Chapter2

I didn't sleep a wink the night the five million dollars arrived in my account.

Now that the death knell of the end times has tolled, I need an absolutely indestructible throne.

Without any hesitation, I immediately contacted a real estate broker on the New York black market and bought a penthouse in the Lower Manhattan industrial area for two million US dollars in cash, without any bargaining.

In my past life, this building, with its completely enclosed exterior and extremely sturdy structure, was occupied by a group of heavily armed thugs. They arrogantly used it as a slaughterhouse and a haven, reveling in it every night, while I could only fight for food with rats in the stinking ditch.

But in this life, this perfect strategic stronghold has been marked with my imprint ahead of time.

Over the next six days, I showed the world what it means to be an actuary's ultimate coordinator, and the final frenzy of "money power" before the collapse of order.

"Money is not a problem. As long as you finish within five days, I will pay you three times the quoted price. If you are delayed by even one hour, you will not receive a single penny."

Driven by huge sums of money, New York's top security construction teams and underground arms smugglers worked around the clock like mad dogs.

Three military-grade titanium alloy blast doors, each 20 centimeters thick, were transported to the top floor by a heavy crane and firmly welded to the only passageway in the corridor. Even a direct hit from a rocket launcher wouldn't leave a mark.

The outer walls were connected to a 10,000-volt high-voltage power grid; two high-power silent diesel generator sets and a complete set of military-grade water purification and circulation systems were installed and debugged overnight; the originally spacious dressing room was roughly stuffed with enough military high-calorie compressed dry rations, pressure-resistant canned food and first-aid medicines to last for two months.

My most crucial trump card is the two portable AI automatic machine gun turrets that I bought from dark web hackers at great expense. They are perfectly hidden in the ceiling cavity of the corridor outside the blast door, and their barrels are loaded with dumdum bullets.

By the afternoon of the seventh day, I had squandered almost all of the five million US dollars in high-interest loans, but this once luxurious penthouse had been completely transformed into a heavily armed steel fortress.

"Buzz—Buzz—"

The backup phone on the console started vibrating wildly. The caller ID showed an unknown international long-distance call that was heavily encrypted.

Calculating the timeline, that exorbitant loan with a daily interest rate of 10% finally ballooned to a death point of a full ten million US dollars.

This must be a debt collection call from the Russian mafia family "Tomahawk." They've probably already discovered that the supposedly purchased mansion on Long Island never happened, and that the ten million-plus dollars in bad debt is now firmly pinned on my father, stepmother, and brother.

I sneered, didn't even look at it, and directly pressed the hang-up button, then blocked the number.

Looking for me? Go find your nominal "debt guarantor." My vain stepmother and crippled brother will surely give you a huge surprise.

I turned my executive chair to face the eight high-definition, top-secret monitoring screens on the wall. My fingers flew across the keyboard, bringing up the facial recognition system of the AI machine gun turret.

"Beep—Face recognition in progress."

I dragged photos of my biological father, stepmother, and my genetically mutated brother into the machine gun turret's control center one by one, and then checked the most glaring red box.

[Target access confirmed: Intrusion results in immediate elimination without warning shots.]

A family, of course, should all be on the Grim Reaper's list. Having done all that, I leaned back in my leather chair and let out a long sigh of relief.

At six o'clock in the evening, the sky suddenly darkened.

What began as sporadic riots on the streets of Manhattan has now escalated into a completely out-of-control catastrophe. The virus has broken out, and hordes of infected individuals have flooded the streets like a burst dam, biting anyone they see. The flames from a series of car collisions have illuminated half the sky.

The surveillance footage shows the facial recognition access control system on the ground floor of the building being violently smashed. Five heavily tattooed Russian men, armed with submachine guns, kicked open the stairwell door.

The Mafia's cleaners have come knocking. They're clearly here to arrest me, the "mastermind," to cover for them.

Unfortunately, they chose the wrong time.

Just as the five burly men stepped onto the third-floor stairwell, the glass doors on the ground floor were shattered by a horde of hundreds of zombies. The frenzied infected, drawn by the scent of fresh flesh, surged wildly up the stairwell.

"Fuck! What the hell are these things?! Fire! Fire!"

Their terrified roars echoed from the monitor . The piercing flash of submachine gun fire raged through the narrow stairwell, bullets turning the dozen or so infected at the front into mangled pieces.

But against a tsunami of zombies, a few submachine guns wouldn't even be enough to fill a gap between their teeth.

Just thirty seconds later, the sound of a gun jamming as it ran out of ammunition became the mob's death knell. The infected swarmed forward like ants. The cracking of bones breaking, the screams of organs being torn apart, and the nauseating sounds of chewing combined to create the most realistic symphony of the apocalypse.

At the top of this stairwell, where blood and flesh had been torn apart, my three titanium alloy explosion-proof doors clicked shut with a dull electronic lock.

Completely locked down, isolating life and death.

I stood in the control room, the temperature-controlled air conditioner behind me gently blowing out a pleasant breeze of 24 degrees Celsius. I poured myself a glass of pure Scotch single malt whisky, the ice balls gently clinking in the amber liquid.

I pressed the button on the vintage record player next to me, and Mozart's Requiem resounded melodiously in the hall.

Outside the door, there was a hellish, inhuman scene of biting and screaming.

Holding my wine glass, I coldly watched the surveillance footage of those suit-clad thugs being devoured to the bone, a mocking smile playing on my lips.

"Smack."

Just then, a series of massive transformer sparks erupted in Manhattan outside the window, and the lights of the entire city went out instantly, like dominoes falling. Endless darkness engulfed the megacity.

Almost simultaneously, the independent generator set inside my fortress seamlessly switched on, and the soft backup lights instantly illuminated .

"Waaaaah—!!!"

The piercing air raid sirens tore through the night sky, echoing across the New York wasteland of millions.

The apocalypse has arrived in full force. But my game has only just begun.