Star Odyssey

Lu Yin

Noxious fumes billowed out from the countless cracks that marred the beaten earth, forming a black veil that obscured the red sunset.
Tens of thousands of fearful faces trudged forward on a muddy path, their constant sobs accented by the echoing screams of those who fell into the cracks.
This river of despair was nominally guarded by a group of cultivators, once-normal people who had now become unimaginably powerful beings half a year after the Apocalypse struck Earth.
They were positioned along the path, each a set distance from the previous, and each responsible for their own section.

Near the back of this large group, Lu Yin suddenly looked up towards a large, burning tree in the distance.
A hair-raising sound of flesh being ground apart filled the air before being quickly followed by a loud howl.
Then, just moments later, a two-meter-long hound with scarlet pupils charged at the group.
Many panicked and screamed at the grisly sight of its large jaws dripping with fresh blood, but Lu Yin’s will remained unflustered as he grabbed an odd weapon hanging from his waist.
It seemed to be just a metal rod, but were it sharpened enough, it could eventually become a blade.
He jumped forward and smashed the beast’s head wide open with a single heavy swing, dyeing the nearby grass red with blood.
Only after the group witnessed the wild hound’s death did they regain a modicum of calm and quell their fears enough to resume walking.

“Seems like it won’t be long now,” Lu Yin muttered under his breath as he gazed at the cracks that covered his weapon.

The last traces of daylight soon slipped underneath the horizon, prompting the cultivators to halt the procession.
Each one then lit a bonfire for those under their care, a meager measure taken in the hopes of frightening away any mutant beasts.
Walking in the darkness was certain death.

“Third team from the rear, head out and start looking for food sources.
Limit the search radius to one kilometer,” Lu Yin said through his communicator; his personal identification number was 103.
After glancing thoughtfully at the fresh carcass of the hound that he had just killed, he hoisted it up and unceremoniously tossed it to his group.

“Eat.”

Several men moved forward from the group when they received his command.
They soon set to work, exquisitely carving the beast apart so as to roast it, not even wincing once at the strips of human flesh that they had to work around.
There was only enough meat for twenty-odd people, however, so Lu Yin grabbed his weapon and headed out to find more.

The squelches of his boot trudging through the mud didn’t stop even once, but glowing green eyes lit up in the darkness to stare at him.
These were mutant mice; although they were unbearable to look at, they were at least edible.
Lu Yin killed about a dozen of them before he obtained enough to feed his group, at which point he returned.
Another piercing scream informed him that a fellow cultivator had died, but he had no desire to try to save them; nobody knew what dangers lurked in the darkness, and venomous snakes, infectious mosquitos, and even enormous rats that could chew through metal were common in this areas.

Lu Yin returned to a mute group that was huddled behind the bonfire, as though the pitiful flames would protect them from the countless dangers around them.
His gaze shifted towards the dazzling stars in the clear night sky that were no longer polluted by the light and smog of human industry.
Of course, that clarity had come with the cost of the mutant beasts’ arrival.

And mutant humans, too.

Nobody knew just what had triggered it, nor how it had happened to the entire world in just one night.
All sorts of creatures had mutated into deadly beasts, and many humans had similarly lost their minds and become walking zombies without a hint of rationality.
Those that survived saw a marginal boost to their own strength; while that alone wasn’t significant, they had also gained the ability to grow stronger by eating the energy cores of the newly emerged mutant creatures.
These survivors had renamed themselves “cultivators.” The world then seemed to regress into ancient times, where the law of the jungle ruled supreme.
Lu Yin had personally witnessed the explosions that had destroyed all of the modern weapons and munitions in his city; it was almost as though this new world order would not allow the existence of such advanced technology.

A soft gust of wind then drew Lu Yin’s attention to a blood-soaked newspaper fluttering under a stone, which he picked up to read:

‘February 3rd, 2200.This day shall be recorded in the annals of history as the day that Chinese Air Force 5 landed on Neptune.
The first member of the crew to set foot on the gas giant was Bai Qian…’

Lu Yin tossed the newspaper away when a little girl tottered up and carefully handed him a barbecued meat drumstick.
He smiled at her as he said, “Thank you.”

Lu Yin contentedly swallowed the hot meat down as the little girl smiled and ran back to the group.
The meat was difficult to push down even with the overpowering seasoning, but it was a good source of energy.
He suddenly pounded his rod down onto the ground as the bonfire flickered, killing a toxic mantis that had tried to leap through the flames and attack the group.
These insects could devastate a group if they succeeded; their blades that shone among the flames were no weaker than his own weapon.
Lu Yin only got two hours of rest over the course of the entire night, as he had to kill a dozen mutants that tried to rush through the flames and attack the group.
However, the other groups didn’t have someone like him protecting them.
Another group consisting of a dozen cultivators and even more survivors were all massacred by a single mutant boar.
The creature’s tough hide was covered in bristling spikes that could be shot out at will, and every volley reaped multiple lives.
Several stronger nearby cultivators had to join forces to subdue it lest it cause even more casualties.

Still, the sun eventually rose and the group continued its southward march towards the city of Jinlin.
This city was the largest rallying point in the surrounding region, and many soldiers and cultivators called it their home.
Amongst them was Zhou Shan the Executioner, one of the Seven Sages.
In the six months after the Apocalypse, the human race had used what limited information it had to construct a rough ranking system for cultivators.
Someone who had just swallowed their first energy cores were unclassified, and those who had gained the power to crush them were in the Realm of Man.
Above that was the Realm of Earth.
Cultivators at this level could destroy entire cities with ease, but there was still one realm above them.
Those in the Realm of Sky could take to the skies at will; perhaps it was due to their terrifying power in battle or maybe it was due to their role as guardians, but they were known as Sages.
The Seven Sages were the seven individuals in China who had reached this realm.

The overall group was now only a hundred or so miles away from Jinlin, a distance that would have