The barbaric imagery from the news broadcast left Lam Linh shivering with a deep, internal chill.
Roasted human flesh, soup brewed from bone… those people had stripped away their humanity, becoming demons wearing human skin. She imagined falling into their hands—tortured, used, and eventually processed into a meal. A primal, suffocating terror squeezed her heart.
Involuntarily, she inched closer to Thien Anh. Beside this man, covered in scars and possessed of a cold, ruthless streak, she felt safer than anywhere else. At the very least, he was human, and he lived by a code.
Thien Anh glanced at the trembling girl and let out a faint sigh.
"Afraid? Don't worry. That's them, not me. Here, you are a doctor and a teammate—not food or a toy."
The words were brief and blunt, yet they acted like a powerful sedative. Lam Linh looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
"Thank you… I know you aren't a bad man. It's just… this world is so terrifying."
Thien Anh nodded, his gaze drifting toward the distance.
"The world has always been this way; it's just that the thin veneer of civilization has been stripped away. Fragile women like you, without power, can only rely on the strong or become victims. That is the rule."
...
Night descended. The bunker was warm, yet it couldn't quite banish the cold within their souls.
Lam Linh lay curled on her small cot, but nightmares of man-eating rats haunted the periphery of her mind. She didn't dare close her eyes.
She looked over at Thien Anh sleeping on the sofa. His breathing was rhythmic, composed. Her instinct to seek protection flared up. Lam Linh crept out of bed, clutching her pillow, and sat on the rug right next to him. The radiant heat emanating from Thien Anh's body felt like a sanctuary.
Thien Anh opened his eyes but didn't drive her away. He understood the feeling—the crushing loneliness of being surrounded by death.
"Cold?" he asked softly.
"Yes… and… I'm scared."
Thien Anh shifted inward, leaving a small space on the sofa. "Lie up here. It's warmer. Stop thinking about the dark."
Lam Linh hesitated for a second before climbing up, curling into a ball beside him, her back pressed against his steady, solid chest. There was no lust, no carnal desire. It was simply two lonely souls keeping each other warm in the winter of the apocalypse.
Thien Anh had no intention of crossing any lines. In this era of life and death, sex was a fleeting vanity. He needed a companion—a comrade-in-arms he could trust to watch his back—not a tool for physical release.
...
5:00 AM.
Thien Anh's iron discipline roused everyone. Despite her heavy eyelids, Lam Linh forced herself up. She refused to be left behind.
A quick breakfast of dried meat and vitamins followed, succeeded by their training hour.
Lam Linh was gasping for air after only thirty minutes of running in place. Even with the nourishment of mutant meat, her physical foundation was far too weak.
"Rest. Don't kill yourself trying to catch up."
Thien Anh commanded. He continued his own high-intensity regimen: one-armed push-ups with a fifty-kilogram concrete slab on his back, pull-ups, and reflex drills with Thien Lang.
Sweat poured off him in rivers, his muscles rippling with raw power. Lam Linh sat to the side, her gaze filled with admiration. Success wasn't an accident. Thien Anh's strength was paid for in blood and toil.
...
9:00 AM.
"Gear up. We're going for live combat today."
Thien Anh tossed Lam Linh a handgun and a dagger crafted from the mutant rat's teeth, which he had meticulously honed during the night.
"Your mission today: Practice hitting moving targets and learn not to scream when you see blood."
Equipped to the teeth, the group stepped out of the bunker.
The sky was a leaden grey, heavy with swirling black clouds. The snow had stopped, but the wind continued to howl.
Just as they stepped beyond the camouflaged hatch, Lam Linh froze. She pointed toward the sky, her voice cracking with terror.
"My god! What… what is that?"
Thien Anh looked up. His pupils constricted into pinpricks.
In the bruised sky above, gargantuan silhouettes were gliding through the clouds.
They weren't birds.
They possessed wingspans dozens of meters wide, covered in leathery membranes like a bat's wing but layered with scales. Their elongated beaks were lined with jagged fangs, and their long tails whipped through the air with an audible whoosh.
"Pterosaurs? No… Mutant Wyverns!"
A flock of eight monsters was circling directly above them. Leading the pack was a gargantuan beast twice the size of the others, and even more horrific: it had two heads.
Two separate heads mounted on a massive frame, their burning golden eyes scanning the ground like a searchlight radar.
And it had spotted Thien Lang—a prominent black speck against the vast white tundra.
"ROAAAAAAAAAAR!"
The two-headed wyvern let out a soul-shattering shriek. The sonic shockwave was so powerful it knocked the snow from the trees; Thien Anh's eardrums throbbed as if pierced by needles.
It tucked its wings and plunged toward them like a guided cruise missile.
"RUN! INTO THE BUNKER! NOW!"
Thien Anh roared, grabbing Lam Linh and catapulting her toward the hatch.
Thien Lang reacted first, bolting into the tunnel leading deep underground. Azure Sky coiled tightly around Thien Anh's neck.
WHOOSH!
A gargantuan shadow plummeted over them. The razor-sharp talons of the dragon sheared through the air, closing in with lethal velocity.