Chapter 1: Ninth Fortress

She should be dead.

She lay flat in an unsealed coffin of a grave, her view framed into a rectangle by the pit’s edges. Opening her eyes, she saw only the overcast gray sky, with countless fine black-charcoal particles drifting in the air.

Strange—these particles were visible to the naked eye, flowing and slipping into her nostrils with every breath. They stung harshly, irritating the mucous membranes of her airways and sending itchy, painful signals like a rough brush scraping her throat, evoking the disgusting sensation of caterpillars crawling over skin.

She coughed instinctively.

It was restrained, but the cough echoed terrifyingly loud. The surroundings were too silent; any sound was infinitely amplified, making her wonder if there were no living things around at all.

“An He.”

In a daze, she heard someone calling her name.

“An He!”

There it was again—the woman’s persistent murmur clung to her ear, as if trying to burrow into her brain. An He quickly raised her hand to cover her ear and snapped, “Shut up!”

Even after hearing this voice countless times, An He still got goosebumps.

She had just had the dream again. The aftereffects of the nightmare lingered.

For three years, she kept having the same dream: a faceless woman standing in dim fog, her flesh gradually oozing pus and rotting away. She neither begged for help nor struggled, simply standing calmly, murmuring An He’s name in a low tone until she became a complete skeleton.

It was eerie, like some evil forbidden technique.

Every night’s dream was nearly identical, always cutting off abruptly. Over time, An He could even quickly spot the new wounds on the skeleton’s phalanges and ulna compared to the previous night.

It was alive.

An He had gradually grown accustomed to this bizarre occurrence, but just before she woke up moments ago, the dream had changed.

She recalled how the skeleton in the dream seemed to sprout fresh flesh, breaking through the fog and walking toward her. The dream’s eeriness peaked—every second, the skeleton’s form shifted like a lump of clay being endlessly reshaped, finally settling into a tall, young woman.

An He finally saw her face clearly.

The woman wore a fiery red silk blouse, its cuffs tied tight, the hem neatly tucked into a waist-cinched pair of black trousers. Her hair was thick and flaxen, slightly curly, falling naturally behind her, accentuating her pale skin. Those rare azure eyes gazed gently at An He, still murmuring her name.

It was a soft whisper, and the woman had never acted to harm An He—in fact, she seemed utterly harmless and affectionate—yet An He instinctively sensed danger closing in.

Perhaps it was the two rusty metal clasps hanging from the leather of her waistband, perfect for sheathing knives.

Or maybe it was the rough scratches on her black boots, marks left from trudging through countless gravel.

Overwhelmed by intense unease, An He tensed up even in the dream.

But she couldn’t move; in the dream, she had no control over her actions.

The woman, however, moved freely, slowly circling behind An He, brushing aside her hair and hovering ambiguously near her ear, testing her limits. The murmuring voice was like a seductive incantation—each call of her name pulled An He’s mind deeper into a haze.

Come to me. Warm breath seeped through her skin straight to the crown of her head, yanking An He between signals of danger and intoxication, a novel form of torment.

Come find me…

Even after waking, An He could still hear the woman’s voice.

Who is she?

An He’s mouth was parched. She stared silently at the gloomy sky, patiently waiting for the auditory hallucination to fade until she heard nothing. Only then did she shake off the thin layer of dirt on her body and climb out of the one-person-deep pit.

An He should thank this bizarre dream.

After three years of panic, anxiety, breakdown, and eventual resigned calm, her tolerance had grown much higher.

Now, no matter how strange things got, she could maintain a surprisingly cool head.

Like right now: just past her twenty-third birthday, she woke from a coma to find herself in a grave pit.

Absurd.

There was a faint aura of death.

An He had confirmed countless times—she was sick.

Vivid dreams, auditory hallucinations, visions, comas, talking to herself. She had all the makings of severe mental illness, even without a hospital diagnosis.

Whatever… I’m here now.

The pit was high. An He dug her fingers into the edge’s soil and clambered out with hands and feet, exerting some effort.

She took in her surroundings: a barren plain where the entire world was shrouded in thick gray fog, as if all color had been filtered out, leaving only blacks and grays.

The exertion made her inhale more black particles, burning her chest cavity. She realized these dust motes were toxic—and they drifted everywhere across the wasteland.

No creatures, no sounds, except for a patch of withered forest straight ahead, its skeletal branches clawing desperately at the sky.

This was no longer the world she knew.

Where is this?

Her lungs began to ache. An He pondered her situation on the spot—the priority was dealing with the air’s discomfort, then figuring out where she was.

She picked up a sharp stone, sliced her short-sleeved shirt’s sleeve, and tied it around her head over her nose to filter some dust.

She still wore the clothes from before her coma: black short-sleeve tee, pure cotton casual pants—the cake stains on them were gone. The bad news? She was barefoot. Her soles quickly bruised purple on the rocky ground.

An He wiggled her toes to dodge the sharper stones.

She wasn’t entirely unafraid; it was just that compared to the torment of nightmares and comas, arriving in an unknown world felt like a release.

Strange—the air here reeked, the atmosphere was eerie, yet it inexplicably calmed An He. Like gears finally slotting into place, meshing and turning. It made her wonder if she had always belonged to this barren land.

Something stirred in the forest.

An He caught a flash of red in her peripheral vision.

She was now one hundred percent sure she’d gone mad.

The red-clothed woman from her dream moments ago now stood amid the blackened trees, like a fiery fox. A gentle smile played on her face as she beckoned to An He.

An He saw the woman’s lips move silently, but she knew without doubt that she was calling her name.

Playing ghostly tricks!

Barefoot, An He charged forward.

The cotton cloth over her face hindered her breathing, sharp pain stabbed her soles, but she ran faster—this was good. She could move, unlike in the dream where she was paralyzed. Whether hallucination, hysteria, or ghost, since she could move, she’d grab this woman, throttle her neck, and demand why she wouldn’t leave her alone, why she’d driven a perfectly fine young woman insane.

Worst case, they’d go down together!

The red-clothed woman noticed An He’s charge, a flicker of surprise crossing her face. She swept her curly hair from her shoulder to her back, then leaned against a tree with arms crossed, a intrigued smile blooming.

Seeing that smile spiked An He’s unease again.

Just looking at that face triggered danger signals in her mind.

An He closed the distance, finally stepping over the withered forest’s boundary. Here, the dust particles were thicker; the already dim light was further blocked by the towering dead trees, visibility plummeting.

As she approached, the woman turned and slipped into the woods, vanishing in a blink.

An He barely saw how she disappeared.

She had to halt, her chest heaving violently from the run, her throat burning worse with each gasp.

Scanning around, the forest enclosed her—no sign of the woman. Deeper in, and she’d be lost.

An He didn’t plunge ahead rashly. She tried to backtrack along her footprints to the wasteland.

The empty woods amplified the lonely atmosphere. An He thought that aside from that woman, this land seemed devoid of surviving humans.

No—that woman didn’t seem fully human at all.

As if to refute her, after just two steps, two figures appeared by the dead trees ahead, moving in tandem.

An He’s first thought: weird. The pair wore heavy burlap garments like shawls wrapped around them, hooding their heads completely. Twine belts cinched their waists; hands and feet were bound in black cloth strips, no skin visible.

Spotting An He, they turned and approached.

They were unnaturally thin—side-on, they looked like paper silhouettes, the burlap hanging limp without bulk. Yet they moved swiftly and steadily. Up close, through her cloth mask, An He caught a whiff of intense rotten stench.

She realized with a jolt—that wasn’t a normal human smell.

Too late.

One seized her bare wrist. Bony and emaciated, yet iron-strong, like steel clamps digging into her skin, the pressure agonizing.

An He recoiled in shock, her free hand instinctively prying to free herself—futile. The other blocked her, grabbing her remaining hand. It made garbled noises from its mouth, like a shattered windpipe unable to form words.

In the struggle, a seam opened in its burlap—An He glimpsed its eyes.

Never had she seen eyes so bulging, like a dead fish’s, the surrounding muscles dark and rotting, flecked with white—exposed bone or maggots, she couldn’t tell.

Death’s threat crashed down. This was a new terror, not the mental kind from before, but raw peril from a Mutant Creature. Her wrist bones felt like snapping.

Next would be her skull, her flesh—all devoured by these horrors.

Scream for help here? Would anyone come?

Of course not!

The only other person in these woods was the red-clothed woman. An He didn’t count on her for rescue.

Desperation fueled her courage. She twisted her captured wrist, fingers splaying to grip its arm, yanking hard toward her while kicking at its lower abdomen. If that failed, teeth next.

She landed it—both hand and foot. Her bare sole hit something rigid through the burlap, like a pelvis bone. The force tore black cloth from its hand, revealing a highly rotted arm bone.

An He’s fingertips still clutched the strip; her body hair stood on end. She’d never seen anything so decayed yet mobile—ulcerated skin hung like rags on bone, flesh crumbling away with the yank.

Just a skeleton frame left.

No wonder so thin.

Zombie?

An He wasn’t sure—traditional zombies didn’t walk so normally or act so agile.

Her move enraged it. A stinging slash hit her wrist—the Mutant Creature’s hand bones raked like claws, breaking skin.

At once, both emitted meaningless roars. The silent woods erupted: guttural swallows echoed from all sides, mixed with human-like murmurs.

The forest came alive.

More monsters emerged.

They come in packs.

Realizing this, An He mentally sentenced herself to death. Only one option left.

“Help!!!”

She flung the cloth strip, bellowing at full volume. Luckily, she wasn’t far from the boundary. Shouting, she tensed and bolted for the wasteland.

Her voice rang steady and loud. If she didn’t make it, dying here was a fitting end.

She’d said it before—her acceptance was high.

But she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

The instant a Mutant Creature grabbed her ankle, toppling her off balance, a whoosh of air sliced past her scalp, hurtling backward into the woods.

It was a bullet speeding from outside the forest.

The bullet struck right between the Mutant Creature’s eyebrows. Then, starting from that point on its forehead, it burst into flames. A thick stench of gasoline filled the air, and moments later, An He clearly saw the creature clutching her turn into a writhing fireball.

It still gripped her left foot tightly, and the flames spread along the rags on its hand to her pant leg.

An He grimaced and stomped fiercely at the burning hand with her right foot. Blisters formed on her sole from the heat, but she finally broke free. She rolled on the ground, smothering the fire on her pant leg with dirt.

In the midst of her desperate self-rescue, dozens of bullets whistled past her body, striking the Mutant Creatures gathering in the forest with one hundred percent accuracy. Not a single shot was wasted.

The roar of a car engine sounded from outside, tires grinding against the sandy ground and kicking up clouds of dust. An He looked up to see a strange vehicle parked on the wasteland beyond—a modified off-road rig, but with an ironclad trailer hitched behind it. Six massive tires bristled with steel spikes, and the front off-roader was reduced to a bare skeleton frame, with someone mounting a gun on the steel rigging.

Those custom bullets continued to fire methodically from the muzzle.

An He couldn’t stand up. The bullets weren’t aimed at her, but they showed no regard for her presence either. If she lifted her body any higher, she’d end up just like the creatures behind her.

An He bent her elbows and crawled out of the Withered Forest.

At some point, the gunfire stopped. Someone leaped from the off-roader, heavy boots kicking up gravel and sand, followed by the sound of running footsteps. An He raised her head and saw a red-haired woman with wheat-colored skin standing before her.

The woman’s outfit was downright bizarre, and her build was imposing. A dust-filtering cloth wrapped her mouth and nose, her faded denim jacket had sleeves cinched tight and patched with jagged metal scraps. The tank top underneath was frayed at the edges, while her left arm and cargo pants were bound with bulky metal contraptions. Even her boot toes were studded with barbs.

Who puts barbs on their shoes? One kick from those would leave five bloody gashes.

The woman tugged down the gray burlap scarf around her neck for a better look at the person sprawled on the ground. As she did, a grimy Band-Aid on her left cheekbone came into view. An He realized this was a genuine human—her skin intact, no rotting flesh sloughing off.

But the woman bore countless scars on her face and hands, marks of battles fought and years weathered. The bandages wrapped around her wounds were filthy and loosely tied, radiating raw, unpolished ferocity.

She sized An He up and down, then raised her hand. Click—she chambered a round.

The black, menacing barrel pressed precisely against the center of An He’s forehead.

An He noticed the woman’s eyes. There was no trace of sympathy or kindness for a fellow survivor in that gaze. It was the look of someone staring down an alien.

Perhaps, probably, maybe, An He thought, I’m going to die again.