Chapter 3

In the negative forty-degree blizzard, the howling wind carried shards of ice that slashed frantically against my winter gear like razors.

I drove the heavy-duty snowmobile, tearing through the white hell. Lily hugged my waist tightly, burying her freezing, red little face into my back. The slight warmth of her trembling body was my only anchor in this dead, apocalyptic world.

Ten minutes later, a fully automated e-commerce storage center spanning tens of thousands of square meters finally appeared ahead. The towering steel exterior walls and the sturdy electrified riot fence were more than enough to completely isolate the ice and mutated variants outside.

I parked the snowmobile sideways in front of a rolling shutter door, violently destroyed the side door with a crowbar, and pulled Lily inside.

The warehouse was pitch-black and deathly silent. The air was thick with the musty smell of damp cardboard and a lingering stench of blood. Suddenly, a spine-chilling roar echoed. Two ghouls wearing work uniforms lunged out from the shadows of the shelves, their limbs twisting unnaturally as they threw themselves at us.

"Ah!" Lily gasped, subconsciously gripping the hem of my jacket, but she bit her lip hard to keep herself from screaming.

I didn't retreat a single inch. Instead, I stepped forward to meet them and swung my right hand violently through the empty air.

BOOM!

A two-ton industrial electric forklift crashed down out of thin air, crushing the first monster into a bloody pulp in an instant with the weight of a mountain.

The other monster roared, trying to detour around it. With a slight shift of my will, a heavy, twenty-pound fire axe instantly materialized in my palm. Using the momentum, the steel axe flawlessly cleaved through the top of its skull. The monster twitched and collapsed.

I flicked the black blood off the axe and looked back at Lily. "Scared?"

The little girl's face was a bit pale, but she shook her head vigorously. Her large, clear eyes were filled with absolute trust. "No... as long as you're here, Lily isn't afraid of anything."

I rubbed her head and locked my gaze on the suspended supervisor's office area on the second floor.

There was only one narrow steel staircase leading up to it, backed by a load-bearing wall. It was easy to hold and hard to attack—a perfect sanctuary.

I walked down to the first-floor loading dock. A standard 20-foot shipping container had a volume of roughly 33 cubic meters, well within the 50-cubic-meter storage limit of my pendant.

I pressed my palm firmly against the freezing steel wall of the container, wrapping it in my mind.

Store.

The massive container vanished into thin air.

I ran back to the second-floor platform with Lily.

With another thought, I released the container.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Accompanied by heavy, echoing crashes, four heavy-duty shipping containers were placed onto the platform one by one, joined end-to-end to form an impenetrable, square defensive perimeter.

After using a blowtorch to cut through the container doors, I left only one single door facing the staircase and reinforced it with three layers of blast-proof plating.

The inside was the real masterpiece.

I ignited the industrial gas stoves I had looted from the supermarket in all four corners, having already cut ventilation holes at the top of the space.

In just ten minutes, the deadly negative thirty-degree chill inside the container was completely driven out. The temperature climbed sharply, eventually stabilizing at a warm, comfortable seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit (25°C).

"Brother, it really got warm..." Lily breathed out in pleasant surprise, her stiff body finally relaxing.

I helped her take off her heavy, snow-covered winter coat and goggles, tucking her into a soft, extreme-weather down sleeping bag. "You've been through a lot today, Lily. Let me take over from here. What do you want to eat?"

The little girl swallowed, asking softly with a bit of embarrassment, "I want something warm... even just warm bread is fine."

"In this damn weather, how is bread going to cut it?" I chuckled and tapped her nose.

While an ice prison capable of freezing souls raged outside, I pulled out top-tier Australian Wagyu ribeye and a pack of military-grade self-heating broth from my space.

Butter went into the pan, followed by the thick, juicy steaks.

Along with the loud sizzle of rendering fat, a rich, overbearing aroma of meat instantly filled the warm container.

I also boiled some dehydrated vegetables using the broth.

"Wow... smells so good!" Wrapped in her sleeping bag, Lily's eyes sparkled with excitement as she quietly slurped her drool.

Outside was an apocalyptic frozen hell where countless people were freezing to death in despair or being torn apart by monsters. But in here, it was an absolute paradise belonging solely to the two of us. The only thing separating the two worlds was this layer of steel I had built with my own hands.

I cut the black-pepper-seasoned steak into small pieces and handed them to her.

Lily ate heartily, her mouth slick with oil, and that torturous asthmatic wheezing finally subsided completely. After eating and drinking her fill, extreme exhaustion washed over her. Like a lazy kitten, she fell into a deep sleep enveloped in a warm sense of security.

I carefully tucked in the corners of her sleeping bag, stood up, and walked over to the bulletproof observation window I had prepared in the container.

Looking down at the first floor, it was an endlessly vast storage area. The thousands of shelves looked like mountains of gold waiting to be unearthed.

As long as I had time, the tons of food, generators, and heating equipment down there would serve as a supply depot for me to continually optimize my space.

I closed my eyes and mentally inventoried my trump cards: a heavy-duty snowmobile, ample fuel, a six-month supply of military rations and purified water, top-tier winter gear, a pharmacy's worth of specialized meds, and plenty of weapons.

While the vast majority of people were still wailing in despair out in the blizzard, I had already completed the most extreme primitive accumulation of resources and established this absolute fortress in the apocalypse.

An unprecedented sense of control and satisfaction filled my chest.

As long as we held this place, not only would we survive, but we would live better than anyone else.

Whoosh—

The blizzard outside battered the steel roof of the warehouse. In this absolute warmth and tranquility, it even sounded like white noise helping me sleep.

However, right in this perfect moment of peace before the storm, the black stone pendant I wore against my bare chest suddenly vibrated slightly.

Immediately after, a continuous, warm sensation—like being targeted by a venomous snake—pierced into my nerves through my skin.

It wasn't the boiling, stinging pain of encountering a lethal monster. Rather, it meant that some living beings harboring malicious intent were silently invading my territory.

My eyes snapped open, instantly on high alert.