"Bang! Bang, bang!" The deafening thuds shook the entire girls' dormitory, accompanied by the spine-chilling roars of the crazed zombies.

Alexander Reeves leaned against the battered wooden door, his face ashen, his entire strength pressing against it to resist the relentless assault.

“Damn it! Damn you all!” he bellowed, fury and despair entwined in his voice. He never imagined that a routine scavenging mission would turn into a betrayal by his so-called allies.

The memory of the moment was still fresh—zombies lunging at him, and then, out of nowhere, that sudden shove from behind. He sprawled to the ground, fear flashing in his eyes as he turned to see Ethan Pearce’s cold smirk and Alfred Hudson’s indifferent back fading into the stairwell, leaving him behind to fend for himself.

Alexander glanced down at his blood-soaked arm, his expression grim. Somehow, he had managed to stumble into this empty dorm room before the throng of zombies could tear him limb from limb. But that hadn’t saved him entirely—the claw marks on his arm, raw and oozing, told a cruel story of how close he had been to death.

Outside, the zombies, driven wild by the scent of fresh blood, slammed against the door with unyielding fervor, their guttural growls and frenzied scratching sounding like a damnation choir. The flimsy wooden door wouldn’t hold forever.Panic and blood loss drained Alexander Reeves' strength further. Using the last bit of his energy, he managed to slide the bolt shut just before the zombies barged in. His legs gave out, and he slumped against the wooden door, a bitter smile tugging at his lips as dark blood dripped from his fingertips.

"Damn this apocalypse... Why did it have to come to this?" He shivered and instinctively curled up, the cold creeping into his bones, though he didn’t know if it was real or just his mind playing tricks.

It all started ten days ago, on a day as ordinary as any other—a bright and sunny day. Alexander had overslept after gaming all night with his roommates, missing his promised outing with his girlfriend, Sophia Campbell. By the time she stormed into his dorm soaked to the skin, dragging him out of bed, the clear skies of Longcheng had inexplicably turned into a downpour.

The rain had come out of nowhere. Later, his classmates and online posts started comparing it to a giant showerhead pouring over the spinning globe. It rained everywhere, even in deserts. The storm didn’t linger, vanishing as abruptly as it had arrived. It barely left the ground wet, just enough to give those caught outside an icy surprise—a free, unexpected cold shower.So, Alexander Reeves, under the wrath of his girlfriend Sophia Campbell, had no choice but to agree to several unfair conditions just to barely calm her down.

Originally, that would’ve been the end of it, just another topic for people online to gossip about.

But what Alexander could never have imagined was that the next day, Sophia fell ill with a fever!

No—it wasn’t just Sophia. Nearly one-third of the students at Long Province University were burning up with high fevers.

And as the news spread online, it became clear that this wasn’t limited to the university—it was happening everywhere around the world! When Alexander tried to take Sophia to the hospital, he realized they were already overwhelmed with patients and had stopped admitting anyone.

This was when the sheer power of a great nation came into play. Almost immediately, orders were issued from the capital, rolling out measures to control the outbreak. Every medical resource across the country was mobilized and pushed to its limits.

Thankfully, the tests came back with results that weren’t entirely panic-inducing. The fever wasn’t deadly—it was just caused by a common flu virus, triggering immune responses.

Aside from a small number of particularly severe cases, most patients could recover at home with rest and flu medication. In about three days, they’d be mostly back to normal.The strangest thing was that all the flu patients had one thing in common—they’d been exposed to the rain that day. People like Alexander Reeves, who hadn’t come into contact with the rain, remained completely unaffected, even when they were near infected individuals. Not a single case of transmission was recorded.

This discovery brought a momentary sense of relief to people worldwide. But that relief quickly turned into unease, as everyone became increasingly suspicious of the sudden, unusual rain. It had come out of nowhere and vanished just as abruptly. Attempts to study and analyze its cause proved futile; there were hardly any rain samples to examine. What was clear, though, was the rainwater’s extreme acidity—far stronger than anything seen in a century.

Speculation exploded online, with theories running wild. Some claimed it was a secret biological weapon deployed by a European country. Others suspected a revenge plot by some terrorist organization. To make matters worse, certain leaders of rogue groups openly declared responsibility for the event, fueling chaos.

Alexander wasn’t too bothered with the rumors. For three days and nights, he stayed by Sophia Campbell’s side, tending to his feverish girlfriend without rest. While the sickness seemed to sap Sophia’s energy, it was Alexander who visibly bore the brunt of exhaustion, growing gaunt and pale from the constant care.

Just as Sophia began showing signs of recovery, disaster struck again. Reports flooded in about patients in hospitals—those with severe flu symptoms—dying en masse. The deaths were sudden and absolute. One moment, the patients were breathing; the next, they were gone, leaving doctors no time to intervene.

The scale of the loss was staggering. Preliminary calculations revealed that in Long Province alone, hundreds of thousands of people died in just that single day.The sudden mutation was too big to be covered up, even by the most powerful nations. The whole world spiraled into chaos and fear. Almost every industry collapsed, and the surviving civilians scrambled to hoard whatever supplies they could find, sparking riots and unrest.

Alexander Reeves didn’t know what other nations were doing, but at least in Huaxia, the response was swift. Officials managed to calm the public and rolled out measures to handle the crisis, barely keeping order among the masses.

But this was just the beginning. The real nightmare gave no time for anyone to breathe.

The zombie outbreak began.

Almost a tenth of those who had died from the flu worldwide came back to life within twelve hours of death. And the first thing those reanimated corpses did? Attack the living around them—those handling their bodies.

No one could react fast enough. The world plunged into a horrifying apocalypse.

Alexander was one of the lucky ones. His girlfriend, Sophia Campbell, had started recovering from her illness, and the two had gone to the cafeteria for a meal. Trapped inside during the initial wave of the outbreak, they unknowingly escaped the worst of it.

With food supplies abundant in the cafeteria, others on campus soon joined them. Survivors from across the school poured into the space over the following days.

And then, the world shifted again.

Among the survivors, people began discovering something unbelievable—some individuals were awakening to powers. Actual, superhuman abilities, like something out of a doomsday novel.The cafeteria barely held a thousand people, yet over a hundred somehow acquired strange abilities!

But unlike the expected power to summon storms or command the elements, most abilities were limited to enhanced strength or speed. Only a rare few had truly unnatural powers.

What thrilled Alexander Reeves most was that his girlfriend, Sophia Campbell, turned out to be one of those few. She possessed a water-based ability, able to create fresh, clean water out of thin air!

This power made Sophia stand out among the group, elevating her status. And as her boyfriend, Alexander enjoyed some benefits from that as well...

Thinking about it, Alexander ignored the burning pain in his arm and pulled a quail egg-sized crystal from the pocket of his inner shirt. His expression darkened.

The crystal was clear as ice, nearly transparent, but its origin was sickening—it had been extracted from a zombie’s skull.

As people awakened their abilities, the more imaginative students began wondering if zombies might have something akin to the crystal cores from novels—objects that one could absorb to gain power.

At first, the bold ones cracked open a few zombie skulls but found nothing, and the idea was soon dismissed as fantasy.Just a few days ago, while moving corpses after another group of surviving students rushed into the cafeteria and brought a wave of zombies, Alexander Reeves spotted something: a glimmering crystal core falling from the shattered skull of a zombie.

Alexander wasn’t stupid. When no one noticed, he quickly hid it away. Even Sophia Campbell had no idea her boyfriend possessed a precious corpse core. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he kept it a secret, even from her.

The sound of relentless pounding at the door brought Alexander’s focus back to the present. His grip tightened on the small core in his hand, his face pale but determined. As more survivors continued gathering in the cafeteria, the truth about corpse cores had already surfaced, along with methods of using them.

These cores—the primary source of a zombie’s energy—were rare, found only within evolved first-tier zombies. In ten days of chaos, the cafeteria group had barely managed to collect fewer than ten cores among them. Their use was straightforward: they enhanced the powers of ability users. But for ordinary individuals? Swallowing one meant certain death, followed by horrifying transformation into a zombie.

Originally, Alexander considered cleaning the core and handing it to Sophia, a water manipulator and respected figure among the group. Yet, the moment came and went, and he never went through with it. Now, his arm hung at his side, numb from the wounds he suffered. He chuckled bitterly to himself, though a faint flicker of spite burned in his eyes.

“Ethan Pearce, Alfred Hudson… if I survive this, I’ll rip you both to pieces. Leave nothing for even the zombies to chew on,” Alexander spat his curse through gritted teeth, fury flaring with every word. Determined to defy fate, he made his choice. Jaw tightening, he raised the core to his mouth and swallowed it whole.The corpse core, which had felt so solid, melted the moment it touched his tongue! A sharp, cold liquid slid down into his stomach, and Alexander Reeves immediately felt a heat surge through him. The hot current seemed to radiate from his abdomen, spreading through his entire body like some strange, unseen force.

At first, there was a fleeting moment of relief—it felt oddly soothing. But within seconds, that warmth twisted into a searing inferno. The energy exploded within him, violent and untamed, tearing through every inch of his body. His skin, overwhelmed by the pressure, began to split apart as though it couldn’t contain the power within.

“Argh!” Alexander collapsed to the ground, his scream echoing in the confined space, his body thrashing wildly. The pain on his skin was excruciating, but it was nothing compared to the torment inside. It was as if countless blades were slicing through his veins, tearing apart muscles and nerves with every heartbeat. The agony was endless, and all he could do was writhe in its grip, helpless against the monstrous power surging through him.