Yet."
A Rift Begins
But something else grew with them. Not just powers.
Tension.
Rui had started wandering off at night, alone, and not always coming back clean.
Chen Yu had started talking to himself. Not like a joke. Like conversations.
And Li Wei — he began dreaming. In the dreams, he stood in a white chamber. A man with no face offered him a throne. Every night, the man came closer. Every night, the throne grew taller.
He told no one.
Not yet.
One Night Under a Dying Sky
They made camp under the remains of a crashed satellite dish. Rui sat cleaning her claws — yes, claws now — while Chen Yu burned ants with flicks of static from his palm.
Li Wei stood watching the stars. One of them blinked. Then moved.
A moment later, they all heard the scream.
It didn't come from the forest. Or the sky. It came from inside them.
They dropped to their knees, clutching their skulls.
Then it passed.
Chen Yu coughed, wheezing. "What the hell was that?"
Rui sat up slowly. "I think… it was the Packborn. They're broadcasting."
"Broadcasting what?" Li Wei asked.
She looked up. "Dominance."
The Spiral Begins
In the distance, the Ascended had begun rallying cities under banners of "restoration."
The Hollowed were forming hives. Cities of infection.
And the Packborn? They were converging. Following migration lines like ancient wolves. They left behind only signs — howls that lasted too long, trees bent unnaturally, bloodless corpses curled in fetal position.
Between all of them stood the trio — the last unpredictable variable.
And as Chen Yu built a slingshot that fired electrified glass shards and Rui whispered to a tree until it bowed slightly toward her — Li Wei remembered something Rui had once said.
"What happens when the world finishes mutating?"
Now he had an answer.
"Then we find out who owns it."