Somewhere in 21^st century Asia.

A dense blanket of dark grey fog hung over the metropolitan city with tall buildings. Light from digital billboards cut through the fog as it reached the crowd of people going about their businesses. The people however, were more interested in the devices that they held in their hands, the screens only influencing a select few.

The city square almost overflowed with people, but despite the abundance of activity, it still appeared lifeless. Public, like robots walked from one end to another, their gazes never leaving their smartphones. The mechanical masks they all wore on their face only established their role as robots who only worked as programmed.

Life on Earth was now completely reliant on these Masks. At least for those organisms that relied on Oxygen.

This dead atmosphere continued for a few moments before it was suddenly brought to life by an outside factor.

In the centre of the City Square, a crack in space opened up as something black and white churned inside it. A vast ripple ran through the air as all the robo-humans suddenly came to life, their gaze moving to these black and white spots floating in the air that coiled inside the cracks, as if impatient to finally run amok.

They did not get much time to observe this unprecedented phenomenon as the cracks in space soon connected and convulsed together to give life to a swirling mass of black and white energies.

A teenager, who was also focused on his phone previously, couldn’t move his gaze away from the portal like thing that had appeared in the centre of the city. Was this his chance to rise and become the hero of humanity like he had seen in fiction. But his dreams were meant to be crushed.

He saw a creature come out from the black and white energies. It looked hideous and cool at the same time, depending on who saw it. To him, it was the coolest thing he had ever seen. With wolf like features, albeit much larger than those found on Earth, it was clearly hungry, as drool dripped from its clenched teeth.

The teenager had the childish thought of feeding him something and befriending him, so he can get ahead of the curve before the graph had even started to form. This thought, unlike the last one, did come true as the creature’s gaze locked at him as soon as it took note of its surroundings.

The teenager wasn’t aware but he had unconsciously moved closer to the Portal and currently stood closest to the beast. The creature accepted his offering as it rushed forward with a growl. The teenager heard screams of horror emanating behind him as he thought they were so stupid.

In the next moment, the creature ripped apart the human into two and moved past him, towards the next target. The teenager only had one thought before he died, ‘This isn’t so cool anymore.’

Following the first creature, countless more rushed out one after another as they killed everyone in sight, the whole city Square soon filled with monsters that killed as they scattered throughout the city.

More than half of the city had died before the Government of this country issued a nationwide Emergency. But that wasn’t going to stop this horde of ravaging beasts. They massacred the whole city and then the whole Nation before a semblance of resistance was formed by the rest of the countries in that continent.

Luckily for them, these creatures could still be damaged by human weapons so the Military was able to stop them from advancing any further. Everyone collaborated, pooling in their resources as they tried to fight back.

They pushed through, showcasing the resilience of Humanity as a race as they slowly, day by day, decreased the radius of the region where these creatures crawled. During this process, they found out that no matter how many of these monsters they killed, more just kept coming. As if there was an endless supply of them inside the Portal.

This thought terrified the Government of all Nations as they pushed their efforts to the extreme in controlling this threat. They sent their best weapons and equipment to aid the Military in this process. Eventually, after compressing the threat within the city it first emerged in, they discerned that their only choice if they want to push forward is, Nuclear attack.

The creatures in this city were replenished so fast that no matter how many they killed, they were not making any progress. So, in the end, they Nuked the city which did manage to kill all the creatures in the city, but the next day, they observed more creatures rushing out from the fog.

Luckily, this time they were not so overwhelming that their weapons would be useless, and they had also prepared special suits for their military to work in this nuclear environment. This time they were able to push through all the way to the Portal but their troubles did not end here.

They found out that the creatures came out from the Portal in an endless rush. No matter how many they killed, they seemed never-ending.

Eventually, they were forced to send in their own expeditions into the Portal to look for a way to somehow stop this endless barrage of monsters.

In all honesty, the Government was at its last legs here. They had created a stronghold around the portal that contained the creatures leaving the Portal by continuously firing shells at them. It seemed to have worked for a while but now things were getting out of hand again. They discovered that the creatures which previously died after taking one bullet were now taking several bullets of a stronger shell.

This was what eventually became the catalyst to the decision of sending in humans into the Portal. What if the creatures became strong enough that the bullets stopped working on them?

At the same time, people were turning into these creatures in random regions without any previous signs which continuously increased the toll of casualties caused by this calamity. By the time they managed to contain the creatures into that stronghold, the continent had already lost 1/4^th of its population.

Sending in people also seemed like a hopeless endeavour at first. There was no response from them, let alone someone returning. The creatures were getting stronger and they were running out of time. They now needed to empty a whole machine gun on every single creature that came out from the Portal. Everyone was losing all hope, until eventually, the 69^th expedition finally brought some results.

A person had returned, alive from the Portal. And he had come bearing gifts, for humanity as a whole. He had received superpowers along with a surname from the Rift (Portal).

After the first, came several others who had also gotten superpowers. Now it was time for Humanity to fight back.

Roughly similar course of events took place in every continent as a Rift had appeared on every continent on Earth. They had all managed to eventually reach this step, except Antarctica. Their population of 5000 couldn’t achieve much, but the threat was just as alarming for them. It was only after several years from this event that Humans will cleanse Antarctica of all the creatures that roamed its glaciers.

Similar to the person in Asia, a person from each continent received a surname for being the first in their respective Rifts.

These people eventually lead Humanity into conquering the other side of the Rift as they formed the RiftDale city.

This event was later termed in the Human history as the EtherShift Calamity.

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