Prison lamp era

As entropy tears the world apart, dark red entropic matter seeps from the void. The Gray Eye forces have constructed a series of brightly lit shelters, offering a "helping hand" to displaced survivors. Countless refugees flood in, believing they have found the last safe haven in the apocalypse. A wandering team—Lin Mo, Xia Yan, Acheng, and Bald Chen—crosses the dangerous wasteland and slips into the legendary Hope Town. When the layers of disguise are peeled away, the cruel truth surfaces: the eternal light exists only to keep the living calm, and every settler serves as living nourishment for an underground alien mother nest. Observers hide in the shadows, quietly screening samples, while modified guards block the streets. The Forerunner team breaks free from their cage, leaving behind fragmentary clues before falling deep into the nest. Chain breeding points are scattered across the continent, countless mother nests continue to grow, and interdimensional rifts keep expanding. The alien species on the other side bide their time, waiting for the moment of full invasion. Surrender and symbiosis offer superhuman strength in exchange for becoming a stepping stone in the aliens' evolution; resistance with guns preserves the last shred of human dignity in the ruined wasteland. Hard-core combat runs alongside the team's daily confrontations, while desperate gambles and reversals of human nature unfold in turn. When all false lights go out, the era of cages and rebels begins.