From Apocalypse To Entertainment Circle (BL)-Chapter 150: Extra V: Mankind

It was the beginning of the end of the world.

The beginning of terror and devastation.

When it began, it felt as if the very gates of Hell had been flung wide open, unleashing not just searing flames and thick clouds of acrid smoke, but also every unimaginable nightmare that humankind had ever dreaded. Shadows twisted and writhed in the chaos, whispering forgotten fears while the air grew thick with a palpable sense of dread. It was a cataclysm of terror, as if the darkest corners of the human psyche had been laid bare, flooding the world with every unspeakable horror that haunted our collective conscience.

From that moment on, humanity’s days of peace vanished.

The dreadful cries of the dying spread across the continents like a symphony of horror—an orchestra conducted by the grim hand of fate itself. The wails of men, women, and children rose with the thunder of collapsing cities, the roar of breaking earth, the endless shrieks of winds that tore steel from stone.

Natural and man-made disasters erupted with unstoppable force.

Earthquakes shattered lands that had stood firm for millennia. Tsunamis swallowed entire coastlines, drowning towns and villages in a single night. Volcanoes that had slumbered for ages erupted with fury, pouring rivers of fire across the earth. In the skies above, storms raged endlessly, lightning striking like divine punishment, reducing mountains to rubble.

And mankind’s own creations betrayed them. Power plants melted down, contaminating both land and air. Skyscrapers collapsed in dominoes of steel and glass. Dams burst open, unleashing devastation across the valleys below. The world itself, both natural and human-made, became an unrelenting executioner.

From the very first day, and for seven unbroken years, the calamities raged.

Seven years in which the number of humanity—and of all living beings—was reduced to less than a quarter of what it once had been. Seven years in which crops withered in poisoned soil, rivers ran black with death, and the sky never cleared of ash and smoke.

It was the most profound crisis humanity had ever encountered. Extinction loomed ominously at the threshold, her ghostly hand gently rapping on the door, as if to herald the end of an era.

And even when all the world’s scientists gathered together, sharing what remained of their research and technology, they still failed to find a solution. No machine could tame the storms, no invention could heal the poisoned earth, no medicine could prevent the wasting deaths that claimed millions.

That was when the second calamity began.

After their efforts to save the planet had failed, the scientists turned their focus elsewhere. If the world itself could not be preserved, then perhaps mankind could. If nature would not bend, then humanity would adapt.

They sought ways to strengthen the human body.

They crossed boundaries that should never have been touched, unraveling the fragile threads of ethics that once bound civilization together.

They began conducting human experimentation.

Many were killed in the name of discovering a method to preserve what little remained of the human race.

They combined human genes with those of animals, twisting the very blueprint of life. They harvested the mysterious black mist that had shrouded the planet since the first day of the Great Catastrophe—an otherworldly fog that devoured flesh and corroded metal. Condensed into a liquid, mixed with countless substances, it was injected into human test subjects.

What followed was nothing less than a massacre.

Yes. A massacre, justified in the name of saving humanity.

Scientific research demanded human and animal corpses. It demanded resources in the form of both adults and children. The number of graves dug was countless, and many never received graves at all.

In time, creatures emerged—neither human nor beast. Grotesque. Horrifying. Monstrous. Their eyes glowed with inhuman light, their limbs twisted and unnatural, their voices echoes of agony. They prowled the ruins like predators born from nightmares, feeding on anything that moved.

And still, the scientists did not stop. On the contrary, they pressed forward, refining their experiments to make the abominations stronger—strong enough to endure the terrifying world that had risen from the ruins. Strong enough to withstand famine, storms, and endless disasters.

For the catastrophes had destroyed everything. Lakes of fresh water dried into cracked wastelands. Rivers turned to poison, leaving only skeletal fish and bloated corpses adrift upon their surface. Mighty dams that once fed millions now stood as monuments of concrete and ruin, their bellies empty and useless.

In the eyes of the researchers, there was only one path forward: to create beings who could survive without food or water—beings who might become superhuman.

At last, after countless trials, they succeeded.

But their "success" was nothing more than another horror.

The first generation of transformed humans numbered in the millions. Yet when the world beheld them, no one dared call them human any longer. They were twisted beyond recognition—skin hardened like a carapace, jaws lined with jagged fangs, their minds fractured until nothing remained of the people they once were.

And the scientists cared little.

When these beings were killed, their corpses were often left unburned. Failed "experiments" were tossed into ravines, into oceans, into mass graves that stank for miles.

The result?

Another catastrophe. But this time, it was not born of nature’s wrath. This was the fruit of human arrogance and recklessness.

Some of the creatures did not die.

Somehow, they fused with other corpses, becoming abominations beyond the definition of "living." They grew stronger with every death, feeding upon rot and ruin, their bodies swelling into grotesque forms that no weapon could wholly destroy.

They became demons—escaped from Hell itself—driven by vengeance, set on devouring and destroying all that stood before them.

Experiments on animals created monsters even more terrifying. Wolves the size of horses, crows with wingspans that blotted out the sun, serpents that could coil around entire buildings.

Those born of humans were worse still. For they carried cunning, memory, and fragments of reason. Imagine the disaster when the two kinds met—monstrous beasts and corrupted humans—clashing, merging, spawning terrors without number.

And yet, after suffering attack after attack from these monstrosities, did the scientists stop?

No.

Did human greed falter?

Never.

When they saw that these creatures could not be defeated—could not be slain, not even when reduced to ash, for they always returned with full strength—their madness only deepened. They sought to grant humans that very same power and resilience, but without the loss of their humanity or their memories.

It was a near-impossible challenge.

But there were always subjects to experiment on.

A multitude of homeless children roam the streets, frail and vulnerable adolescents stripped of family ties and the security of a safe haven. They navigate a harsh reality, battling the elements and the indifference of a shattered world, fighting daily for their survival amidst the shadows of neglect and despair.

Why children and youths?

Because results came faster, their bodies transformed quickly, and their strength increased rapidly. But many of their fragile forms exploded under the strain of forces they could not contain. Others were overtaken by the animal genes spliced into them, becoming terrifying hybrids without human reason—driven only by instinct, by the hunger to survive and hunt.

In a world without law or nations, the strong gave their approval for such research institutes to exist. They funded them, they protected them, and when the scientists demanded more subjects, they provided them—by kidnapping, by force, by blood. Some sought greater power. Others dreamed of becoming kings over this ruined earth.

And so the cycle of horror continued.

As for Kira...

After years of running and surviving, she had eaten earthworms more than once just to stay alive. She had drunk rainwater from broken glass, stolen moldy bread from corpses, and hidden for days in the carcasses of ruined buildings. Even after the emergence of those terrifying beasts, she refused to surrender.

She had survived countless brushes with death, almost becoming a meal for one of the hell-spawned demons. Her body bore scars of battles she should never have faced, her eyes the haunted gleam of one who had seen too much.

But perhaps her luck had finally run dry.

One day, she was captured.

Dragged from the ruins where she slept, bound and beaten, she was taken hostage—delivered to a private research institute hidden deep beneath the earth. Its walls smelled of antiseptic and blood, its halls echoed with screams muffled by steel doors.

It was there that her life changed for the third time.

It was there that she gained much—and lost even more.

And it was there that she met her commander.

Yes. Kira met Sian when she was nothing more than an experimental subject.

And Sian, of course, had also been kidnapped—just like her—chosen to be used as a test subject for the madmen who called themselves scientists.

Two of them were thrown into the jaws of despair.

Two souls bound not by choice, but by the cruelty of the world.

And neither of them yet knew...

That their meeting was the spark destined to ignite a fire greater than any catastrophe the earth had yet endured.