Wooo…
wooo…
Countless meteors trailing long tails of flame slammed into the earth like raindrops, and the entire villa trembled.
At the same time, the chandelier overhead went out; the power grid was paralyzed.
Zhao Yin turned on a flashlight, walked over, pulled back the movable insulation board on the window, and looked outside.
The arrival of the apocalypse he had witnessed in his previous life was now repeating itself.
Countless blinding white lights descended from the sky, flooding the entire world.
The dense meteors fell like rain, endless and inexhaustible.
The buildings in sight were quickly riddled with holes, and the entire city was set ablaze, filled with thick smoke and fire everywhere.
The artificial lake outside the villa was bubbling, hissing with white steam.
“Help!
Someone save me…!”
“Aaah…
what on earth is happening?
Why are there so many meteors falling?”
“I’m going to die!
Why didn’t the astronomical department warn us in advance?
Damn it, ah—!”
“Wooo…
I don’t want to die!
The house collapsed, my leg is broken, wooo…!”
People outside the villa were screaming and crying; some were shouting in despair!
With a snap, an old osmanthus tree in front of the villa was struck down by a bowl-sized meteor and quickly caught fire amidst the dense meteor shower.
A gust of choking thick smoke, mixed with a heatwave, rushed in from the small open window.
Zhao Yin forcefully closed the movable insulation board and quickly sealed it tight with high-temperature resistant glue.
The cruelty of the apocalypse’s arrival could not shake Zhao Yin’s already numb heart.
The screams didn’t stop until dawn.
Perhaps the people around the villa had all died.
Zhao Yin boiled some water to make a cup of instant noodles and ate them with a salt-baked chicken leg.
At this time, no one knew yet that among the countless meteors, there were blood-colored crystals mixed in.
After the apocalypse, they would be known as Star Crystals!
Every Star Crystal could randomly yield items needed for the post-apocalyptic world.
They might contain extraordinary resources, equipment, weapons, or even…
Directly grant an Ability that allowed one to transcend the world!
In the apocalypse, someone once calculated that most Star Crystals only yielded low-grade resources, while a tiny minority could yield equipment or Evolution Potions!
Star Crystals that could grant an Ability were even rarer than phoenix feathers or unicorn horns!
Similarly, whether it was resources, equipment…
or even Abilities, they were all ranked by strength!
After the apocalypse, a system was established, categorizing everything from F-rank to SSS-rank.
Zhao Yin shook his head, pushing these thoughts aside.
After he had eaten and drunk his fill, he found the military overcoat his father had left behind.
Outside the villa, fires raged everywhere, but the indoor temperature, filled with blocks of ice, was dropping rapidly.
Zhao Yin put on the military overcoat and fell asleep immediately.
A few minutes later, Zhao Yin’s snoring could be heard.
After seven years in the apocalypse, where his life was not his own, he had long ago developed the Ability to sleep and wake at will.
Even if the world were destroyed, what did it have to do with him, Zhao Yin?
“Bang!
Bang!
Bang!”
Suddenly, a rapid pounding on the door startled Zhao Yin awake.
“Is anyone there?
Quick, open the door and let me in!”
Zhao Yin frowned, and only then did he recall a piece of his past life.
The person outside was Dong Jun, a security guard for the residential area.
Because he was on duty in the underground garage, he had survived the first few hours of the apocalypse.
The garage had just collapsed.
Zhao Yin’s villa was the only surviving building in the residential area.
Dong Jun had luckily escaped the garage and discovered this place.
In his previous life, Zhao Yin had let Dong Jun in.
At first, Dong Jun was incredibly grateful.
But as the stored food dwindled, Dong Jun showed his true colors.
Relying on his strong physique, he began to enslave Zhao Yin.
A month later, when the meteor shower ended, Zhao Yin was too weak from hunger to search for resources, which was inseparable from his history with Dong Jun.
If Dong Jun hadn’t consumed so much food, the Zhao Yin of his previous life might have discovered the secret of the Star Crystals sooner!
However, just a few days later, after Dong Jun had squandered a massive amount of food, an enraged Zhao Yin found an opportunity to hack him to death in his sleep.
Zhao Yin had experienced too much darkness and bloodshed in the apocalypse and had deliberately tried to forget those memories, which is why he hadn’t remembered this immediately.
“Zhao Yin, are you in there?
I saw you come back today!
Open up, or I’ll break the door down!” Outside, Dong Jun began to shout impatiently.
Zhao Yin sneered inwardly.
In this life, he would not make the same mistake.
He grabbed the Bone-cleaver beside him and walked to the small window.
After prying it open, a smile appeared on Zhao Yin’s face.
“Is that Big Brother Dong?”
“Zhao Yin, you really are there!
Quick…
quick, open the door for me, I almost died!”
As Dong Jun spoke, a meteor slammed down right next to his feet, scaring him so much he jumped.
His voice became increasingly frantic.
“Brother, brother, as long as you save me, I’ll do anything!”
“I’m not sure if you’re really Big Brother Dong.
What if I run into a bad person?” Zhao Yin said in a low voice.
“How could I be a bad person?
It’s really Dong Jun!
You passed by the security booth the other day and even gave me a cigarette.
Have you forgotten, brother?”
“Big Brother Dong, come over and let me see you.”
After Zhao Yin finished speaking, Dong Jun, who was already suffering in the high temperature, came to the small window, revealing a face flushed red from the heat.
“It’s really me, brother…!”
Puchi!
A Bone-cleaver suddenly thrust out from the window.
It pierced directly into Dong Jun’s eye socket.
When it was pulled out, red and white fluids gushed out!
Zhao Yin withdrew the Bone-cleaver and quickly sealed the small window shut.
It was as if nothing had ever happened.
In this life, Dong Jun hadn’t had the chance to harm Zhao Yin yet, but Zhao Yin felt not the slightest bit of guilt for killing him.
The man wouldn’t have left; he would have eventually tried to break down the door.
Without the protection of the door, the high heat would have entered the villa.
In his previous life, Zhao Yin had no preparations.
During the first few days of the apocalypse, he had relied on the villa’s insulation to barely hold on.
A few days later, the walls became scorching hot, and he had to dig through the floor to bury himself in the soil.
He didn’t just have to dig for himself; he had to dig for Dong Jun too.
Fortunately, dirty water from the sewers seeped through the sand and gravel into the pit, solving the drinking water problem and providing a cooling effect, allowing the Zhao Yin of his previous life to struggle through.
He didn’t want to go through that again in this life.
Tossing aside the Bone-cleaver, Zhao Yin went back to sleep, and soon his snoring resumed.
In the following days, no one else came looking for Zhao Yin.
The indoor temperature consistently remained a few degrees below zero.
He ate when he was hungry and slept when he was full.
When he woke up, he exercised his weak body inside the villa.
Time passed quickly.
In the blink of an eye, it was the twenty-ninth day of the apocalypse!
Even with the insulation boards in place, the fifty tons of ice had mostly melted.
There was a large amount of standing water in the room, but the temperature remained very low.
Compared to the suffering of his previous life, Zhao Yin had lived quite comfortably this month.
More than half of the food and water remained, and he had actually put on some weight.
Zhao Yin opened the small window to check.
The meteor shower had lessened significantly, with only sparse falls.
Sometimes, not a single meteor could be seen for half a day.
Everything that could be ignited in the city twenty-nine days ago had long since burned out.
The temperature was also dropping.
Thin smoke was rising everywhere, and the surviving people and animals had hidden away who-knows-where.
Zhao Yin knew that some resources had not been destroyed by the meteor shower.
There were places the meteors couldn’t reach; those resources might be buried or located within certain special buildings.
There were also ordinary buildings that had survived, like Zhao Yin’s villa.
Zhao Yin wasn’t very interested in those ordinary resources.
What he most hoped to obtain now was Lin Tianfeng’s SSS-rank Ability.
Additionally, he wanted to collect as many Star Crystals as possible while everyone else was still ignorant of their secret.
Finally, the meteor shower stopped.
Zhao Yin prepared everything and removed the insulation boards from the main door.
He opened the villa’s front door.