David stood aside and watched as Arnold approached Angus, making no attempt to stop him. He wasn’t worried that Arnold would get himself into trouble. Angus didn’t have any weapons and had lost a leg.
If Arnold could be killed so easily, he wouldn’t have lived long enough to meet David in their past lives. David remembered when he first met Arnold in a previous life, back when Arnold hadn’t developed any special abilities yet. However, even at that time, Arnold had already demonstrated superior combat skills compared to ordinary people.
David knew that Arnold had served in the military before, but he wasn’t sure which branch. Despite Angus’s physical strength, losing a leg had completely robbed him of his will to fight. Sometimes, physical strength wasn’t the decisive factor in determining the outcome of a battle.
“Arnold, please spare me. I won’t dare to do it again,” Angus pleaded, crawling backward with tears and snot mixing together, looking utterly miserable.
Arnold didn’t respond to him. When he was just a few meters away from Angus, he suddenly accelerated. He rushed forward and pinned Angus down, straddling him. Angus began to struggle, but Arnold had the upper hand in terms of position. With Arnold on top of him, Angus couldn’t exert any force. In addition, with his leg severed, it was even more difficult for him to generate power from his lower body, completely unable to break free from Arnold’s control. ｂ𝚍𝚘𝚟ｌ.ｎｔ
Arnold punched Angus in the nose with his left hand, causing Angus to cry out in pain. Taking advantage of the moment when Angus closed his eyes in pain, Arnold revealed a small folding knife in his right hand and ruthlessly stabbed it into Angus’s chest. Seeing Arnold’s precise stab, David’s eyes lit up. The timing of that stab was perfect, bypassing Angus’s ribs and accurately piercing his heart.
Such a skillful stab could only mean that Arnold had a deep understanding of human anatomy. When David met Arnold in their previous life, it was already some time after the apocalypse had begun. At that time, David thought that Arnold’s abilities had been honed only after the arrival of the apocalypse. Now it seemed that Arnold had been formidable from the very beginning.
He wasn’t just a chubby barbecue restaurant owner on the surface. David began to wonder what level of power Arnold would possess once he became an extraordinary being. Arnold slowly pressed the knife further into Angus’s heart, and various emotions flickered in Angus’s eyes—resentment, fear, and unwillingness. He struggled desperately, trying to push Arnold off his body. But the moment his heart was pierced, his strength began to rapidly fade away.
The anger in Arnold’s eyes gradually dissipated, leaving only a coldness, like that of an indifferent executioner. He and Angus locked eyes, witnessing the gradual disappearance of Angus’s life slipping away from his grasp. Finally, Angus lost all his strength, his hands fell weakly, and his face still bore an expression of terror.
At that moment, David felt as if he could sense Arnold going through a transformation. This was a process that everyone who managed to survive in the apocalypse had to go through. With the disappearance of civilization, order, morality, and law had all vanished, and humanity had returned to a state of savagery. It was a struggle for existence, survival of the fittest! To survive, one had to adapt to all of this. This was the apocalypse, and no one could stay out of it.
Arnold sat up from Angus’s corpse, his adrenaline slowly fading away, and his body began to tremble slightly. David walked to the window in the hallway and glanced down. Perhaps it was the smell of blood emanating from Zoe’s body that attracted the surrounding zombies. The zombies in the neighborhood had already been cleared out by David, but now a new group emerged from somewhere.
David lifted Angus’s body and threw him directly from the upstairs window. “Let’s deal with these bodies as well.” Looking at the scattered corpses on the ground, David decided to throw them down from the building and let the zombies take care of them. It was the most convenient option. He didn’t want these bodies to decompose and stink up the floor he lived on.
Arnold remained silent. He quietly put away his folding knife and started helping David move the bodies. One after another, they threw the bodies down to the ground. The impact of the bodies hitting the ground produced a dull sound that seemed particularly jarring in the quiet neighborhood.
After they finished their work, the hallway returned to its empty state, just like before. Only the bloodstains on the ground and the lingering smell of burning indicated that what had just happened was real. After throwing down the last body, Arnold sat down on the ground, looking somewhat exhausted. Suddenly, he asked David, “David, do you have cigarettes?”
David was taken aback since he remembered that Arnold never smoked. He himself didn’t smoke either, but he had stored many cigarettes in the storage space. Although David found it hard to understand, cigarettes were a valuable commodity in the post-apocalyptic world, so he had collected some.
David took out an expensive pack of cigarettes and handed it to Arnold, along with a lighter. Arnold leaned against the wall, and behind him was the spot where Zoe had jumped.
With trembling hands, Arnold tore open the cigarette packaging, took one out, placed it in his mouth, and lit it. “Cough, cough, cough!” He started coughing violently, the experience he had just been through leaving him with mixed emotions. He had taken too strong a drag. “This cigarette really burns the throat. David, sorry for wasting your cigarette.” Arnold threw the cigarette to the ground and extinguished it with his foot, returning the remaining ones to David.
“No worries.” David took the cigarette. He didn’t smoke anyway, and if it weren’t for the large storage space, he wouldn’t have bothered hoarding them. Arnold stared ahead with empty eyes, murmuring, “I knew Angus wasn’t a good person. Sophie and I had warned Zoe before, but Angus was her first love, and she couldn’t let go.”
As he spoke, Arnold’s eyes became slightly red. “Zoe’s mother was in poor health, and she worked hard to earn more money for her mother’s medical expenses. She was such a responsible and sensible child.”
David didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t good at comforting others. He knew that Zoe’s death was a shocking and difficult-to-accept event for Arnold, Sophie, and Sally, who had never experienced the apocalypse. But David had long grown accustomed to it.
If it weren’t for the apocalypse, the worst outcome for Zoe would have been getting dumped by Angus and feeling sad for a while. But that’s how the apocalypse was—anyone’s emotions and dreams were hardly worth mentioning in this world. The cruelty and brutality of humanity were magnified to the fullest in this chaotic era, and foolishly kind-hearted people could easily pay with their lives.
“What the hell is all this?” Arnold suddenly broke down emotionally. He held his head, grabbing his hair forcefully, and started crying. But to David, his reaction was quite normal.
At the beginning, the overwhelming feeling that countless dead bodies and a city full of zombies brought to people was fear. It was only when their loved ones died right in front of them that they could truly experience how cruel the apocalypse really was.
