Reborn 7 Days Before Doomsday: Sovereign of the Infinite For

Chapter 3

Elena froze in shock, staring at Norman as if he had grown a second head. Then, she threw her head back and burst into mocking laughter, the sound ringing through the apartment like cheap tin.

"Divorce?" Elena scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest with pure contempt. "Norman, are you really throwing a childish temper tantrum because Damian asked for a small favor? Do you honestly think an uneducated orphan like you could ever find a woman like me again?"

Beatrice stepped forward, clapping her wrinkled hands together with an ugly sneer. "Let the beggar pout, Elena! He thinks he’s a king just because his dead father left him some old dirt! Without our family's social connections, he won't last three days before he starves in the street!"

Damian smoothed the lapels of his expensive Italian suit, a smug, superior grin spreading across his face. He walked up and patted Norman’s shoulder with fake pity, looking down on him like dirt. "Norman, brother, don't let your little ego ruin your comfortable life. If you walk out that door, Elena won't forgive you easily, so go outside, clear your head, and come back when you're ready to apologize."

Norman did not waste a single breath arguing with the three smiling vipers. He shrugged Damian’s hand off his shoulder, grabbed his worn jacket from the coat rack, and turned toward the front door. He walked out into the hallway without looking back once, letting the heavy door slam shut behind him.

Inside the quiet apartment, Elena stared at the closed wooden door, a strange chill suddenly creeping down her neck. For two whole years, Norman had treated her like precious porcelain, peeling her fruit and apologizing on his knees whenever she frowned. Today, his dark eyes had looked right through her, cold and empty, as if she were already dead.

"What are you standing there staring at the door for?" Damian snapped, tossing his car keys onto the coffee table with an irritated scowl. "Go into the kitchen and make me an espresso, then call the bank to see if we can push that transfer through without his stupid signature."

Elena blinked, feeling a sharp prick of annoyance rise in her chest at Damian's harsh, demanding tone. In all their years together, Norman had never once ordered her around or spoken to her without gentle warmth. She quickly pushed the thought away, telling herself that an illiterate laborer had nowhere else to go and would surely come crawling back on his knees before sunset.

Down on the street, Norman climbed into his pickup truck and drove straight toward the commercial district. His hands gripped the steering wheel tight, his heart hardened like iron as the morning traffic rushed past his window. He parked outside a high-rise office building and took the elevator up to Sterling Legal, the city’s premier estate firm.

Walter Sterling, an elderly attorney with sharp gray eyes and silver hair, stood up from his mahogany desk as Norman entered. The lawyer looked at the young man with visible relief, gesturing toward the leather chair opposite him. On the desk lay a thick stack of legal documents stamped with official court seals.

"Everything has been prepared according to your father's original trust instructions, Norman," Walter said, his voice deep and steady. "The moment I submit these files to the civil registry, your inherited assets will be legally separated from Elena Hayes, and an emergency freeze will lock every family account."

"Submit them immediately," Norman replied, sitting down and signing his name across the designated lines with fluid, practiced grace. "I want the court confirmation stamped before the afternoon ends, and I need every corporate credit line attached to the Mercer name opened today."

Walter watched Norman write, his eyebrows lifting in mild surprise at the young man's steady, decisive hand. "You seem to be in an extreme hurry, son. Most clients take months to negotiate property division, but you are liquidating every scrap of collateral you own."

"I need liquid cash, Mr. Sterling," Norman said, looking the lawyer dead in the eye. "I am borrowing against my grandfather's downtown warehouse, the family trust bonds, and every business license under the Mercer estate."

Walter leaned back in his leather chair, a faint, amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Word around the financial district is that you've been reading those frantic online boards about that new severe flu in the coastal ports. Surely an intelligent young man like you doesn't believe those wild doomsday rumors?"

"You can believe whatever helps you sleep at night, Mr. Sterling," Norman answered in an ice-cold tone. "Just make sure the bank wires clear into my private account today, because paper money won't mean a single thing by next week, and I don't have time to waste on doubts."

The sheer coldness in Norman’s voice wiped the amused smile clean off the lawyer’s face. Walter adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, nodding with professional gravity as he gathered the signed papers. "Very well, Norman. Your father was a stubborn, visionary man, and it seems you carry his iron blood. I will process the emergency filings within the hour."

Norman shook the attorney's hand and walked out of the glass building into the bright midday sun. The moment his boots hit the stone sidewalk, a crisp, metallic chime rang out inside his skull, vibrating through his consciousness.

[Mission 1 Successfully Completed: Toxic Karmic Chains Severed!]

[Reward Issued: Infinite Time-Stasis Storage Dimension Unlocked!]

[Storage Properties: Unlimited Capacity. Absolute Temporal Freeze. Zero Physical Decay.]

[Mission 2 Issued: Secure a Class-S Sovereign Shelter within 48 hours!]

[Mission Reward: Fortress Blueprint Engine + Structural Energy Shielding!]

[Apocalypse Countdown: 6 Days, 16 Hours, 30 Minutes.]

Norman paused on the pavement, closing his eyes for a brief second to focus on the new power inside his mind. He could feel a boundless, pitch-black void hovering just beyond his senses, an infinite pocket of space where time did not exist. Anything placed inside would remain boiling hot or ice-cold forever, untouched by the passage of days or the rot of the world.

He opened his truck door, sat behind the wheel, and pulled out a leather folder packed with financial contracts and property titles. In less than seven days, modern civilization would drown in blood, and banks, credit scores, and legal debts would become useless dust. Every single dollar borrowed today was free survival capital taken from a dying world that would never live to collect it.

Norman turned the key in the ignition and drove straight toward the city's private banking district. His grandfather’s five-acre commercial warehouse sat right in the path of the government's upcoming harbor expansion project, making it the most valuable piece of undeveloped land in Southport.

He walked into the executive boardroom of Apex Commercial Bank, sliding the original deed and corporate charter across the polished table. The bank directors looked at the prime collateral with greedy eyes, barely believing their good fortune. Knowing he would never have to repay a single dime, Norman signed emergency high-interest collateral liquidation agreements, securing twenty-five million dollars in direct cash wire transfers.

He didn't stop with the traditional banks. Norman drove across the industrial canal to the private lending firms and high-interest financing syndicates that ruled the city's underbelly. He signed instant loan contracts, maxed out dozens of corporate credit lines, and accepted massive sums from predatory loan sharks who warned him they would break his legs if the money wasn't repaid in thirty days.

Norman signed every promissory note without blinking, hiding a cold, mocking smirk behind his steady gaze. In thirty days, those vicious loan sharks would be rotting monsters clawing at locked doors, screaming for raw flesh in the ruined streets.

By five o’clock in the evening, the orange sun was sinking behind the jagged skyline of Southport. Norman sat inside his truck parked near the western hills, opening his private banking terminal on his smartphone. The encrypted screen flashed bright green, displaying his total liquid capital: $40,250,000.

Norman tapped the screen, closing the banking app without another glance. Forty million dollars was just a string of numbers on a screen, and in less than a week, paper currency would be nothing more than kindling for fires. If he wanted to keep his mother alive when the streets turned to hell, he needed to turn every single cent into steel, stone, and absolute defense before the sun set tomorrow.

He opened a private real estate database, his fingers moving quickly as he searched the western ridges outside Southport. In his past life, every scavenger who barely survived the first wave had heard the rumors about Eagle’s Crest Villa No. 1. A foreign defense contractor had spent years blasting into the solid granite peak to build it, outfitting the private estate with three-foot-thick poured concrete walls, an independent mountain spring well, and industrial geothermal power generators.

The listing popped up on his screen, managed exclusively by the luxury firm at Zenith Plaza downtown. Because of its remote cliffside location, heavy bunker layout, and staggering twenty-million-dollar asking price, the property had sat unsold for months, with private viewings open by appointment only. Norman locked his phone, pulled his truck into gear, and turned the wheel toward the highway with cold focus. "Tomorrow morning at Zenith Plaza," Norman said quietly, checking the countdown in his vision. "First, I buy the mountain. Then, I bring Mom home."