Chapter 1

On the ruined altar, mutated vines twisted over one another like the fingers of the dead.

Johnson lunged forward and grabbed the crystal blazing with a harsh red light.

"Hah! The Berserker Crystal!"

He turned to look down at me, his swelling muscles straining against his leather jacket.

"Looks like I'm the one handling combat for the team from now on, boys."

I stared at the crystal clenched in his hand, and in an instant, I understood everything.

He had been reborn too.

In my previous life, I was the one who had stood here and chosen the Berserker Crystal.

Johnson, trying to avoid the front lines, had taken the green Farmer Crystal instead.

Back then, I really had fought like a dog across the mutated wasteland, killing and clawing my way through one near-death battle after another.

Meanwhile, with his rare ability to purify soil and accelerate crop growth, Johnson had been recruited directly by the authorities.

The team, who had already been dissatisfied with me, betrayed me on the spot and immediately started treating Johnson as their new leader.

They mocked me as a brainless thug, saying it was only a matter of time before some monster tore me to pieces.

The joke was on them.

Only three years later, scientists developed a way to purify contaminated land.

Johnson lost all his value overnight. The Alliance threw him out like trash, and he ended up on the streets. One by one, all those former followers who had once sucked up to him slammed their doors in his face.

As for me, I carved out military honors through mountains of corpses and rivers of blood. I became one of the Alliance Supreme Commander's most trusted men, and I even married his only daughter, Beyoncé.

Johnson went mad with jealousy.

On my wedding day, he drove a knife straight through my heart.

Of course, before I died, I crushed his skull with a single punch.

I never expected the two of us to be reborn together.

Now, looking at that self-satisfied scheming in his eyes, I found the whole thing ridiculous.

Did he really think that by stealing the Berserker class ahead of time, he could steal my battlefield glory, my status, and everything I had in my previous life?

How laughably stupid.

Expressionless, I stepped forward and picked up the floating green crystal from the altar.

A gentle green glow melted into my palm.

I had awakened the Farmer class.

A burst of mocking laughter immediately exploded from the team behind me.

"Oh, come on. Look at our former captain. He actually picked a farming class."

One-Eyed Hank spat a thick gob onto the ground and walked over to Johnson with a sneer. "In a wasteland crawling with mutated monsters, what's a farmer supposed to do? Smash a ghoul's head in with a hoe?"

"Exactly! No combat ability at all. He'll spend his whole life digging around in stinking dirt—assuming he doesn't get himself killed the moment he steps outside tomorrow!"

I had always stopped these bastards from robbing helpless stragglers, and they had resented me for it for a long time.

Now that Johnson had gotten the powerful Berserker class, they dropped the act without hesitation and eagerly joined him in humiliating me.

I looked at this pack of clowns coldly.

What Johnson didn't know was just how dangerous it was for a Berserker to fight mutated beasts.

The red serum the Alliance used to push Berserkers beyond their limits also burned through their lifespan at a terrifying rate.

Worse, it could turn a person into a mindless bioengineered beast that obeyed only the Alliance's commands.

"You done?" I brushed the dust off my shoulder, my voice calm.

They froze, probably not expecting me to offer so much as a single rebuttal.

"Since you've all made your choice, then this team ends here." I looked straight at Johnson. "I'm leaving the Alliance. I'm heading to the Federation."

Johnson arched a brow, the fake concern on his face barely hiding the malice underneath. "The Federation? That dump's full of people who can barely feed themselves. But if you've made up your mind, then as your brother, I wish you luck."

"I'll take it."

I turned and strode into the wasteland.

The moment my back was to him, the false smile on Johnson's face turned venomous.

He pulled out his communicator and switched to the Alliance commissioner channel.

"Patch me through to the Supreme Commander! This is Johnson, newly awakened Berserker. I'm reporting a dangerous traitor attempting to defect to the Federation. Arrest him immediately!"

A few hours later, in the northern wastelands.

A cold radioactive wind swept across the barren plain.

The roar of heavy armored engines ripped through the night, and more than a dozen heavy rifles and cannons swung into position, all aimed straight at my head.

"Hands on your head! On your knees!" an Alliance soldier shouted, weapon leveled at me.

I didn't resist.

I dropped to my knees in the mud thick with mutated spores and let them wrench my arms behind my back and lock me into heavy super-alloy shackles.

As a high-risk defector, I was about to be thrown into the Alliance's most terrifying prison—Awakened Cage.