Inexplicably, Brian Sullivan found a stream of information emerging in his mind—information transmitted from the King Kong. It was an indescribable sensation, as if the King Kong had become an extension of his own body, allowing him to feel everything this body experienced, though he was unable to control it.

“What’s going on?” Brian Sullivan frowned deeply, utterly astonished, unable to make sense of it.

Outside the truck, there was a constant crackling of impacts and the howling of fierce winds, sounding anything but friendly. Brian Sullivan didn’t dare get out to check the situation, nor could he figure out what had changed between himself and the King Kong, leaving him feeling especially stifled.

But he needed to find out what was happening outside. When he had fled into the King Kong and lost consciousness, he’d only seen countless meteors streaking across the sky, and then a massive meteor crashing into the tin-can warehouse.

“If such a huge meteor had hit the King Kong directly, I’d be nothing but bones by now, right?” Brian Sullivan shuddered at the thought.

He reached behind the driver’s seat and pulled out a small flashlight. When he turned it on, the cab was instantly illuminated. Everything was intact, except there was no power—not even the emergency backup. The condition of the truck wasn’t his main concern; what mattered most to Brian Sullivan was what was happening outside.

He found a lever beneath the steering wheel and pulled it hard.

Creak!

The steel armor in front of the windshield suddenly split open, and a sunroof the size of a shoebox was revealed. When Brian Sullivan had designed and modified the King Kong, he’d considered the possibility of losing power, so he’d left manually operated sunroofs at the window positions.

Through this window, he could finally see what was going on outside.

A dim world.

Sand and stones flying everywhere. The warehouse yard, once surrounded by tall walls, had become an open space, with no trace of the walls left. Stones whipped up by the wind struck the ground, instantly raising clouds of dust; when they hit the King Kong, they made a crisp “crack.”

This was truly an apocalyptic scene.

Brian Sullivan closed the armor over the windshield, then groped behind the driver’s seat and opened the door to the cargo compartment, heading into the container at the back. He had converted the truck into a hybrid of a war vehicle and an RV; the container at the back had been widened, heightened, and thickened. Besides the necessary living space, it was packed with supplies.

There were canned meats that could last for decades, compressed biscuits, flour, honey, chocolate, essential medicines, generators, wilderness survival tools, and all sorts of doomsday survival necessities.

As a premium member of an outdoor survival website, he often discussed with others what to bring in case of the apocalypse, so he was well prepared.

There were also sunroofs on the side and rear of the container.

He opened a sunroof.

Brian Sullivan was shocked again. The sunroof at the rear of the truck should have faced the tin-can warehouse, but now there was no warehouse at all—only a few load-bearing columns standing alone, the warehouse completely vanished. One of the columns, as thick as a thigh, had even been bent at a ninety-degree angle.

In the distant, gloomy sky, meteors still occasionally streaked by, adding a sliver of light to the world.

Staring at this world-destroying apocalyptic scene, Brian Sullivan was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. He had imagined many kinds of apocalypses: zombie sieges, power outages, mutant monsters, alien invasions, polar ice caps melting, Yellowstone erupting—but he had never imagined that a meteor shower would bring about his doomsday.

However, Brian Sullivan didn’t know whether this meteor shower was a local event or if the entire Earth had been swept up in it.

All he could do was rely on the King Kong to survive this catastrophe.

Inside the King Kong, there was no shortage of food or water. The only issue was the cramped space, but the compartment had been meticulously designed. Even though most of the space was taken up by supplies, there was still an area where he could stretch out freely, and he had placed a treadmill there—running was probably the best way to stay fit.

Seeing that the sandstorm wouldn’t subside anytime soon, Brian Sullivan, after a brief daze, began to calm down.

Compared to the inexplicable apocalypse, he was now more concerned about the mysterious connection between himself and the King Kong. This feeling made him uneasy, yet also a bit expectant.

……

The cramped, enclosed space could drive an active person crazy, but for Brian Sullivan, who had been a homebody for six years, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Eating, sleeping, exercising, watching the storm, and exploring his connection with the King Kong.

In the endless apocalyptic storm, only the mechanical watch kept ticking away the time. In the blink of an eye, the storm had raged for a full half month.

It was as if the world had vanished in the storm, leaving only the crackling of stones striking the King Kong’s armor, playing a harsh symphony.

On this day—

Brian Sullivan sat on the edge of the bed, holding a Geiger counter, checking the radiation levels inside the truck.

When the apocalypse struck half a month ago, he had discovered that the radiation concentration inside the truck had reached 320 microsieverts. Alpha particles, beta particles, gamma rays, X-rays—all exceeded safe levels. This value was almost equal to the radiation levels from the Fukushima nuclear plant leak in Japan, though it wasn’t particularly harmful to the human body.