The lights in the room were off—pitch black—but it didn't affect Ray in the slightest.Under spatial perception, no detail could escape him.He "saw" that this room had clearly been modified. All the furniture was gone, replaced by rows of beds. Nine beds in total.Each bed cradled a sleeping man. Judging by the low-quality accommodations, these were clearly henchmen employed by the Finley family.Why house them all in one room?Because there was obvious central heating here, keeping the temperature around fifteen degrees Celsius. Consolidated heating saved energy.With a thought, Ray fired nine bullets simultaneously.Nine men died in their sleep, utterly oblivious.Ray stepped forward, pressing his hand repeatedly. One by one, all nine bodies vanished.He intended to occupy the space himself—leaving corpses behind was out of the question—so he planned to dispose of them all at once afterward.This was why he hadn't smashed the window violently. Replacing a single pane was f

Now, all of the Finley family's henchmen were gone, wiped out by Ray. What remained were only the women and the family's direct line—blood relatives.And the only one who could actually pose a threat to him was Silvan.So he had to deal with Silvan first.Once Silvan was dead, the rest could be handled at leisure.What did Silvan look like?Ray vaguely remembered he had been on the news.Not to mention, Grayson had only two sons. The eldest should be in his fifties, while the second son—Silvan—was around fifty as well. Men of that age were easy enough to spot.He entered the second room, again using spatial severing to open the door."Ha! I'm clever," he muttered.Inside, three people were sleeping—one man and two women. The man, in his fifties, had to be Grayson's eldest son. One woman was also in her fifties—the first wife. The other, in her twenties, had been summoned to serve.Wait… the first wife was lying in the same bed as a young mistress? That was a little… disturbin

Reinforced steel rebars came hurtling toward Silvan. Their speed couldn't match bullets, but twenty meters per second was still terrifying. Could Silvan dodge that? Not a chance.Even with his body enhanced once, and even if Ray had absorbed nine different abilities, the human limit at this stage barely reached twenty meters per second. Only a raw, physical-strength ability user—or a freak like that mutated husky—could exceed it naturally.There was only one option: face it head-on.Clenching his teeth, Silvan relied on his crisis alert to dodge the most lethal strikes, then unleashed his black flame to the fullest.The steel rebars began melting as their tips glowed under the searing heat, dripping molten iron. In a life-or-death moment, he overperformed, manifesting five black flame points on his body simultaneously, melting five rods while the rest fell harmlessly. Only the last rod slipped through his defense, piercing his body with a thunk.Thanks to crisis alert, this one st

A new day had arrived.Every morning, the thick fog that blanketed the land during the night would recede like a retreating tide. After a heavy snowfall, daytime visibility was clear, free of the mist that had haunted the previous night.It was the 42nd day since the apocalypse began. Ray had spent the entire night working, yet he remained full of energy. After absorbing the new ability, he felt as if he were on adrenaline, brimming with vigor. Pulling an all-nighter was nothing to him now.He had fully mapped out the structure of the estate. The next step was adjustments. Some features, he decided, had to go—like that beauty pageant hall.'Am I the kind of person who needs that?' he thought."From a defensive perspective, this estate is far weaker than my villa," he mused. "Don't even need explosives—just a hammer could break in. But its insulation is excellent. Really impressive. There's proper thermal layering, air conditioning, underfloor heating, and fireplaces."In terms of

Honey and Heather were both teachers, but in the liberal arts.Molly had gone to prison while still in college; her major was law, so even if she had finished her degree, it wouldn't help here.Katie and Jess were also liberal arts majors. It seemed the girls all leaned that way.Cassandra was the same—office work, publicity, nothing remotely related to mechanical automation or information engineering.Lola? Sorry, she had been taken in as a kept woman during her freshman year and dropped out entirely by her sophomore year.Amanda and Emily were science students, but their specialties didn't match the ones Ray needed.So, when he asked, all nine girls shook their heads.Ray was naturally disappointed. He had no choice but to give them a simple task: reinforce the doors and windows.He had one basic requirement—if someone tried to break in, he wanted to hear it, not wait for them to appear at his doorstep and rely solely on his crisis alert. He liked having control over everythi