Chapter 4
The World God—Earth's own consciousness—watched the vast battlefield unfolding before him and felt an ache of nostalgia ripple through his ancient soul. Trillions of years ago, back in the universe of his birth, he had been a Mega World, a divine realm whose inhabitants were born at the God Realm, while he himself stood proudly at the early Creator God Stage.
He had once been glorious—until the universe-sundering civil war shattered him.
Fatally wounded, he detonated himself to survive, then fled through the void, slipping from universe to universe for a hundred consecutive years, using every last life-saving card he possessed. Eventually he found this broken star cluster—silent, dying, forgotten.
He repaired it.
And by the time he finished, his strength was completely drained. When he finally awoke eons later, his body—this world—was rife with death energy. He had no choice but to self-destruct again and rewind time… a price that shattered his planetary body into fragments.
But now, after so many cycles, Earth was whole once more. He was whole once more. He was strong again—strong enough to return to his original universe, reclaim what he once lost, or build anew.
Yet he didn't want any of that.
Not anymore.
He would rather remain here as a lazy salted fish with his wife.
★ Over a Thousand Years Ago ★
2:00 AM.
H-City—once the sleepless capital of Hua Country—now lay in a silence deeper than any grave. Twelve years had passed since the apocalypse descended, and the once-glittering metropolis had become a skeleton of twisted metal and broken glass. The few standing buildings were either abandoned shells or government fortresses.
Among them stood the former Aerospace Technology Research Institute, now repurposed into the Apocalypse Research Institute—a respectable name hiding dozens of illegal laboratories beneath it.
In one such underground lab, a group of scientists in white coats crowded around an iron table. Shackled atop it was a woman writhing in agony, screaming against restraints so strong they were forged specifically for high-level ability users.
A dark blue, diamond-shaped gem slowly pushed itself out of the center of her forehead.
They were trying to forcibly extract her ability core.
Her name was Gu Mian, a mutant space ability user. Level five. Useful, but not rare—until the scientists discovered the miraculous pocket space she carried: fertile land that grew crops every eight hours, and a spring capable of healing any injury.
Her team had sold her to the institute in exchange for permanent shelter and mountains of supplies.
Now the institute wanted her core—so it could be expanded, replicated, and transplanted into a more obedient host.
Her agony was indescribable.
But Gu Mian had one secret left.
She wasn't a single-ability user.
She had two abilities—and the second was something no one in this room had ever seen.
Worse for them, her second core had fused with her space core, mutated into a two-sided gem: one dark blue… one blood red.
That blood-red side held her second ability: Blood Control.
She had never revealed it—because every time she used it, she suffered a backlash equal to ten percent of the damage she caused. But now, that backlash was exactly what she needed.
She gathered the last of her mental strength, and her eyes darkened.
Her consciousness spread across the room.
And then—
She seized the blood in every scientist's body and ripped their hearts apart.
They collapsed instantly—thrashing, screaming, then silent.
Gu Mian's own heart burst a moment later, blood exploding outward before her ability core sank back into her skull.
And she died along with them.
---
★ 9:00 AM — Aftermath ★
A researcher arrived for work, opened the lab door, and immediately staggered back in horror. The alarm shrieked across the entire building, dragging the higher-ups out of their secure rooms.
Surveillance footage revealed the massacre.
Autopsy confirmed the hearts had been shredded from within.
Gu Mian had died from ability overdraw.
They covered her body with a white sheet, placed her on a stretcher, and ordered her to be dumped in the forest outside the capital.
A discarded corpse.
A forgotten woman.
---
★ Rebirth ★
Gu Mian woke with a groan—sore, feverish, burning.
"W-what…? Didn't I die?"
She forced her eyes open and froze. A crystal chandelier shimmered above her. She lay in a wide, luxurious bedroom that tugged at her memory. She struggled upright, blinking hard.
Then realization hit her.
This was her room.
Her room before the apocalypse.
Heart pounding, she grabbed her phone from the bedside table, unlocked it with trembling fingers, and checked the date.
May 20th, 20XX.
Exactly one year and three months before the apocalypse began.
Her breath left her in a rush.
She burst into tears—raw, shaking sobs of relief and disbelief.
She had been reborn.
Whether this was a parallel world or a second chance didn't matter. If the apocalypse came, she had more than a year to prepare. If it didn't come, her preparations would only make her stronger.
But then she remembered.
Her team.
Her boyfriend.
Her betrayal.
Her torture.
The institute.
Her rage surged so violently that the temperature in the room dropped. Her killing intent filled the air like frost creeping along glass.
She clenched the sheets, breathing hard, and forced the fury back down.
There would be time.
Plenty of time.
For revenge.
For preparation.
For survival.
And that was how her new life began.
---
The first thing Gu Mian thought of after calming down was simple and painfully human.
She was hungry.
Her body still felt heavy, feverish, as though it had been dragged back from death and hadn't yet decided whether to forgive her for it. She slipped her feet into her slippers and padded downstairs, the villa quiet in a way that felt unreal after the apocalypse's endless noise.
The kitchen lights came on softly.
She cooked with practiced ease. She had learned early, standing beside her mother at the stove, memorizing movements more than recipes. That skill had saved her life once already. During the apocalypse, paired with her space, it meant she and her team never had to chew dry rations or swallow moldy biscuits like everyone else.
Hot food had been a luxury then.
A weapon, even.
This villa sat in C City's most exclusive residential district—high walls, layered security, and privacy so strict only the truly wealthy could live here. Gu Mian was one of them.
She was the acknowledged daughter of Gu Yunchen, a real estate and technology tycoon whose name carried weight wherever it was spoken. Among all his children, he treated Gu Mian especially well. She was his first daughter. Below her were three younger sisters, aged twenty, sixteen, and twelve.
Her mother had died when Gu Mian was sixteen—three years after Gu Yunchen had finally acknowledged her existence.
He never remarried. There were no legitimate heirs.
Unlike the others, Gu Mian had refused to live in the Gu family's main residence—the Gu Mansion. She had no interest in inheritance disputes or bloodless smiles sharpened into knives. She returned only during New Year celebrations, stayed three days at most, then left.
It was precisely this lack of ambition that made Gu Yunchen like her even more.
From the age of fifteen, he had transferred seventy million yuan into her account every month. Now, at twenty-three, she held nearly six billion yuan—excluding the properties he gifted her during holidays as casually as others handed out pocket money.
She lived alone.
No servants. No housekeepers. Weekly maintenance was handled by a contracted company. Quiet suited her.
She had graduated from university a year ago and now made a living writing novels at home. Smut novels, to be precise. She didn't lack imagination, and though her real-life experience was limited, it existed.
At nineteen, she had slept with her boyfriend in college.
The same man.
The same man who later reunited with her during the apocalypse… and sold her to the institute without hesitation.
The memory made her jaw tighten, teeth grinding faintly.
She would kill him.
Before the apocalypse.
She would not allow trash like that to breathe another day longer than necessary.
After eating, exhaustion rolled back over her. She returned upstairs, lay down, and drifted into sleep, the fever still clinging stubbornly to her skin.
When she woke again, hours had passed.
She felt lighter. Clearer.
A thought surfaced slowly, cautiously.
If I was reborn… then what about my abilities?
"They never finished extracting my core," she murmured to herself. "I felt it sink back into my head before I lost consciousness."
Heart pounding, she closed her eyes and reached inward.
Joy flooded her almost instantly.
Her space was there.
The ten acres of land she had painstakingly unlocked level by level were intact—flat and bare, but whole. The spring sat kilometers away from the fields, just as before. The overall size of the space matched exactly where it had been when she was level five.
Nothing had regressed.
She attempted to enter with her physical body—and immediately felt her strength drain away as if someone had pulled the plug on her consciousness. Her vision darkened. Her limbs went limp.
So that was it.
Her mental strength was still too weak.
The space hadn't shrunk to its initial state, which meant entering it required mental power at least equivalent to level five. Until then, physical entry was impossible.
Still… this was already more than enough.
After resting for two hours, she lifted a glass from her bedside table and used her mental power to draw water from the spring. The clear liquid poured neatly into the cup.
The moment she drank, the fever retreated like a tide pulling back from shore.
She exhaled, long and satisfied.
A bath followed. Clean pajamas. Night had already settled outside the windows.
Gu Mian entered her study, took a blank notebook and a pen, and sank into the couch.
Now came the most important part.
Planning.
If her space had followed her through rebirth, then the apocalypse would come as well. There was no doubt about it.
First—supplies.
Grain. Canned food. Daily necessities. Soap. Toothbrushes. Salt. Medicine.
In the apocalypse, food and water were life.
Zombies killed many, but in the first three years, humans were faster. What truly slaughtered people were hunger, thirst, and desperation. A single bottle of water had been worth more than diamonds.
Second—and more important than anything else.
Jade.
Her space required jade to evolve. The higher its level, the more jade it devoured.
She had only discovered this truth four years into the apocalypse.
By then, jade—and human lives—were the cheapest things in the world.
This time, she would not be late.
As Gu Mian continued writing out her plans, the neat pages quickly filled with dense lines of ink.
Too much.
She paused, pen hovering, then let out a slow breath.
She couldn't do all of this alone.
The apocalypse had taught her a brutal truth—strength wasn't just about power. It was about preparation, logistics, and people who wouldn't betray you the moment survival became inconvenient.
Her first decision came quickly.
She needed bodyguards.
Not ordinary ones.
She contacted a security organization with deep roots, the kind that operated half in the light and half in the shadows, and clearly stated her conditions.
First: no family ties, no emotional burdens that could be exploited.
Second: the ability to handle matters outside their official scope of duty.
Third: one capable assistant, regardless of gender.
Fourth: at least a few with underground connections.
The negotiation was brief.
Two hundred million yuan.
The deal was struck.
Eleven people in total.
Three ex-military.
Five former mercenaries.
One ex-assassin.
One hacker.
And one special assistant.
They would arrive in two days.
Next—training.
She needed strength that didn't rely on abilities.
Gu Mian knew ancient martial arts would become increasingly obsolete as levels rose, but in the early stages of the apocalypse, it tripled survival rates. More importantly, it trained reflexes, endurance, and killing intent—things no system could replace.
Through her contacts, she found a genuine ancient martial arts master.
The terms were simple.
He would live in the villa for three months.
Monthly payment: five million yuan.
He would arrive over the weekend—he had matters to settle on his end.
Lastly, she hired four women to handle household affairs. One-year contracts. Generous pay—eighty thousand yuan per month each.
They agreed without hesitation.
With everything arranged, Gu Mian finally allowed herself to rest. She set her alarm for ten in the morning and fell asleep peacefully, her mind already several steps ahead of the world.