THE CEO'S APOCALYPTIC EDEN

1

The thick cigar smoke exhaled by Arthur, the President Commissioner of the company, seemed to fill the air in the boardroom.

"You have truly gone insane, Shane. A giant protective dome project worth hundreds of trillions? Buying up an entire district in the company's name and hoarding food supplies for ten years?" Arthur slammed the mahogany table in front of him. His elderly face was flushed with anger. "Do you think you’re playing a survival game?! You’re trying to raid the company treasury!"

At the end of the table, Shane Hilgord sat leaning back. His long, slender fingers spun an expensive pen with a slow rhythm. The bespoke black suit enveloping his athletic frame made him look like a predator observing a group of noisy herbivores.

"The land acquisition was completed last month, Arthur. The tungsten steel materials and the underground reactor core have already been installed. The project is 90 percent complete," Shane’s voice flowed flatly. "I called you here today not to ask for permission. I am simply informing you."

"You arrogant prick!" cursed a silver-haired director to Arthur's right. "Just because your late father handed you the CEO seat, it doesn't mean a snot-nosed kid like you can burn our money on a science fiction project! 'Protocol Eden'? What kind of joke is this? You’re paranoid! You need a psychiatrist, not an energy dome!"

Derisive laughter broke out in the room. The six board members looked at him with contempt. To them, Shane was just an inexperienced brat who happened to inherit a business empire.

Shane stopped spinning his pen. The tip tapped against the glass table. Their laughter stopped automatically. There was an innate aura of intimidation from the young man that they could not argue with.

"Insurance. This world is fragile. When the system collapses, your paper money will only be good for toilet paper. At that moment, Hilgord Industries will be the only law left. Believe it or not, it will come soon. As the owner of this company, I guarantee it. That is why I want to build Eden."

Arthur sneered loudly. "When the system collapses? When? Judgment Day? Don't be ridiculous, Shane—"

Arthur’s words were cut off. His eyes widened, and all the board members exhibited a similar expression.

Exactly at 2:00 PM, the bright midday sky suddenly changed color. The sun seemed to go out, replaced by a blanket of thick, blood-red clouds, dense and glowing like boiling lava above the atmosphere.

"What... what happened to the sky?" mumbled the silver-haired director, rising from his chair with trembling legs.

On the city streets hundreds of meters below them, instant chaos ensued. Cars collided, creating a chain of explosions. People scrambled out of buildings, pointing at the sky in panic.

Then, the wave came. An invisible shockwave carrying purplish fog particles. An arcane radiation storm.

The five-inch-thick bulletproof glass surrounding the room cracked in an instant, then shattered into pieces. Fragments of glass scattered into the room like a rain of knives, followed by a strong gust of wind carrying a foul stench—a mixture of copper-like blood and sulfur.

The directors screamed, taking cover under the table.

Shane did not move from his seat. He only narrowed his eyes as the purple mist swept through the room, seeping into the skin and lungs of everyone there.

"Argh! Help!!"

The screams of terror from under the table slowly morphed into hoarse, ear-piercing roars.

Shane watched the nightmare begin. Before him, the silver-haired director who had laughed at him rolled on the carpet. The old man’s skin blistered severely, as if doused in acid. His muscles swelled unnaturally, tearing through his silk shirt. His jaw shifted with a sickening crack, crack, crack, extending forward to form a snout with rows of razor-sharp teeth. His silver hair fell out, replaced by coarse, dark grey scales.

"H-help... I..." The man tried to speak, but his vocal cords were destroyed, replaced by savage growls.

In a matter of seconds, the six board members in the room mutated brutally. Their spines pierced through their suits, forming sharp spikes. Their bodies grew twice their size. Their human eyes vanished, replaced by glowing yellow vertical pupils that radiated endless hunger.

They were wild beasts. Low-level mutants.

"What a jerk! You saw for yourselves what I told you, right? Nothing missed! The day has come!" said Shane.

Shane exhaled. He inhaled the purple mist deeply. He waited for the pain that would tear his flesh apart, preparing to become a hideous monster like his company executives.

However, the pain never came.

Instead of burning, Shane felt an absolute cold sensation spreading from his spine. His heart stopped beating for three seconds. The world around him felt like it slowed down.

Then...

His heart beat again. It wasn't pumping red blood, but a dense liquid as black as night. His body temperature dropped drastically to that of ice, yet his five senses exploded to an absurd level. He could hear the blood flowing in the veins of the monsters before him. He could smell their fear and aggression. His vision changed, piercing through the dust and sharpening to every corner of the room.

His gums throbbed violently. His two upper fangs elongated, touching his lower lip. The veins on his temples bulged, emitting black lines before disappearing back behind his pale skin.

The Ancient Demon bloodline, a pure blood that had slept in his family's genetics for thousands of years, had fully awakened due to this magic radiation trigger.

He had evolved into the apex of the food chain.

The largest monster in the room, a bulky creature that still had the torn remnants of a golden badge on its chest, turned toward Shane. It was Arthur. Or at least, what was left of Arthur.

Monster Arthur growled. Acidic saliva dripped from its fangs, burning the carpet beneath it until it smoked. The mutant’s brain still held a sliver of hatred for the figure sitting calmly before it.

"Die... Brat..." A hoarse and distorted voice escaped its monster throat.

Monster Arthur lunged forward. Its massive, claw-covered arms cut through the air, aiming for Shane's head with a speed that could crush a concrete pillar.

The thick mahogany table shattered into pieces. Dust scattered, obscuring the view.

Monster Arthur snorted in satisfaction. But that satisfaction lasted less than a second.

From behind the dust, a hand shot out with lightning speed, gripping the monster's lower jaw.

Monster Arthur’s yellow eyes widened in shock. It tried to rebel, but the hand's grip felt like a hydraulic steel clamp that could not be budged a single millimeter.

Shane stood up slowly. His suit was not even wrinkled. With one hand, he lifted the two-hundred-kilogram giant body into the air, causing the monster Arthur’s legs to kick frantically in search of a foothold.

"You always talk too much, Arthur, even when you've become a disgusting mutant like this!" whispered Shane.

Shane looked up, staring straight into Arthur's yellow eyes, which were now filled with pure terror. Shane's eyes had changed completely, turning black with bright red, glowing irises.

"Science fiction project? A snot-nosed kid burning company money?" Shane smiled crookedly, revealing his demon fangs. His fingertips began to pierce into the monster's thick skin. "Let's see who's laughing now."

Shane’s hand tightened.

The sound of jawbones and neck crushing echoed loudly. Without wasting extra effort, Shane snapped Arthur's neck until his head hung at an impossible angle. He threw the mutant corpse against the remaining glass wall, causing it to shatter into nothing.

Seeing their leader die in a flash, the savage instincts of the other five monsters took over. They howled and lunged at Shane simultaneously from all directions.

Shane did not bother to dodge. He stepped forward.

In a matter of seconds, the luxurious boardroom turned into a one-sided slaughterhouse. Shane moved like a shadow. His right hand pierced through the chest of one mutant, instantly ripping out its still-beating heart and crushing it in his fist. A second mutant pounced from behind, but Shane simply spun his body and kicked the creature’s chest with incredible force, causing its body to shatter against a concrete pillar.

Dirty blood splashed onto the walls, billion-rupiah abstract paintings, and the marble floor.

Three, four, five. Not even thirty seconds passed, and the five board members had become heaps of lifeless flesh beneath Shane's leather shoes.

Silence returned.

Only the sound of the apocalyptic wind outside the window and Shane’s calm breathing remained. The power within his new blood felt intoxicating, as if he could level an entire city with his bare hands.

The world outside was burning. The desperate screams of humanity mingled with the roars of millions of newly born monsters on the city streets. Black smoke billowed everywhere, covering the red sky.

Shane took a silk handkerchief from his chest pocket, casually wiping the bloodstains on his fingers. His footsteps echoed as he walked past the corpses toward the steel wall behind his CEO chair.

He placed his palm on a hidden panel.

The biometric scanner glowed green, scanning his DNA structure, which had changed but still recognized his original authority. The wall shifted, revealing a holographic tube-shaped supercomputer console.

"Hilgord Alpha System active," a clear, mechanical female AI voice filled the room. "User authorization... Shane Hilgord. CEO. Warning: Critical atmospheric anomaly detected. Mass destruction occurring outside the perimeter."

Shane stared at the hologram, which displayed a map of the entire Hilgord district, now surrounded by a sea of fire and monsters. This was where his preparations for years paid off.

"Ignore the outside world. Activate Protocol Eden."

"Command received. Locking all district access. Diverting 100% of power from the underground reactor core," the AI replied. "Awakening Bio-Dome shield."

From the roof of the Hilgord Tower, a blinding blue pillar of light shot into the red sky. The light shattered in the air, expanding to form a giant semicircular energy dome that descended slowly. The invisible dome swallowed the entire area of offices, factories, warehouses, and elite complexes belonging to Hilgord Industries within a radius of dozens of square kilometers, repelling all arcane radiation and locking it away from the outside world.

The absolute isolation system had been activated.