Chapter3

The moment the second hand swept past midnight, the world outside the window plunged into a sudden, dead silence.

It was as if a giant, invisible hand had severed the entire city's power supply. The sea of neon lights stretching for dozens of kilometers vanished in an instant, and the piercing wails of sirens abruptly choked to a halt.

In the darkness, only the backup solar indicator light of my 50th-floor penthouse apartment blinked with a faint green glow.

A deafening blast of heavy-bass electronic music suddenly surged up from the bottom of the building through the ventilation shafts.

I walked over to the surveillance console and hit the start button for the independent power system. Amidst the faint hum of the AC kicking in, eight high-definition night-vision screens flickered to life simultaneously.

The "Panoramic Glass Holographic Restaurant" on the ground floor was ablaze with light. Chad had actually used a portable diesel generator to light up the entire ground-floor commercial space.

On the screen, hundreds of rich kids were grinding their bodies, champagne glasses in hand. Chad stood on the bar counter, holding up an inflatable clown with my name written on it, laughing maniacally into a microphone.

He was using this to avenge the humiliation of me shattering his nose three days ago.

I ignored the wild revelry on the screen and turned toward the open kitchen. The butter in the skillet had already melted, and I dropped in a beautifully marbled cut of M9 Wagyu beef.

The moment the fat hit the intense heat, it sizzled loudly. The rich aroma of meat quickly masked the lingering smell of welding in the air.

Almost at the exact same moment, the surveillance system let out a piercing motion-detection alarm.

Holding a glass of cola packed with ice cubes, I stepped back in front of the screens.

In the dark alley outside the restaurant, several bizarre silhouettes were sprinting toward the main road at a speed far beyond human limits.

They ran on all fours, their spines contorted in a grotesque, backward curve. The hoods of abandoned cars along their path were easily crushed into deep footprints under their weight.

The partying crowd inside the restaurant remained entirely oblivious. Chad was pouring a glass of liquor over the hair of the girl next to him, drawing bursts of roaring laughter.

The next second, the leading mutant slammed heavily into the restaurant's two-story panoramic floor-to-ceiling glass.

The tempered glass, designed to withstand hurricanes, held out for less than two seconds under that terrifying impact. A spiderweb of cracks instantly crawled across the entire wall.

Accompanied by a deafening shatter, countless glass shards, mixed with the night rain, spiraled into the hall like a blizzard.

The drumbeats of the electronic music were still thumping, but they were already drowned out by bloodcurdling screams.

The mutants lunged into the flock like starving wolves. One monster leaped onto the bar and clamped its jaws around the bartender's neck. Blood sprayed like a high-pressure hose onto the expensive holographic projectors, dyeing the entire hall a macabre, dark red.

I took a bite of the Wagyu, seared crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. As I chewed, the rich meat juices exploded in my mouth.

The slaughter on the screens continued. Those elites, clad in custom tailored suits and usually standing so high and mighty, were now reduced to nothing but their most primal survival instincts.

Chad's proud social status was utterly useless before the monsters' fangs.

He scrambled and tumbled off the bar. His once meticulously styled blond hair was now plastered with chunks of someone else's organs.

To buy himself time to escape, he violently grabbed the girl he had been flirting with moments ago and shoved her hard toward the lunging mutant.

The girl didn't even have time to scream before she was instantly swallowed up by several monsters.

Seizing this brief window, Chad stumbled wildly toward the building's internal elevator lobby, frantically slamming the call button.

I gulped down the last mouthful of iced cola. The carbonated bubbles slid down my esophagus, bringing a refreshing chill.

What he didn't know was that, two hours ago, I had already cut off the power supply to everything below the 50th floor of this building.

On the surveillance feed, Chad stared at the unresponsive elevator doors. His once arrogant face twisted and deformed in sheer terror. He turned his head, locking his eyes on the direction of the stairwell, looking exactly like a stray dog with nowhere left to run.