Volume 1, Chapter 1: This Is a Game of Becoming a God

“Qi Fengling, weren’t you supposed to bring food? Why haven’t you come yet? Yingying and I are starving and about to faint.”
“Qi Fengling, where have you gone?”
“Qi Fengling, are you playing dead? Don’t think you can get away with pretending to be dead! I’ll give you three more seconds—if you don’t respond, don’t ever expect Yingying to pay you any attention again.”
“Qi Fengling, if I had known you were this kind of person, I wouldn’t have kept praising you in front of Yingying. She barely started to like you, and you don’t even appreciate it.”

The messages on the phone screen kept flooding in relentlessly, and in just a short while, the unread count had soared to over ninety-nine.

Qi Fengling, his vision blurry, glanced at it briefly before tossing the phone aside with disgust.

His head throbbed painfully, a sharp ache accompanied by an onslaught of memories rushing through his mind.

Hadn’t he just defeated the Zombie Emperor? Where was this place?

He lifted his head, and the cluttered room, along with a bright red calendar, came into view—July 7, 2035. Was this not the seventh day since the apocalypse began?

Had he traveled back in time?

As Qi Fengling marveled at this realization, confusion clouded his mind. Three minutes later, he gradually regained clarity.

After assimilating memories from two lifetimes, Qi Fengling finally accepted the truth: he had truly been reborn.

Reborn back to the seventh day since the global apocalypse began.

On July 1, the worldwide zombie crisis erupted. Unlike the shambling corpses seen in movies, these zombies could be any person at random;

Moreover, each zombie possessed abilities far exceeding those of normal humans and could evolve further by devouring humans or even their own kind.

This global catastrophe did not only affect humans turning into zombies upon being bitten; flora and fauna mutated as well.

From July 1 onward, the apocalypse had arrived.

Everyone believed this apocalypse was triggered by a virus developed and released by humans.

But only Qi Fengling knew the truth: this apocalypse was never caused by humans—it was the work of gods! Their home planet, Blue Star, was merely a battleground for divine games.

They were merely pawns in a game played by gods. Perhaps finding one-sided slaughter boring, the gods bestowed a divine gift.

On the seventh day of the apocalypse, every city randomly received “Awakening Orbs.” Consuming these orbs would awaken various supernatural professions.

In his previous life, Qi Fengling risked his life to deliver food to a so-called goddess and nearly died, missing out on the first batch of Awakening Orbs.

He was forced to wait for the second batch.

The difference between the first and second batches of Awakening Orbs was enormous.

Yet, even so, Qi Fengling still rose to the top ten strongest warriors in the world as an A-rank “Demon Hunter,” and in his final moments, he exhausted and killed the legendary Zombie Emperor.

Qi Fengling stared blankly at the calendar’s mark of July 7, 2030.

If his memory was correct, the first batch of divine Awakening Orbs began appearing gradually at 5 p.m. that very day.

He knew that each city had only a thousand orbs in the first batch, meaning at most a thousand people could awaken supernatural abilities from that batch.

Though nearly half the population had turned into zombies, billions of humans still remained.

Before the apocalypse, Yun City, where Qi Fengling lived, had a permanent population of eight million. Even if half had become zombies, four million humans remained.

Four million competing for a mere thousand Awakening Orbs—one could imagine the intensity of the competition.

But this wouldn’t affect Qi Fengling much. People still didn’t understand the significance of the Awakening Orbs.

Even if the orbs appeared right before their eyes, most wouldn’t pay them any attention.

Furthermore, the orbs themselves were graded.

The grade affected the level of supernatural abilities the user would awaken.

In the later era, similar rankings were adopted for both the orbs and the powers they granted: E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS.

Reviewing his memories, Qi Fengling pondered briefly.

In his previous life, he had learned from companions that the first batch of orbs was mostly distributed in urban areas.

Among the thousand Awakening Orbs, only one was of the highest SS grade.

That SS-grade orb had been picked up by Ye Tian, the lord of Yun City, on the top floor of a downtown skyscraper. Using it, Ye Tian awakened the SS-rank “Six-Winged Fallen Angel” profession. For a long time, Ye Tian ranked among the top three kings of the Huaxia Alliance.

But Ye Tian’s arrogance led him to indulge in pleasures, and when an unprecedented zombie surge swept Yun City, even this top-tier king fell.

Now that he had a second chance, Qi Fengling was determined: that orb would be his!

“Beep beep beep...”

The phone, which Qi Fengling had discarded, vibrated violently.

Though seven days had passed since the apocalypse began, Yun City’s network was still functioning. Qi Fengling recalled that the city’s infrastructure would collapse about a month into the apocalypse.

By then, phones would be useless, water pipes contaminated, and power grids down.

Qi Fengling had wanted to ignore it, but the phone’s persistent buzzing was too loud to dismiss.

He picked up the phone and pressed the answer button.

Immediately, a voice burst out: “Qi Fengling, are you dead? Don’t you see Yingying and I are starving to death?”

“If you don’t bring food soon, I swear Yingying will never talk to you again. If it weren’t for Yingying’s kindness, a loser like you would never get a chance to meet her...”

The torrent of scolding from the other end made Qi Fengling frown deeply.

Yingying. Zhou Ying.

The moment he heard that name, his expression turned cold.

He knew Zhou Ying all too well.

On this very day in his previous life, he had risked everything to deliver all his food to Zhou Ying, crossing two zombie-infested streets and dodging zombies inside skyscrapers, nearly dying in the process.

Yet, he hadn’t even entered the house. When he said, “I have no food left myself; I hope Yingying can save some for me,”

Zhou Ying and her best friend deemed him useless and deliberately lured zombies to attack him, intending for him to be devoured.

Fortunately, Qi Fengling survived that ordeal against all odds; otherwise, he would have died on the seventh day of the apocalypse.

Suddenly, Qi Fengling’s mind snapped—The skyscraper! Zhou Ying was still in that skyscraper!