Infinity: Kill your way through the movie world.

After returning the terminal to the captain, Karim walked back to his post, where the pale golden holy light barrier in the distance gleamed eerily in the setting sun.

He stared at the light, motionless.

European theater, Berlin ruins, an underground tunnel.

Forty-five-year-old Hans is a lone bounty hunter who has never joined the Witcher Guild because he hates rules, hates being controlled, and hates guys in uniform who shout the same slogans.

But he also kills demons.

Over the past twenty-five years, he has killed more demons than most registered demon hunters.

Instead of using the guild's standard equipment, he used things he bought from the black market: a Russian spell dagger, a Turkish magnetic interference grenade, and a modified sniper rifle that could fire silver bullets.

His 'jobs' cover a wide range: demons, vampires, werewolves, dark wizards—he'll kill anything as long as the price is right.

On the day the angel fell, he was handling a deal in an abandoned factory in eastern Berlin.

The target is a low-level demon; the bounty is 30,000 euros.

Then the entire factory's ceiling collapsed.

An out-of-control commercial airliner crashed into a nearby office building. The shockwave from the crash collapsed half a street. When Hans crawled out of the rubble, the devil had already run away, and he didn't bother to chase after him.

Over the next month, he witnessed true chaos.

Some of the angels that descended from the sky were slaughtering, some were going mad, and some were hiding.

Taking advantage of the chaos, the demons seized ten cities, and the Demon Hunter Guild was overwhelmed with fighting fires everywhere. Over a hundred million humans died, a number he could not even imagine.

He couldn't kill that many by himself.

But he can try.

On the day the application form was released, he found a terminal that still had power in the ruins of Berlin. He looked at the title "Demon Knight Project" on the screen three times before he was sure it wasn't a hallucination.

He started filling out the form.

Name: Hans

Age: 45.

"Affiliation: None. Independent bounty hunter, 25 years of experience."

"Past combat record: approximately thirty demons killed, approximately one hundred and ten vampires killed, approximately sixty werewolves killed, and approximately twenty dark wizards killed. The exact number has not been counted, but it is roughly the same."

"Recommender: None. I don't know any qualified Witchers, but if you'd like to verify, you can ask the black market information dealers in East Berlin; they all know me."

"Reason for signing up: I kill people because someone pays me, but this time no one is paying me. I just feel that if I don't do something, no one will pay me in the future."

He pressed the submit button.

Occasionally, a blue light flashes across the night sky outside the ruins; it is yet another mad angel falling.

Hans tossed the terminal aside, leaned against the dilapidated wall, and closed his eyes.

For the first time in twenty-five years, he wasn't killing anything for money.

North American theater, ruins of New York, an abandoned apartment building.

Seventeen-year-old Lily squatted at the corner of the stairwell, reading the application form word by word by the moonlight filtering through the hole.

She was a New York native, a high school student before the fall, who loved drawing, music, and the boy who sat behind her.

That boy is now buried under the rubble, thirty meters deep.

She skipped class that day to paint in Central Park, and then the whole city collapsed. She hid in the bushes in the park, listening to the screams and explosions in the distance, until it got dark.

The next day she found her way home, but her home was gone.

She sat on the ruins all day, waiting for someone to rescue her, but no one came.

On the third day, she learned to find food on her own. On the fifth day, she learned to avoid the figures emitting blue light; on the seventh day, she met her first survivor; and on the tenth day, she began to hide with five other people.

It is now the thirty-first day.

She and nineteen others squeezed into the basement of this abandoned apartment building. There, she learned to shoot, to discern the energy fluctuations of angels, and to find her way in the dark.

She was only seventeen years old.

There is a section on the application form for 'Past Combat Records'.

She thought about it for a long time, and finally wrote:
"I have never killed an angel, but I have saved nineteen people who are still alive. I don't know if that counts as a combat record."

In the 'Reason for Registration' section, she wrote:
“I’m seventeen. I don’t want to hide in the basement for the rest of my life. I want to be able to go back to the surface, see the sun, and no longer be afraid of the blue light. If becoming a Demon Hunter can make me do these things, then I’ll sign up.”

She pressed the submit button.

The light from the screen shone on her young face, illuminating her eyes, which still held a touch of childishness but were no longer innocent.

The number of applicants exceeded five million in the twenty-fourth hour.

It surpassed eight million in the thirty-sixth hour.

It surpassed 10 million in the 48th hour.

By the registration deadline of the 72nd hour, the final statistics were: 12,374,691 people.

This number shook the entire Witcher world—no, it shook the entire human world.

From a seasoned veteran with fifty years of experience to a genius teenager who has just turned sixteen.

From officially registered witchers to civilian ability users outside the system; from prosperous ruins in North America and Europe to desolate outposts in Africa and Asia; twelve million people signed their names on the same application form.

Hatred, anger, responsibility, fear, ambition, guilt, despair, hope—behind every reason lies a soul torn apart by this war.

Seventy-two hours later, Wu Heng stood in front of the control panel, looking at the frozen number of twelve million on the screen.

Renault, standing behind him, asked in a slightly unsteady voice, "Twelve million, Chairman, how do we screen them?"

Wu Heng did not answer immediately.

He pulled up a screening plan and projected it on the screen; it was a preliminary plan.

“Twelve million to ten.” Renault was still in shock, repeating the number, “Ten people, representing twelve million.”

“Not a representative,” Wu Heng said, “but a protector.”

He turned off the screen and turned around.

"The first phase of screening begins now. Tell the commanders of each theater command that I need them to complete the preliminary list within seventy-two hours."

Renault nodded and turned to leave.

The command center was once again filled with the buzzing of activity.

Wu Heng stood there, looking out the window at the night sky that had been repeatedly scorched by holy light and artillery fire.

Twelve million.

He recalled the time he stood outside the gates of Heaven, collecting those 19,800 angel cores, and his calculations: this energy was enough to strengthen a small elite force, enough to turn the tide of battle at a crucial moment.

Today, a staggering twelve million people are willing to join this force, but unfortunately, they have no idea what that truly means.

In the distance, towards Africa, that pale golden barrier of holy light still stubbornly shines.

Bartholomew is waiting.

Crowley was also waiting. (End of Chapter)