The screams echoed through the courtyard like the wails of the damned.
"AAAH—! Please, have mercy!"
Elric didn't even glance back. With a casual wave of his hand, an invisible barrier sealed the yard completely, muffling the agonized cries. He'd lost all interest in their suffering the moment his judgment was passed.
"You two, go inside," he said coolly.
They frozen near the courtyard entrance, their faces drained of color. They had witnessed Elric's methods firsthand, and the cruelty of it all left them shaken. When he gestured toward them, both women flinched.
Elric raised his mirror watch, the glassy surface catching the dim light. Distorted reflections of the two women rippled across its face.
"Hm?" His tone was deceptively light. "Where exactly do you think you're going?"
Both women stopped dead in their tracks.
Confusion flickered across their features as they stared at the watch. Where were they supposed to go? Before either could voice the question, the mirror's surface erupted with soft white luminescence.
The light spread outward like liquid glass, reaching for them with impossible speed.
In the next heartbeat, both were pulled into the watch.
The world twisted violently, colors bleeding together—then suddenly stabilized.
They found themselves standing in the Mirror World. Grace was already there, pacing near one of the floating islands. When she spotted the newcomers, visible relief washed over her face. The three women gravitated toward each other, exchanging hurried words and trying to make sense of everything that had just transpired.
Meanwhile, Elric rose into the air, his form rippling as he transformed.
The blue Dragon was his preferred method of travel—ostentatious, certainly, but undeniably impressive. His serpentine body coiled through the sky, scales gleaming with emerald radiance as wind roared beneath his wings.
With a thunderous surge, he shot forward.
His destination: what used to be had been a sprawling high school. The apocalypse had reduced it to ruins.
Elric activated his clairvoyance as he flew, golden light flickering in his draconic eyes.
He was searching for Daisy. According to Ivy, she'd gone out yesterday looking for supplies and never returned.
Minutes passed. Nothing.
He expanded his range, scanning wider swaths of the devastated cityscape. Still nothing.
Elric's thoughts darkened as the search continued. Daisy had been missing for over a day now. In the current era, that timeline suggested very few possibilities—and none of them pleasant.
Captured by desperate survivors. Assaulted. Killed by mutated creatures. Starved in some forgotten corner. Poisoned by the toxic fog. Collapsed from exhaustion and left to rot in the streets.
Those were the most common fates for lone women in the apocalypse.
Hovering several miles above the ground, Elric methodically scanned every street, every collapsed building, every hidden shelter. The destruction stretched endlessly in all directions—a graveyard of civilization.
He was about to abandon the search and return to question Ivy more thoroughly when something unusual caught his eye.
Below, nestled among the ruins, stood a building that looked completely out of place.
The structure was reinforced on all sides with thick alloy plating. Heavy-duty tempered doors secured with electronic password locks. Rainwater collection systems integrated into the roof. Windows made of special anti-impact glass that reflected light at strange angles, making them nearly impossible to see through.
At first glance, it resembled a military bunker.
Someone who predicted the apocalypse? Elric mused. Or one of those doomsday preppers who actually got it right?
But as he studied it more carefully, his eyes narrowed.
"No," he muttered. "This is more than that."
The design was too sophisticated. Too deliberate. This wasn't the panicked construction of someone scrambling after the world ended—this was planned years in advance.
Elric descended slowly, focusing his clairvoyance on the building.
For the first time since gaining his powers, his vision simply... stopped.
He couldn't see inside at all.
The sensation was jarring, like running into an invisible wall. His clairvoyance had penetrated every barrier so far—reinforced concrete, lead-lined bunkers, underground chambers. Nothing had been able to block it.
Until now.
"...Interesting."
A faint smile crossed Elric's face as he landed, his draconic form dissolving into his human appearance. His feet touched down silently in front of the reinforced entrance.
Since he couldn't see inside, using Swap Location was impossible. No matter—he'd do this the old-fashioned way.
Elric reached out and grasped the tempered steel door. His fingers dug into the metal as if it were clay. With a casual flex of his arm, he ripped the entire door free from its reinforced frame and tossed it aside. It crashed into a pile of rubble with a thunderous clang.
He stepped inside.
A long corridor stretched before him, its walls, ceiling, and floor constructed from unfamiliar alloys. The metallic surfaces gleamed dully in the emergency lighting, clearly reinforced far beyond normal construction standards.
BOOM!
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, hidden mechanisms activated.
Panels snapped open along both walls. More than a dozen metal spikes shot toward him at lethal velocity, their tips glinting wickedly in the dim light.
Elric didn't even bother moving.
Lightning erupted across his body in a crackling web of blue-white energy. His physical form dissolved into pure elemental thunder. The spikes passed harmlessly through him, embedding themselves deep into the walls behind with dull thunks.
"These defenses really were built for the end of the world," Elric observed, his voice carrying an amused edge despite his elemental state.
In the next instant, his entire body became a bolt of lightning.
Blue light streaked through the corridor faster than the eye could follow, bypassing door after sealed door. When the lightning finally faded, Elric stood in the main hall of the three-story building, his human form restored.
His gaze immediately locked onto something unusual.
On a reinforced platform in the center of the room sat a dull gray stone, roughly the size of a human head. It constantly released thick, faintly shimmering gas that spread throughout the space.
"So this is what blocked my vision."
Elric approached the stone, studying it with fascination. The gas completely interfered with clairvoyance—even his enhanced version couldn't penetrate it. Whoever owned this place wasn't just prepared; they were knowledgeable about supernatural phenomena.
Finding something like this stone wasn't mere luck. It required information that simply shouldn't exist in this world.
Without hesitation, Elric reached out. The stone vanished mid-grasp, stored directly into the Mirror World.
The fog dispersed almost immediately, dissipating like morning mist under sunlight.
His vision expanded freely throughout the building now.
Generators. Incubation rooms. Independent ventilation systems. Water purification units. Industrial freezers stocked with frozen meat. Medical supplies. Weapons cache.
The entire structure was a perfectly planned survival base, designed to sustain life for years.
Then Elric paused, his expression shifting.
"...Someone's here."
The house had been completely silent until now. He'd assumed it was abandoned, that the owner had either died or fled. But now, with his clairvoyance fully active, he detected a presence.
In a side room on the second floor—a figure.
Elric vanished in a flash of lightning and reappeared inside the room.
"Ah—please! Don't—"
Sensing the sudden presence, a woman lifted her head sharply, instinctively raising her hands in a pleading gesture.
Elric froze, genuine surprise crossing his features.
The woman before him was dressed in a simple white shirt and dark pants, her long hair falling loosely over her shoulders. Her features were gentle and refined, with large expressive eyes currently wide with terror. Despite her disheveled state, her beauty was unmistakable.
Daisy.
The very person he'd been searching for.
She was crouched in the corner beside the bed, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, trembling uncontrollably. She clearly didn't recognize him.
At the same moment Elric identified her, a familiar mechanical voice echoed in his mind.
Ding. New eligible adopter detected.
Name: Daisy
Age: 26
Appearance: 94
Figure: 91
Quality: 100
Overall Rating: 93
System Evaluation: Meets standards. Devil Fruit growth available after adoption.
"Big brother, please..." Daisy's voice cracked. "Please don't hurt me. Don't eat me... I don't have much meat..."
She clearly thought he was one of the cannibals that now roamed the apocalyptic wasteland.
Elric sighed softly, his expression gentling.
"Look at me closely, Daisy."
He crouched down to her level, letting her see his face clearly. "You know me."
Daisy froze, confusion replacing some of her terror. The handsome man had just called her by name. She was certain she'd never met anyone like him before—
Wait.
Those eyebrows. That particular way his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners.
Recognition sparked. "...Elric?"
"That's right." He smiled slightly. "I'm a superpower user now. Ivy and Ruby are safe—I've already rescued them both. Come with me."
"What? Both my sisters..." Daisy's eyes widened, then immediately welled with tears. She clutched her chest as a shuddering breath escaped her. "They're really safe?"
After a moment to compose herself, she looked at him with confusion. "How did you find me here? This isn't even my house..."
"Tell me what happened," Elric said gently. "Ivy said you went out for supplies."
Daisy nodded slowly. "Yesterday, I left to search for food. But not long after, I ran into a group of men—they looked half-starved. They tied me up and said..." She swallowed hard. "They said they were going to eat me."
Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I thought I was going to die. But then a girl appeared. She was wearing green, and she was... incredibly beautiful. More beautiful than anyone I've ever seen. She saved me from those men."
"After that, I passed out. When I woke up, I was already here in this room. I have no idea where that girl went."
Elric's eyes sharpened with sudden interest.
"A girl... so beautiful you can't even describe her properly?"
Of everything Daisy had said, that single detail caught his complete attention.
Daisy herself was exceptionally beautiful—a natural ninety-four according to the system. For her to describe someone else that way meant the mysterious girl likely scored even higher.
And this sophisticated safehouse almost certainly belonged to her.
Which meant she wasn't just a lucky survivor.
No doomsday hobbyist could have built something this advanced after the apocalypse began. And it was impossible to construct such a base after the world had already ended.
That left only one explanation.
She had known in advance.
She had predicted the apocalypse before it happened.
Elric's mind raced through the possibilities. "Someone who foresaw the end of the world..."