Prologue: The Fall

For over 200,000 years, Homo sapiens have walked the Earth, evolving into the apex of all living things. We believed ourselves to be the strongest species, rulers of this world. Over the centuries, we built towering cities, crafted advanced machines, and sent our voices echoing through the skies. With every discovery, every breakthrough, we grew more confident. Yet, despite all our progress, there were still countless mysteries we had yet to uncover—things hidden from our understanding, theories that remained unproven.

There were stories of strange creatures lurking in the deepest corners of the Earth, tales of ancient forces that had once ruled the land. But such stories were written off as myths, just the wild imagination of those who came before us. We had no reason to believe that anything beyond our own understanding existed. Humanity stood at the peak of evolution, convinced that nothing could challenge our place at the top of the food chain.

Then, one day, the unthinkable was announced.

The first signs of the approaching disaster were subtle. A strange signal was detected by observatories all over the world—faint, but unmistakable. For a while, it was dismissed as nothing more than cosmic noise, an anomaly in the fabric of space. But soon, the reports became clearer, and the magnitude of the threat was undeniable.

A meteorite was hurtling toward Earth, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. The path it followed was unlike anything predicted, bypassing every defensive measure humanity had spent years developing. Scientists, politicians, and military leaders scrambled in panic, but the truth was clear—there was no way to stop it. The impact was imminent, with only a small chance of survival for humanity. We could only wait.

The meteorite tore through the atmosphere with a roar that shook the sky. It was like a falling star, but far larger, far more terrifying. As it descended, the world held its breath, bracing for impact. Then, it hit. The shockwave of the meteorite's collision with Earth sent tremors that rattled cities, causing buildings to sway and windows to shatter.

The impact created a massive crater, a hole in the earth so deep it seemed as if the planet itself had been wounded. Yet, to everyone's surprise, the destruction was far less than anticipated. There were no tsunamis, no cataclysmic storms. The world did not fall apart as some had feared. It seemed, for a brief moment, that humanity had been spared. But relief was short-lived.

The meteorite's path had been no accident. It had struck the Earth in a very specific place—the Ice Wall surrounding Antarctica. This barrier, an ancient formation that had stood for millennia, was no ordinary structure. It was something no human had ever truly understood. What lay beyond the Ice Wall had been a mystery, hidden from the eyes of mankind. No one had ever dared to venture beyond it, and no one knew what lay waiting.

And that's when the chaos began.

The Ice Wall shattered on impact, breaking apart as if it had been nothing more than brittle glass. The sound was deafening, a roar that echoed across the frozen wasteland. From beyond the Wall, something terrible began to emerge—monstrous creatures that defied the natural order.

The first of them crawled over the jagged remains of the Wall, their massive forms barely contained within the limits of the frozen land. They were like nothing anyone had ever seen—hulking, twisted things with scales, claws, and teeth that could tear through steel. Their eyes glowed with an unnatural fire, and their very presence seemed to warp the air around them. These were not simple animals. These were predators, ancient and terrifying, from a time long forgotten.

As they moved, they ravaged everything in their path. The research stations in Antarctica, the last bastions of human science and exploration, were the first to fall. The beasts tore through them as if they were made of paper, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake. Panic spread like wildfire as the news began to filter out to the rest of the world.

But the monsters were not the only danger. Soon, reports came in from all corners of the Earth—strange happenings, cracks opening in the ground, the earth trembling as if something beneath was stirring. In the deep, in the forgotten spaces of the world, more creatures began to emerge, monstrous beings rising from deep within the planet itself. Enormous cracks appeared in the land, stretching across continents, and from these, more beasts crawled into the light, terrifying all who laid eyes on them.

But there was more, far more, to this catastrophe than anyone had realized.

At the same time that these terrible creatures appeared, something else was happening. Something that would change the fate of humanity forever.

Ordinary people, those who had been exposed to the meteorite's strange energy, began to exhibit extraordinary powers. The energy from the meteorite, invisible yet potent, began to alter the very fabric of reality. People—normal, everyday humans—found themselves changed. Powers that defied explanation began to manifest in those unlucky enough to be caught in the meteorite's wake. Some found they could move objects with their minds, others could heal wounds in the blink of an eye, while some could control the very elements around them.

The very laws of nature, those that had governed the Earth for as long as humanity could remember, no longer held true. People became stronger, faster, more dangerous. And for the first time in history, the line between humans and monsters began to blur.

Humanity, in that moment, was forever altered. The world as we knew it was gone. The boundaries of science, reason, and understanding had been shattered along with the Ice Wall. The theories and mysteries we had once laughed at, the stories we dismissed as fantasy, were no longer just tales. They were truths.

And the time had come for humanity to face the greatest truth of all: that we, who had once stood at the top of the food chain, would now be prey to the true apex predators.