Chapter Two

pounded against the ten-centimeter-thick bulletproof glass like drumbeats.

I expressionlessly turned the steering wheel, the armored vehicle swerved, and forced its way through the barbed wire gate of the New Jersey Black Heavy Industry dock.

In the distance, I could see nearly a hundred blood spore mutants, attracted by the gunfire, frantically scratching and ramming against the heavy metal roller shutter door of the warehouse.

The door was already denting, and the terrified shouts and curses of Victor's mercenaries could be faintly heard from inside.

"Hold on tight, Zeus,"

I glanced at the war dog in the passenger seat. Zeus let out a low, excited growl.

I pushed open the heavy door, grabbed my shotgun, and leaped out.

The three mutants at the front didn't even have time to howl before their upper bodies were struck head-on by an invisible giant hammer; their chests and heads exploded into a horrific rain of blood and flesh, the fragments of bone mixed with internal organs splattering in a fan shape onto the roller shutter door.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

I charged forward, stepping on the blood and grime that covered the ground.

Almost at the same moment I fired, Zeus, wearing goggles and a Kevlar vest , leaped out of the passenger seat and tackled a mutant attempting to ambush me from the side.

In less than two minutes,

the nearly one hundred mutants that had been blocking the doorway and howling wildly were reduced to mangled pieces scattered across the floor.

I held the still-smoking shotgun in one hand, raised my tactical boot, and slammed it heavily against the roller shutter door.

"Open the door, Viktor. Where's my cargo?" My voice pierced the iron door.

The metal roller shutter screeched as it slowly rose.

Viktor stood behind the door with seven or eight fully armed mercenaries. These ruthless characters, who had tasted blood in Chechnya and the Middle East, looked at the carnage scattered on the floor, then at me, standing in the pool of blood, not even pausing for breath. Beads of cold sweat rolled down their foreheads.

Viktor swallowed hard, looking at me as if I were an unknown monster: "Arthur… what kind of madness has the outside world gone to? Those rabid bastards can survive AKs piercing their stomachs, how did you know something like this would happen today?"

"Shut up, and put away your curiosity. It'll only shorten your life."

I ignored the muzzles of their guns and strode into the warehouse .

Under the lights, three dark green Unimog heavy trucks lay silently in wait. Beside them, weapon crates were neatly stacked with boxes of high-explosive thermobaric ammunition, three Barrett M82A1 heavy sniper rifles exuding the fresh scent of gun oil, and…

my gaze fell upon the two massive, jet-black machines in the center, radiating pure industrial brutality—two rotary-barreled M134 six-barreled Gatling guns. A

satisfied smile played on my lips as I pulled a micro-terminal from my tactical vest pocket and tossed it to Viktor.

“Check the accounts. Ten billion US dollars, not a penny less, already laundered through the dark web and deposited into your Swiss account,” I said coldly.

Viktor frantically caught the terminal.

Ten billion is an astronomical sum, but in this hellish place where order has collapsed, I've already squeezed the last drop of value from these fools.

"Whoosh—!"

A more shrill and piercing air raid siren suddenly blared across the entire New Jersey port. Immediately afterward, the ground began to tremble slightly.

One of Victor's men tumbled down from the observation post on the warehouse roof, his face ashen: "Boss... Boss! A horde of zombies! A horde of zombies! At least a thousand lunatics are surging towards this place, drawn by the gunshots and the smell of blood! They're faster than sports cars!"

"Fuck!" Victor cursed. "I got the money! Arthur, the deal's done. This lousy warehouse can't be held! Get in the car, we're leaving through the back door!"

The mercenaries were terrified and turned to crawl into the driver's seat.

"Bang!"

I raised my hand and fired a shot. The bullet grazed Victor's scalp and embedded itself in a nearby iron pillar, sparks flying, freezing all the mercenaries in place.

I stared at him coldly: "Evacuate? Be chased and bitten by thousands of tireless monsters, then get stuck on the highway because of a pileup of wrecked cars?"

"Then what are you going to do?! Stay here and wait to die?!" Victor roared hysterically, the screams outside almost touching. The barbed wire outside the warehouse collapsed with a sickening crunch. In the red rain and mist, a dense, even trampling and climbing, army of mutants appeared before the warehouse door.

"Wait to die?"

I scoffed, stepped forward, and with a single swing of my arm, ripped open the tarpaulin on the back of the truck.

A heavily modified heavy weapons firing mount was exposed, and mounted on it was an M134 rotary machine gun!

I leaped onto the back of the truck and expertly loaded the ammunition belt into the Gatling gun's feed mechanism. Then, I kicked open the battery cover and connected the cables.

“Cover your ears. Today, I’ll teach you how to set the rules in this apocalypse.”

I gripped the M134 firmly with both hands, my thumbs slamming into the firing button.

The motor emitted an extremely sharp hum in an instant, and the six barrels began to spin.

Then, the ultimate dimensional reduction attack of industrial civilization on carbon-based flesh descended.

“Whoosh—!”

Thousands upon thousands of scorching armor-piercing incendiary rounds intertwined in mid-air, forming a deadly net that swept directly towards the horde of mutants rushing into the doorway.

Hot brass shell casings cascaded down from the ejection port like a waterfall, piling up into a gleaming little mountain at my ankles.

In just two minutes,

smoke filled the entire warehouse, and the barrels glowed a dark red from the extreme heat.

I released the trigger, and the motor stopped spinning.

Outside the warehouse door, there wasn’t a single “creature” still standing.

A deathly silence fell.

Viktor and his mercenaries were all slumped on the ground, oblivious to the rifles that had fallen from their hands. The look in their eyes had completely transformed into utter awe.

"Load the thermobaric rounds. The convoy will depart in ten minutes."

"Yes...yes, boss!" Victor practically tumbled to his feet, ordering his men to work, even changing his form of address.

I jumped out of the truck and returned to my driver's seat.

The external communication network was half-paralyzed, but this super-terminal connected to a military satellite was still functioning perfectly. I lit a cigar, took a deep drag, and entered a command, forcibly switching into the real-time traffic monitoring network of New York City's outbound highways.

Several split-screen images quickly appeared on the holographic screen.

I spotted them immediately.

The outbound highways were completely blocked, thousands of cars twisting and crashing together. The scene showed torrential rain and towering flames.

Max and Nicole were trapped in their Mercedes G-Class. On the hood, two blood-soaked mutants were frantically pounding their heads against the bulletproof glass, which was already cracked like a spiderweb.

Neither of them had any heavy weapons; Max hadn't even prepared a decent pistol, only a ridiculous baseball bat for self-defense.

There was no sound on the screen, but I could clearly read through lip reading that Nicole was screaming and crying hysterically in the passenger seat, while Max was in a terrible state.

Ironically, even facing this near-fatal predicament, Max's left hand remained tightly and devoutly clutching his chest.

He was desperately protecting the "Alpha Ring" that had been ripped from me.

In their delusional fantasies, that piece of junk represented supreme power ruling over billions of bunkers, proof that they were about to ascend to the status of doomsday gods, trampling me underfoot.

Watching these two drowning dogs clinging to a bomb that could betray them at any moment, still smugly dreaming of their future, I couldn't help but let out a low, cold laugh.

I exhaled a thick, bluish-green smoke ring, the red glow of my cigar reflecting the merciless coldness in my eyes.

"Hurry up, you idiots."

I switched the terminal back to the navigation screen and patted the center console.

Ahead, three steel beasts were already in tactical formation.

I slammed on the gas.

"Convoy, move out. Next stop, Staten Island National Strategic Warehouse."