Chapter 109: The Northern Clue

Before the serrated edge of the hunting knife could even graze the fabric of his coat, Ethan vanished into thin air.

Trevor’s downward thrust plunged harmlessly into empty space, the sudden loss of resistance throwing his entire upper body violently off balance. He stumbled forward, his boots skidding across the spilled grain and broken glass on the linoleum floor. He blinked in sheer disorientation, staring stupidly at the empty patch of dust his blade had just cleaved.

"Looking for me?"

A cold, flat voice whispered directly behind his left ear.

Trevor’s blood turned to solid ice in his veins. Every hair on his body stood on end. He tried to whip his head around, his muscles screaming in panic, but a heavy hand clamped down onto the back of his jacket collar with the absolute, crushing authority of an industrial hydraulic press. Before a single whimper or plea could escape his constricted throat, Ethan pressed his right palm flat against the back of Trevor’s skull.

A thick, swirling plume of dark, volatile mist erupted instantly from Ethan’s skin.

Sizzle.

The horrific, stomach-turning sound of rapidly dissolving bone and boiling flesh filled the ruined supermarket for a fraction of a second. Trevor’s spine stiffened rigidly, his eyes bulging wide with unexpressed, suffocating terror, before his entire head collapsed inward and melted into a bubbling, foul-smelling puddle of black sludge.

Ethan casually stepped backward to avoid the splatter, shaking the dark chemical residue from his fingers. Without its anchor, the headless corpse dropped heavily onto the littered floor with a wet, sickening thud.

Across the aisle, the remaining thugs~who had been watching the ambush unfold in paralyzed silence~dropped their pipes and blades at once. The metallic clatter of falling steel echoed off the tiled walls as they scrambled backward over toppled shelves in an absolute stampede of blind panic.

"Don’t kill us! Please, spare us!" the long-haired gang leader wailed, his knees giving out completely as he collapsed onto the filthy floor. He pressed his forehead straight into the shattered glass and dirt, trembling like a leaf in a storm, heedless of the shards cutting into his palms. "It was all his idea! Trevor came to us first! He swore you had endless food and a magical pocket dimension! We didn’t know you were an unstoppable monster~please, spare my life! We’ll be your dogs, we’ll scavenge for you, we’ll do anything!"

Ethan didn’t spare the begging man a second glance. In this broken world, leaving fifteen opportunistic ambushers alive behind his back was nothing short of suicide. With a flick of his wrist, he unleashed a wide, whistling sweep of spatial energy that tore through the dim air. Invisible blades flashed across the narrow aisles like silver lightning, slicing effortlessly through rusted armor and overturned shelving alike, finishing the rest of the cowering remnants in a single heartbeat.

The supermarket fell into a suffocating, blood-soaked silence, broken only by the erratic drip of dark liquid from the dented shelves and the ragged, shivering breaths of Tessa standing near the front entrance. Her face was deathly pale, her knuckles white against the doorframe, and her eyes wide with shock as she stared at the motionless remains of the man who had beaten, starved, and tormented her for so long.

Ethan walked over to her, his boots crunching lightly over the broken glass and spilled rice. Before stopping in front of her, he waved a hand, sweeping the scattered melee weapons and the few usable pouches of scavenged rations from the dead thugs into the corner of his Survival Space. His expression remained completely indifferent as he looked down at her trembling frame.

"It’s over," he said evenly. "Where do you want to go now?"

Tessa bit her lower lip hard enough to draw a tiny bead of blood, hot tears finally spilling over her dark lashes as she choked out, "I... can I follow you? Trevor, he... he was a monster who always tortured me. Everyone in Building Three is either dead or turned. I don’t have anywhere else left to go..."

"You can," Ethan replied simply, turning his back on the carnage and heading toward the jagged gap in the metal shutters. "Keep up, and don’t make noise in the courtyard."

Tessa hurried after him at once, clutching the torn hem of her jacket and keeping close to his shadow as they slipped across the darkened courtyard and climbed the concrete stairwell back to the upper floors. Once they were safely inside the quiet apartment and the heavy steel deadbolt was slid back into place, Ethan paused in the center of the living room and waved a hand, releasing Sofia from the Survival Space.

The air shimmered faintly. The moment Sofia materialized beside the sofa and Tessa locked eyes with her under the dim lantern light, Tessa let out a sharp, violent gasp. She stumbled half a step back against the shoe cabinet, her eyes widening in utter disbelief.

"You..." Tessa stammered, raising a trembling finger to point at Sofia’s face.

Ethan and Sofia exchanged a brief, puzzled look. Sofia frowned slightly, taking a cautious step closer. "What is it? Have we met before?"

"No, not you~I saw a woman near the complex’s front gates the day before yesterday morning who looked almost identical to you!" Tessa blurted out, her words tumbling over each other in frantic urgency. "I was hiding behind a third-floor stairwell window watching the street when it happened. She was surrounded by a heavily armed squad wearing green military uniforms! She tried to fight them off, but they forced her down, threw her onto the back of an armored transport truck, and drove straight toward the northern district!"

Sofia’s face drained of every drop of color in an instant. Her hands flew up to grip Tessa’s shoulders so tightly that Tessa winced. "Are you absolutely sure?! Did she have dark hair like mine, about my height, wearing a gray windbreaker?"

"Positive!" Tessa nodded frantically, her dark hair swaying around her pale cheeks. "The shape of your eyes, the arch of your brows, even the way she held herself when they cornered her~it was uncanny! You two look like you were carved from the exact same mold!"

Sofia’s breath hitched as a mixture of overwhelming relief and fresh terror washed through her chest. "She’s alive... Ethan, my mom is really alive!"

Ethan’s gaze narrowed as a cold, dangerous light flickered in the depths of his dark eyes. Before the apocalypse tore the world apart, the northern sector of Silvermont had housed the city’s heavily fortified military command base. If organized soldiers were out in the ruins rounding up survivors~and had taken Rose there by force instead of offering aid~things had just gotten a lot more complicated.

"Get some rest tonight," Ethan told both of them, walking toward the window to check the dark street below. "The northern sector is heavily fortified. We leave at first light."

Morning light slipped through the narrow cracks around the boarded-up bedroom window, slicing pale golden lines through the floating dust motes.

Ethan sat quietly in a wooden armchair near the corner, staring at the thick layer of gray ash gathered along the windowsill. Tessa’s frantic revelation from the previous night kept replaying in the back of his mind, piece by piece.

Rose had been taken away by uniformed soldiers.

In the brutal reality of the apocalypse, was the remaining military command still honoring its oath to protect civilians, or had it already degenerated into just another ruthless warlord faction using heavy weapons and authority to enslave people? Either way, anyone who laid hands on his people would have to answer for it.

Soft footsteps approached from the hallway. Sofia walked into the room, dark circles sitting beneath her eyes from a sleepless night, though her gaze burned with quiet, unyielding determination. She had already braided her hair back and strapped a scavenged hunting knife to her belt.

"Ethan, I’ll go with you," Sofia said, worry evident in every line of her tense posture. She swallowed hard, her fingers curling tightly into her palms. "My mom will be fine," she added softly, as though repeating the words out loud might somehow weave them into reality.

Ethan studied her pale face for a quiet moment before giving a slow nod. "All right. You’ve earned the right to be there."

He stood up and walked into the living room, shifting his gaze toward the sofa where Tessa had spent the entire night sitting cross-legged, diligently practicing her newly awakened Ability. A soft, rhythmic green light pulsed steadily around her open palm, much richer and deeper than the faint spark from the night before.

"You’ll come with us too," Ethan told her.

Tessa paused her breathing exercise, lowered her hands to her knees, and nodded without a second of hesitation. "All right. Whatever you need, I’ll do it."

After circulating her spiritual energy throughout the night, she had gained significantly better control over her Life Link Ability. The emerald glow was brighter, denser, and far more stable than when she had first swallowed the Core. Having an S-Rank healer on standby during an infiltration into an unknown military stronghold was an insurance policy Ethan wasn’t going to leave behind.

Before setting out toward the northern sector, however, Ethan decided to take an hour to thoroughly sweep the former hideouts of the long-haired gang leader and Trevor.

The gang leader’s base of operations turned out to be a wrecked twenty-four-hour convenience store directly across the street from the residential complex. Most of the metal gondolas had been picked clean days ago, and the sticky tile floor was carpeted with torn plastic wrappers, shattered beer bottles, and crushed cigarette butts. After kicking open the reinforced storage room door in the back, Ethan found only half a crate of unopened instant noodle packets, a rusted toolbox, and three dusty bottles of cheap liquor.

Trevor’s hidden stash in the damp basement of Building Three was even more pathetic.

Rotted cardboard boxes and rusted tin cans were scattered everywhere across the mildewed concrete. Even the two boxes of military compressed biscuits Ethan had handed him the previous evening had already been ripped open and half-devoured by the dead gang members before their failed ambush.

Ethan frowned in mild disgust, waving his hand to sweep the few remaining sealed supplies and tools into his Survival Space.

At least I won’t waste any more time wondering if they hid anything valuable, he thought dryly.

By the time the three of them finished checking the perimeter, organizing their winter coats, and eating a hot meal of boiled noodles before setting out into the ruined streets, the pale morning had completely slipped away.