Night Sovereign: Volume 1-The Apocalypse

Ye Yuchen stood alone on the balcony of his apartment, staring at Jiangnan Province beneath the night sky.

The city was still awake.

Cars moved along the roads in long streams of light. Apartment buildings stood shoulder to shoulder, their windows glowing with the lives of thousands of people. Somewhere below, a street vendor was still calling out to customers, while the distant sound of traffic blended into the usual noise of the city.

Everything looked normal.

That was what made the feeling in Ye Yuchen's chest so strange.

He leaned against the railing and looked toward the horizon.

The weather forecast had predicted clear skies tonight, but several hours ago, an unfamiliar layer of dark clouds had begun gathering above the city.

They didn't seem like ordinary storm clouds,at leat

They moved too slowly.

Almost as if something beyond the sky was pulling them together.

Ye Yuchen narrowed his eyes.

His phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket.

He took it out and glanced at the screen.

It was a message from Wang Hao.

Wang Hao: You're still awake?

Ye Yuchen smiled slightly and typed a reply.

Ye Yuchen: Unfortunately.

The response came almost immediately.

Wang Hao: Come downstairs. There's a restaurant still open near the apartment. I'm buying.

Ye Yuchen looked at the time.

11:47 p.m.

"You call this buying?" he muttered.

Another message arrived.

Wang Hao: Yes.

Wang Hao: And before you ask, no, I'm not drunk.

Ye Yuchen laughed quietly.

Wang Hao had always been like this. Reckless, loud, and somehow capable of turning an ordinary conversation into something ridiculous.

Ye Yuchen was about to reply when the lights across the city suddenly went out.

Everywhere.

The apartment building.

The streets.

The distant towers.

The entire city plunged into darkness.

Ye Yuchen's smile disappeared.

For several seconds, there was complete silence.

Then thousands of voices erupted from the buildings around him.

People shouted from balconies. Car horns sounded below. Someone screamed that the power had failed. A child began crying.

Ye Yuchen stared into the darkness.

His phone remained on.

The screen showed one message.

Wang Hao: Did your power go out too?

Ye Yuchen typed quickly.

Ye Yuchen: Yes.

Before he could send another message, his phone lost its signal.

He frowned.

"That was fast."

He walked inside and switched on the lights.

Nothing happened.

He tried again.

Still nothing.

Ye Yuchen opened the curtains and looked outside.

The darkness had become deeper.

The clouds above Jiangnan were spreading across the entire sky, covering the moon and stars.

Then something appeared.

A faint blue light.

It was so distant that Ye Yuchen almost mistook it for a star.

But it grew brighter.

And larger.

Within seconds, dozens of blue lights appeared across the heavens.

The entire sky seemed to tremble.

Ye Yuchen stepped back.

"What the hell..."

A deep vibration passed through the building.

The floor shook beneath his feet.

Glass rattled inside the apartment.

Then every electronic device in the room turned on at once.

The television displayed static.

The computer screen flickered.

His phone restarted without warning.

For a moment, every screen showed the same strange symbol.

A circle surrounded by countless unfamiliar lines.

Then they all went black.

Ye Yuchen stared at his phone.

A sharp pain suddenly struck his head.

He grabbed the edge of the table.

Images flashed through his mind.

A vast darkness.

Countless stars.

Worlds floating in an endless void.

Mountains reaching into the heavens.

Creatures larger than cities.

And people standing beneath a sky filled with lightning, wielding power that should not have existed.

The images disappeared as quickly as they had come.

Ye Yuchen staggered backward.

His breathing became heavy.

"What was that?"

He pressed a hand against his forehead.

Nothing.

No pain.

No images.

Only a strange sensation remained.

Something had changed.

He walked toward the window.

Outside, the city had become strangely quiet.

Then the first scream came.

It was followed by another.

And another.

Ye Yuchen's expression hardened.

Those weren't screams of surprise.

They were screams of fear.

He opened the apartment door and stepped into the hallway.

Several residents had already come outside.

"What happened?"

"Why isn't the elevator working?"

"Someone call the police!"

"There's something outside!"

Ye Yuchen looked toward the stairwell.

A man came running upward.

He was covered in blood.

The hallway fell silent.

The man grabbed the railing and struggled to breathe.

"Run..."

Nobody moved.

"Run!" he shouted again.

"What happened?" someone asked.

The man's eyes were filled with terror.

"People are attacking each other outside."

A woman covered her mouth.

"Attacking?"

The man nodded.

"They're not acting like people anymore."

A terrible sound came from downstairs.

A wet growl.

Everyone froze.

Ye Yuchen slowly turned toward the stairwell.

Something was climbing the stairs.

Step.

Step.

Step.

The sound grew closer.

A woman screamed.

The man who had come running upstairs stumbled backward.

Ye Yuchen looked around.

Most people were panicking.

Some were trying to call their families.

Others were crying.

Nobody knew what was happening.

Ye Yuchen's mind, however, was becoming unusually calm.

Fear was there.

Of course it was.

But fear without thought was useless.

He returned to his apartment and locked the door.

Then he checked every window.

He moved the dining table against the front door.

He filled several bottles with water and gathered whatever food he could find.

His hands moved automatically.

Years of reading survival guides, watching disaster documentaries, and imagining worst-case scenarios suddenly seemed less foolish than they once had.

His phone vibrated.

The signal had returned.

One notification appeared.

Emergency Alert

Ye Yuchen opened it.

The message contained only one sentence.

Remain indoors. Avoid contact with infected individuals. Await further instructions.

There was no explanation.

No mention of the power outage.

No mention of the strange lights.

No mention of what was happening outside.

Ye Yuchen stared at the message.

Then another notification appeared.

This one was different.

It came from an unknown source.

The revival has begun.

Ye Yuchen's pupils contracted.

The message disappeared.

He tried opening it again.

Nothing.

A tremendous roar suddenly shook the city.

Ye Yuchen rushed to the balcony.

Far beyond the apartment buildings, something enormous had risen into the sky.

It looked like a column of blue light.

It pierced through the clouds and reached toward the heavens.

At the same moment, every living creature in the city seemed to react.

Dogs began barking.

Birds flew wildly through the darkness.

Then came another sound.

A low rumble beneath the ground.

Ye Yuchen placed his hand against the balcony railing.

The metal was vibrating.

He looked toward the horizon.

For the first time in his life, he understood something without anyone explaining it.

The world was changing.

And whatever was coming next would not care whether humanity was ready.

His phone vibrated again.

This time, it was Wang Hao.

Wang Hao: Yuchen.

A second message followed.

Wang Hao: Something is wrong.

Then a third.

Wang Hao: I saw one of them.

Ye Yuchen immediately called him.

The call connected.

"Wang Hao?"

For several seconds, there was only heavy breathing.

Then Wang Hao spoke.

His voice was shaking.

"Yuchen..."

"Where are you?"

"I'm near the restaurant."

"Get back home."

"I can't."

"Why?"

Silence.

Then Wang Hao whispered,

"Because the streets are full of them."

A scream suddenly came through the phone.

The call ended.

Ye Yuchen stared at the screen.

He called again.

No answer.

Once.

Twice.

Nothing.

He slowly lowered the phone.

Outside, another scream echoed through the city.

Then dozens more.

The night that had begun like any other night was disappearing.

Ye Yuchen looked toward the dark horizon.

He didn't know what the future held.

He didn't know why the world had changed.

He didn't know what the strange message meant.

But he knew one thing.

If the world had truly entered a new era, waiting for someone else to save him would be the fastest way to die.

He turned away from the balcony.

His eyes settled on the kitchen.

A kitchen knife lay beside the sink.

Ye Yuchen walked toward it.

For the first time, he wondered whether the world he had known would still exist when the sun rose.

Outside, the blue light continued to spread across the sky.

And somewhere beneath the earth, something ancient awakened.