HELL ON EARTH

"The old-timers call it Dìyù - Hell on Earth. I think that term might be too kind. The jungle's got a million ways to end you, and most of them you won't even see coming. The bullet that takes your head off is a mercy compared to what the spores do to you. Or what you become when the jungle decides to keep you alive. Sometimes I watch the harvesting crews marching in, young workers fresh from the cloning vats, and I want to tell them to turn back. But the jungle always gets fed, one way or another. Better them than me I guess."

• Lei Zhang, Lead Prospector, Southern Extraction Zone, 119 AP

Along the rain-slicked coastline of the Jade Domain in what was once south-east Asia, towering cities rise from the mist like chrome and neon dreams, their spires piercing the perpetual haze that drifts in from the jungle. These sprawling metropolises are studies in contradiction - ancient temples crowned with holographic advertisements, street vendors selling steaming bowls of rice beneath crackling power lines, and traditional paper lanterns casting their warm glow alongside the harsh glare of security spotlights.

In places like Dragon's Maw and Emerald Gate, narrow streets wind between skyscrapers like urban canyons, their walls alive with scrolling LED text and animated billboards. The scent of incense mingles with ozone and wet concrete as crowds surge through night markets where everything from black market combat stims to ancient relics can be had for the right price.

Unlike the clone-dominated jungle beyond their walls, these cities harbour a more diverse population - natural-born humans, clones, and even Reborn men walk the neon-lit streets, though tension simmers beneath the surface of this forced coexistence. Jade Domain soldiers and corporate security forces maintain an uneasy peace.

But when darkness falls, the cities transform into hunting grounds where mercenaries and assassins ply their trade in shadow-draped alleys, and underground clubs pulse with synthesized rhythms as people desperately try to forget that beyond the city limits, an endless war consumes everything in its path.

Through the toxic mist of Hell's endless jungle, lone figures stalk the treacherous terrain, their conical rice-farmer hats and gas masks creating an unsettling fusion of ancient tradition and post-apocalyptic necessity. These are the Prospectors - elite scouts whose cybernetic enhancements whir and hiss as they navigate the treacherous landscape, each step calculated to avoid the countless hazards that could spell instant death.

Above them, their reconnaissance drones cut through the heavy air like mechanical insects, their red warning lights piercing the eternal gloom as they map potential harvesting grounds. The Prospectors' survival rate is measured in weeks, not months - those lucky enough to last longer bear the scars of their profession, their flesh marked by chemical burns and their minds haunted by the horrors they've witnessed.

When a Prospector's drone picks up the telltale thermal signature of these precious trees, it marks the beginning of a new cycle of industrial slaughter, as massive harvesting machines soon follow in their wake, carving bloody swaths through the jungle's heart.

After the Prospectors come the harvesters! The Jade Domain's main source of income is the mining of one of the substances required to refine Omnimorph. Large swathes of the rainforest are devastated every cycle. The trees are harvested and their orange sap is extracted, to be sent to the insatiable cloning facilities of the Prime AI.

Large work gangs plough through the jungle every day, felling untold numbers of trees in the process.

Afterwards, the sap is processed in large mobile refineries towering tall above the jungle, moving from one extraction zone to another.

Local Neo-Cong forces attack the harvester columns whenever and wherever they can. While they might not always have the means to attack the harvesters themselves, they are highly proficient at hunting and killing the countless accompanying workers.

The military of the Jade Domain is far too pre-occupied with fighting the Neo-Cong main force elsewhere, and the loss of hundreds of workers each day is of little to no concern - diverting resources to protect them would be costlier than simply sending more...

Over the decades of endless war, the jungle itself has evolved and mutated and developed a taste for human flesh, becoming an active participant in the slaughter. Carnivorous plants, their leaves glistening with digestive fluids, lie in wait for the unwary. Screams echo through the trees as unfortunate workers are slowly digested, their comrades unable to attempt a rescue for fear of sharing their fate.

In the murky ponds and sluggish rivers, other horrors lurk. Tentacled abominations, their origins unknown, drag screaming warriors beneath the surface. The water churns red as they're torn apart, their dying screams bubbling up to the surface, a grim reminder of the dangers that lurk in every shadow and pool.

Massive spiders, their bodies warped by decades of chemical exposure, hunt humans and other creatures. Victims find themselves ensnared, stung and immobilised by mandibles dripping with venom, screaming helplessly as the monstrous arachnids devour them slowly.

Most terrifying are the Hybrids - former clone workers themselves that have become one with the jungle, they will sometimes hunt clones to feed, and sometimes to infect, turning the next generation of clones into Hybrids...

After a gruelling day of harvesting, the surviving workers set up a makeshift camp for the night.

During the night, the dreaded Headtakers emerge from the darkest depths of the jungle, raiding the worker camps... They crave human flesh and the large harvesting work gangs provide them with rich pickings, although they rarely take more than they need.

Workers on sentry duty around the camp are quickly silenced.

Then the Headtakers select a handful of unlucky workers, taking them away alive, while the other workers look on in horror.

The next day, the Headtakers feast.

No matter the human and environmental cost, the harvest must go on and the tankers filled with sap must roll...

The jungle itself seems to pulse with malevolent life, forever changed by the conflict it hosts. Trees bleed sap that burns like acid, their roots reaching out to ensnare passing prey. The very air is alive with spores that burrow into unprotected flesh, turning victims into mindless, fungal puppets that attack friend and foe alike. But it is not only the workers of the endless sap harvesting work columns that fall victim to the jungle. Neo-Cong and Jade Domain Troopers are regularly picked off while they are fighting an endless war against each other - and the ever hungry jungle.