Chapter1

The extreme cold apocalypse descended, with global temperatures plummeting to minus 70 degrees Celsius. Cities were reduced to frozen wastelands overrun by frozen corpses.

On the eve of the crisis, I awakened the Berserk Zombie Horde System. Facing exploitation from a ruthless agency and betrayal by my gold-digging girlfriend, I directly used a system backdoor to hack into the agency's accounts, siphoning a massive 7 million dollars!

I purchased heavy-duty generators, hoarded hundreds of tons of supplies, and transformed an abandoned mine into an underground steel fortress with fully automated climate control.

The apocalypse arrived exactly on schedule, plunging the entire city into a total blackout. While my enemies turned purple from the cold, kneeling outside my blast doors and begging for mercy, I sat in my 25-degree Celsius climate-controlled room, sipping whiskey. With a casual flick of a switch, I activated the traps, sending them out to feed the monsters in the blizzard.

In this white wasteland, I am the only rule!

——

I spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva, sweat stinging my eyes. The spotlights in the underground fight club were blinding, and the curses from the gamblers below the ring buzzed in my ears like a swarm of flies.

My manager, Marcus, walked over with a cigar clamped between his teeth. Instead of handing me a towel, he slapped a crumpled piece of printed paper against my chest.

"You didn't go down in the third round like we planned." Marcus exhaled a thick ring of smoke directly into my face. "Penalty fee is fifty grand. Add that to your previous venue advances, your purse for tonight is wiped clean. You still owe the company thirty thousand dollars."

I clenched my gloved fists, my knuckles popping loudly.

Before I could lash out, two security guards weighing over three hundred pounds stepped forward, their high-voltage stun batons crackling with a dangerous blue light.

The sheer frustration made me want to grind my back teeth to dust. But I knew starting a fight right now would only end badly for me.

A dull ache in my ribs kept me company all the way back to my basement apartment in the slums. I pushed open the mold-covered wooden door, met with the foul, damp stench of sewage backing up into the air.

I walked over to the sink. The moment I turned on the faucet, a sharp, piercing ringing erupted deep within my brain.

A stream of spectral blue holographic data brutally forced its way into my retinas.

[Berserk Zombie Horde System successfully bound.]

Before I could even process this, a fragment of memory—so vivid it felt like I had lived it—smashed into my mind with staggering force.

It was Oak City, ten days from now.

The sky was a sickly leaden gray, as if drained of all life. The red mercury in the thermometers plummeted off a cliff, dropping straight to minus seventy degrees Celsius.

In the vision, the high-voltage power grids collapsed one after another in showers of blinding sparks, plunging the entire city into a dead, silent darkness. People on the streets, unable to find shelter in time, were frozen in mid-stride, turning into grotesque ice sculptures.

Immediately after, the scene violently shifted.

The corpses, completely encased in thick frost, began to twitch and force their stiff joints upright. Their pale eyes, devoid of all human emotion, locked onto the survivors cowering in the corners. They lunged, tearing off huge chunks of warm flesh with their teeth.

[System calculation complete. Deep Freeze Apocalypse Countdown: 239 hours and 59 minutes.]

[Novice Quest Issued: Establish an independently powered safe shelter within ten days.]

Freezing water dripped from my chin. It wasn't a hallucination. That bone-chilling cold still lingered in my nerve endings, and even my breath formed white plumes in the air.

My phone screen suddenly lit up with a debt collection text from Marcus: "If I don't see the money by noon tomorrow, I'm sending someone to collect your legs."

Staring at the message, I casually wiped the dried blood from the corner of my mouth.

In ten days, cash would be too rough to even wipe my ass with. Debt? That was just a dog leash meant for a civilized society.

In the corner of the system interface, an authorization icon for an [Initial Network Penetration Backdoor] blinked silently.

I dug out my beat-up laptop and routed the backdoor program into Marcus's agency's internal network. The system's computing power was beyond imagination. In just ten seconds, their heavily boasted firewall was reduced to shreds.

I immediately locked onto their reserve fund pool.

Transfer. Launder. Disperse into accounts.

Eight hundred thousand dollars in liquid assets was broken down into dozens of smaller transactions, flowing like water into my anonymous offshore accounts.

But that wasn't enough. I went ahead and hacked into several loan sharks and credit institutions. Using a batch of pre-prepared virtual identities, I maxed out every single line of credit available.

The digits on the screen spun wildly, finally stopping at a staggering seven million dollars.

Staring at this massive sum, I grabbed my jacket and stormed out of the basement. Time was the only currency for survival now.

First stop: West District Heavy Machinery Plant.

The owner was just locking up for the day. I strode straight up to him and slammed ten stacks of cold, hard cash onto his desk.

"Two 2,000-kilowatt heavy-duty diesel generators, and three sets of industrial-grade thermostatic boilers. I need them in stock, right now."

The owner stared at the money, swallowing hard. "I have them in stock, but delivery is going to take a few days to schedule..."

I pulled another ten stacks from my bag and slammed them down next to the first pile. "I'm paying extra. Load the trucks tonight. I want these machines on the road before midnight."

With my power core secured, I rushed non-stop to the interstate wholesale warehouse center.

Over the next forty-eight hours, I worked like a machine on overdrive, frantically sweeping up every hard survival asset on the market. One hundred tons of high-calorie freeze-dried beef, fifty tons of dehydrated vegetables, and crates upon crates of medical-grade broad-spectrum antibiotics.

Passing by a tactical security store, I cleared their shelves of solid titanium war hammers, heavy-duty breaching axes, and military-grade polar survival gear.

Finally, utilizing black market channels, I paid triple the market price to order three entire tanker trucks full of heavy diesel fuel.

On a nearby TV screen, the weather anchor was smiling brightly. "A rare cold front is approaching the region. Citizens are advised to bundle up and stay warm."

I glanced out the window at the still-bright and sunny sky, then started the engine of my SUV.

By the morning of the third day, a massive convoy of twelve heavy transport trucks rolled onto the highway heading toward the Black Ridge Mountains.

The destination on the GPS was the optimal location highlighted by the system: an abandoned mine shaft buried hundreds of feet underground.

The entrance was concealed beneath a steep cliff, connected to the outside world by only a single narrow passage. The interior, however, was reinforced by solid bedrock. It was incredibly deep, providing a natural, physical thermal insulation layer.

Money talked, and the results were immediate. Motivated by an exorbitant daily wage, the workers spent the entire night hauling the massive generator units and mountains of supplies down into the deep underground main control room.

The evening of the ninth day.

I settled the final payment and sent off the very last empty truck.

The surrounding forest was unnervingly quiet. Even the chirping of the birds had completely vanished.

Standing alone at the vast entrance of the mine, I pulled down the heavy steel rolling door.

A single hexagonal snowflake drifted down, landing on the back of my hand. It didn't melt.

The heat in the air was being stripped away at a speed that defied all logic.

The deep freeze had arrived.