Chapter 1

Marcus sliced open my left chest with a dagger coated in black zombie blood.

The cut wasn't deep, but that tiny bit of infected blood was lethal enough.

Immediately after, he ordered two mutinous guards to lock me inside the iron cage in the center of the plaza.

The moment the cage door locked shut, I looked at the crowd around me—the same people I had once protected behind these walls—and my heart went completely cold.

My name is Gideon. Three years ago, when the zombie virus fully broke out, I led an armed squad of fewer than fifty men to establish this base called "Blackstone" in the wasteland.

Over the past three years, I ordered the construction of a fifty-foot concrete defensive wall, cultivated underground hydroponic farms, and scavenged all military supplies within a hundred-mile radius. Now, four thousand survivors lived here.

Marcus, on the other hand, was just a politician before the apocalypse.

He never went outside the walls to risk his life fighting zombies. He simply gave a speech to the crowd, promising those four thousand people ample food rations and personal freedom. With just a few words, he turned me into the "tyrant" who allegedly stripped them of their human rights.

He successfully incited a rebellion among a portion of the survivors, including my wife, Elena.

I suffered in that iron cage for a long time.

The zombie virus turned my mind into a chaotic mess. I lost track of time, only knowing that I was stuck in a coma for a long stretch. A high fever sent my body temperature completely out of control, causing my muscles to constantly spasm.

My most loyal subordinate, Razor, didn't give up on me. He took six brothers from the guard and tried to break through the rebel blockade to bust me out of the cage. But they were heavily outnumbered and pinned to the ground by Marcus's men. In front of thousands of people, Marcus hung them alive in the plaza.

Eventually, the virus dug deeper. Slowly, I lost my ability to think. On the exact same day my mutation into a zombie was complete, the base's defensive line collapsed.

To fulfill his political promises, Marcus had canceled the mandatory twelve-hour patrol system. The watchtowers on the outer walls were left entirely vacant.

Thousands of zombies effortlessly flattened the eastern main gate.

Through the bars of the cage, I watched the undead flood in.

I saw Marcus and my wife, Elena, run out of the master control room.

Marcus grabbed Elena, jumped into a car, and they drove off without looking back. No one cared about me in the cage, nor did anyone care whether those four thousand civilians lived or died.

Then, my consciousness completely faded away. My body morphed into a monster driven only by instinct.

The next second, my eyes snapped open.

I was sitting in the chair inside the master control room office, gasping heavily for air.

I instinctively reached for my left chest—my heartbeat was steady, my skin was smooth, and there was no blackened stab wound.

I turned to look at the digital clock on the wall: November 4th, 8:15 PM.

It has been three months since I was reborn. My consciousness had vanished the moment I became a zombie, and the next thing I knew, I had woken up several months in the past.

Over these past three months, I’ve dreamed of my past life more times than I can count.

Now, there are less than three hours left before Marcus and his rebels kick down the doors to this office.

For three months, I’ve been making foolproof preparations.

I pressed the encrypted internal intercom on my desk.

"Razor, come to my office right now."

Three minutes later, Razor pushed the door open and walked in. He was my second-in-command during my mercenary days, and out of the four thousand people in this base, he is the only one I trust completely.

"Things aren't right out there, boss," Razor said, looking grim. "We lost contact with four hidden sentries in Zones B and C. Marcus held a public rally in the greenhouse sector this afternoon, openly accusing your fourteen-day mandatory quarantine act of being an abuse of power. On top of that, maintenance reported that the security cameras running on the control room's backup power were manually severed half an hour ago."

"At exactly 11:00 PM, Marcus, Elena, and over a dozen guards from the first squad are going to kick this door open." I walked behind the desk, pulled a Glock from the drawer, and checked the magazine.

Razor immediately said, "I'll go rally our brothers on the perimeter right now. You just give the word, and I'll wipe Marcus and his idiot followers out within ten minutes."

"No." I placed the sidearm back on the desk. "I don't want you doing a thing."

Razor froze. "This is no joke. Marcus is trying to seize power. If you don't strike first, it'll be too late once they surround us here. Those thousands of civilians outside are already brainwashed by him. They actually think the zombie crisis is over and that your rules are designed purely to torture them."

"I know exactly what they're trying to do." I crouched down and pulled an explosion-proof lockbox from a hidden compartment in the floorboards. Inside were four molded explosives and a remote detonation device. "How goes the task I gave you last month?"

Razor reported truthfully, "It's all taken care of. Eighty percent of our heavy weapons and ammunition, along with the compressed rations from the cold storage, have been secretly transferred to 'Bunker Zero,' two hundred feet underground."

"Good." I secured the explosives one by one under my desk and onto the load-bearing pillars, connecting the detonators. "Tonight, you're going to take the remaining dozens of brothers who are loyal to us, drop your weapons, and surrender to Marcus."

"You want us to surrender?" Razor's voice went up a pitch.

"Yes. Fake a surrender, and then lay low inside the inner guard." I stood up and looked him straight in the eyes.

I walked to the window, gazing down at the flickering lights of the residential zone.

"Most of the people down there aren't evil; they're just stupid. If we kill Marcus now, they won't be grateful. Instead, they'll idolize him as a martyr who died fighting for their freedom. Once that sentiment takes root in the base, we'll be dealing with daily sabotage and betrayal."

Razor walked up behind me, following my gaze toward the outer walls.

"Killing someone doesn't solve the problem. If we want to completely eradicate their delusions, they have to experience true terror for themselves."

Razor took a deep breath, seemingly understanding my intentions.

I continued, "At exactly 11:00 PM, I will detonate this office and retreat to Bunker Zero through a hidden chute. As far as anyone else is concerned, I'll be dead."

"You will hide among them. It won't be long before the zombies breach the base. When the walls fall, your only job is to protect those who still have their sanity. As for the rest, let them pay the price for their own choices."

"Understood." Razor holstered his gun and stood tall. "We'll wait up here for your signal."

After Razor left, I sat in my chair, locking my eyes on the security monitors on my desk.

Time ticked by, minute by minute.

At 10:45 PM, twelve fully armed guards appeared on the camera feeds.

I recognized them. A month ago, I had their rations docked for slacking off during an outer-wall clearing detail.

At 10:55 PM, Marcus and Elena made their way upstairs.

Elena was wearing a pristine cashmere coat, following closely behind Marcus.

11:00 PM sharp.

With a heavy bang, the solid wood office door was violently kicked open.

Six assault rifles instantly locked onto my position.

Only after confirming I was alone in the room did Marcus step in from the hallway, a handgun gripped tightly in his hands. Elena followed right behind him.

"It's over, Gideon," Marcus said, stopping about fifteen feet away from me. "Your men outside have completely surrendered their arms to me. We are in control here now."

"Your people were screaming pretty loudly out there." I leaned back in my chair. "You told them that as long as they overthrow me, they won't have to patch the razor wire on the outer walls tomorrow, and they'll get double rations every day."

"I just gave them what they fundamentally deserve," Marcus said. "You have no right to force four thousand people to work for you like slaves."

"There is nothing but zombies outside. If we don't repair the wire and maintain high-intensity patrols, the horde could flood in at any second."

"Stop trying to scare us with zombies!" Elena stepped out from behind Marcus and pointed a finger right at my nose. "You only made those terrifying rules to satisfy your own lust for control! You force everyone who returns from the outside into a quarantine room for a full fourteen days, and the moment you see a single scratch, you order their execution! You are a cold-blooded dictator!"

I looked at my wife—in name only. She lived in the safest central sector of the base. She had never gone hungry, nor had she ever witnessed firsthand a person mutating into a zombie. Trying to explain the risks of the virus's incubation period to her was entirely pointless.

Marcus aimed his gun barrel right at my chest. "Elena has already handed all the access rights over to me, including your mess of passcodes. For the sake of all the years past, I can choose not to execute you. I'll just exile you."

"You're too kind, Marcus." My left hand was already resting on the detonator beneath the desk.

Without a second of hesitation, I pressed the red button.

The explosives detonated in an instant.

Almost simultaneously, the trapdoor beneath my feet flipped open, and my entire body plummeted down a three-foot-wide chute.

The very second I dropped, the metal hatch at the top of the chute sealed shut. Immediately after, the floorboards above collapsed from the blast, and tons of concrete and rubble crashed down onto the hatch, completely burying any trace of my escape.

I slid for about thirty seconds before landing safely on the pneumatic crash pad at the bottom.

I stood up, dusted off my clothes, keyed in my fingerprint code, and pushed open the heavy blast door in front of me.

Bunker Zero.

It had been secretly constructed during the base's original design phase. It was the first place that came to mind after I was reborn. I connected a drop chute to it, turning it into my personal hidden fortress.

Heavy arms and compressed rations were stockpiled here, all running on an independent power grid.

I walked over to the central monitoring console and pulled up the camera feed from the office.

The office had been blown to absolute ruins. In the thick, billowing smoke, Marcus was being hastily pulled from the rubble by several guards.

"Cough... cough... Go check! Go see if that lunatic is completely dead!"

A few bloodied guards cautiously approached the epicenter of the blast.

"The whole desk and the load-bearing wall are completely gone..." one guard reported, panting heavily. "No body... He must have been incinerated to ash."

"That psycho... he wanted to drag us to hell with him..." Elena sat slumped on the floor, her face shockingly pale.

After confirming there was no way anyone survived, Marcus's breathing finally slowed down. "That was too close... If we had stepped forward three more paces just now, we'd have died right there with him."

Marcus began to laugh. "Gideon is dead! Our era has finally arrived!"

Cheers immediately erupted from the guards outside.

I leaned back in my ergonomic chair, pulled out a cigar, and lit it.

Amidst the swirling smoke, I stared at Marcus on the main monitor.

I was in no rush. I simply sat there in my absolute, impenetrable underground fortress, waiting for the day they personally invited the zombies into the city.