I Can't Save Anyone

In the 73rd year of the wasteland, when the scarlet lines crawled to his fingertips, 16-year-old San received a death sentence: a 30-year countdown to life. Every time he wielded his blade and burned his life force, the red lines crept an inch closer to his heart. The day they reached his heart would be the day his soul scattered. All of humanity hailed him as the savior to end the apocalypse, but he alone engraved one sentence into his bones: I can't save anyone. He had seen his predecessor burn through all his cultivation to seal a protective lock for him; seen his brother carve 12 fate marks to accompany him through mountains of corpses and seas of blood; seen his beloved use her life to protect a child, leaving him 13 notebooks filled with gentle words. The alien harvesting fleet hung in the sky, a million mechanical army pressed in, and when the 30-year countdown reached zero, the red lines crawled over his heart. He did not become the god who saved the world, but he swung his blade and burned the last trace of his life force— I can't save the whole world, but no one can take away the world they traded their lives to give me!