Chapter2

The damp, cold underground wind, carrying the stench of blood, blew into the abandoned subway station.

As I descended the steps, my boots touched something sticky. Undried blood trickled down the steps. Someone had tried to hide here before me, but clearly hadn't succeeded.

A corner of the ceiling had collapsed, letting in a pale light through the cracks, illuminating half of a rusted track and a toppled vending machine. Broken glass littered the floor, and the scattered snack wrappers inside were soaked in blood, emitting a cloying, foul odor.

I stopped and pressed my palm down.

A deep blue icicle spread wildly along the mottled walls, crawling over cracked tiles and rusty signs. A palm flip revealed a yellowish-brown glow seeping into the ground, causing thick layers of rock to rise and completely seal the entrance. Ice and earth intertwined, forming a two-meter-thick composite barrier at the roller shutter door.

The screams and tearing sounds on the surface were isolated, leaving only the echo of water droplets hitting the rails in the underground space.

I walked toward the abandoned ticket booth.

The glass window was shattered, revealing the corpse of a middle-aged man inside. His chest had been ripped open, most of his internal organs removed, but his head remained intact. A victim of the first wave of infection, he died before he even had a chance to mutate.

I kicked his leg away, bent down, and pulled an old-fashioned military radio from under the center console. The iron-gray casing was painted "US ARMY," and half of the right-side knob was missing, but the power indicator light still lit. I switched on the backup power, and the whirring of electricity was particularly jarring in the deathly silent underground space.

As I fiddled with the knob, a sharp female voice suddenly pierced through the noise.

"What happened? Where's the fire?! Why is there nothing here?!"

My finger hovered over the knob.

The voice was barbed, piercing the eardrums and stabbing along the auditory nerve into the depths of memory. In her past life, every time she got angry, it was this tone—sharp, rapid, with a rising tone at the end.

A muffled thud came from the other end of the channel. A shelf had collapsed, someone was kicking over stacks of goods, and their breathing grew heavier.

"David, I awakened the fire element the moment the cataclysm broke out in my previous life! Why can't I even conjure a spark now?"

I withdrew my hand and leaned against the wall of the ticket booth.

"In my previous life." She said, "In my previous life."

So that's how it is. Not only did fate send me back to where I started, but it also brought these two traitors back with it. They were reborn with complete memories, thinking they could replicate their past "path to success," only to discover that without my support, they were nothing.

"Don't panic!" David's voice followed immediately.

"I just saw him on the street corner! It's that guy!"

Who are you talking about?

"Who else could it be! That piece of trash who was only good enough to be our stepping stone!" David's teeth were clenched so tightly that his words were slurred. "I saw him throw lightning and wind blades with my own eyes! Purple lightning and blue wind blades, instantly blasting that thing's head off! No wonder we didn't awaken anything, he must have been reborn and used underhanded methods to steal our superpowers!"

Steal? Their special abilities?

I looked at the seven-colored source core flowing quietly in my palm and chuckled softly.

They call that "stealing"? Someone who has ripped out their very essence and knelt before them, is called a "thief"?

I closed my eyes and saw the rooftop again, that night. Elena stood by the railing, the firelight illuminating her profile. She said, "You're useless. Staying here won't help." David said, "Don't waste your breath on him." Two hands pressed onto my chest simultaneously, pushing me down without hesitation.

In my previous life, I forcibly extracted my own essence and used my flesh and blood to nourish them into top-tier powerhouses. Now, without my support, these two have become mortals who can't even protect themselves, and they actually have the audacity to believe that I "stole" their things.

Having become accustomed to being high and mighty, they've even forgotten who they really are.

"He thinks he can turn the tables just by stealing superpowers?" David's voice was low. "Let's go, get a few people to ambush him. Even if a piece of trash gets the power, he won't know how to use it. We'll make him cough it all up, with interest!"

Elena chimed in softly, "Yes, make him spit it out. Those powers should have belonged to us in the first place."

I didn't listen anymore.

A wisp of crimson flame flicked from a fingertip, the flame no bigger than a bean, landing lightly on the radio. There was no explosion, no burst. The intense heat spread silently, turning the metal casing red, then orange, until it melted into dark red molten iron. The circuit board carbonized, the knobs collapsed, and the nauseating whirring of calculations abruptly ceased.

I released my fingers, and the molten iron splashed onto the ground, hissing and emitting white smoke.

The original plan was to change course and let the two of them fend for themselves during the initial mutation wave. Heading north out of the city, finding a relatively clean woodland in New Jersey, and living quietly alone until the catastrophe subsided was also an option.

But since these clowns are so confident in their "own power," they're even eager to deliver themselves to our doorstep—

I turned around and kicked the air-raid shelter door, which had just solidified into solidified rock.

With a muffled boom, rocks and ice shattered and collapsed. Ice shards and gravel splashed all over me. The firelight and ashes from the surface once again illuminated the dark tunnel.

I walked up the steps into the acrid smoke of gunpowder.

Then let's go and meet them.