Elsa handled the SUV with practiced skill, navigating through the shattered city streets with the confidence of someone who'd spent years behind the wheel. Within minutes, Elric spotted their destination—the office complex where he'd left Lily and Rachel the day before.
Both women were waiting exactly where he'd instructed them to stay.
Rachel's condition had improved dramatically. The sickness that had nearly broken her yesterday had faded, replaced by healthy color in her cheeks. She still moved carefully, using a wooden walking stick for support while Lily stayed close beside her, ready to catch her if she stumbled.
The moment Lily saw Elric approaching, her entire face illuminated with relief.
"Elric! You're here!"
Rachel, by contrast, looked away shyly. She remembered all too clearly what he'd told her yesterday—the nature of their agreement, what he expected in return for his protection and healing. Even though she'd mentally prepared herself, her cheeks flushed pink as she murmured softly:
"H-hello..."
Elsa stepped up beside Elric, greeting both women with polite, graceful composure. The kind of refined manners that came from a privileged upbringing.
Lily and Rachel exchanged slightly awkward glances at seeing another beautiful woman at Elric's side. But they quickly remembered his earlier warning: "My women will not stop at just two."
So they swallowed whatever discomfort they felt and returned the polite nods.
Elric wasted no time on pleasantries.
"I'm heading out of the city. Our deal still stands—wait for me to return."
He explained quickly: Rachel's recovery wasn't complete yet. If he wasn't back within a reasonable timeframe, both she and Lily should make their way to Silverleaf Heights, Building 9, 28th floor. That's where his other women stayed, and they'd be safe there.
Then, with a casual gesture that seemed like reassurance, Elric placed his hand briefly on Rachel's arm—marking her with his Fixed-Point Clairvoyance ability.
She barely registered the touch.
Lily wasn't a concern; she'd proven herself trustworthy. But Rachel... he wanted insurance. If she tried to run or betray him, he would know immediately. And he could reach her from anywhere.
"Let's go," Elric said, turning back toward the SUV.
Elsa started the engine, and the vehicle rumbled forward, leaving the two women behind in the relative safety of the office complex.
As they left the city center behind, the devastation grew exponentially worse.
More collapsed buildings leaned at impossible angles, their steel skeletons exposed like broken ribs. Roads had fractured into jagged canyons. Entire blocks looked as if they'd been bombed.
Compared to just two days ago, the situation had deteriorated dramatically.
Starving refugees stumbled through the streets in growing numbers—eyes hollow and sunken, skin grey from exhaustion and dehydration. Most had already consumed everything edible in their homes. Some had drunk contaminated water in desperation and were now sick, vomiting at roadsides, dizzy and barely conscious.
Many had simply collapsed where they stood, too weak to take another step.
The city that once smelled of coffee shops, food trucks, and clean sidewalks... now reeked of death and human waste.
As Elsa drove past a larger group of survivors, several dropped to their knees in the middle of the street.
"Please! Help us!"
"Good Samaritan, spare something—anything! Food, water, please!"
They saw the SUV—intact, well-maintained, obviously belonging to someone with resources. They saw Elric and Elsa through the windows—well-fed, healthy, clean. Hope flickered desperately in their starving eyes like the last embers of a dying fire.
But Elric didn't even glance at them.
He wasn't a saint. Never had been.
On a good day, he might save someone who caught his eye or struck his sympathy. But today? Today, his priority was Emily. Nothing else mattered.
He stared straight ahead as the SUV continued through the ruined streets of what had once been a thriving American city.
Elsa, sitting confidently behind the wheel, was equally unmoved. Before the apocalypse, she might have smiled sweetly and donated to charity events for the photo opportunity. But now she understood the brutal truth of this new world:
Compassion would only get you killed.
The SUV rolled past the kneeling survivors without slowing.
Some broke down in tears, their last hope disappearing down the street.
Others clenched their fists in impotent fury as the well-equipped vehicle ignored their desperate pleas.
One middle-aged man with glasses finally snapped.
"You heartless bastards! Just driving past us like we're nothing—do you even have a conscience?!"
His voice cracked with rage and desperation. Then he bent down, grabbed a rock, and hurled it at the SUV's bulletproof door.
THUD!
Not even a scratch marred the reinforced metal.
But the moment the rock left his fingers, Elric's eyes flashed.
Something unseen swept through the man like a scythe through wheat.
The man with glasses who threw the stone, the moment he threw the stone, his entire body was cut into six pieces.
The next... nothing.
The other refugees fell into shocked silence. No one else threw anything. No one else shouted.
They simply watched the SUV disappear into the distance.
Elsa kept driving, her expression never changing.
Soon, Elsa guided the SUV onto Interstate 94—the fastest route to Chicago now that planes and trains were distant memories.
Four hours passed.
Under normal conditions before the apocalypse, the drive would have been straightforward, almost boring. But now...
Now the highway was a graveyard of civilization.
Entire stretches had collapsed or sunk into the earth, creating massive gaps that forced detours through residential areas. Floodwater filled sections of the interstate like artificial lakes, the water dark and filled with floating debris.
Collapsed overpasses and bridges made the route a chaotic maze, requiring constant improvisation and backtracking through overgrown forests and abandoned suburbs.
But the worst obstacle came when they entered a mountain corridor.
The moment they rounded a bend, Elric felt it—a suffocating presence of mutated plant life.
A towering black locust tree had grown to monstrous proportions, its twisted trunk sprawling across the entire width of the highway like a living barricade. Accompanying it were massive thorn-vines, each as thick as a man's torso, wrapped around abandoned cars and the skeletal remains of those who'd tried to pass before.
The instant the SUV entered the area, the plants seemed to sense them.
Branches lunged forward like grasping hands. Vines whipped through the air. The entire corridor became a writhing mass of hostile vegetation, moving with terrifying coordination.
"Elric—!" Elsa's voice cracked with fear.
"I know."
Elric could destroy them if he wanted. His abilities were more than sufficient. But the sheer number of mutated plants would take too long to clear—precious minutes that Emily might not have.
So instead, he activated Exchange Position.
The SUV vanished and reappeared 4,500 meters ahead.
Then again—9,000 meters.
And again—13,500 meters.
In rapid succession, they teleported past the danger entirely, leaving the mutated forest behind in seconds.
Elsa exhaled shakily, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. She said nothing, but her respect for Elric—already high—climbed even higher.
Elsa drove most of the way, her racing experience proving invaluable on the treacherous roads. Whenever the terrain became too complicated or dangerous, Elric took over.
The hours blurred together—a monotonous cycle of driving, obstacles, detours, and occasional danger.
Around noon, the skyline of Chicago finally rose on the horizon.
But as they crossed the city limits proper, both Elric and Elsa fell silent.
They'd thought it was bad before. Silverleaf Heights and the surrounding districts had descended into crime, chaos, and death. It had felt like the complete collapse of civilization.
But Chicago?
Chicago looked like the apocalypse's capital city.
The devastation was on an entirely different scale.
Buildings hadn't just collapsed—they'd been shattered, as if struck by the fist of an angry god. Skyscrapers leaned at impossible angles, their windows blown out, their steel frames twisted into abstract sculptures of destruction.
Streetlights had been bent and broken, jutting from the ground like the skeletal fingers of buried giants reaching toward the sky.
Black smoke curled upward from dozens—no, hundreds—of locations across the cityscape. Fires that had burned unchecked for days.
Rows of abandoned cars clogged every major intersection in massive pile-ups, their owners long since fled or dead.
Above it all, soot-dark clouds hung low and oppressive, as if the sky itself had fallen sick. The air felt heavy, tasting of ash and decay.
"This..." Elsa whispered, her usual confidence shaken. "This is worse than home. A lot worse."
Elric didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because in his chest, dread was tightening like a cold fist squeezing his heart.
Emily was somewhere in this nightmare.
And he had absolutely no idea if she was still alive.
The SUV rolled slowly into the broken city, two figures searching for one person in the ruins of millions.
Behind them, the road they'd traveled stretched back toward home.
Ahead... only uncertainty waited.
There is 60 chapter Advance, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
patreon.com/B_A_3439