What is happening… Larissa pondered to herself. Why is she acting crazy… Does she have amnesia, as she says? Probably pulling out another stunt like she usually does.

“Are you really-really, really fine?” she asked calmly, looking at her sister’s pale face. It was as though Yana became possessed by a bore. Not just a regular one, but a rabid one, that is, if boars could become rabid as dogs and bats did in the first place. Larissa didn’t know.

Guilt gnawed at her. Maybe I should tell Father after all… but what if Yana falsely accuses me of something in bad faith? Father would, without question, trust her little princess… I can’t trust the servants either. They always relay all the secrets to Father.

“Of course I’m fine,” Yana spouted. She did her best to stand up, yet floundered and almost fell, awkwardly walking toward her table and slumping down on an office chair. “These tits are fucking heavy. What a drag. Is there like a surgery to cut this shit out?”

Yana had always been strange, borderline insane. Whoever met her would firstmost doubt whether they were talking to a noble or a damsel — nothing in between. People didn’t question her behavior much since all the prospective mages had a few screw looses in their heads. Among everyone, Larissa thought she’d be the most used to it. Yet Yana still somehow managed to become even crazier…

She followed her sister in a futile attempt to gauge whatever the naked girl was up to. “I think you should take some shower first—”

“How do I open this?” Yana asked, snapping the laptop open. “This is fucking nostalgic… My memories… Ahhh… I remember playing some games on it.”

What kind of terrible acting is this? Larissa frowned, helping her sister out by pressing the uppermost rightmost button on the topcase of the laptop, the power button. She only uses technology to doomscroll through social media and chase clout by dancing like a weirdo…

“Like Warcraft…?” Yana muttered innocently, glancing at Larissa with hope in her eyes.

“Warcrafting? What’s that?” Larissa asked, scowling.

“Fuck me,” Yana sissed. “Never mind. Do you know the password?” She pointed at the screen.

“How would I know the password you’ve set on it?”

“Makes sense,” Yana said. “What about a phone? Do girls this age usually not carry phones with them like addicts? I need access to the internet.”

“Phones? You mean smartphones?” Larissa asked, dazed. “Those are ancient technology. Why would you have one?”

“How ancient are we talking? What year is it anyway?” Yana asked, vigilant.

“The month of Aquarius, Day twenty-six, Year twenty-one-hundred.”

At the mention of Aquarius, Yana shuddered. Her aloof expression turned unreadable, face shrouded in darkness. Larissa immediately felt uneasy and intimidated, looking at her. For what reason, she didn’t know herself.

“So the Earth has been integrated…” Yana huffed, laughing emptily. “How dare they…”

What was that just now?! Larissa could swear she had just seen a demon. Something terrible was happening, yet she couldn’t figure out what. It’s not just madness… I’m going along with this tirade, but it’s as though Sister has an aura of menace encapsulating her…

“You know what? Why would I even need internet when I have you, Elle? Just tell me the history of this world from when the monsters first appeared to now, without dressing your sentences up.” Yana raised her fingers cyclically, her eyes cynical, carnality at its purest. “Which territories have we lost? What do you do in the military and when exactly are we heading there? What stance do the current leaders of humanity take against the otherworlders? Tell me everything.”

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Is she excited or mad? What are these constant mood swings… Larissa blinked profusely.

Her eyes lightened and lit with neon colors, forming a projection on the wall.

“Woah…” Yana gasped. “What’s that?! You a badass, Rissa.”

***

Exactly when 2020 commenced, the same day, cataclysmic earthquakes took place worldwide. The first stage of the sixth extinction abruptly took 15% of the human population. It lasted a week.

Nobody knew why the catastrophe descended upon humanity, and no time was given for consideration.

Then, the portals appeared. The science of the time wasn't advanced enough to determine the logic behind the supernatural.

Many new theories, as well as resuscitations of the old ones, such as Einstein's wormhole theory, reemerged. An apparent fact was that those circles contained immense energy, more than any nuclear weaponry.

The brave volunteers, mainly consisting of desperate gamers, who plunged into those portals, never returned.

Soon after, the portals started to fluctuate, pouring the creatures residing within onto the surface of our planet and vanishing. The gamers' and Einstein's theories prevailed. Millions of devious monsters swarmed across the globe.

The guns proved mostly impractical since one had to break their cores to dispose of the creature completely. Still better than nothing. Tanks and drones, on the other hand, did great, and nonetheless, it was back-breaking to navigate through the prominent cities and avoid blowing someone or something up in an accident.

The issue wasn't monsters' prowess nor numbers, but their unpredictableness. Thousands of unique creatures swarmed, each with its bells and whistles.

After a while, some nations were driven to opt for nuclear armory. It did a great job at killing monsters, also humans, while at that.

This second stage of the sixth extinction took another 60% of humanity, leaving only a fourth of the population yet to despair at the dread of death closing on and on. Two months were all it took to wipe out three-fourths of the planet.

Not all newcomers were eternal enemies, though. Through some portals emerged intellectual beings like dwarves, elves, mermen, dragons, and many others, who cooperated with humanity to some extent to build their own settlements on this new planet they were trapped in. The human populace learned that the extraterrestrial portals led to separate dimensions, currently referred to as dungeons. Dungeons filled with as many dangers as treasures. If failed to clear the dungeon on short notice, a phenomenon known as a dungeon outbreak would occur — The portal would collapse, and all the monsters within would roam outside — exactly what had occurred at the beginning of the extinction.

Humans did what they were best at — adaptation. In this third stage, while humans got accustomed to the mana in the air, learning to use it for their benefit, and conquered many dungeons, clearing the monsters inside, they lost another 15% of their species.

All governments collapsed. In the face of greater danger, people stopped discriminating against each other based on language, nationality, or appearance. There were only useful and relatively useless ones: strong and weak, capable and incompetent, resourceful and poor. Mostly, meritocracy prevailed.

While the mana in the air supplemented humans with magical powers, it was also its greatest curse, causing massive temperature increases in some areas and colds and droughts in others with their coming and, consequently, a drastic climate change. The highest concentration of heat was closer to the magnetic poles. The ice of the Arctic and Antarctic began to melt.

Clutching to the presented opportunity, after many years, in 2042, under the leadership of Divine Emperor, the largest group of humans was amassed in Antarctica. They cleared the dungeons, killed the monsters, and erected a massive barrier to close the area from aerial and underwater assaults.

Divine Emperor proclaimed his rights over the territory, and no one would object to the monarchy except the likes of dragons and dwarves outside, who didn’t want to live under the human hegemony over the Earth. Tensions escalated quickly. To establish his power over the region and daunt the greedy eyes of the outsiders, he slayed the head of one of the Four Dragon Kings, threatening war to the whole race, and stole Mercury, one of the three dwarven Holy Weapons, while reducing an entire bastion of theirs to dust. He then married an elven princess and formed a close alliance with mermen and beastkin.

In 2100, humanity had a population of over half a billion, more than half of which resided in Antarctica. Although the number kept shrinking, the rate at which it fell kept decreasing.

The places outside Antarctica were called Wilderness by its citizens.

The continent of Antarctica itself became an Empire named after His Majesty.

Kernel.