The Upper Zintha, capital of the world before the fall, looked from afar like a metallic god sleeping atop the earth. Skyscrapers so tall they blocked the sky, energy grids tearing across the horizon like veins, massive constructs moving without drivers, without souls—as if the city itself were a living organism, breathing, consuming, excreting.
Deep within one of the laboratories of the forbidden organization A.C.E.S., stood Dr. Ray Yu, genius of bioengineering, alone before a holographic screen, watching as spiritual particles—known as Daowei—pierced human DNA. This wasn't just an experiment… it was a challenge to creation, to fate, to god.
His weary eyes gazed at the results, but he saw beyond numbers. He saw a human being reborn—or cursed into existence.
"We create gods…" he whispered with a broken voice, "then discard them at the first fracture."
The door opened silently, and his wife, Liu Xuan, entered, holding their sleeping daughter, Ray Lia. The child glowed from within, her translucent skin pulsing with a pure light unseen by human eyes since the fall of the ancient bloodlines. She wasn't just a girl... she was the embodiment of pure energy—a Dao unseen in any spiritual record for thousands of years.
Liu Xuan, her voice heavy with worry, said, "The Dao is not a machine, Ray… it's a soul. And you… you're breaking."
But he said nothing. He had no words left to speak. He knew his daughter was not just a child… but a key. A key to something greater or to catastrophe.
A week later, all his glory was gone. An internal investigation at A.C.E.S. was issued in an unappealable format.
Ray Yu, accused of crossing ethical boundaries and tampering with human genetics to create "bodies capable of hosting gods," was stripped of all titles and permissions. The punishment was not execution it was exile. A death in disguise, to a forgotten village at the foot of the Lang Qi mountains, where there was no electricity, no surveillance—only him, his wife, his daughter… and regret.
And there, in a simple wooden hut, Ray tried to be a father. Not a scientist. Not a creator. Just a man. He chopped wood and gathered herbs. Liu cooked and sang. Lia would draw strange circles on the floor no one understood.
And that night… the sky fell.
They were not ordinary meteors. They were black stone beings, descending at terrifying speed, each carrying within it a cosmic rupture. Major cities burned. Satellites went dark as if someone had blown them out. The earth turned against itself.
As always, Ray was outside when he saw the first flame fall across the horizon. He heard one explosion. Then another. Then the scream of the earth splitting.
He ran to the hut. Threw the door open.
"Stay here!" he shouted, tears in his eyes, his heart pounding against his ribs like it wanted to flee. "I won't let anything touch you!"
But fate does not negotiate.
A flaming rock crashed near the hut. One moment separated the promise… from the blast.
Fire. Splintering wood. Air sucked from lungs. Then silence.
"Daaaad!!" A lone scream pierced everything.
Ray crawled through the wreckage, his hands bleeding, skin peeling from the heat, searching through the ashes.
All he found was Lia's eye, burned, staring at him with the stillness of death. Beside it, his wife's ring glimmered in the soot.
He fell to his knees. He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He just… shattered.
His hands clawed at the ground in desperation, as if seeking an excuse, a miracle, a reason—until they struck something sharp and alive.
A black meteor shard, bleeding thick red blood, warm as if alive. Before he could think, the blood entered his skin, flowed through his veins, and expanded inside him like a storm.
He screamed. This time, with everything human left in him.
Every Dao within him tore apart. His energy twisted. His emotions choked.
And he broke.
Then… something else was born.
The next day, a scout unit arrived at the village's location. They found no village. Only ash. Only blackened earth reeking of burnt flesh and curses forged from dust.
In their report, they wrote:
"No survivors. No structures intact. No signs of any natural biological life. Only… a sea of corpses."
But they saw him.
A massive entity, flying over the ruins, with wings of flesh and horns that bled fire. His face disfigured—half human, half… unnameable. His eyes were red, glowing with pure hatred, and his chest pulsed with a Dao that didn't belong to this world.
One of them asked, "Is that… a dragon?"
The other replied, "No… that's an End."
And thus, the secret record stated:
Name: Red Annihilation Dragon
Classification: Unclassified
Origin: Human — Dr. Ray Yu
Status: Existential Threat
Code: Annihilation has begun.