Chapter One

The excruciating pain of my spine being crushed and bone fragments piercing my lungs inch by inch, is still vividly etched into my cerebral cortex.

I can even smell the nauseating stench of blood from the Alpha White Wolf named "Fenrir." Its massive claws have ground against my chest, its cold voice declaring: "Foolish humans, attempting to use drugs to bind the top of the food chain? In the radiation wasteland, the weight of violence decides everything."

That was the last image of the ungrateful wolf I had nurtured with all my genetic drugs and heart's blood in my past life, throwing me into a carnivore pit in the third year of the apocalypse.

With a suffocating shudder, I gasped and opened my eyes.

There were no gaping maws, no carnivore pit for mutated creatures. My nostrils were filled with the pungent stench of cheap engine oil and fermenting acid rain from the slums. On the alley wall, a malfunctioning old electronic calendar was flashing wildly:

October 28, 2077

I'm not dead. I found myself transported back to the final seventy-two hours before the "deadly radioactive dust storm" that had caused the global biohazard outbreak.

"Raine, what are you standing there for?"

A sweet yet shrill female voice shattered my reverie. I turned and saw Sophia, the supporting character who had once worn the engagement ring I'd given her.

At that moment, this materialistic woman, who always disliked dirt and hardship, was kneeling beside a sour garbage can, oblivious to the grease stains on the floor. She clutched a pure black stray puppy with a single tuft of white fur on its head tightly to her chest, her eyes, painted with a world-weary makeup, gleaming with an almost manic greed.

I stared at her coldly. That was Fenrir's previous incarnation. In her past life, this beast was covered in radioactive crude oil; Sophia, disgusted by it, had kicked it into the sewer. I had saved it with expensive pure serum, only to raise a monstrous beast that repaid kindness with enmity.

“Since you already know the impending doom, there’s no need for me to keep pretending.” Sophia clung tightly to the black dog, tearing off her mask of hypocrisy. She stood up, a nauseating sneer curling her lips. “Raine, your wasteland emperor dream is over. In your past life, you were just incredibly lucky to have it. In this life, this Alpha White Wolf, capable of tearing through heavy armor, is mine! From now on, I am the only Darkcore Queen of the wasteland!”

Looking at her smug, world-conquering face, a cold smile involuntarily curved my own.

I instantly understood. This foolish woman, like me, had been reborn.

But fatally, she died too young in her previous life. This idiot, who only knew how to curry favor with the powerful, died in a slum riot in the second year of her previous life. She only saw my glory in leading Fenrir to sweep across the wasteland and build an armed fortress, but she had no idea that that ingrate was, at heart, a bloodthirsty beast! She didn't foresee Fenrir's sudden betrayal and the feeding frenzy against me.

She thought she had stolen the supreme crown of power, unaware that she was clutching a nuclear bomb with a pre-set countdown.

"I see." I ignored her impotent rage, and showed no hysteria at having my "opportunity" stolen. I tugged at the collar of my leather jacket, my eyes fixed on a rotting corpse. "Since you've donned the wasteland crown, hold on tight. I hope this crown doesn't bite your throat."

Sophia's smile froze, seemingly surprised by my calm. She had expected me to kneel and beg, to break down hysterically.

Ignoring her twisted, unsatisfied snort, I strode towards the other side of the acidic waste ditch, reeking of acrid odor.

There, a small, deformed feline cub, covered in purple radiation patches, barely breathing, lay.

Just now, Sophia, to free her hands to pick up the black dog, kicked this cub into the acid ditch like trash. In her past life, because of the cub's severe signs of genetic collapse, all the scavengers avoided it like the plague, leaving it to rot and die on the streets.

But I am the wasteland's top Breaking Bad master.

I reached out and pulled the dying lump of flesh out. Those nauseating purple patches, in extremely rare paleontology, are not radiation ulcers at all, but rather pulse nodes of the ancient mythical "Thunder Titan Saber-toothed Tiger" gene resurgence!

Those fools have no idea that the true ceiling of immunity to nuclear radiation and the ability to reverse-absorb mutated energy lies in this pile of rotten mud.

"Want some trash? Take it." I wiped the hardened bone spurs that were faintly protruding from the cub's ears, coldly disappearing into the darkness of the slums. "And I, I'm going to create a real monster."

Half an hour later, I returned to the heavily reinforced safe house I rented in the underworld.

I yanked the smuggled medical kit out from under the bed. Time was of the essence; I had to completely stop this cub's genetic self-destruction before the apocalypse fully erupted.

Drawing on my past life's experience as a Breaking Bad player, I used near-madness, yet incredibly precise micromanagement, to extract a high concentration of adrenaline, anti-radiation hemolytic agents, and a small amount of crude neurotoxin I'd acquired on the black market.

Ten minutes later, a vial of "gene collapse and recombination agent," bubbling with dark green bubbles, was pushed into the syringe.

"Survive, Terra, and then tear this wasteland apart for me."

The rough steel needle ruthlessly pierced the cub's spinal cord, pushing the solution to the bottom in one go.

A brief silence. Then, a chilling, exploding sound of bones bursting echoed in the cramped safe house!

The small body, whose heart had almost stopped beating, suddenly swelled up as if injected with molten iron. The purple patches instantly transformed into an indestructible layer of dark keratin, and along its spine, two rows of sharp bone spurs suddenly pierced through the flesh and grew out.

It abruptly opened its eyes—eyes that pulsed with dark golden lightning, the pupils of a supreme being!

"Roar—!"

A powerful sonic boom erupted from Terra's newly grown fangs, the terrifying pressure of its bloodline even causing the incandescent light bulb on the ceiling to explode into dust with a "bang."

I felt Terra's violent heat rubbing against the back of my hand, and my blood began to boil. The true overlord had awakened.

However, before I could savor this pleasure, a crimson lightning bolt suddenly split open in the dark sky outside the window.

A blinding red radiation rain, twenty-four hours earlier than in my previous life, crashed down on the tin rooftops of the entire city. The alarm for genetic collapse pierced the night sky.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

A heavy, savage thud suddenly echoed from the reinforced, thick alloy door.

I narrowed my eyes. Outside, there were not only the chilling scratches of mutated wild dogs, but also the thud of heavy steel pipes pounding against the lock. A few rough curses drifted through the crack in the door; it was the heavily armed Scavenger gang, already enraged and bloodthirsty after being initially infected by the Red Rain.

The alloy door hinges of the safe house sparked blindingly under the strain.

My fingertips lightly twirled a bloodstained tactical knife, while Terra, lying on the ground, had her prey locked on the door, a low, thunderous growl emanating from deep within her throat.

The ones coming to their deaths had arrived.