The Void!

The Void!

Have you ever wondered what the apocalypse would look like and what would follow in its aftermath?

Could it be natural disasters like tidal waves, earthquakes, tsunamis?

Or the invasion of pandemics, monsters, zombies as in science fiction movies?

Or conflicts between nations and the outbreak of a third world war accompanied by nuclear bombs erasing civilizations?

No, the apocalypse I want to show you is not just one but all of the above combined, and I'm not joking at all, your world is about to come to an end if you don't start doing something about it today.

This was the strange content broadcasted by a mysterious person appearing on the TV screen while I was still having dinner with my family.

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Ten years ago, while having dinner with my grandparents, as usual in a family meal there would always be rice, vegetables, soup, and side dishes, not to mention a small TV, a treasure of rural families. We would sit at the table together, dine, and enjoy the news at exactly seven o'clock every evening.

It was the day when everything happened, in a way that no one could have expected...

The TV screen gradually blurred with distorted sounds, making us think this TV was old and encountering some problems. Then, the images started to become clearer and instead of the usual beautiful newscaster from the television station, there was a mysterious figure dressed in a black cloak. The voice of this person was also very strange but somehow I could understand it as if listening to my mother tongue, warning of a catastrophe that would bring this world to an end.

This person repeated many times a phrase meaning 'Void', likening it to the world's apocalypse, requesting governments to start building emergency shelters, conduct drills, and establish a warning system for spatial instability.

Finally, the mysterious figure made a prediction about the disaster that was about to happen, the first would begin exactly two years from that day and then disappeared from the television news, mysterious as the way they appeared.

In the following days, news articles about the mysterious figure were reported across social media, news, and television stations worldwide. Some thought it was a prank by some hacker group, others fully believed in it and crazy cults parading made governments around the world deploy the military to suppress.

Indeed, it might have been a real prank... but what made the public and the media, even celebrities quite agitated was because of its intriguing mystery. And there's one more thing, at the same time, the mysterious person was broadcasted on all electronic media including TVs, computers, phones, and even radios. In each country, the mysterious person used the language of that country, fluent as if a native speaker, and the broadcast duration matched perfectly, not at all like a pre-recorded clip.

The keywords about 'The Void' quickly became a hot trend for a short while when social media was not yet as developed as it is today. Until everything began to settle down, people started to believe it was just a well-invested joke. As usual, governments around the world also ignored the warnings and baseless demands... and then two years later...

In the city of Pearl Springs in the Sunrise state of the Crimson Shores territory, a strong earthquake occurred along with tsunami waves that began to flood the city of over a million people. The space twisted and then shattered like a broken mirror, creating a strange black crack. In an instant, as if containing dozens of nuclear bombs, the distorted space caused a shockwave that wiped out life on three-quarters of the Crimson Shores territory, leading to the collapse of a capitalist superpower.

That day, humanity first learned of a disaster known as 'The Void' which the international language refers to as 'The Void'. More than two hundred million Crimson Shores people were killed or severely injured, and creatures within the crack's range that survived gradually became mad, their bodies transforming into grotesque beings that attacked the living. Yet, that was not the worst part as from the other side of the crack, countless powerful monsters emerged that seemed to only belong in science fiction stories.

The crack had its own self-defense mechanism, emitting a magnetic field that prevented long-range missiles from destroying it; even robots could not approach it, and nuclear missiles launched from satellites could not destroy it either. Thus, Crimson Shores officially fell, losing three-quarters of its territory to the Void force.

Not long after, numerous cracks began to appear all around the world. Creatures mutated by the Void, although having short lifespans, possessed extraordinary physical abilities and formidable regenerative powers, making the fight against them extremely difficult. In just one year until the final crack appeared, humans quickly lost half of their habitable land area, and the world population decreased by 70%, ushering the Earth into a dark era.

However, humanity is a species with incredibly strong willpower; history has proven that people can overcome any adversity to adapt to new environments, no matter how terrible things may get.

At a time when darkness and despair were engulfing the entire world, once again, the hope of humanity was reignited.

Some people who had been in contact with the affected area of the crack, still retaining their selves without being transformed, appeared as miracles amid the apocalypse. They possessed the ability to resist the invasion from the cracks, some even had special supernatural powers, and most importantly, they could endure within the affected area longer than machines or ordinary people.

These people gradually became pioneers in the fight against the Void catastrophe. After a period of struggle, humans found a way to use the bodies of transformed creatures for medical applications, creating a serum that allowed humans to expel the invasion from their bodies. Thanks to this, even ordinary soldiers without the ability to resist the invasion could fight against the transformed creatures to reclaim territory.

Through research, scientists invented a device capable of measuring the extent of invasion in living beings, a unit called the corrosion amplitude. 

Compared to water bears that can endure a corrosion amplitude exceeding 40%, a human can only withstand a threshold below 5%. If their corrosion amplitude exceeds 5%, symptoms such as hallucinations, headaches, and vomiting begin to appear, and surpassing 10%, they would be completely transformed into monsters. However, those with the ability to resist the invasion can endure up to a 20% threshold without being transformed.

Realizing the importance of possessing manpower and weaponry to combat the greatest disaster in the world to date, the United Nations decided to create a training organization, providing people and weapons capable of fighting against the Void. These individuals would receive full equipment and management as well as subsidies from the governments of various countries, with their task being to enter the invaded areas, clean up the transformed creatures, and destroy the rifts before they could spread further.

These individuals were given the name 'Void Keeper'.

Just five years after the official operation of the Void Keeper organization, humanity had regained half of its territory, clearing most of the rifts.

In the fight against the Void, the Void Keepers would always be at the forefront against the transformed creatures, launching armed attacks on the rifts to destroy them, with the remaining tasks belonging to scientists seeking ways to minimize the radiation of the invaded areas. Walls, alarm systems, and shelters were also erected by the Void Keeper organization, protecting humanity from the Void disaster and the transformed creatures.

As most of the rifts around the world closed, except for the three largest at Crimson Shores, Rainbow, and beneath Cedar Cove, the world gradually returned to its original stable state, though it was no longer as it was at the beginning. The Void Keepers became heroes in the eyes of humanity, ushering in a new era of world order change.

Since Rainbow and Crimson Shores were the two countries that suffered the most damage, they quickly ceased to be powers. Instead, a Tri-Polar bloc was established worldwide, and naturally, in an era where Void Keepers were humanity's heroes, countries possessing quality Void Keepers became the new superpowers.

This Tri-Polar bloc includes:

The European Union, with its abundant resources, owning quality Void Keepers, has continuously recruited talented and potential Keepers from all over the world.

The Oceanic Alliance is known to be a place that has hardly suffered any damage from the Void disaster, during which it developed remarkably. Not only do they possess quality Void Keepers, but they also own powerful Void monsters.

The Emerald - Paradise Alliance was established because Emerald, a nation with extremely high-quality Void Keepers, lacked the resources to retain them, significantly impacted by the Void disaster originating from Rainbow. As a result, Emerald suffered considerable damage at that time. To retain a workforce full of potential and rebuild the nation in the post-apocalyptic era, Emerald agreed to partner with Paradise, forming a strong alliance. Paradise invested in the Void Keepers in Emerald on the condition that they would also be able to exploit those resources similarly.

Among the three alliances of the Tri-Pole block mentioned above, the Emerald - Paradise Alliance was the most controversial at the time because Emerald had only one S-class Void Keeper, yet it was considered the strongest. Thanks to the appearance of that Keeper, Emerald quickly became a superpower in the new world order, no longer a poor country with low-quality infrastructure.

And this is the story about me, a schoolboy obsessed with games and movies, living with my grandparents in a remote countryside, dragged into the battle against alien creatures from another world.