Utopia
"Don't move, pal. You need rest,"
I said, a calm smile on my face.
The poisoned bone dagger in Wyatt’s grip caught the light, reflecting a sinister green glare.
His muscles were taut like a drawn bowstring, primed to rip through my throat at any second.
I simply stood there, looking down at him.
My smile didn't waver.
I didn't even bother to take a defensive stance.
This absolute calmness—resembling a god staring down at an insect—completely paralyzed the battle-hardened raider boss.
He stared at his fully healed chest, then looked around at the pristine, purified sanctuary shielded by the white light. Not a single trace of poison remained.
A few ragged refugees, who had almost had their lungs melted outside, were shivering in the corner of the factory.
They were currently tearing into the clean water and canned rations I had just handed out.
This scene completely shattered Wyatt’s apocalyptic worldview.
In a New York where men stabbed each other over the last crust of bread, someone had just unconditionally saved a man who was his mortal enemy minutes prior.
Clang.
The poisoned bone blade slipped from Wyatt’s sweaty palm, clattering loudly against the concrete.
The notorious Detroit convict’s knees buckled. He dropped heavily to the ground before me.
He bowed the head that had never bowed to any man, his voice raspy and trembling.
"David... my life belongs to you now. Anyone wants a piece of you, they go through my corpse first."
"No. I don't need your corpse. We’re all going to live. Stand up, Wyatt. Use your military expertise to get the defense grid of this place back online."
Wyatt didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. He immediately mobilized the grateful refugees and got to work.
Over the next few hours, I continued to track the system's directives, rescuing several raiders and drifters who had been mangled by corporate remnants and left to rot in the toxic fog outside.
With every rescue, the base gained another fiercely loyal vanguard.
Concurrently, the system’s energy feedback into my own body reached a terrifying threshold.
I unleashed the surging light energy within me, slamming it directly into the base’s alloy outer walls.
With a massive roar, a colossal, hemispherical shield of pure white energy shot into the sky, locking down the entire Ford Industrial Base.
I stood at the absolute peak of the command tower, exhaling a single word: "Utopia."
This place had become the only poison-free iron fortress in the entire New York wasteland—a place with no need for gas masks, no starvation, and no betrayal.
The moment the base structure stabilized, a massive, earth-shaking explosion erupted from the heart of downtown New York.
A blinding pillar of blood-red light shot straight into the heavens, violently tearing the heavy clouds apart.
The high-tier alien beast horde had fully awakened.
Through the base’s high-magnification long-range radar, I watched clearly.
A few kilometers away, the outer defense lines of Ethan’s old bunker collapsed like wet tissue paper under the impact of armored beasts towering over three stories high.
Endless screams and dense gunfire flashed into clusters of blinding red blips on the radar screen.
The old faction was being annihilated in real-time.
"Boss, we’ve got anomalous readings on the radar!"
Wyatt sprinted up to the command deck, his face grim as he pointed at the screen.
On the display, a massive cluster of dim red dots representing human life signs was fleeing desperately through the dark night and toxic fog.
Their trajectory was locked straight toward our Ford Industrial Base.
Those red dots blinked out one after another under the beasts' pursuit.
Each disappearance meant a survivor was being torn to shreds.
And at the very front of that panicked, fleeing vanguard of broken troops, the strongest red signal was hauling ass toward Utopia’s gates.
The radar automatically identified the radio callsign.
The man leading the pack was none other than Ethan—the very captain who had stripped me of my weapons and personally shoved me into the toxic abyss.
