Doomsday Countdown: 36 Hours

Ling Chen stood before the French windows on the top floor of the Ling Building, his fingertips gently caressing the cold Patek Philippe Celestial watch.

Outside the window, the morning light was dim, and the entire city was just waking up.

“The second day after the night I was reborn…”

He muttered to himself, his gaze sweeping over the unhealed wound on his wrist—he had deliberately cut himself there before going to sleep yesterday.

The pain was real, but compared to the torment of being vivisected in a laboratory in his previous life, this small injury wasn't even an appetizer.

“Only 36 hours left.”

He closed his eyes, and Mu Xi’s delicate face flashed through his mind—the high-IQ childhood friend, the monster from his previous life who had imprisoned him in the gym and forced him to devour his own flesh and blood.

“But I don’t care. In this life, let us become one.”

The corners of his mouth curved slightly upwards, his eyes a bottomless black abyss.

In the morning, Ling Chen returned to Linghui Academy.

The black Maybach slowly pulled up to the school gate, and the moment the car door opened, the surrounding students’ gazes all turned to him.

—But this time, no one dared to whisper.

Ling Chen got out of the car with his bag and inadvertently caught sight of Chen Hao.

“Morning, Young Master Chen.”

Ling Chen smiled, greeting him indifferently, as if there was no conflict between them at all, like intimate sworn brothers.

Chen Hao’s face turned pale, and he instinctively covered his wrist—a Richard Mille worth three million should have been there, but now only an indentation remained.

And he would never forget the ferocious expressions of those debt collectors.

“My…my watch, I’ll definitely return it tomorrow!” his voice trembled.

Ling Chen chuckled, ignoring him. He was just a pig about to be devoured by mutated creatures after the apocalypse. Why bother haggling over him?

He had only returned to get a detailed blueprint of the school’s layout.

That evening, at Jiuan City’s top French-Chinese fusion restaurant...

All his documents and such had been handed over to his financial director, Wang Cheng. Naturally, he wanted to enjoy life before the apocalypse.

Ling Chen sat by the window, a plate of truffle foie gras in front of him, paired with an excellent vintage Bordeaux red wine.

Unlike the so-called nobles who focused on “seeing, not eating,” Ling Chen’s table was piled high with all sorts of food, easily over a hundred different kinds, from orchid bear paw made from bear paws imported from Canada to simple yellow millet steamed buns.

The table was full to the brim, a dazzling array. From time to time, successful people in suits and ties, arm-in-arm with glamorous socialites, would whisper and cast strange glances as they passed his table.

Ling Chen paid them no mind, slowly savoring everything in front of him.

“After the apocalypse, I won’t be able to eat things like this again.”

He gently cut off a small piece of foie gras and put it in his mouth. The delicate fat melted on his tongue, carrying a rich aroma.

He would only taste one bite of each dish, then have the waiter replace it with a new one.

In his previous life, after the apocalypse broke out, he once found a can of expired caviar in the ruins. That was the most luxurious meal he had ever eaten—even though it had an unpleasant sour taste.

Now, in front of him were dishes meticulously prepared by top chefs, waiters respectfully pouring his wine, and outside the window, the sun shone brightly, as if the apocalypse had never existed.

“How ironic.” He took a small sip of red wine. “The most beautiful things in humanity are often only cherished after they are lost.”

He put down his wine glass, his gaze sweeping over the other guests in the restaurant—the laughing and chatting tycoons and socialites, completely unaware that disaster was about to strike.

“Enjoy yourselves.” He thought to himself, his mind as still as an ancient well. “This is your last supper.”

After dinner, Ling Chen returned to the laboratory.

In the constant-temperature incubator, a dozen bats still hung upside down from specially designed stands, their membrane wings glowing with an eerie blue-green fluorescence under the ultraviolet light.

Chief researcher Wang Ming, staring at those bizarre creations, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead: “Young Master, the genetic sequence of this batch of bats is truly too abnormal. Besides their cell division rate being thirty times that of ordinary bats, their maximum size can grow as large as a common eagle!”

Ling Chen put on protective gloves, elegantly adjusting the incubator parameters.

“I told you, they are just ordinary Southeast Asian fruit bats, merely integrated with some electric eel genes.”

“As the one performing the procedure, shouldn’t you be calmer?”

He still spoke lightly.

Suddenly, one bat sharply opened its eyes, its crimson pupils staring directly at Wang Ming!

“Be careful!” Wang Ming recoiled in fright.

However, Ling Chen merely smiled faintly. He had long seen true grand spectacles. If he could be scared by such mutated bats, well, he might as well find a block of tofu and bash his head in.

“These bats can be sent to my home tomorrow afternoon. Remember, inject them with sufficient sedative medication.”

Early morning, Ling Villa

Three armored vehicles bearing the “Iron Shield Security” logo drove into the villa complex, and twelve fully armed engineering personnel quickly began work.

“Mr. Ling, according to your requirements, we’ve used military-grade blast-resistant materials.” The project manager pointed to the design blueprint, explaining, “The exterior walls are reinforced with a 30-centimeter titanium alloy sandwich, the glass replaced with bulletproof nano-composite material, and the basement converted into an independent ecological cabin, equipped with an air purification system and an underground water circulation device.”

Ling Chen stood in the center of the courtyard, watching workers move crates of supplies into the underground warehouse—compressed food, antibiotics, weapons and ammunition, and even several small generators.

The project manager raised an eyebrow and joked, “Are you trying to guard against terrorists?”

Ling Chen smiled, handing over a check: “I’m just bored and wanted to build a house with a higher safety factor. Also, install an electromagnetic pulse protection system. Money is not an issue.”

As the workers began pouring the last blast door, he walked alone into the newly constructed command center on the third underground level. The entire wall of monitoring screens lit up, displaying real-time footage of a five-kilometer radius around the villa.

“Now this is more like it.” He caressed the cold metal buttons on the control panel. Memories of struggling to survive in the ruins from his previous life surged like a tide.

In a sense, the world faced by mutated individuals was far more brutal than that faced by ability users, or even ordinary people.

Those days of fighting desperately for a piece of flesh, those nights of crawling forward after losing limbs…

Ling Vault.

The half-meter thick alloy door slowly slid open, and Ling Chen walked directly to the innermost safe.

Inside the box were six neatly arranged sealed files. There was no text on the labels, only a bat symbol.

These six files recorded all the characteristics and mutation conditions of the mutated bats, personally compiled by Wang Ming, detailed to an impeccable degree.

He closed the box lid and turned to walk towards the blind spot of the surveillance cameras. The moment the security door closed, a faint “click” sound came from an inconspicuous ventilation duct in the vault—a miniature nuclear battery, acquired from the black market that morning, was hidden there, enough to power the entire shelter for fifty years.

Ling Chen sat in a chair, resting his chin on his hand, pondering. In the early stages of the apocalypse, neither mutated individuals nor ability users could play a decisive role in large-scale wars; at most, they were auxiliary forces and surprise tactics. Humanity’s technology, developed over so many years, was not to be trifled with.

Furthermore, there was a significant difference between mutated individuals and ability users. Although both belonged to humanity, their factions were not the same. When they first emerged, the two fought relentlessly for nearly a century, only uniting later due to the rise of other non-human races. Even before Ling Chen’s death, these two factions still harbored deep-seated contradictions.

Mutated individuals and ability users were completely different cultivation systems. The core of mutated individuals was a crystal nucleus evolved from the heart, while the core of ability users was the brain.

At the same time, the abilities used by both were actually variations of spiritual energy. Mutated individuals, after eating flesh and blood containing spiritual energy, would convert it into an ability called blood energy, while ability users directly converted spiritual energy into spiritual power.

Their attack systems were also entirely different. Mutated individuals relied on the continuous strengthening of their bodies by blood energy, while ability users relied on cultivating their abilities to strengthen a specific special power.

In other words, if there was such a thing as ascension, the former followed the path of flesh and blood ascension, purely pursuing physical strength and physical transformation.

The latter followed the traditional path of ability-reaching-divinity, relying on cultivating their own brains and the special abilities granted by their mutated brains to cultivate and advance.

If not for the fact that they both claimed to be human and possessed human forms and thoughts, they would probably truly be two different species.

So many contradictions meant that the two could not possibly unite in a short time, just like a German veteran from World War II would never allow any Jew to live in front of him, and Jews would never offer a piece of bread to German veterans and the German people.

Feeling that there should be no major problems, Ling Chen slowly turned his head to face the window.

The neon lights on the street were flashing with magnificent brilliance; Jiuan City’s nightlife had just begun.

He looked at the bustling streets and the smiling faces of the people, smiling faintly.

No one could imagine what kind of darkness, what kind of abyss filled his heart.

24 hours until the apocalypse.