A massive correlation map gradually appeared on the ground.

  Kane crouched on the floor, sketching it out stroke by stroke.

  His movements were slow and deliberate, as if he were completing a work of art.

  Lines, circles, arrows, names, locations, question marks. Some areas were crossed out and rewritten; in others, the charcoal marks overlapped until they were nearly illegible. He held a fragment of pink stone in his hand, his fingertips covered in dust.

  He had been drawing for nearly two hours.

  The reason was simple—he felt his mind was cluttered with too many fragments. If he didn't pour them out and look at them together, he would miss vital clues.

  Old Tock’s death. The shadow of Kunlun Corp. Andrew Zoe. The illicit deals within Blackrock Town. The fall of the Iron Hand Gang. The Stoneborn. The Bounty Hunter Guild. And the Five-Star Soul Seal in his palm...

  It was too much. Each event was a headache on its own, but as he began to think deeper, he realized these matters were not isolated at all.

  They were interwoven like a spiderweb, each silk thread connected to something much larger at the other end.

  Something far bigger than this gods-forsaken town.

  He took a deep breath and fixed his gaze on the top of the waterproof tarp. There, he had drawn a thick horizontal line. Above the line, he wrote two words:

  Planet Bit.

  "From the top," he whispered to himself.

  The history of this planet was something almost everyone in the wasteland knew to some extent. Different regions told different versions, but the general framework was the same.

  A long time ago—no one was sure exactly how long, some said eight hundred years, others a thousand—a highly advanced human civilization existed on Planet Bit. The Old World.

  That world had massive cities, a global transportation network, and technology that could reach the heavens or the depths of the earth. The Great Library, the ruins of the super-metropolis beneath the Iron Grave, the chips and electronic components buried in the Silicon Deserts—these were all the bones left behind by the Old World.

  Then, the Valr arrived.

  They came from the sky. An alien colonial fleet, carrying technology far superior to humanity’s, attempting to seize Planet Bit.

  Humanity fought back.

  Kane drew a massive explosion symbol beneath the horizontal line and wrote two words next to it: The Great Extinction.

  The war ended in mutual destruction. Humanity activated the global nuclear weapons network, scorching the entire surface of the planet. The crust shifted, the atmosphere was ravaged, the oceans changed color, and civilization was reduced to ash.

  Humanity was nearly wiped out.

  The Valr were also nearly wiped out.

  But the word "nearly" was precisely the problem.

  He drew three branching lines beneath the explosion symbol, pointing in three directions.

  On the left, he drew a square and wrote: Ark Kunlun.

  On the right, he drew another square: Ark Arctic.

  Toward the bottom center, he drew a question mark.

  Three Arks. This was the "Embers Preservation Project" created by humanity before the Great Extinction. Three giant shelters, carrying the final seeds of mankind, descended underground.

  But when humanity re-emerged onto the surface one hundred and fifty years ago, only two Arks had opened their doors—Kunlun and Arctic.

  The third one—no one knew where it was. No one knew if it still existed. Even its name only appeared occasionally in surviving Old World archives. Most people didn't even know a third one existed.

  Kane stared at that question mark for a few seconds, but didn't dwell on it. He couldn't control those things.

  He shifted his focus back to the left and right sides.

  The Kunlun Faction.

  Kane began to expand the section beneath the square on the left.

  The descendants of Ark Kunlun were currently the largest human faction in the wasteland. Their core city was the "Iron Grave," built upon the ruins of an Old World megacity. Kane had never been there, but he had heard far too many descriptions—a three-dimensional, cyberpunk monolith.

  At the top was the Spire, housing corporate lords and high society. In the middle was the Waist City, where ordinary citizens, merchants, and mercenaries scraped out a living. Below that lay the Undercity and the Scrapyards.

  Kane was from the Undercity.

  He knew all too well what it was like.

  Power within the Kunlun Faction wasn't held by a single individual; instead, it was fractured among several forces. He drew two branches beneath the square:

  The Augmented.

  The Purists.

  The Augmented, as the name implied, believed in technological evolution. Cybernetics, mechs, neural links—they viewed the human flesh as a shackle, believing that only through technology could one grow stronger. The core of the Augmented consisted of several mega-corporations, the two largest being "Genesis Dynamics" and "Kunlun Corp."

  Genesis Dynamics handled cybernetics. From street-grade, crude mechanical arms to top-tier full-body replacements, their product lines covered every tier. It was said that the CEO of Genesis, Karen Vance, was a full-body "post-human" with almost no original parts remaining.

  Kunlun Corp focused on mobile fortresses and heavy ordnance. Their boss, Nemo Titan, was a refined middle-aged man who wore glasses and allegedly bore almost no traces of cybernetic enhancement. Yet, the machines he built could crush a town. Kunlun Corp had been relentlessly driving the development of mobile fortress technology, believing it was the only way for humanity to counter the Valr mechs.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  When Kane wrote the name "Kunlun Corp," his charcoal stick nearly punctured the tarp.

  That was the name.

  Old Tock’s death was inextricably linked to it.

  Commander Andrew Zoe was the man Kunlun Corp had dispatched to Blackrock Town. The things he had done here—

  Kane closed his eyes, suppressing the surging emotions.

  Now wasn't the time for that. He had to see the full picture first.

  The Purists were the complete opposite of the Augmented. They believed human bloodlines were sacred and that cybernetic modification was a desecration of the soul. Their spiritual leader was Elder Matthias, a reputedly charismatic orator who had gathered a massive following of believers terrified of technological advancement. The Purists had formed an organization called "Sons of Adam," which held significant influence among the common folk. They relied on gene-reagents to activate human potential, enhancing their martial power while preaching the doctrine of human bloodline supremacy.

  The friction between the Augmented and the Purists was long-standing, but it hadn't reached a breaking point yet. They had a common enemy.

  Surviving was more important than biting each other.

  The Arctic Legion.

  Kane shifted his gaze to the right.

  The descendants of Ark Arctic had taken a completely different path. They hadn't formed a corporate conglomerate; instead, they had established a militarized totalitarian regime—the "Humanity First Legion."

  Their leadership was a lifelong Grand Marshal. The man currently in power was Ivan Volkov. Rumor had it he was a war-hungry maniac who had crawled out of a mountain of corpses, a believer in iron and blood whose methods were exceptionally cruel.

  The core philosophy of the Arctic Legion was simple: If they aren't of our kind, they are the enemy.

  They didn't just hate the Valr; they were also hostile toward the non-human races of the Gaia Coalition. In the eyes of the Arctic Legion, humans were the only legitimate masters of this planet. Everything else either surrendered or faced extinction.

  The Arctic Legion’s stronghold was called "Polaris Bastion," built upon the skeletal remains of an Ark in the far northern ice plains. The officer corps formed the absolute ruling class, below them were the soldiers, and at the very bottom were the "Ration-Citizens"—those whose status was barely better than that of a slave.

  There was friction between the Arctic Legion and the Kunlun Faction as well. Different ideologies, conflicting interests; they couldn't stand the sight of each other.

  Kane drew a dashed line between "Kunlun Faction" and "Arctic Legion," writing above it: Limited cooperation, mutual suspicion.

  Then, he drew a large bracket over both of them, labeling it: The Human Remnant.

  A union in name only. In reality, both sides harbored their own agendas. But at the very least, when facing the outside world, they could begrudgingly pass for a single family.

  He turned his attention to the right side of the waterproof tarp.

  At a position far removed from the sphere of human influence, he drew a triangle.

  The Valr.

  The Great Extinction hadn't wiped them out entirely.

  Exactly how many Valr had survived, where they were, or how they lived—Kane didn't know. Most people in the wasteland didn't. But one thing was certain:

  They were still here.

  And their technology was superior to humanity’s.

  Kane had never encountered the Valr face-to-face. Blackrock Town was a vast distance away from their primary zones of activity. But rumors about them never ceased.

  They had mechs—faster, stronger, and more heavily armored than humanity’s Titan-class units. They possessed cybernetic technology that allegedly achieved one hundred percent symbiosis with the body, with zero rejection and no risk of cyber-psychosis—something the Augmented of Kunlun could only dream of. They had energy weapons, shield technology, and massive mobile fortresses that could traverse the wasteland with ease.

  Most terrifyingly, they possessed biological weapons specifically targeted at humans—something called "Gene-Suppression Reagents." It could lock down a human's radiation-resistance genes, causing them to be eroded alive by radiation within days.

  The Valr hated humans. It was a hatred etched into their very marrow.

  In their narrative, Planet Bit was meant to be their colony. They claimed humans had struck first—stealing their tech, destroying their base stations, and then nuking the entire planet.

  Of course, the human version was entirely different—humans were the indigenous inhabitants, and the Valr were the invaders.

  Who was telling the truth?

  Kane didn't know. He didn't care. He only cared about one fact: the Valr wanted to erase humanity from this planet. That wasn't a rumor; it was an ongoing reality.

  He wrote several keywords beneath the triangle: Technological Overlordship, Mech Legions, Mobile Fortresses, Gene-Weapons, Objective: Human Extinction.

  As for the Valr's internal structure, their leadership, or the size of their military—Kane drew a massive question mark.

  That was the extent of what public information offered. They were like a dense fog; you knew a gargantuan beast was hidden within, but you couldn't make out its silhouette.

  Finally, he looked toward the bottom of the tarp.

  There, he drew an irregular circle. Inside it, he sketched many smaller circles of varying sizes, all interconnected by lines.

  The Gaia Coalition.

  This was a power that had only emerged after the Great Extinction.

  These races didn't exist in the Old World. There were no Stoneborn, no Sylvans, none of those bizarre intelligent creatures. The Great Extinction had scorched everything to ash. Yet, for reasons unknown, after centuries of nuclear radiation and ecological collapse, new forms of life began to emerge on this planet.

  It wasn't just mutated beasts and deformed flora—there were intelligent species.

  Some resembled rock, some looked like plants, some were like mist, others like jellyfish... their forms were endlessly strange, but they possessed thought, language, and social structures.

  Kane thought of Crag.

  The Stoneborn. Giant lifeforms composed of rock, with glowing energy crystals embedded in their joints. They possessed peerless strength and staggering defensive power. Kane had fought side-by-side with Crag; he knew exactly how powerful the Stoneborn were.

  But the Stoneborn were just one race within the Gaia Coalition. How many other races were in that alliance? Kane didn't know. Ten? Twenty? More?

  He only knew these races had formed a loose confederation called the Gaia Coalition. They had a "Council of Voices" where representatives from each race gathered to deliberate. Their political and spiritual center was called the "Heart of Emerald," rumored to be hidden deep within a massive primeval forest.

  The power of the Gaia Coalition was fundamentally different from that of humanity or the Valr. They didn't pursue technology, they didn't install cybernetics, and they didn't build mechs. They referred to technology as "Dead Iron."

  Their power came from the bloodline.

  Beside the circle, Kane wrote: The Primal Path.

  Each race possessed unique bloodline abilities—elemental manipulation, beast communion, flesh-shifting, mental assaults, spatial warping... it was a kaleidoscope of powers. They called this strength "The Primal Path," believing it to be a gift bestowed by the planet itself.

  Kane looked down at his right palm.

  The Five-Star Soul Seal emitted a faint, pulsing light.

  He could absorb the abilities of these indigenous creatures.

  What path did he belong to? The Path of Technology? The Primal Path?

  Neither. Yet, he touched upon both.

  He drew a line starting from the Five-Star Soul Seal, threading it between the bracket of the Human Remnant and the circle of the Gaia Coalition. At the end of the line, he placed a question mark.

  He still didn't understand himself. But that could wait.

  Kane set down the pink stone fragment and leaned back, surveying the entire map.

  A world divided in three.

  The Human Remnant—split internally between the Kunlun Faction and the Arctic Legion. Within Kunlun, further fractures existed between the Augmented and the Purists. Each side had its own agenda, but at least they could form a cohesive fist against external threats.

  The Valr—technologically superior to humans, harboring a bone-deep hatred for humanity with the singular goal of extinction. Their exact strength was unknown, but they were certainly more powerful than the humans. They were a blade hanging over everyone's head.

  The Gaia Coalition—an alliance of new races born after the Great Extinction. They followed the bloodline route, drawing power from the planet itself. Caught between the humans and the Valr, both sides sought to win them over.

  This was the current landscape of Planet Bit.

  Three factions, three paths of power, and countless interwoven interests and vendettas.

  And then there was him. Kane. A scavenger who had crawled out of the Undercity of the Iron Grave—a "corpse dog" who had survived by picking through the scraps of the wasteland.

  His goal had only ever been one thing: to uncover the truth behind Old Tock’s death and the origin of the Five-Star Soul Seal. And... revenge.

  He stared at the words "Kunlun Corp" on the waterproof tarp, his gaze turning frigid.

  Kane picked up the pink stone and drew a heavy circle around the name Andrew Zoe.

  "I'll start with you."

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