Chapter One

There are only six hours left until the Bloodspore Mutation Crisis.

I sat on the leather sofa, lazily stroking the tactical German Shepherd "Zeus" lying at my feet.

"Honey, have a drink. You've been working too hard on the 'Lone Star' bunker lately."

My wife, Nicole, walked gracefully towards me, carrying two glasses of red wine in her high heels.

Tonight in my past life, I drank that glass of wine and then fell into a deep coma. When I awoke, the highest level of control over my "Lone Star" shelter, which I had built at a cost of billions, had been taken away. I was locked inside this massive steel cage, forced to watch the outside world descend into madness through bulletproof glass, and hear the ear-piercing scratching sounds of mutants pounding on the door.

I took the red wine.

In my past life, I was completely unguarded with my wife, but now, with just a light sniff, I could detect the faint bitterness of sodium thiopental hidden beneath the rich aroma of the wine.

“Yes, everything will be over tomorrow.”

Under Nicole’s somewhat nervous gaze, I brought the wine glass to my lips.

I bent down casually, stroking Zeus's thick neck fur with perfect ease. Taking advantage of this perfect blind spot, I subtly flicked my right wrist.

Most of a glass of red wine, heavily narcotic, was silently poured into the wool carpet.

Then, I placed the empty glass back on the tray, feigning exhaustion as I rubbed my temples.

"This wine…it's a really good vintage. But I'm a little dizzy,"

I mumbled indistinctly, collapsing onto the sofa, closing my eyes to feign a deep coma.

Less than five minutes later,

the steady sound of specially made leather shoes echoed on the wool carpet.

It was Max—my security chief, a retired Delta Force soldier, and also my "good wife's" secret lover.

"Is he completely unconscious?" Max's voice rang out in the study.

"Don't worry, I gave him three times the usual dose. Even a cow wouldn't be able to open its eyes for the next couple of days!" Nicole's voice was no longer gentle.

Max walked up to me, his silenced Glock pistol pressed coldly against my forehead.

He chuckled coldly, and with lightning speed, reached into my collar and pulled out the titanium necklace I always wore around my neck.

A soft click.

Max expertly unfastened the clasp on the back of the necklace, pulling the [Alpha Security Ring], a pendant with a shimmering, eerie blue sheen, into his hand.

“Arthur Morgan…you’re a real sucker, one in a million.” Max stood before me, mocking me with extreme arrogance. “You think you’re building your own doomsday throne by spending money like water, mobilizing tens of thousands of top engineers to dig out the billion-dollar ‘Lone Star’ nuclear bunker in the Grand Canyon?”

“No, buddy. From today onwards, your woman, your wealth, your world-class shelter—it’s all under my control, Max. And you…you can just sleep your ass off in this beautiful greenhouse!”

He carefully tucked the ring into his pocket, then turned and wrapped his arm around Nicole’s slender waist.

“Let’s go, Max. The weather forecast says there’s a rare global red rainstorm tonight, flights are about to be suspended, I don’t want to stay in this doomed place for another second!” Nicole urged.

“Don’t rush, darling. Before we leave, we need to put some insurance on our former boss.”

Max walked to the main control panel in the study and entered a string of advanced commands he had already stolen.

"Beep—External tri-proof lockout protocol activated. Full lockdown initiated."

Accompanied by a emotionless synthesized system voice, the blast-resistant armored doors of the entire penthouse roared and slammed shut. Here, it had become a steel tomb, completely accessible only from an external high-level port.

"Farewell, fools."

With a sneer from Max, the door shut out their footsteps completely.

"Bang."

Just a millimeter after the door sensor indicated it was completely locked,

I, who had just been "in a deep sleep," opened my eyes.

I stood up from the sofa, and Zeus, the war dog, immediately and nimbly jumped off, quietly sitting at my feet wagging its tail, its golden vertical pupils watching me alertly.

"Good job, buddy." I half-squatted down and skillfully reached for the wide, blast-proof tactical collar around its neck. Deep inside the collar's slot, my fingertips felt the cold touch of super alloy.

That was the real [Alpha Key Ring].

Long before Nicole stepped across the threshold with her wine glass, I had already switched it.

As for the one that the two of them had excitedly ripped off?

That was a cheap imitation I bought on the street for ten dollars a few days ago. However, I had written an extremely elegant piece of malicious code called "Defense System Induced Self-Destruction" into its internal microchip.

If they dared to insert this thing into the physical identification slot of the Lone Star Bunker, what awaited them was not the opening of the gates of heaven.

"You think you can trap me by closing a blast door?"

I sneered, pushing aside an oil painting and pulling out a tactical briefcase.

Inside were only three sections of high explosives and several electronic detonators.

I walked to the locked NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) armored door. I slammed the three explosives into the hydraulic bearing gaps of the door, inserted the detonators, took five steps back, and hid behind the thick load-bearing wall.

"BOOM—!!!"

With a deafening, ear-piercing thud, the door shattered all its hinges and slammed heavily onto the floor.

I grabbed Zeus and pulled my handheld terminal from my pocket.

Less than five hours remained before the blood-red fungal spore rain covered the globe. I didn't have time to hunt down that despicable couple; I had something a thousand times more satisfying than killing them myself.

I aligned my retina with the recognition frame and pressed my finger on the sensor area.

"Alpha physical access authentication successful. Supreme Commander, welcome back." The terminal emitted a ghostly blue light.

Those idiots thought they'd misappropriated all my wealth.

But I am the ultimate creator of the main network.

Using the elevator's descent, I forcibly accessed the core internal network of what was supposedly the most secure bank in America through a backdoor in the terminal.

I cleared out all the bonds, shorted them, and sold them off at rock-bottom prices.

Then, I transferred the billions of dollars in cash generated to a hidden account with an IP address located in the New Jersey black market arms market!

Seeing that the couple's balance on the screen was completely empty, I comfortably closed the terminal.

They had no idea that they had become penniless beggars carrying a deadly bomb.

"Ding—"

The elevator doors opened.

A vehicle resembling a prehistoric steel behemoth lay silently under the lights.

The George Patton off-road vehicle, equipped with external anti-tank attachments, resembled a tank with its massive front end.

I opened the door, let Zeus leap into the passenger seat, then plunged into the spacious driver's seat and pressed the keyless start button.

"Boom—!"

The engine roared like a beast, awakening the entire underground garage.

As the rampaging vehicle surged out of the garage ramp and plunged into the neon-lit night of Manhattan,

the first drop of crimson acid rain, carrying an extremely eerie odor, struck my ten-centimeter-thick bulletproof windshield.

Cataclysm had arrived prematurely.

"Sizzle—" A loud electronic noise suddenly came through my vehicle's military shortwave communicator.

The next second, Viktor, the Russian arms oligarch, roared in the truck:

"Arthur! You madman! Ten billion dollars is in my account! The three heavy-duty cargo trucks you requested, along with the M134 rotary machine guns and thermobaric rounds in the crates, are all ready for you! They're in my black market warehouse!"

"But what the hell is this weather?! There's a huge horde of lunatics covered in red fungus pounding on my iron gate! Security can't hold up! If you don't come soon, this batch of the world's top heavy weaponry will be going to Red Square with me to see God!"

Looking at the dozens of zombies that had mutated and crawled out of the trucks on the road ahead, charging at me like wild beasts, I lit a cigar, my eyes flashing with an extremely bloodthirsty light.

"Guard my goods, I'll be right there."

I didn't even step on the brakes, slamming the accelerator to the floor.