Global Darkness

"Sharpen the edge?!"

The shop owner was utterly stunned by Chu Han's request. The kid had walked in, picked out a hammer axe without a word, and then asked to have it sharpened. Once this axe had an edge, its power and sharpness would be terrifying!

"Sharpen it. The sharper, the better." Chu Han remained calm, unaware that the moment he spoke those composed words, coupled with the unruffled gaze tempered by the apocalypse, the shop owner began to tremble inside.

"Young man..." The shop owner had just begun to speak.

Clang!

A dagger suddenly landed on the counter, followed by Chu Han's voice. "Sharpen this dagger too. I'll pay you two thousand total and pick them up tonight. This is a thousand as a deposit."

Chu Han cut off the shop owner before he could say anything, even raising the price for him. This dagger was worth two hundred at most.

The shop owner swallowed and decided not to argue with money.

Chu Han immediately left to gather other supplies. There was no time to haggle here.

The axe was for dealing with zombies, while the dagger was for guarding against people.

Things would be fine during the early stages of the apocalypse, but once they were surrounded by zombies, morality and humanity would quickly crumble. People would slaughter entire families over a single biscuit. Some, unable to endure hunger, would even start eating human flesh.

What he wanted more than a dagger was a trench knife, but most of those sold on the market were shoddy imitations. Their inaccurate designs made them downright anti-human. Not only did they fail to serve the trench knife's purpose, they severely hindered mobility.

And high-quality trench knives, like war hammers, were not easy to get.

Next, Chu Han bought a hiking backpack, waterproof and tear-resistant. He had already prepared himself for long-term travel. The country would send troops for rescue, but there would not be enough time. He still needed to return to Anluo City to pick up his parents. He removed all the straps and miscellaneous attachments from the backpack. Zombies could hear, and anything unnecessary would only bring him trouble.

Then Chu Han bought the most expensive clothes of his life: a thousand-yuan set of hiking gear. It was dirt-resistant, quick-drying, and excellent quality. He did not want to end up nearly running naked halfway through an escape like he had in his previous life.

Then Chu Han bought some medicine and bandages. These would all be rare goods in the apocalypse. Afterward, he filled the backpack's water bladder. Once that was done, he spent all his remaining money on compressed biscuits and dried beef, stuffing the backpack full.

He did not need to eat anything good. He only wanted to survive, and compressed biscuits and dried beef could be stored for a long time. As for anything else, that was all the money he had, and carrying too much would make it hard to move.

By the time he had finished everything, it was already evening. The clean sky, the warm sunlight, the absence of rotting stench, the streets free of blood... Chu Han stood at an intersection, watching the final sunset before the apocalypse, overwhelmed by mixed emotions.

Three months after the apocalypse began, people with supernatural abilities would appear. Two of his three roommates had become such people, yet he was the one who had survived ten years.

He had been a nobody, an ordinary person, yet he had survived. During that time, he had experienced...

Bzz—

The phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated again. Chu Han took it out and saw over twenty missed calls, all from the same person.

"Hello." Chu Han pressed the answer button.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" An angry female voice came through the phone, accompanied by the sound of a cup smashing heavily onto a table.

Chu Han held the phone away from his ear and glanced at the name on the screen: Ding Xue.

To be honest, he had met no fewer than twenty people named Ding Xue during the ten years of his previous life's apocalypse. Now that he had returned ten years into the past, he could not remember who this Ding Xue was at all.

"What do you want?" Chu Han spoke as he walked. He looked back at the sunset one last time, then turned toward the weapon shop. It was time to pick up the dagger and axe.

"I called you more than twenty times, and you didn't answer!" Ding Xue was so furious she felt ready to explode. She roared like a lioness, "Why didn't you come to the exam today? Do you know that if you don't take it, you won't even get a chance at a retake? You'll have to repeat the course next semester! Are you not planning to study properly anymore? Are you not planning to graduate..."

Ding Xue continued nagging over the phone. Chu Han suddenly stopped walking. He finally remembered who she was—his class monitor in college! Ding Xue's personality was nothing like her name. When her temper flared, she could charge straight into a boys' dorm full of shirtless guys.

"Class Monitor, how have you been?" Chu Han smiled nostalgically. He did not know what had happened to Ding Xue in his previous life. He had never seen her after the apocalypse began. Maybe she had died. Maybe she had become a zombie...

"You're asking if I'm doing well?" Ding Xue snorted coldly. "Just wait until you have to repeat the course next semester!"

"Class Monitor, do you want to stock up on some food?" Out of consideration for their past relationship, Chu Han gave her a reminder. Though he had nearly forgotten Ding Xue, even what she looked like, they had still been classmates for two years.

"Don't change the subject!" Ding Xue truly was the class monitor. Her train of thought would not be led astray so easily by Chu Han.

"Stock up on food and bottled water." Chu Han did not say anything more and hung up directly. With ten years of experience surviving in the cracks of the apocalypse, this was already the utmost he could do.

"Hello? Hello?" Ding Xue trembled with rage in her dorm room, her chest heaving violently. She was a favored daughter of heaven, rich and beautiful, with excellent grades and strong work abilities. She had always been the one hanging up on others, the one ordering people around. Since when had it become Chu Han, that bottom-ranking student, hanging up on her?

"Bastard!" Ding Xue, who had always had everything go her way, finally broke down. Tears streamed from her eyes. Never having received such cold treatment before, she felt especially wronged.

When he arrived at the weapon shop, Chu Han handed over the last thousand yuan on him. Then, under the shop owner's strange gaze, he took the axe and dagger and left. Fortunately, the shop owner had wrapped both items tightly. Otherwise, if he had appeared on the street holding an axe in one hand and a dagger in the other, he would probably have caused panic before the apocalypse even arrived.

Back in the dorm, Chu Han used hot water to prepare his remaining two cups of instant noodles. To him, this junk food was already a delicacy.

Chu Han took off his pants, intending to change into his hiking clothes. When the apocalypse began, there would be six hours of darkness.

During that time, every person, even every living thing, would fall unconscious. When they woke, the world would have changed completely. Eighty percent of humanity would have become zombies, and the temperature would drop sharply during that period. Chu Han was used to preparing everything in advance, so he planned to put on the hiking clothes early.

After changing into the hiking clothes, he placed the axe by his side. This was the position he had been most familiar with in his previous life. If danger arose, he could immediately grab his weapon.

Then he tied the dagger to the outside of his right forearm with straps. He tied it this way because he was accustomed to wielding a long weapon in his right hand and a dagger in his left. This position not only made it convenient to draw the dagger with his left hand, it also protected his right forearm. In the past, this placement had saved him from nearly losing an arm.

When he finished all this, it was ten at night. There were still eight hours until the apocalypse arrived.

The silence of night passed, and the morning sun shone brightly.

The time on his phone read 6:00 a.m.

Then, the screen went black.

The sky outside, which had just begun to brighten, suddenly turned dark. The sun could not be seen in any time zone across the world.

Chaotic sounds filled the dormitory corridor, along with familiar zombie roars and a woman's scream...

Wait, why was there a woman in the boys' dormitory?

The moment Chu Han woke up, he was stunned. Then he shook his head. Maybe he had been just as shocked on this day ten years ago, but had forgotten. That small shock was not worth mentioning compared to everything else.

As he got up, Chu Han suddenly sensed something wrong. He picked up his phone, and sure enough, its black screen would not turn on.

He gave a bitter smile. No one knew what had happened during those six hours of darkness. It was not until five years into the apocalypse that a professor proposed the "Reforging Theory."

Returning to the beginning, returning to the primitive.

Earth's magnetic field had changed, and data had been altered. Previous academic knowledge had been overturned. Vast numbers of things needed to be explored and researched anew. Everything humanity had once known had been disrupted and reorganized, even human genes. One of the greatest disasters caused by this change was that eighty percent of humanity had become zombies.

Fortunately, not everything had changed. A small portion remained, allowing humanity to cling to life. Energy was still eternal. Fire could still provide warmth, fuel could still burn, and cars could still run.

The dorm room door was being battered by zombies outside with loud bangs. Sharp objects occasionally scraped against it, producing a teeth-grating sound. Those were zombie fingernails. Unlike human nails, zombie nails were incredibly sharp and hard.

Chu Han took out a compressed biscuit and began eating. The apocalypse had arrived, and the battle for survival had begun. His first choice was to replenish his energy.

These zombies were still only the lowest-level Tier 1 zombies. They moved slowly, had weak senses, and lacked strength. Aside from looking terrifying, they were nothing to fear as long as he had a weapon and there were not too many of them.

It was currently exam week at Mingqiu University. A large number of students had already left campus, and only a small portion with unfinished exams remained. Therefore, compared with other places, Mingqiu University was not truly dangerous right now. That was why he had chosen to return to the dorm before the apocalypse arrived.

After finishing the compressed biscuit, Chu Han glanced out the window. Though the sun had reappeared, the sky was still gray and murky. Quite a few zombies downstairs were clustered together, gnawing at something. The ground was littered with human bones draped in scraps of flesh and blood.

The chaos had erupted in an instant, too quickly and too directly. Chu Han even felt that these zombies had awakened earlier than humans.

Chu Han stood up and slung the backpack over his shoulders, gripping the iron axe tightly with both hands. His physical strength was insufficient now, and swinging an axe one-handed was too strenuous. Though this axe could only be considered a "small weapon" in his previous life.

The instant he gripped the iron axe, his previously calm eyes changed completely.

Fierce. Savage. Like a man-eating beast!

To survive, to protect his parents and his three brothers, there was nothing he would not do now!