Apocalypse—Bonds of Abundance

Chapter 006: The World Begins to Freeze

Williams stood beneath the floodlights, the icy wind tugging at his coat. Vera remained clung to his arm, her fingers digging into his sleeve as though she could keep him from slipping away. Tears glistened in her eyes, and her lower lip trembled with carefully rehearsed desperation.

“I’ve always loved you,” she whispered, loud enough for the nearby neighbors to hear. “Frederick forced me. You have to believe me.”

A short distance away, Frederick pressed a hand to the red mark on his cheek, still too stunned to respond. Dora watched with undisguised fury, while Isaac remained at the edge of the crowd, his narrowed eyes quietly assessing the situation.

Williams lowered his gaze to Vera’s hand. Without a word, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and calmly removed it from his arm.

His movements were measured and indifferent, as though her touch had become nothing more than an unwanted intrusion.

“You made your choice,” he said calmly. “You left when I had nothing. So don’t expect me to care about your sudden discovery of my worth.”

Vera’s eyes widened as she stepped closer. “I was under pressure! He threatened my job—”

“Then why didn’t you find the courage to speak when I was poor?” Williams interrupted, his voice unwavering. “When I had no money to offer you?”

His question silenced her. Around them, the neighbors shifted uneasily, exchanging whispers and suspicious glances between Vera and Frederick.

Frederick was the first to break the silence. He pointed accusingly at Williams, his voice rising with anger. “You bought her! That’s all this is. Throw enough money at someone, and even a snake will change its skin!”

Williams turned slightly toward him, a faint, humorless smile crossing his face.

“You accepted her loyalty without question when you thought I had nothing left to offer,” he said. “Funny how the rules change when money enters the picture.”

Frederick opened his mouth, but no retort came.

Then Dora stepped forward, her heels crunching against the packed snow. The handprint on her cheek remained vivid as she fixed Williams with an angry stare.

“Enough,” she snapped. “Stop humiliating this family in public. Whatever disagreements we’ve had, you were raised under our roof. The least you can do is show some respect.”

At that, Williams met her gaze, his expression turning colder.

“Be grateful,” he said coldly, “that I’m only exposing what you did instead of collecting the debt you already owe me.”

The quiet threat made Isaac’s jaw tighten. Even Dora’s outrage faltered for a moment.

Before anyone could respond, a low rumble rolled across the neighborhood. It sounded like distant thunder, but the sky remained clear.

The floodlights around Williams’s mansion flickered, and a sudden gust swept snow and construction dust into the air, stinging everyone’s exposed skin.

Williams’s expression sharpened.

He knew that sound, and he was very surprised to hear it.

In his previous life, the world hadn’t collapsed overnight. The extreme-cold catastrophe had begun with atmospheric disturbances, sudden temperature drops, and electrical failures that scientists dismissed as temporary anomalies. Within hours, cities had begun freezing, their infrastructure unable to withstand the rapidly worsening conditions.

Williams glanced at his phone. The timeline was already off. The first major temperature plunge was coming earlier than he remembered.

A chill of unease settled over him. He had memories of the future, but that no longer meant he could rely on every event unfolding as it had before. Even the smallest deviation could throw his carefully laid plans into chaos.

He immediately turned to the construction foreman.

“Stop all exterior work. Secure the equipment and get everyone into the heated temporary shelters. Now!"

The foreman frowned. “But–sir, the forecast only called for severe cold. It is just a simple matter of weather–”

“I’ll pay every man an additional bonus if you follow my orders without argument,” Williams interrupted.

The incentive was enough. The foreman immediately began issuing instructions, directing workers away from exposed scaffolding and construction materials.

Meanwhile, the Blackridge project manager received a flurry of urgent commands: accelerate the insulation work, bring the backup generators online, and complete the emergency heating systems and reinforced windows ahead of schedule.

Across the street, Isaac watched the sudden activity with growing suspicion. His breath formed pale clouds in the increasingly frigid air as he stepped forward.

“Williams, have you received some kind of warning about a storm?” he asked. Inwardly, this was just a way of striking a conversation with Williams, and he hoped it'll make them start off on a good note.

But he was wrong.

Williams only gave him a brief glance before turning away.

“Our family relationship ended at the City Hall,” he said. “If you have anything to discuss, take it up with my representatives.”

At that, Isaac’s expression tightened. For years, he had assumed Williams would always remain emotionally tied to the Amantes, no matter how badly they treated him. Now, that certainty was beginning to crumble.

Forcing himself to remain composed, he tried again. “Perhaps we should put our earlier disagreement aside. Your new circumstances could benefit everyone if we approached this sensibly."

Williams offered no response. He simply turned and walked toward the mansion gates.

Then the temperature began to plummet in earnest.

The change was so sudden that several neighbors initially suspected their outdoor thermometers had malfunctioned.

Within minutes, the temperature dropped several more degrees, and the wind swept through the street with growing ferocity.

Snow that had drifted gently moments earlier now lashed against faces and windows like handfuls of ice.

A man cried out after touching his car door handle, the metal so cold that it hurt his fingers. Nearby, another shouted that his home heating system had stopped working.

Along the block, lights flickered as the local power grid struggled under the sudden surge in demand.

Williams stood at the entrance of his mansion, watching the chaos unfold.

Memories of his first death resurfaced—the night he had stood barefoot and trembling while Dora wrapped every available layer around Frederick, dismissing Williams’s suffering as nothing more than an act.

But things were different now.

He owned the property. He controlled the resources. And this time, he would never let the Amantes decide his fate again.

He stepped inside and ordered the security team to seal the gates. Although the mansion was still under renovation, several interior rooms had already been equipped with independent heating and reinforced structures.

He instructed the workers to gather in the completed central section while the engineers checked the backup power supply.

As he crossed the entrance hall, another violent surge of cold swept through the building.

The lights went out.

Darkness swallowed the hall, and for several seconds, everything fell silent. Then a sharp, unfamiliar pain spread through Williams’s chest, forcing him to stop.

A translucent blue interface materialized before his eyes.

–Frostbreak System Initializing–

Williams stared at the floating words, momentarily stunned.

More text appeared beneath the first line, confirming that he had been selected as the host and that a System had awakened in response to the onset of the extreme-cold catastrophe.

Then a final message appeared.

–Bind women. Create what the world has lost–