The Gray Mist had erased laws, conscience, social contracts, and basic morality seemingly overnight.
People fought viciously over a single bottle of water.
People beat each other to death with makeshift weapons for a dented can of cold beans.
People screamed and begged until their voices tore and their throats bled raw.
And no one listened. No one helped. No one intervened.
Once, there had been order. Civilization. Neighbors who knew each other's names. Rules that everyone followed.
Now there was only hunting—predators and prey, with roles that shifted constantly.
The G-Wagon drove past a street corner where a group of five men had cornered several young women against a collapsed storefront, their intentions horrifyingly clear even from a distance.
Jenna and Elsa didn't react at all, their faces remaining completely neutral as they looked away.
Natasha's eyes stayed locked forward, cold and deliberately unseeing.
Only Grace and Liana visibly flinched, their breath catching—but then, slowly, deliberately, their expressions hardened into something resembling acceptance.
If we had not met Elric...
If fate had shifted just one detail differently...
We would be those girls right now.
That singular realization raised their loyalty and gratitude toward Elric more effectively than any act of kindness or protection possibly could. They understood their position. They understood their fortune.
In the backseat, Liana quietly touched her still-swollen, disfigured face with trembling fingers.
I must heal, she thought desperately, almost like a prayer. I must not be thrown away. If I lose this shelter, this protection, I'll die... or suffer something far worse than death.
She clutched that terrified determination like a lifeline.
Elric navigated through collapsed intersections and overturned vehicles with surprising ease—not because of any particular driving skill, but because his abilities made conventional obstacles irrelevant.
He had Clairvoyance to scout street hazards before encountering them.
He had spatial swap teleportation to bypass impassable blockades entirely.
So even though his actual technical driving ability was admittedly terrible, the G-Wagon moved fast—unnervingly fast, covering distance that should have taken hours in a fraction of the expected time.
They finally reached Ginkgo Plaza—a luxury residential district in the city's wealthy upper north area, far from the industrial zones and working-class neighborhoods where the worst chaos had erupted.
The entrance was protected by a tall security gate with reinforced bars, clearly designed to keep out unwanted visitors even before the apocalypse.
The gate was currently locked tight.
But the security booth beside it was not empty.
Inside were at least twenty security guards—the men who should have been protecting the wealthy residents of this gated community.
They were not protecting anyone.
They were laughing. Drunk on looted alcohol.
And pinning two terrified young women to a filthy mattress with duct tape wrapped around their ankles and wrists like animals being prepared for slaughter.
Steel batons leaned against the walls, their surfaces stained dark.
Blood smeared across the tile floor.
Heavy boots casually stepping on faces and hands.
The world had ended, and men like this had flourished in the chaos—given free rein to indulge every suppressed cruelty without consequence.
Natasha didn't even blink at the scene, her face remaining impassive.
Jenna glanced once and looked away without comment.
Elsa leaned silently against the car window, expression unreadable.
Grace's fists trembled with barely contained disgust and helpless rage, but she said nothing.
Liana's fingers dug into the seat cushion so hard her knuckles turned bone-white, but she kept her mouth shut.
Not one of them asked Elric to intervene or help those women.
Because they knew—they understood the fundamental truth now:
This world had no heroes anymore. No knights in shining armor. No saviors riding in to rescue the innocent.
And Elric was not a savior. He was a survivor. A predator. A man who protected what was his and nothing more.
Even if he could save those two girls—and he easily could—saving two random strangers would do absolutely nothing to help the thousands of others suffering across the city.
And more importantly, wasting strength and resources on strangers would endanger the safety of the women under his protection.
That was the brutal calculus of survival in the new world.
Elric looked at the scene once, his expression completely unreadable.
Then:
"Swap Position."
FWIP.
The G-Wagon flickered and vanished—reappearing instantly inside the gated community, bypassing the locked entrance entirely through spatial displacement.
The drunk guards never even noticed they had visitors.
Under Natasha's confident guidance, they navigated quickly through the upscale residential complex to Building 9—one of the most expensive structures in the entire development.
Each building entrance had a modern electronic keypad lock, but Natasha had visited her friend Isabella here many times before the outbreak.
She knew all the codes by heart.
She punched in the digits for the penthouse unit: 2801.
BEEP. Click.
The door unlocked smoothly, the mechanism still functioning despite everything that had happened.
They entered cautiously—
And even in the dim emergency lighting, the interior made everyone exhale with relief and awe.
A penthouse suite.
Two full floors connected by a floating staircase. Polished marble floors that reflected light like mirrors. Floor-to-ceiling glass balcony walls offering a panoramic view of the ruined city. Imported Italian furniture that looked like it belonged in a magazine. A chef's kitchen larger than Elric's entire previous apartment.
Before the world fell, this place had been worth at least two million dollars—the kind of luxury housing that ordinary people like Elric could only dream about from a distance.
Once, Elric couldn't even afford a cramped one-bedroom walk-up in a dangerous neighborhood.
Now?
He walked across polished stone floors like it was the most natural thing in the world—like he had been born to occupy spaces like this.
Because in the new world, power determined everything.
Money was worthless paper.
Family connections meant nothing when families were dead.
Only strength mattered—and Elric had strength in abundance.
This was his home now.
His territory.
His safe zone.
His new kingdom.
Natasha closed and locked the heavy door behind them, sealing out the chaos of the dying world outside.
The Gray Mist howled against the windows, filled with distant screams and roars.
But inside this penthouse sanctuary—
There was silence.
Clean air. Soft lighting. Safety.
For the first time since early morning, the campus fell:
They could breathe.
There is 50 chapter Advance, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
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