Chapter 1

"Hah—don't eat me!"

I jolted awake, my lungs gasping for air like a broken bellows.

No 70-degree heat. No suffocating stench of blood.

Above me, an old central air conditioner hummed noisily, blowing moldy cool air against my neck.

Like a drowning man pulled from the water, I slumped in my office chair, drenched in cold sweat.

The bite marks on my hands were gone. My forehead was intact.

What the hell? Wasn't I devoured by the townspeople?

Trembling, I looked up at the electronic calendar on the wall, its red digits glowing:

July 15, 2028, 9:00 AM.

I wasn't dead—or rather, I had returned to fifteen days before the super solar storm that would destroy the global power grid and turn Texas into a 70-degree crematorium.

The absurd and desperate memories from my previous life gnawed at my heart like venomous snakes.

In my last life, I was an irredeemably sanctimonious fool.

I had carved the Marine Corps motto "Never Back Down" into my bones, treating this badge as my sacred faith.

When the heat apocalypse arrived and extreme temperatures destroyed human civilization's order, I awakened the [Absolute Zero] ability—I could release cold air, freeze objects, lower room temperatures, and shield people from the lethal heat.

When the townspeople were dying one by one from the extreme heat, I used my powers to protect them, shared my supplies with them. I thought that as long as I sacrificed for them, we could survive together.

I turned the police station into a shelter, gave the last drop of clean water to old Bob's grandson, and used myself like a perpetual cooling machine.

But what did I get in return?

When temperatures approached 70 degrees, when every breath made me cough blood and my powers could no longer cover everyone, those townspeople I had selflessly fed—not one of them showed mercy for my exhaustion.

They thought I wasn't "trying hard enough," that I was "selfishly hoarding the cold air."

Finally, my fiancée Lily and her secret lover incited a riot, smashed my skull with crowbars, and devoured me along with the others.

They thought eating me would grant them the same abilities.

What a horrific and ignorant notion.

But faced with death in the apocalypse, even the most absurd ideas become reality when driven by terror.

In that moment of death, I finally saw the bloody truth—

In the face of extreme disaster, civilization and morality are nothing but tissue paper.

These townspeople weren't helpless victims needing protection—they were demons in human skin with insatiable appetites.

I tried to play God and save them, but they treated me as livestock to be consumed alive.

"Fuck faith. Fuck the oath to protect and serve."

I grabbed the police star badge from my desk and hurled it into the trash.

Visible ice-blue frost emanated from my palm, instantly freezing and shattering the hot coffee on my desk.

My ability had been reborn with me!

If kindness only deserves to be devoured, then in this life, Sheriff Jack is dead.

From now on, the power of "Absolute Zero" will be my exclusive divine right to revel in this hell.

I'll be the most selfish, most brutal specter in this apocalypse, watching coldly as these demons tear each other apart under the scorching sun, turning to ash!

Click.

The wooden door to the sheriff's office was gently pushed open.

My fiancée Lily walked in wearing a low-cut lace camisole, swaying her voluptuous hips.

The air instantly filled with the sickly sweet stench of cheap perfume.

"Jack, honey, did you have a nightmare? Why are you so sweaty?" Lily cooed as she approached the desk, leaning half her body over it, deliberately exposing a large expanse of pale skin as she reached to caress my cheek.

Looking at this face that had bitten flesh from my neck in my previous life, my barely calmed blood began boiling with rage again.

"I came here today to ask you a favor." She batted those innocent blue eyes, hiding the calculation beneath. "That shipment of Bill's you impounded in the station's front garage—could you be a dear and sign the release? It's just some wilderness medical supplies anyway. No need to make enemies with the biker gang over such a small matter, right?"

Medical supplies?

I leaned back in my leather chair, staring at her like she was already a corpse.

That was two full trucks of black market contraband from the US-Mexico border!

Packed with cases of military-grade broad-spectrum antibiotics, high-potency burn medication, high-purity tactical serums, and boxes of OxyContin!

In the extreme heat apocalypse half a month from now, when skin would blister and ulcerate within minutes, these temperature-sensitive medications would be ten thousand times more precious than tons of gold.

Even setting aside the apocalypse, she wanted me—a sheriff—to hand controlled substances back to some biker gang thug?

"Release them? Hand them over to your syphilis-ridden lover Bill?" My voice was ice-cold and cutting.

Lily's mask instantly froze, her face turning pale as a sheet. "How do you know—what are you talking about? How could I possibly be with Bill..."

"Shut your filthy mouth! You shameless whore!"

I kicked back my leather chair and lunged forward with my massive frame, radiating menacing hostility.

My right hand seized her prized golden hair, slamming her face hard against the heavy wooden desk!

THUD!

The sickening thump was followed by Lily's piercing scream like a slaughtered pig.

Blood immediately gushed from her delicate nostrils.

"Put away that nauseating act!" I pressed her head down hard, my pupils filled with savagery. "You think I don't know that every weekend when you claim to visit your mother in Austin, you're in some motel's filthy bed, rutting like a bitch in heat under that bastard?!"

"Jack! You're insane! Let me go! Ah—it hurts!"

"Hurts?" A brutal cold smile twisted my lips.

The next second, my right hand's "Absolute Zero Field" erupted without restraint!

Bone-piercing cold burst forth, thick frost creeping up Lily's face along my fingers with crackling sounds.

"AHHHHHHH—!"

The extreme cold instantly turned her skin purple and necrotic.

Lily's screams warped with absolute terror, tears freezing into tiny crystals the moment they left her eyes. In the face of death-bringing cold, she finally realized I was no longer the fool she could manipulate.

"Listen, you filthy whore." I leaned close to her ear, pronouncing each word like a death sentence. "Those two trucks of military supplies are mine now.

Step foot in this station again, and I swear I'll rip out your intestines and use them as a noose around Bill's neck!"

Like discarding a bag of rotten garbage, I grabbed her collar and kicked her out the door.

Amidst the shocked stares of officers in the hallway, I mercilessly slammed shut the bulletproof iron door of the sheriff's office with a resounding BANG, locking all the bolts.

Lily's sobs—mixed with fear and humiliation—echoed from outside.

Listening to those beautiful cries, I took a deep breath. Supplies, weapons, cryogenic powers.

With these, I would be the only god in the apocalypse.

Suddenly—

The police radio on my desk crackled frantically, its red warning light flashing wildly.

Deputy Sheriff Davis's terror-stricken voice came through: "Station calling Sheriff! Jack! We've got a major situation! Bill's got thirty bikers on Harleys blocking the station entrance! They're fully armed—some even have machetes! They say... if we don't hand over the goods and the person, they're going to level this place!"

I looked out the window at the blinding Texas sunlight and slowly racked the slide of my Glock, producing a crisp metallic click.

"Let them come."