Chapter 1

It felt as though a thousand rusty steel needles had pierced my pulmonary cavity all at once.

I bolted upright from the bed, my chest heaving violently, my throat still clogged with ice shards that seemed blown in from Siberia. My right hand instinctively clawed at the air, trying to find that anti-freeze mask that had long been twisted and deformed by the extreme cold, but all I touched were damp sheets and the blinding warmth of the indoor heating.

"Hah..." I gasped for air, sweat sliding down my spine. The temperature was too hot—hot enough to make me panic.

The room was dim. The light leaking through the cracks in the curtains wasn't the dull, ghostly glow of the polar night, but the iconic, bustling neon hue of New York City. Outside the window, on the elevated highway in the distance, the headlights of cars flashed by. That was the breath of life—that nauseating sense of order peculiar to human society before the apocalypse descended.

I kicked a television set into the corner; the screen was emitting a ghostly blue light. The news anchor, dressed in a crisp suit, had a face as rigid as a sculpture, his voice frustratingly steady:

"...Regarding the recent anomalies in sunspot activity, scientific departments have issued a rebuttal stating that the current global cold wave warnings are merely short-term climate fluctuations. Citizens are advised not to panic; the government has already stockpiled sufficient heating supplies..."

I couldn't help but sneer. Even at this moment of rebirth, the tremor left behind by long-term extreme debility still governed my muscles.

I tremblingly reached for the phone beside the pillow. I unlocked it, and the white light of the screen made me squint. The date read: November 24, 2040.

Seven days remaining until the "Midnight Cold Wave"—the catastrophe that destroyed the foundations of civilization and propelled the entire human world into a dual hell of eternal night and extreme cold.

I slid off the bed, my bare feet touching the cold floor. This cold was real, normal—not that soul-freezing, dead silence that pierces the skin to crystallize one's internal organs. I walked to the desk, where several documents were spread out: an invitation to the "Human Limit Potential Research Project," and a heavy non-disclosure agreement beside it.

"Ethan Clark," I muttered the name on the paper, my tone as cold as if reading a tombstone.

The floodgates of memory swung wide the moment I closed the curtains. Those fragments I had deliberately sealed away began to slice through my nerves like sharp blades:

It was that final night. Wearing that suit of half-powered exoskeleton armor, already shattered and hung with the rotting flesh of frozen corpses, I stood alone on the frozen main artery of Manhattan. The blizzard cut through my skin like knives. My vision was swimming in blood-red; the agents in my blood were burning, forcibly squeezing out the final potential of every muscle fiber.

"Ethan, this is Command Center." The voice over the radio was cold, devoid of any warmth. "The regional defense line has fallen. Per protocol, support is withdrawing. Repeat, withdrawing. This is the highest-value assessment for frontline units. Please understand."

I remembered my howl—the sound of a dying beast. And in that chaotic moment, I inadvertently caught a glimpse of a giant screen at the Command Center via the residual footage in my tactical eyepiece: a live feed of the "Bastion Safety Zone."

On the screen, Luke Clark—the brother I had given everything to protect—stood under the warm, everlasting lights. He was adjusting his expensive lapel coat, facing dozens of cameras with a solemn, compassionate expression.

"As his brother, I am heartbroken, but this is for the greater good." Luke spoke to the lens, his voice steady and resolute—that specialized heroic delivery expected by the public. "He wasn't just my brother; he was the hope of humanity. I am proud of his sacrifice."

I remembered that at that very moment, the world lost its color entirely. I died at the mouth of frozen corpses, from the extreme cold, but even more, I died from that word—"proud."

It was the payoff he received for selling me to the intelligence department, allowing his entire family to enter the permanent refuge zone.

I took a deep breath, calming the heartbeat that threatened to burst from my chest. I walked to a hidden compartment in the room, my fingertips trembling with a neurotic twitch, and pried open the lock. A silver metal vacuum flask came into view, holding the silver serum that could alter the human genome—the nightmare I had fought so hard to obtain in my previous life in search of "fairness to survive in this hell."

I stared at it as if staring at a jar of virulent poison.

My body right now was weak. No enhancements, no muscles honed through combat—just an engineering nerd tapping on code in a lab. If I injected it now, I could grow stronger, gaining resistance to cold and superhuman stamina, but what good would that do?

That was the path of the previous life. It was a path of being packaged, utilized, treated as a disposable tool, and finally dying a miserable death on the street.

"If this is a dream, it’s far too realistic," I whispered to the pale face in the mirror. I saw the self in the reflection, the eyes devoid of the previous life’s lingering attachment to "justice" or "family." "If this isn't a dream... heh."

I put the serum back into the hidden compartment and locked it with a familiar, resolute motion. I turned to look at the neon-lit—yet soon to disintegrate—city outside, lowering my voice as if swearing an oath to this world on countdown:

"This time, don't be in such a hurry to be their hero."