The trail up North Peak was a jagged spine of gray granite and stubborn, wind-twisted pines that overlooked the glittering neon grid of Xinhai City. At 4:15 AM, the world was trapped in that eerie, pre-dawn silence where even the insects seemed to hold their breath. The five graduates hiked in a loose, exhausted line, their heavy breath hitching in the thin, biting air of the high altitude.
Zhao Yan led the pack, his expensive, brand-new hiking boots crunching rhythmically against the loose gravel. He looked as if he were posing for an outdoor gear catalog, unaffected by the steep incline that had the others gasping. Behind him, Mu Han moved with a mechanical, focused precision, her eyes fixed on the path ahead as if she could negotiate the mountain into submission.
"Deng, if you don't stop staring at that tablet, you are statistically 100% likely to walk off the edge of this cliff," Lin Feng panted from the back of the line. He stopped for a moment, hands on his knees, his floral shirt now damp with sweat despite the freezing mountain breeze. "I'm serious. I don't want 'Died via Twitter' on your tombstone".
"The satellite blackout isn't just a glitch, Feng," Deng Wei muttered, his face ghostly pale in the harsh blue light of his screen. He didn't even look up as he stepped over a treacherous root. "The GPS signals are being bent. It's not atmospheric interference. It's like the space-time fabric around Xinhai is being pulled toward a single point. And that point is... well, it's basically right on top of us".
"You've been reading too many of those 'Return of the Martial God' webnovels, Deng," Mu Han called back, her voice echoing slightly against the rock face. "It's likely just high-altitude interference from a solar flare. Physics doesn't just 'bend' because you want a plot twist".
"Tell that to the barometric sensor," Deng whispered, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden, low hum that vibrated through the soles of their boots.
The sky didn't just brighten—it ignited.
A roar like a collapsing mountain tore through the atmosphere, a sound so violent it felt as if the air itself were being shredded. The five of them threw themselves to the ground as a streak of violet fire cut a jagged line across the stars. It wasn't a single meteor; it was a cluster, burning with an impossible light that turned the dark forest into a high-contrast photograph of ink-black shadows and neon-purple brilliance.
BOOM.
The impact wasn't an explosion of fire, but a vibration of pure kinetic energy that settled deep in their marrow. The shockwave knocked the oxygen right out of their lungs. For a terrifying ten seconds, the world was nothing but the sound of ringing ears and the sharp, biting smell of ozone and burnt sugar.
"Is everyone... still in one piece?" Zhao Yan groaned, pushing himself up from the dirt. His leather jacket was scorched, and his eyes were wide, the arrogant mask of the valedictorian finally shattered by genuine terror.
They were standing on the lip of a fresh, smoldering crater. Inside, five jagged shards of violet crystal—each the size of a human heart—pulsed with a rhythmic, heartbeat-like light. Without thinking, drawn by a magnetic pull that felt like a hook in their chests, they stepped closer.
"Don't touch them! They could be radioactive!" Mu Han warned, her voice trembling for the first time in four years.
But it was as if they weren't in control of their own limbs. As they reached the edge, the crystals didn't just sit there. They shattered into a fine, liquid-like dust that lunged upward like a living thing. Lin Feng screamed as the violet mist swirled around his wrist, burning with the sensation of dry ice and high-voltage electricity. He watched in horror as the mist solidified, wrapping around his skin and sinking into his pores, cooling instantly into a sleek, metallic band that pulsed in time with his own frantic heart.
"What is this? Get it off! Deng, get it off!" Lin Feng gasped, clawing at the metal band that had fused to his arm.
"It won't move," Chen Shi whispered. She was staring at her own wrist, her face unreadable. She tried to tug at the band, and as she gripped the edge of a nearby boulder for leverage, the massive rock groaned. Without her realizing it, her fingers sank two inches deep into the solid granite as if it were soft clay.
They didn't feel like superheroes. They felt poisoned.
Zhao Yan began to shiver violently, his skin turning a feverish, angry red. "I... I think I'm having an allergic reaction. Everything feels like it's boiling".
Mu Han slumped against a tree, her breath coming out as a visible, freezing fog that coated the leaves in frost, even though the sun was finally beginning to crest the horizon. "We need a hospital. Now".
"We can't go to a hospital," Deng Wei said, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. He pointed his shaking tablet toward the base of the mountain.
Down in the valley, the winding access road was already choked with the headlights of black, unmarked SUVs. They were moving with military precision, racing toward the North Peak trailhead. On the sides of the vehicles, a silver logo caught the morning light: a stylized eye inside a hexagon.
"The Xinhai Syndicate," Zhao Yan breathed, his eyes narrowing. "My dad used to talk about them. They own half the city's labs. If they find us with these things on our arms...".
"We aren't going to university," Lin Feng finished, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. "We're going to be 'Research and Development' for the rest of our lives".
As the first Syndicate drone hummed into the air above them, Lin Feng felt a sudden, sharp gust of wind swirl around his feet—not from the mountain, but from him.
The graduation was officially a memory. Their life as the most wanted fugitives in Xinhai had just begun.