Gate of the Apocalypse

Gate of the Apocalypse is a long-running post-apocalyptic web novel by the post-90s female author Dark Lychee, serialized on Qidian from July 2015 and completed in May 2016. It runs to roughly 468 chapters and 1.1 million Chinese characters, and was selected for the 2015 China Online Novel Ranking's New Books list by the China Writers Association. The protagonist, Su Lifeng, is a biology graduate student who has since childhood possessed fragmentary precognitive visions of disasters. During a cruise ship voyage, he is caught in a spatial rift opened by otherworldly creatures, marking the beginning of the 'Xenotypes' invasion of Earth. After absorbing a Xenotype, he himself becomes a mutant, and from his visions he confirms a brutal fact: in one hundred days, the world will fall and humanity will face extinction. The catastrophe arrives on schedule. Biochemical mutations, extreme natural disasters, zombies, and various Xenotypes follow one another, and human civilization slides toward collapse. Relying on fragmented precognition of the future and his training in biology, Su Lifeng struggles to survive while analyzing the ecology and evolutionary laws of the Xenotypes. Together with companions such as Jiang Yushi and Cheng Xiaomei, he uses 'space gates' to outmaneuver the enemy and buy humanity a chance at survival. The story does not stop at the defense of Earth. To eliminate the Xenotype threat once and for all, Su Lifeng leads humanity into the 'greater cosmos,' rebuilding Earth while collecting materials and technology, and constantly probing the origins of humanity and the ultimate mysteries of life. The work expands from 'the apocalypse' to 'space gates' and then to the 'multiverse,' weaving scientific spirit and speculation about the forms of life into tense survival narrative. It is regarded as one of the representative works combining apocalyptic themes with science-fictional imagination in Chinese web literature.