Chapter 1

My wife and my best friend had been sleeping together behind my back for a long time. Once the apocalypse hit, they completely dropped the act. While I was still stressing over how we would survive, they threw me straight into a zombie horde—just to buy themselves a few seconds to escape.

Given a second chance at life, I chose to report the impending zombie outbreak to the government, securing my place as a top-tier protected asset for the nation.

But what I didn't expect was... my wife and best friend were reborn too.

Chapter 1

The sickening, wet sound of flesh being torn apart, accompanied by a nauseating stench of blood, violently drilled into my nostrils.

The twisted, manic laughter of my fiancée, Elena, and the greed-filled face of my hypocritical best friend, Eric, looked especially hideous against the backdrop of the swarming zombie horde.

These two animals fooled around behind my back and actually threw me to the zombies to feed them!

"Gasp—!"

I snapped my eyes open, cold sweat soaking through my custom-made silk pajamas.

There was no tearing flesh, no mutants around me.

My eyes swept over the Patek Philippe on my nightstand. The time was frozen at: October 15, 2024, 3:00 PM.

I was reborn!

I had returned exactly three days before the "Fatal Fungus" outbreak completely destroyed human civilization!

Just then, the bedroom door was pushed open.

"Mark, why do you look so pale? Did you have a nightmare last night?" Elena walked in wearing a white silk slip dress, her eyes filled with fake concern.

Behind her stood Eric, dressed in a sharp suit, holding a stack of papers. "Brother, I brought the transfer documents for the Long Island estate. You should just transfer that oceanfront mansion to Elena as your engagement gift next month."

In my past life, I had signed it without a second thought, completely unaware that these two were conspiring to steal my fortune.

But now, I wouldn't be so blindly stupid.

"Get off my bed." I stared at her expressionlessly, my eyes practically looking at two cold corpses.

Elena froze. Eric's face darkened. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Mark, what's wrong with you today?" Elena asked, leaning her body toward me with practiced seduction.

Smack!

I violently slammed the file directly into Eric's face. The sharp edges of the paper instantly sliced a bloody line across his cheek.

"Mark! Are you crazy?!" Eric covered his face, flying into a rage.

"Crazy?" I sneered. "The two of you wildly hooking up in a Manhattan hotel suite while I was away on business—and you, Eric, privately forging reports to embezzle five million dollars from my subsidiary. Now that is way crazier than me acting up!"

Of course, this was all information I had only learned later in my past life. But in this exact moment, it served as the perfect excuse—a multi-billionaire who had been "secretly investigating" and was finally dropping the hammer today.

Elena’s charming facade instantly shattered, all the color draining from her face as if she had seen a ghost. Eric’s legs gave out, causing him to stagger backward. "M-Mark... listen to me, those are fakes! Someone is trying to drive a wedge between us..."

"Explain my ass!"

My tone was flat, yet it carried an intimidatingly cold pressure. "Did you really think my billions fell from the sky? Did you think I was just an ATM, and a blind one at that? I kept you around purely to watch the circus act, but today, I’m bored of it."

"Frank!" I raised my voice.

Bang. The door swung open, and Frank, an ex-Delta Force operative, appeared like an iron tower.

"Throw these two pieces of trash out of the building. Revoke all their access privileges."

Frank didn't say a word. He just dragged the two of them out by their collars like dead dogs.

The world was finally peaceful.

Next up was the real business—saving the world!

I walked into my study, took out a military-grade quantum-encrypted phone, activated a voice-changer, and dialed the top-secret line of the Deputy Director of Pentagon Intelligence—my uncle with real power, John Harris.

The reason I used a voice-changer was because I knew this cold-blooded, iron-willed uncle too well.

If I warned him about the biohazard as his nephew "Mark," not only would he not thank me, but he’d also immediately have the NSA throw me into a black site to torture me for my "terrorist sources."

Before the apocalypse fully descended and my foundation was rock-solid, I had to hide my identity. By using flawlessly accurate intel, I would package myself as an unfathomable "Prophet," using the state machine as a knife in my own hand.

"This is Harris. Whoever you are, this had better be extremely important."

"Director Harris, I am a patriot who wishes to remain anonymous," I said coldly in a deep, gravelly voice. "In exactly five hours, at nightfall, a highly lethal and unknown fungal pathogen will leak on the edge of the Brooklyn underground black market."

"Do not send regular cops to die. Mobilize your classified Hazmat Special Forces. If you arrive late, that place will turn into a living hell."

With that, I abruptly cut the connection.

...

Time ticked away. Five hours later, night completely blanketed Manhattan.

I sat in front of a giant surveillance screen, holding a glass of whiskey.

By now, the building’s security system and a "Black Mamba" reconnaissance drone had locked onto the premium VIP garage on basement level two.

On the monitor, a disheveled Elena and Eric were sneaking toward my bulletproof Maybach, worth over ten million dollars.

Not only that, but the high-fidelity audio pickups broadcasted their hushed conversation directly into my ears.

"Damn it! What the hell got into Mark today?" Eric gritted his teeth, fumbling with a stolen spare key. "In our previous life, he signed the papers like an obedient dog at this exact time! Was he reborn too?"

"Impossible! If he were reborn, he wouldn't just kick us out—he would have killed us for revenge already!" Elena scoffed viciously. "Whatever! The apocalypse is happening in three days anyway. Money will be toilet paper. We’ll steal this car right now, drive to the Brooklyn black market, and trade it to the mafia for cash and guns! Lots of people made their fortune doing exactly this in our last life!"

Hearing this, my hand gripping the whiskey glass paused slightly, before my lips curled into an incredibly cruel sneer.

So that was it!

No wonder they had the guts to risk going to jail to steal a ten-million-dollar luxury car right after being kicked out.

These two venomous snakes had brought their memories back. They were reborn too!

They thought they knew the script of the future, hoping to replicate the timeline and seize the ultimate advantage in the coming chaos.

On screen, the two of them smugly piled into the car and floored the gas, tearing out of the garage.

The drone trailed them silently through the night sky, following them all the way to a dim, trash-filled alleyway on the outskirts of the Brooklyn black market.

The Maybach had barely parked in a dead-end alley when suddenly, the unexpected happened!

From the deep shadows, a homeless man staggered out, his movements violently spastic.

Illuminated by the Maybach’s glaring headlights, both the pair in the car and I in front of the screen clearly saw the horrifying sight:

The homeless man’s eyes were completely bloodshot with no visible pupils. Clusters of grotesque, grayish-brown fungal spores burst from the skin of his face. His jaw was dislocated, and beast-like, guttural growls rumbled from his throat.

This was a fully mutated, first-generation fungal zombie!

Even the reborn Elena let out an ear-piercing scream at the sight of the nightmare appearing right at her window.

Eric was shaking violently. In their past lives, they had always cowered in the backlines, stealing supplies. They had never faced an early-stage mutant at such close range.

Hearing the scream, the zombie lunged like a rabid dog. Bang! It slammed brutally against the Maybach’s windshield! Foul black blood and fungal matter smeared across the glass as the zombie frantically gnawed at the bulletproof window.

"Reverse! Floor it in reverse!!" Elena shrieked, curling into a ball in the passenger seat, literally pissing herself in terror.

Just as Eric frantically fumbled to shift into reverse to flee, blinding tactical floodlights sliced through the darkness, illuminating the entire alley like daylight!

"Freeze! Military intervention!"

Three heavily armored, military-grade hazmat response vehicles silently but aggressively barricaded the alley entrance. Dozens of heavily armed special operatives in heavy protective suits descended upon the scene like angels of death, their assault rifles raised.

When the military searchlights hit the zombie, even the highly trained operatives gasped collectively.

"Sir! Target vital signs are abnormal! It... it doesn't feel pain!"

"Suppress with non-lethal weapons! Do not let it escape!" the commanding officer roared through gritted teeth, unable to hide the shock in his eyes.

This was no terrorist. This was an actual monster!

Several high-voltage taser nets tipped with barbed hooks launched simultaneously. With a loud CRACKLE, the raging zombie was pinned violently to the ground.

Demonstrating overwhelming firepower and execution, the military forced the thrashing, biting zombie into a specialized steel containment unit.

Inside the car, Eric and Elena were totally paralyzed with shock.

"The m-military? What’s going on? In the previous timeline, the military didn't find this place at all!" Eric muttered mid-breakdown. Their proud "prophetic advantage" as reborn souls had just been ruthlessly crushed.

"Secure the two civilians in that vehicle! They are close contacts and suspected biological liabilities. Send them to a police isolation cell under maximum security. Prep them for blood draws and round-the-clock interrogation!"

Several hazmat troopers rushed forward, yanked the car doors open, and smashed the screaming Eric in the face with the butt of a rifle. They pinned his arms behind his back and dragged him out, tossing him and the half-dead Elena into a police cruiser like ragdolls.

In this life, they hadn't even set foot inside the black market before being completely netted.

Watching the farce of these "reborn geniuses" being ruthlessly suppressed on my monitor, I downed the rest of my whiskey in one gulp.

The next morning.

The doomsday clock was still ticking. Sitting on the massive leather sofa in my safehouse, I picked up the encrypted communicator once again.

I maintained absolute restraint, refusing to reveal my true identity.

With the voice-changer on, I dialed the secure line.

It rang only half a time before being picked up. Uncle Harris’s voice came through, raspy from a sleepless night and dripping with deep wariness. "Who the hell are you... Everything you said was true. Last night... we captured a fungal anomaly that feels absolutely no pain."

"Who I am doesn't matter, Director Harris," I replied icily, gazing out at the rising sun over Manhattan. "What matters is that you grab a pen for your second piece of intel. Because the real slaughterhouse is only just beginning."