"Golden Creek Estates—that's where the Watson Family lives. It's about two thousand meters south of the East District," the bearded man explained nervously, hunched low in the passenger seat like he was trying to make himself invisible.
Elsa drove smoothly beside him, her hands steady on the wheel.
The man risked a quick glance at her—then immediately jerked his gaze back down, trembling slightly. No way was he going to stare too long at the companion of someone who could literally crush him with one clawed hand.
"Just... just keep going straight for now," he stammered. "Then turn left when I tell you..."
Elric barely acknowledged him, his attention focused on the devastated cityscape rolling past the window.
Chicago was a nightmare.
He'd already seen some rough areas, but the deeper they went, the worse it got. Other districts were slightly better than the worst zones, sure, but "slightly better" still meant absolutely terrible.
Corpses littered the streets in numbers that made his hometown look tame by comparison. Skyscrapers had collapsed like domino towers, their remains blocking entire intersections. Roads were torn open—not just cracked, but ripped apart—as if something massive had clawed through the asphalt. And everywhere he looked, he saw burn marks.
Dark scorch patterns on walls. Crater-like damage that could only come from explosions. Bullet casings glinting in the debris.
This wasn't just apocalypse damage. This was a battlefield.
Elric frowned, his mind working through possibilities.
"What exactly happened to this city?" he asked, voice casual but eyes sharp. "Why is it destroyed way worse than ours? I'm seeing bullet casings everywhere and what looks like shell craters. Did the military fight here or something?"
He didn't raise his voice or sound threatening.
But the bearded man answered immediately anyway. He wouldn't dare hesitate.
"Yes! The military definitely came. That's exactly why the city looks like this."
Elsa shot a shocked glance at Elric. The military? Actually deployed?
The man continued, words tumbling out in a rush:
"It happened the day before the fog rolled in. A dragon appeared in Chicago."
Both Elric and Elsa froze.
"Wait—a dragon?" Elric leaned forward slightly. "Like, an actual dragon? Before the apocalypse?"
The man nodded frantically, as if his life depended on them believing him.
"Yes! I swear, I saw it with my own eyes. This wasn't some oversized lizard or mutated animal. It was a genuine dragon."
He paused, then added: "Except... it couldn't fly. No wings, no claws like you'd expect. But it was absolutely massive, insanely powerful, covered in scales that looked like steel plating. And it breathed fire."
Elric's eyes narrowed. This was huge—potentially game-changing information.
The bearded man swallowed hard and continued:
"That thing rampaged across Chicago for hours. Smashed through entire buildings like they were made of cardboard. I watched it bring down a thirty-story office tower with one swing of its tail."
"Hundreds of people died before anyone even knew what was happening."
Elsa's breath caught. "But then the military showed up?"
"Yeah," the man nodded vigorously. "Thousands of soldiers. They brought artillery, heavy guns—everything they had. Somehow they managed to slow it down, kept it from leveling the entire city."
Elsa pressed further, her curiosity overriding her fear: "So the military actually defeated it?"
The bearded man shook his head quickly.
"I don't know! Their weapons barely even scratched the thing. Bullets just bounced off those scales."
"But then something weird happened. These young people showed up—a small group, maybe four or five of them."
Elric's attention sharpened like a blade. "Young people? What do you mean?"
"Yeah, they came from behind the military lines. Soon as they arrived, the army completely sealed off the entire combat zone. Like, completely. No civilians allowed anywhere near it. They set up checkpoints, barricades, everything."
He shuddered at the memory.
"We have no idea what actually happened inside that perimeter. But by the next morning..." He trailed off.
"What?" Elsa asked.
"The dragon was just... gone."
"Gone?" Elric repeated.
"Completely. No corpse, no scales left behind, no blood stains, no evidence it ever existed. Just gone, like it vanished into thin air."
Elsa tapped the steering wheel nervously, processing this information.
"Okay, but then why wasn't there anything about it online at the time? Not a single report, not even a viral video? Something that huge should've been everywhere on social media."
The bearded man's voice dropped to almost a whisper:
"I think the government suppressed it. Hard. There was zero time to announce anything official, and then the fog hit the very next day. Everything collapsed all at once. All communication went dead."
Elric sat back slowly, his mind racing.
A dragon appearing before the apocalypse. A full military response. A mysterious group of young fighters. And signals blocked throughout the entire event.
And Emily... Emily had been somewhere in the middle of this ruined battlefield.
He frowned, thinking it through. Even after the apocalypse started, the internet technically still worked—spotty and unreliable, sure, but functional. Something as massive as Chicago being destroyed by a dragon should have flooded social media with photos and videos.
Yet almost nothing had leaked out. That didn't make sense unless...
"How could an event this huge happen with basically no news getting online?" Elric asked.
The bearded man swallowed nervously.
"Because the day that dragon appeared, no signals were allowed to leave Chicago. Not phone calls, not text messages, not internet—nothing."
Elsa's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "None at all?"
"Zero," the man confirmed quickly. "Complete blackout. Only yesterday did signals start slipping through again, and even then it's been intermittent at best."
"Why would they block all the signals?" Elric pressed.
"People think the government did it to prevent nationwide panic. If word got out that a literal dragon was attacking Chicago, the whole country would've lost it. So they shut down every outgoing signal from the city."
Elric's expression darkened.
He quietly activated Mind Peep, focusing on the bearded man's recent memories. He couldn't read everything—there wasn't enough time for a deep scan—but he checked several key moments.
They all matched the story perfectly.
The man was telling the truth.
"A dragon before the fog... military intervention... suppressed communications... and a group of young fighters who showed up afterward..."
The puzzle pieces were clicking together in Elric's mind, forming a disturbing picture.
Had the government known about the apocalypse before it actually happened? Was the dragon somehow connected to that mysterious "dragon group" Olivia had mentioned? And Emily...
She'd only been able to contact him yesterday after an entire year of silence.
If the city had been under complete signal blackout, then—
"She wasn't ignoring me," Elric realized, his fist clenching unconsciously. "She literally couldn't reach me."
Elsa drove smoothly, following the bearded man's directions, and soon they arrived at Golden Creek Estates—the former residence of the Watson Family.
Because the area was pretty far from downtown, it hadn't taken quite as much damage as the city center. The destruction here was more... selective.
Rows of luxury villas lined both sides of a crystal-blue artificial lake that somehow still looked pristine. High-end architecture stretched as far as the eye could see. Gated mansions with elaborate security systems—though most of those systems were now useless. A rich person's paradise, now eerily silent and abandoned.
The bearded man pointed at the grandest mansion in the entire complex—a towering three-story estate that overlooked the lake like a miniature palace.
"That's it. The Watson Family's main villa. The richest people in all of Chicago lived there before everything fell apart."
Elric's chest tightened painfully.
Emily... had she lived safely behind those walls? Or had something happened to her when the dragon attacked?
"Drive closer," Elric ordered quietly.
Elsa nodded and turned the SUV toward the mansion.
But right at that moment—
The bearded man suddenly panicked, his eyes going wide with terror.
"No... no no no! Those SUVs up ahead—those are Boss Drake's vehicles!"
Elric paused. "Boss Drake?"
The man nodded frantically, fear making his words come out in a rush:
"After the fog hit, ability fruits started appearing everywhere. Lots of people awakened powers. But they're not equal—not all abilities are strong, you know?"
"I'm... I'm middle-tier at best with mine. But Chicago has three big bosses now—the three strongest ability users in the entire city."
Sweat beaded on his forehead.
"One of them is Boss Drake. Before the apocalypse, he ran half the criminal underworld in Chicago. After he gained his abilities, he gathered all his surviving gang members and now he's one of the three overlords controlling the city."
Elsa's expression grew tense. "He's dangerous?"
"Worse than dangerous," the man whispered, his voice shaking. "Cruel. Absolutely brutal. His gang does whatever they want. People are more afraid of them than the mutant beasts roaming the streets."
His voice nearly broke.
"If Boss Drake's gang has taken over the Watson estate, then the Watson family is probably already—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Because he suddenly felt something absolutely terrifying behind him.
A pressure so violent, so overwhelming, it froze his blood in his veins.
Elric's face had gone completely cold. Empty of all emotion except pure, concentrated fury.
A murderous aura rippled off him like a physical force, making the air inside the SUV feel heavy and suffocating.
"U—ugh—"
Before the bearded man could even react—
Everything inside the SUV blurred for a split second.
And then—
The passenger seat was empty.
The bearded man was simply gone. Vanished.
Elric exhaled once, forcing his rage back under control.
"Elsa."
"Yeah?" She kept her eyes forward, professional despite the tension.
"Drive us straight to the Watson mansion."
Elsa nodded, her expression serious and focused.
They were heading directly into enemy territory now.
Right where Emily might be—
Alive... or dead.
The SUV's engine growled as they accelerated toward the estate, toward answers, toward whatever fate awaited them behind those mansion walls.
There is 60 chapter Advance, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
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