Chapter 1

In my last life, for the spy I executed, she framed me for treason and injected me with the zombie virus herself.  

I died in a dungeon—by the hand of the one I trusted most.  

When I opened my eyes again, I was back before it all began.  

This time I didn’t interfere. I watched coldly as she got scratched, handed the only dose of serum to the spy, and as the gates swung open and he finally showed his true face.  

At last she believed me, kneeling in the dirt, begging for forgiveness.  

I looked into her eyes as they clouded over. “I warned you in my last life. You didn’t believe me.”  

This life, every blade she wanted for me—lands on her instead.

————

On the seventh day of my confinement in the city defense dungeon, the timer on the wall began to count down.

The red numbers blinked one after another, as if reminding me: none of your merits, your rules, or your confidence meant anything here.

The iron chair was bolted to the floor. Two thick steel rings had been welded to the backrest. My wrists were cuffed to them. I could move my fingers, but I couldn’t lift my arms. My ankles were shackled too.

Someone was pacing outside. Boots struck the concrete with sharp, crisp sounds.

Every so often, someone would stop at the door and glance in through the observation slit.

I didn’t shout that I was innocent, because it would have been useless.

I only stared at the timer.

00:23:11.

The lock clicked.

The iron door opened a crack, and a guard walked in with a cup of coffee, shutting the door behind him.

He glanced at me and smiled. It wasn’t openly vicious, but it was full of contempt.

“Ethan Cole,” he said, dragging out my name on purpose. “Deputy Commander. Congratulations. Didn’t make it to your promotion, huh? Instead, you get a lethal injection.”

Three days ago, I was still the Deputy Commander. This place was called the North Harbor Safe Zone. It had once been a coastal city. After the zombie virus outbreak, the survivors sealed off several major roads in the old district and turned it into a safe zone housing tens of thousands of people.

The safe zone survived by a simple set of rules: the city defense force kept order, supplies were distributed through the central warehouse, and anyone who went outside the walls on missions exchanged military merit for rations, medicine, and housing.

North Harbor wasn’t the biggest.

The true center was the “Main City”—the core district left behind before the country completely collapsed. Research, industry, weapons, and communications were all there.

The Main City issued orders and regularly sent supply convoys: medicine, ammunition, fuel, and sometimes even life-saving serum.

There wasn’t only zombies outside the walls. There were warlords too.

Those armed groups, pieced together from the remains of broken armies and gangs, occupied highways, fuel depots, and abandoned factories, living off looting supply lines. They were more calculating than the infected. They knew when to avoid a zombie horde and when to drive one right to our gates, using a mass of mindless monsters to batter the walls before taking advantage of the chaos to grab what they could.

Three years ago, North Harbor’s commander was assassinated by warlords. The Main City sent me here to act as interim commander and take charge of everything.

Over the past few years, I had led teams to clear nests outside the perimeter, seal breaches, escort supply convoys, and rescue surrounded patrols.

At the end of every mission, I wrote my reports in exact detail—every casualty, every expenditure, every bullet accounted for.

Because I knew that in this city, the thing people feared most wasn’t zombies.

It was chaos.

Three days ago, headquarters had just placed my promotion order on my desk. New authority, expanded operational range, a new insignia—everything was already in process. All that remained was the final public appointment, and I would become North Harbor’s true commander.

That night, I was still in a meeting, discussing reinforcement for the eastern wall, the route for the next outside mission, and how to stockpile more fuel before winter.

Then, in the next instant, my wife Claire burst in with an enforcement squad, raised her gun at me, and ordered me to put my hands up.

I still remembered that moment. Everyone in the room froze.

Someone tried to speak, but a louder accusation drowned them out: collusion with the enemy, treason, contact with warlords, conclusive evidence.

My old subordinates spoke up for me, even drew their guns for me, and were mercilessly shot dead. All I could do was order them to put their weapons down and surrender.

Through the whole process, Claire only looked at me. There was no panic in her eyes, and no explanation.

That night, I was stripped of my rank, my authority, and my communications, then thrown into the dungeon.

The interrogation lasted two days. The evidence they presented looked more polished with every round: supposed communication records, supposed supply transfers, supposed access logs.

There was only one person who could have prepared “evidence” that complete.

Claire.

The guard raised his coffee and took a sip. “You spent years tying your life to those walls, earning enough merit to sit in that seat. So why become a traitor?”

I only let out a short laugh.

More than anyone, I wanted to ask why.

Claire was one of the highest-ranking officers in the city defense force. She was also my wife.

We had been together for almost three years.

The guard left and shut the door. The timer kept ticking.

00:19:48.

After a while, the lock sounded again. This time, the footsteps were lighter and steadier. When the door opened, I saw Claire.

She was carrying a metal case for syringes. It wasn’t large, and the corners were worn smooth, as if it had been used many times.

Two enforcement officers stood behind her at the doorway. They didn’t come in.

She closed the door, set the case on the table, and moved with the calm precision of someone laying down a file.

I stared at her. “So you really came.”

“Regulations allow a final visit before execution,” she said. “I’m here to complete the process.”

I heard myself laugh, very softly. “You say that like you’re handling someone else’s case.”

Claire ignored that. She looked up at the timer, then at me. Her voice stayed calm. “Do you have anything to say?”

I didn’t waste time. “Why frame me for colluding with the enemy?”

Her gaze didn’t waver. “It’s not a frame-up.”

“Then what is it?” I stared straight at her. “You signed the order yourself. You know exactly where that evidence came from. Tell me—what did I do that was worth this?”

She was silent for a few seconds, as if confirming the order of her words, and then she said, “You killed Jack.”

The three words struck my chest like a hammer.

Jack Mercer.

I stared at Claire. “You’re still saying that? Even now?”

“I’ve always been saying it,” she replied evenly. “You just never understood.”

My throat tightened, but my voice remained steady. “Jack was a mole. I told you that countless times.”

“You did,” Claire said with a nod. “You said he changed the route. You said he led the horde to us. You said it with conviction.”

“So?” I asked. “Did you believe me?”

Claire looked at me and finally said it plainly. “I never believed you.”

Jack wasn’t originally from North Harbor. Claire had rescued him from outside several years ago. During one outside mission, we ran into zombies. Jack got scratched while saving Claire, and he needed suppressive serum.

That mission had been about recovering serum accidentally left outside by the Main City. But after a brutal fight, only one dose was left in the whole crate, and Claire demanded that we give it to Jack immediately.

I refused.

Not because I was cold-blooded, and not because I wanted him dead.

I refused for one reason only: I had already confirmed that Jack was in contact with warlords. He had been deliberately leading us into traps, and even that zombie scratch had been intentional, all to win Claire’s trust.

I already had enough evidence. I just held back because I wanted to use Jack as bait to reel in something bigger.

So Jack died on that outside mission.

After that, I laid out the evidence for Claire one piece at a time. At first, she argued with me, saying I was framing him, that I was jealous, that I had selfish motives. Gradually, she stopped arguing.

I always thought she had finally believed me.

I stared at her as if I were seeing her for the first time. “So for these last three years, you didn’t stop arguing because you believed me… you were just waiting?”

Claire unclipped the locks on the metal case. She didn’t look at me. She only looked at the two neatly arranged syringes inside.

“I was waiting for an opportunity,” she said. “An opportunity to drag you down. So I married you, got close to you, fabricated evidence. You framed him as a spy, so I would make you into one. You let him die to the zombie virus, so you…”

She took one of the syringes from the box.

The liquid inside was dark.

I stared at the color, my throat tightening. “Zombie virus.”

“Yes,” she said. “I want you to die the same way he did.”

I struggled violently. I couldn’t believe I was going to die like this, at the hands of such a stupid woman.

But I knew struggling was useless. Anything I did now would only make her more satisfied.

The needle pierced my skin, and the dark liquid was pushed into my arm.

The first thing that came wasn’t pain. It was a strange heat, racing upward from my arm.

Claire stepped back half a pace, staying just out of my reach.

“You’ll lose control very soon,” she said. “I don’t want you biting anyone else.”

I tried to speak, but my tongue felt pinned down. What came out was only a low, hoarse rasp.

Normally, the zombie virus had an incubation period of seven days. The one she used had definitely been modified. That was why it took effect so fast.

I wouldn’t accept this.

I could feel my gums swelling. Dark shadows blurred at the edges of my vision, flickering back and forth.

I forced my head up and found Claire’s face still perfectly clear.

The handcuffs snapped under my strain. The iron chair screeched against the floor.

Claire’s eyes narrowed slightly. She took one step back at last.

Too late.

I was going to take her with me.

I lunged forward, a growl tearing out of my throat—something no longer human.

In the next second, my human consciousness vanished completely.

—

A shrill engine roar yanked me out of the darkness.

My eyes flew open. My chest rose and fell violently. My hand instinctively reached for chains, but all I touched was rough seat fabric. The vehicle jolted over uneven ground, while gray wasteland rushed past outside the window.

I was sitting inside an armored vehicle.

I was wearing a full combat uniform. My gun was still at my waist. There were no cuff marks on my wrists.

Beside me sat a blonde woman with a hard, cold profile, watching the road outside.

Claire.

And Jack was sitting beside her.

I stared at her back and slowly forced my breathing under control.

I had been reborn.

I had returned to the day Jack was scratched.