Honkai energy spread across the globe like a silent plague.
Governments around the world reacted swiftly. Elite teams of top scientists were urgently assembled, attempting to analyze this energy known as Honkai.
The name Honkai was something they had learned from the internet.
Deep underground, at the end of the cold steel corridor inside a military base.
Hegang stood before a specially designed containment cage. His military uniform was immaculate, yet his expression was dark enough to drip with gloom.
Inside the cage, the experimental subject—who had been a living soldier not long ago—had already transformed into a "zombie" with blood-red eyes, howling incessantly.
"Evolution?..." Hegang's voice echoed through the empty confinement zone.
The experiment report coldly stated the facts: Honkai energy violently accelerated the process of life. The vast majority of humans could not withstand it—either they were annihilated instantly, or they degenerated into walking corpses.
Only a very small number of lucky individuals could cross the boundary between life and death, gaining extraordinary strength and supernatural abilities.
"Young women... the success rate is far higher than that of men?."
In a government project under his charge, those girls who had been carefully trained and brainwashed to deal with superpowered individuals had now become, in his eyes, the most "suitable" experimental materials.
But risk followed like a shadow.
Once they succeeded, would they lose control?
Would they be controlled by the enemy?
All of this was unknown.
Those "new superpowered individuals" who had stirred up an apocalyptic frenzy across the globe and caused horrifying casualties—without exception, young girls—wielded Honkai energy with astonishing mastery, as if it were innate to them.
Fragments of intelligence pieced together a chilling inference: they were very likely from the future.
Time travel was not a fantasy for superpowered individuals.
"Could it be... that we created them?" Hegang muttered.
Was it humanity's own experimental plans that ultimately gave birth to these destroyers who traversed time?
Even with brainwashing, there was no guarantee that once the test subjects obtained that inhuman power, they would continue to obey him unquestioningly.
Among the few scattered cases of success so far, every single one had ended in loss of control, rampage, and drastic personality changes.
And those girls outside... they were perfect adapters. To them, Honkai energy was as natural as breathing.
Whether they were traitors from the future or visitors from beyond the stars, their act of spreading Honkai energy—combined with their destructive assaults—pointed to only one goal: the eradication of humanity.
Returning to his office in the command center, the heavy alloy door shut out the noise of the outside world.
Hegang dropped wearily into his chair. His fingers tapped against the cold desk before he finally picked up a file marked "Top Secret" and opened it.
Inside was intelligence on the Insect Queen, Kiana, Maria, Shigure Kira, and others...
The internet had long since fallen. The enemy's virus was like an omnipresent ghost. Any connected device could become a beacon, exposing the base's coordinates and inviting devastating strikes.
In a short span of time, the balance between offense and defense had completely reversed.
The hunters who should have taken the initiative had now become rats barely surviving in the shadows.
These "new superpowered individuals" were entirely different from those of the old era.
The latter were merely ordinary people with unusual abilities, their destructive power limited.
But the former... they were masters of the art of war.
With long-range weapon systems paralyzed, they directly dismantled, reverse-engineered, and reassembled them. They even turned humanity's most terrifying creations—nuclear weapons—to their own use, detonating them in unfathomable ways and harvesting soldiers' lives.
Most despairing of all, they always remained hidden in the shadows, impossible to track.
The few individuals who occasionally revealed themselves were more like carefully arranged bait, waiting for reckless fish to take the hook.
Those who died directly to the enemy's superpowers accounted for less than one percent.
Hegang closed the file. The office sank into deathly silence.
Among the upper echelons, voices advocating for peace negotiations had begun to emerge, proposing territorial concessions and "autonomy" for superpowered individuals.
Within the military... panic was spreading.
The enemy's control of the internet meant that the information of every soldier and their families lay fully exposed before them.
"Make a move, and your entire family dies."—this invisible rule hung over everyone's head like the Sword of Damocles.
Previously, large numbers of soldiers had received detailed files containing information about their families, triggering catastrophic mutinies and internal strife.
"An eye for an eye..." Hegang rubbed his aching temples, a bitter absurdity rising in his chest.
Once upon a time, using the families of superpowered individuals as leverage had been a tactic they employed with repeated success.
Now, that double-edged sword had been driven back with precision by a stronger, colder opponent.
For the first time, Hegang felt that everything humanity had once taken pride in was unbearably fragile.
There had been no real head-on confrontation, yet it was as if they had already lost.