Sure enough, when she stepped onto the snow, she felt herself sink. Thankfully, with her snowshoes and the layer of ice beneath, she didn’t sink too deep. She took a deep breath and began digging upwards with her snow shovel.

’Traveling under the snow isn’t a smart move,’ she thought. ’Especially since I don’t know when that guy who ran off will be back, or if he’ll bring others. The priority is to get out of here, now.’

"Mia!"

"Coming!"

Both of them wore thick masks and had to shout to be heard. But Mia Keller was efficient, and perhaps her 999+ Luck Value was at work. After just a couple of pokes, a large hole opened up above them. Daylight finally spilled in, confirming it was morning.

"I just checked my phone. It’s eight in the morning."

Mia Keller was panting behind her; the thick mask was making it hard to breathe.

"Alright, let’s go!"

The two cautiously made their way up the slope. Thankfully, being women, they were relatively light. They half-climbed, half-scrambled their way out.

A violent gust of wind howled past.

Pellets of snow driven by the wind stung them like tiny knives. Mia Keller was nearly blown back into the hole. Through the tunnel they’d dug, Sue Lawrence could already hear the sound of the door to their room being smashed open.

"Two women... Yeah, the ones who bought a lot of food yesterday..."

It was more than one person’s voice.

’They’re here, and there’s a group of them. Good thing I made the call to leave immediately.’

"Mia, go!"

On the spot, Sue Lawrence pulled a snowmobile from her pocket dimension. She couldn’t afford to worry about anything else. They were outnumbered; getting away was the only thing that mattered. ’Only an idiot would stay and fight.’ 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Seeing the snowmobile materialize before her, Mia Keller calmly climbed on, wrapping her arms tightly around Sue Lawrence’s waist. The engine roared to life, and the vehicle shot forward across the frozen surface like an arrow loosed from a bow.

By the time the group smashed through the door and poked their heads out of the snow tunnel, all they could see was a silhouette bursting through the blizzard and vanishing into the distance.

"A snowmobile! That’s a snowmobile!"

Someone shrieked in astonishment. A man quickly retreated and reported to the fierce-looking leader, "Blade, I think that woman is a Space System user!"

’Space System?’

Someone immediately started shouting, "Fuck! We should’ve grabbed her! We let her get away! She’s a walking stockpile of supplies!"

Blade snorted. "What’s there to be afraid of? It’s the apocalypse. We’ll run into her eventually. And when we do, we’ll take everything she has. The Space System is just a support Superpower. What’s she going to do without people like us to protect her?"

"Hahaha, yeah! And she’s a woman. She’ll have no choice but to depend on you, Boss!"

"We’ll deal with it after the snow stops!"

"By the way, what’s that bitch’s name?"

The men went to check the patient nameplate on the wall and, sure enough, found a name.

Mia Keller.

’Even if that’s not her name, the two of them are together. Find one, and you’ll find the other.’

"Get some men to board up the windows! Move everything we can use to stay warm down to the basement. And you better guard that generator with your lives! Nobody touches it! I want a tighter watch on all the medicine and supplies!"

Blade commanded with a grim expression, and his subordinates nodded in quick succession.

Staring at the hole in the snow outside the window, Blade felt a pang of regret. ’Too bad the snow’s too thick to give chase,’ he thought. ’I’ll have to wait until this deep freeze and the scorching summer that follows are over.’

But he had committed her to memory. ’She’d better hope I never find her.’

Blade’s men turned and got back to work. The hospital fell silent once more. Blade had already disposed of the old, the weak, and the sick. The able-bodied who remained were herded together like cattle for a single task: go to the first floor and dig more snow tunnels.

The heavy snow had buried everything, making it the perfect opportunity to go out "shopping" for free.

Right now, Sue Lawrence was racing across the snow with Mia Keller in tow.

The snow was ten meters deep, making it impossible to distinguish roads from residential areas. Only skyscrapers and the tops of the tallest trees poked out from the snow. Greenbelts and two-story storefronts were completely buried. All they could see was a vast expanse of white. The wind was terrifyingly strong; several times, a gust knocked the snowmobile off course, nearly sweeping them both away.

"Sue, the wind is so strong!"

Sue knew the wind was strong, but she had to get home.

She struggled to pull a watch out from under her many layers of clothing. It was the one the private investigator had left her, equipped with night vision and GPS. Even though the apocalypse had struck, the satellites were still operational. As long as the device had power, it could get a location.

Right now, that watch was a lifesaver. Her phone would have frozen and shut down, but the watch was still ticking away reliably.

She strapped the watch to her wrist. The instant the metal case touched her skin, a searing pain shot through her arm. The outside temperature was so low that the metal felt corrosive against her flesh, making her want to scream.

She gritted her teeth and bore the pain, activating the GPS. Once she had the direction of her villa, she gunned the engine and continued racing through the blizzard.

From the windows of the high-rises they passed, people were watching. Someone seemed to open a window to shout something, but they quickly realized the window was now frozen open and couldn’t be shut. After that, no one else dared to open theirs. Still, pairs of eyes followed the snowmobile, watching as Sue Lawrence and Mia Keller sped away and vanished into the distance.

The apocalyptic deep freeze had arrived early.

Silas Hawthorne stared at the accumulated snow outside, his expression grim.

The city’s power grid had collapsed. The government had organized teams for emergency repairs, with military units accompanying them to clear snow while electrical workers tried to restore power.

The municipal heating system had also failed, unable to cope with the plunging temperatures.

But the base where he was located still had power. In the vast command center, rows of computer monitors cast a soft glow. The large screen at the front displayed a disaster map of all of Stellaport.

Power, water, and heating were all marked in red. Three squads had been dispatched from three different directions, but their progress was agonizingly slow. On the large map, their icons were barely moving.

Theodore Frost approached, his expression serious, and handed over a file. "We should just dispatch the snowmobiles. The snow is too deep; the teams can barely move. One wrong step and they could be buried alive. Our preparations were simply not enough..."

"We knew about the extreme cold, the blizzards... but who could have predicted ten meters of snow on the very first day? The entire city is paralyzed. Manpower alone is useless. Even our best snowplows can’t clear ten meters of snow. The most advanced plows in the world have a maximum clearing depth of three meters. And we’re facing ten!"

Silas Hawthorne’s expression grew even darker.

"It’s worse than last time, just as I thought."

Theodore Frost’s eyes sharpened. "What do you mean, ’last time’?"

"The last time the deep freeze hit, the snow on the first day was only 2.7 meters deep. This time, it’s 10.36 meters."