Jade Death Machine

FOREWORD: Jade Death Machine was originally envisioned as a webtoon during COVID, when I wanted to provide some kind of work to my artist friends during the uncertainty of the pandemic. So I worked with them to create a series titled 'Dark Orient', that was published on LINE Webtoon for about a year or so, but then my friends found work once COVID died down and had to commit to other projects. So unfortunately that webtoon has been put on hiatus ever since!  Since I always thought it was a bit of a shame to leave that story unfinished, I decided to fill out the some of the missing links from the webtoon here on RR. Here's a LINK to the original webtoon if you're interested! An apocalypse has come and gone, rendering mortality a thing of the past. All that remains of human civilisation are a handful of sanctuaries, built atop lofty peaks and plateaus. Just barely out of the ravenous reach of the Black Flood - a vast floating ocean of murderous clouds, formed by towering pillars of world-ending miasma, that have now covered most of the surface world.  Now, to die is an impossible luxury, morality exists only in different shades of black, and profaned souls are put to the torch and used as the eldritch currency fuelling the realm.  In this dark age so seemingly devoid of goodness, a former soldier named Ren continues to fight to better the world, in a forlorn attempt to live up to the final orders of his late superior. But few will accept his help, much less trust him, for Ren is a Pseudo - a one-man army feared as a monster clad in human skin, believed to be more miasma than man.  Blue is a fierce young girl who defies her doom at every opportunity. Though orphaned by a miasmic outbreak, she managed to survive by eking out a meagre living as a petty thief. But one fateful day, a heist goes horribly wrong and Blue finds herself stuck with a stolen eldritch artifact - that refuses to be rid of her!  After Blue is forced to go on the run, fate brings Ren to her side. Matters are further complicated when the artifact awakens and reveals itself to be Sànhúnyù [lit. the "Soul-Scattering Jade"], the key to completing the fabled Jade Death Machine - a device supposedly capable of ending the global curse of immortality.  Withe the fate of the world in their hands, our unlikely duo find themselves ruthlessly pursued by the powers that be - who mean to silence this brimming hope at all costs.