The temperature still hovered around forty degrees Celsius. Thin smoke lingered in the air, refusing to fully dissipate.

Craters pockmarked the ground everywhere. The buildings within the residential complex had been reduced to rubble, and the greenery was nothing but blackened stumps.

Zhao Yin wore a gas mask over his face. His backpack held some food and water, and he gripped a bone cleaver in one hand.

A rolled-up magazine was taped to his left forearm, a butcher knife tucked into it.

The world was utterly silent.

In this apocalypse, he had long grown accustomed to solitude.

Zhao Yin walked alone, a solitary figure, as if he were the last person left between heaven and earth. He stepped forward into the hazy veil of smoke.

His destination: the Guangzhou No. 2 Middle School Staff Quarters.

Along the way, he passed countless corpses. Some had half their bodies charred black by flames. Others had their skulls caved in by meteorites.

The apocalypse had struck in the dead of night. Most people had been indoors, ultimately buried beneath collapsed buildings.

Yet these corpses hadn't decayed despite the heat.

Zhao Yin knew why. Tonight, at midnight, every last one of them would rise. As they devoured flesh and blood, their broken bodies would regenerate. Then they would continue consuming flesh and Star Crystals, evolving, mutating-until they became the nightmare of every survivor.

As he passed a shopping mall that hadn't completely collapsed, he sensed eyes watching him.

His steps halted. He turned, his gaze cold and indifferent.

The upper floors of the mall had caved in, but the ground floor had survived thanks to solid construction.

The mall had food and water in abundance. It was spacious, with decent fire and heat insulation. No surprise that someone had made it.

Zhao Yin had no intention of getting involved. He kept walking.

At that moment, inside an office within the mall, a grime-blackened face pressed against a crack in the wall. A pair of bright eyes tracked Zhao Yin's retreating figure.

Only when Zhao Yin vanished into the ruins did the tension drain from his expression.

He was a boy of fifteen or sixteen. His school uniform was filthy and torn, its original color long gone.

"He's gone. One less mouth to feed."

"Brother... is it really okay to do this?"

Huddled in the corner behind him was a little girl, eleven or twelve years old.

One of her arms was clearly broken-splinted with two pieces of charred wood and wrapped in dirty cloth strips. Dark brown bloodstains marked the makeshift bandage.

"The supermarket's food section collapsed. We barely have enough for ourselves. How are we supposed to feed another person?" The boy sighed.

"But Brother Wang went to look for food in the collapsed area, didn't he?" The little girl pouted, unconvinced.

"Brother Wang left three days ago. You really think he's coming back?" the boy shot back.

The little girl fell silent. Slowly, she lowered her head.

The boy stepped forward and gently stroked her hair. "Xiao Dao, when Mom and Dad left, I promised them I'd keep you alive no matter what. I swear it on the name of Song Xiaojian."

If Zhao Yin had been there, he would have recognized her instantly-that little girl, now only eleven or twelve, was Xiao Dao.

...

Zhao Yin had no idea what he'd just missed. His figure cut swiftly through the ruins.

He sensed several more pockets of survivors along the way. He ignored them all. The Guangzhou No. 2 Middle School Staff Quarters wasn't far now.

Suddenly, he stopped.

He turned toward a nearby meteorite crater. Under the dim yellow sunlight, something glinted with a faint crimson light.

He jumped down into the crater and started digging with his bone cleaver.

Moments later, a walnut-sized blood-red crystal sat in his palm.

A Star Crystal.

He hadn't expected to find his first one so quickly.

In his previous life, knowledge about Star Crystals had been etched into the blood of every survivor.

That meteor shower had lasted a full month. Mixed among the falling rocks were blood-red crystals-later called Star Crystals. Most had been buried under rubble.

Zhao Yin had heard that in the earliest days of the apocalypse, some Star Crystals remained on the surface. But after tonight's zombie outbreak, the undead would devour every last one.

Only a handful would ever reach survivor hands.

After that, obtaining Star Crystals meant either killing zombies and cutting them out, or pure dumb luck.

Star Crystals could produce all manner of things. Even seven years into the apocalypse, no one could say exactly how many types existed.

Every Star Crystal looked identical on the outside. Crack one open and you might get food and water. Or a pack of toilet paper. If you were lucky-superhuman equipment, evolution serums.

The rarest drop of all was the Ability Awakening Serum.

Abilities. In the apocalypse, everyone craved them. They transcended anything humanity had imagined before the fall. Before an ability user, even Evolvers could only bow their heads. Ordinary people were less than livestock.

But even items of the same type varied in power. Eventually, people classified them from F-grade to SSS-grade.

Take a piece of bread, for example. An F-grade loaf might restore stamina quickly and heal minor scrapes at best.

But above F-grade? It could permanently boost your constitution. Regenerate severed limbs.

Zhao Yin squeezed hard. The Star Crystal in his palm didn't budge. Only then did he remember-this body hadn't undergone any evolution yet.

He set the crystal on a chunk of solid concrete, raised his bone cleaver, and brought it down hard.

Crack!

Fractures spiderwebbed across the crystal's surface. White light burst forth, lasting three seconds.

When the glow faded, a green military jacket lay in its place.

Equipment.

His first Star Crystal after the apocalypse, and it had dropped equipment.

Based on experience, he judged it to be F-grade.

Even so, its durability far surpassed his current clothes.

Ordinary blades would struggle to cut through it.

A good omen. A flicker of satisfaction crossed Zhao Yin's eyes.

He stripped off his shirt and pulled on the military jacket. Instantly, he felt more secure.

With tonight's zombie outbreak looming, this jacket raised his survival odds considerably.

He shouldered his backpack, gripped his bone cleaver, and pressed on.

The path ahead was clear, but he found no more surface Star Crystals. Soon, he arrived outside the Guangzhou No. 2 Middle School Staff Quarters.

Nothing but ruins. Dead silence. If he hadn't known Lin Tianfeng was here, he never would have believed anyone had survived.

The zombies and mutant beasts hadn't begun their transformation yet. Right now, survivors were still reeling from the sudden catastrophe.

Most would instinctively hunker down somewhere safe and wait.

But some were different. Like Lin Tianfeng, the middle school English teacher.

At that moment, he was crawling out of a half-collapsed basement, a kitchen knife in hand. His expression was haggard, his white t-shirt splattered with fresh blood.

Under the dim yellow sun, Lin Tianfeng stared at the devastated world, frozen in shock.

He had no idea that a pair of cold eyes watched him from behind a broken wall.

Zhao Yin understood. If he revealed himself too early, he'd alter Lin Tianfeng's timeline-and likely cause him to miss the Star Crystal containing the Contract Soul.

In his previous life, Zhao Yin hadn't encountered Lin Tianfeng until three days later.

By then, Lin Tianfeng had already obtained the Contract Soul.

But without a contracted beast, his strength remained that of an ordinary man. While scavenging for supplies, a collapsing wall had crushed his leg. Zhao Yin had saved his life.

Before now, Zhao Yin hadn't known exactly when Lin Tianfeng had acquired the Contract Soul.

But now he was certain.

It was today.

Tonight's zombie outbreak would consume most surface Star Crystals. In his current state, Lin Tianfeng couldn't possibly compete with the undead for them. He didn't have the strength to blindly dig through rubble either.