Chapter Three

A deathly gale of minus seventy degrees Celsius, like a black flood bursting its banks, surged wildly into the Iron Guard camp through the torn ten-meter-wide defensive gate.

"Roar—!!!"

The mutated polar storm bear's wild roar, powerful enough to shatter a person's internal organs, exploded in the camp. The sound wave, mixed with the frigid airflow, instantly shattered the few remaining halogen searchlights around the camp. Glass shards mixed with snow flew everywhere, leaving only the flashing red emergency alarm lights, making the two-story-high behemoth appear like a demon king crawling out of hell.

"Fire! Shoot it in the eyes!!"

On the parade ground below, mercenaries gripped their triggers in extreme fear. Dozens of AR-15 and AK rifles spat fire, 5.56mm and 7.62mm assault rifle rounds raining down like a storm.

However, suffocating despair descended.

Bullets that would be enough to riddle a person with holes in peacetime struck the Storm Bear's mutated, azure-blue ice armor, only scattering a dense shower of sparks! Aside from leaving shallow white marks, they couldn't even penetrate its fur. The

absolute overwhelming physical defense drove the monster into a bloodthirsty frenzy.

Its crimson eyes fixed on the nearby cover, it rampaged like a tank. An abandoned heavy pickup truck blocking its path was smashed flat and deformed by its massive paws, like a can being slapped, rolling and crashing into a distant snowdrift.

"Retreat! Take cover!"

Leader Brad roared, his eyes blazing with fury. He was about to raise the grenade launcher when a chunk of ice, whipped up by the bear's sweeping tail, struck him in the chest. With a few sharp, teeth-grinding cracks, Brad coughed up blood, his body slamming heavily onto the icy steel plate like a kite with a broken string. He tried to get up, but was too badly injured to move.

A pungent, fishy stench filled the air. The Arctic Storm Bear, its mountain-like body undulating, opened its jaws wide enough to crush a truck engine, dripping with thick saliva, and lunged at the defenseless Brad.

Death was already upon them.

Those rebellious mercenaries who had tried to rob me outside the gate just half an hour ago were now completely broken. They dropped their rifles, useless as firewood, and scrambled and wept as they crawled deeper into the steel mill ruins. Some were so terrified they lost control of their bladders, the yellow fluid freezing instantly in their crotches.

Just as the giant bear's foul fangs were about to crush Brad's head...

"Bang—!"

At the end of the second-floor corridor, the rusty iron door was kicked open from the inside.

A gust of wind whipped my black tactical winter coat around. I strode to the suspended I-beam corridor on the second floor, my left hand steadily holding a crystal glass half-filled with whiskey, my eyes looking at a pile of trash that could be disposed of at any moment.

Without any shouting or nonsense, my right hand reached directly into the void.

My mind abruptly connected to the arsenal hub of the [Dimensional Fortress].

Accompanied by a cold, eerie blue spatial ripple, a colossal, jet-black machine, exuding the aura of deathly heavy metal, was forcibly pulled from the void by me with a single arm, like a raging beast that had traversed time and space!

The killing machine serving in the US Army's heavy armored forces—the Browning M2 heavy machine gun.

With a blank expression, I slammed the two-hundred-pound weapon against the I-beam in front of me with a resounding thud. The thick ammunition belt clanged crisply in the minus seventy-degree wind.

The storm bear below seemed to sense the deadly threat above; it stopped biting Brad and abruptly raised its massive head.

"It's over, you big beast."

I tilted my head back, downed the last sip of my cold bourbon, then locked the butterfly trigger of the heavy machine gun with both hands and slammed it down.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!!"

Like thunderclaps tearing through the winter night!

This wasn't the sound of an ordinary gun firing; this was a portable cannon going berserk! The recoil made the entire I-beam howl violently. .50 BMG armor-piercing high-explosive rounds from the armory, carrying terrifying kinetic energy capable of destroying everything, transformed into a visible, crimson whip of death in the darkness at a maximum rate of six hundred rounds per minute!

The spatial dimensional reduction attack began.

The Storm Bear's proud, impenetrable ice armor, capable of withstanding rifle fire, was as fragile as a piece of waterlogged toilet paper before a .50 armor-piercing high-explosive round.

The first bullet pierced directly through the ice layer on its right shoulder.

The fifth bullet, its kinetic energy shattering its collarbone.

The fifteenth bullet…

“Pfft—! Boom—!!”

In the instant of contact, the giant bear's thick blue ice armor shattered into countless ice crystals. The violent bullet's kinetic energy plowed through its flesh without hindrance, shredding its internal organs!

Accompanied by an extremely shrill, yet barely audible, scream, half of the giant bear's head, larger than a jeep, was blown apart amidst the interwoven web of fire! Fragments of bone and brain matter didn't even have time to splatter before being vaporized into a blood-red mist by the high temperature of the armor-piercing round.

Two seconds.

The entire extremely bloody barrage of fire lasted for less than two seconds.

I released the trigger, and the gunshot ceased abruptly.

A deathly silence fell over the massive steel mill, broken only by the hollow wail of the wind and snow.

The once invincible, nearly annihilating Iron Guard camp—the top-tier polar mutant—was now a gruesome mass of rotting flesh, steaming on the ice. Its limbs twitched, dark red blood gushing like a fountain, only to freeze instantly into a large, ghastly patch of red ice within two or three seconds of touching the snow.

"Clang..."

Someone's rifle fell to the ground.

Below, Brad, a survivor covered in blood, stared wide-eyed at the carcass before him, his one eye filled with disbelief.

The mercenaries who had taken cover, even those who had previously tried to kill and rob me, were now frozen in place. They stared blankly at the man on the second floor, who seemed like a god descending to earth. Their legs trembled, and with a thud, they all knelt on the icy snow.

At that moment, their eyes held no more arrogance or greed. Only utter awe and terror, a terror that utterly crushed their souls.

I drew my military knife from my waist and slashed it at the smoking, scorching barrel of the heavy machine gun. With a flick of my wrist, the massive M2 machine gun was once again magically retracted into that unsolvable alternate dimension.

I wiped the remaining liquor from my lips and looked down at this group of utterly terrified desperados.

I knew these wasteland scum too well. The mere fear of heavy firepower would only make them crawl on the ground like dogs; if you wanted to turn them into a frenzied legion, howling and ready to die for you, to crush all enemies for you, you had to show them a true "divine miracle."

Since the goal was to establish a tyrannical regime here to completely overthrow the tycoons, and the big stick had broken their spines, now it was time for the carrot to appear.

Under the watchful, godlike gazes of everyone present, I slowly opened my arms.

My will was released like a flood, and a dark golden light of spatial dimension flashed in my pupils.

"Divine Kingdom, open."

The next second,

the void was like a sack torn open by me. Under the almost bulging eyes of the veterans in the camp, an astonishing amount of supplies poured down from the second floor like a torrential rain!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Fifty brand-new, top-level polar thermal protection suits; dozens of boxes of US Army MRE high-energy self-heating combat rations piled up like small mountains; five large barrels of pure Russian strong vodka.

And, as the grand finale—a pile of top-quality tomahawk steaks, still with fresh reddish-brown blood streaks and surface fat textures as perfect as works of art, weighing dozens of kilograms, landed directly on the snow less than three meters away from them with muffled "thuds."

In this apocalyptic world where calories and fabrics are sold at exorbitant prices, and even the lowest rungs of the wealthy elite are reduced to eating black bread

, the breath of every mercenary caught in their throat as a "mountain of paradise" appeared out of nowhere. The troublemakers kneeling on the ground rubbed their eyes frantically, some even bursting into tears.

"Put on your clothes, eat your fill. Weld the gates back up."

My cold voice, like the decree of an absolute god, echoed through the snow-covered camp.

"This is the new rule of the Iron Guard camp. Whoever pledges allegiance to me will no longer suffer the extreme cold. As for those with ulterior motives..." I glanced at the few troublemakers who had been so arrogant just moments before, "I guarantee they're not even worth a scrap of meat from that bear."

The carrot and stick approach, used in tandem, produced a deadly chemical reaction in the extreme environment. In this blizzard, I effortlessly recruited the first elite armed force in the wasteland with absolutely maxed-out loyalty.