Chapter 146: Shadows in the Moonlight

The villa’s grand living room was bathed in an eerie, silver silence.

Moonlight poured through the towering floor-to-ceiling glass windows, illuminating the scattered dust motes, the fractured pieces of luxury furniture, and the half-eaten crust of dry bread lying abandoned on the polished parquet floor. Near the dark threshold of the service corridor leading toward the basement stairs, a young woman stood with her back pressed desperately against the wall, staring at Ethan as though a supernatural monster had just materialized out of thin air.

Ethan raised both palms outward in a calm, non-threatening gesture.

"Relax. I’m not here to hurt you."

He lowered his tone, softening his cadence, and took two careful, measured steps forward.

The girl immediately recoiled, her shoulder blades striking the wooden trim with a dull thud. She flinched sharply at the sound, her frantic gaze darting toward the interior stairs leading down into the dark cellar as she desperately weighed her chances of slipping past him into hiding.

"You... how did you suddenly appear out of nowhere?" Her voice shook violently, a high-pitched trill of panic. "Who are you?"

Ethan halted his advance.

He could read the absolute terror in her wide, dilated pupils, the rigid tension locking her posture, and the way her fingers curled into white-knuckled fists against her dress. She was a cornered animal ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

"My name is Ethan."

He paused for a heartbeat, his dark eyes studying her features before asking, "What is your relationship with Victoria?"

The moment he dropped Victoria’s name, the girl’s expression underwent a violent metamorphosis.

The stark panic in her eyes did not vanish, but it was instantly eclipsed by a wall of fierce, defensive hostility. Her lips pressed into a hard, white line, and a cold flash of bitter resentment burned across her face.

"Are you that... that bastard who forced my aunt to go away with you?"

Ethan blinked in genuine astonishment.

"What?"

He frowned, leaning back slightly as he processed the absurd accusation. "Forced her? What on earth are you talking about?"

As far as his memory served, Victoria had left Century Skyline with him entirely of her own free will. He had even bestowed an Evolved Core upon her to unlock her Air Control ability, providing her with the vital power she needed to survive the hostile wasteland.

He hadn’t made a single threat, let alone dragged her out against her will.

So how in the world had he transformed into a kidnapper and a villain in this stranger’s eyes?

"Where is my aunt?"

The girl’s voice cracked, sharp and desperate.

Her eyes flushed red, and hot tears spilled over her lower lashes. She tried desperately to swallow them back, lifting her chin with stubborn, trembling pride as though breaking down in front of him would be an unforgivable surrender.

"What did you do to her? Did you hurt her? Did you kill her?!"

Ethan opened his mouth to deliver a calm explanation.

Before he could pull a breath into his lungs, she cut him off with a bitter, frantic outburst.

"I knew it!"

Her voice broke with a jagged edge of pure fury and grief.

"None of the men left alive in this apocalypse are any good! You’re all the same absolute garbage! You’re nothing but devils and beasts!"

Her chest heaved under the loose fabric of her floral dress as she glared at him with unadulterated hatred. Yet beneath the burning surface of her anger, Ethan’s enhanced perception caught something infinitely more painful.

Paralyzing fear.

It wasn’t the ordinary caution of a survivor encountering a stranger in the ruins; it was the raw, primal terror of someone who had already witnessed firsthand the absolute, unforgiving cruelty of human monsters.

"Before my aunt left this villa, she told me she was going to check your base to see if it was safe," the girl sobbed, her words tumbling over one another. "She promised me that if everything turned out to be fine, she’d come back for me the very next day!"

Her lower lip quivered uncontrollably.

"It has been almost seven full days!"

The tears finally broke free, streaming down her hollow cheeks in an unstopped torrent. "You must have done something terrible to her!"

"Hurt her?"

Ethan’s dark expression cooled into an icy mask.

He could empathize with her anxiety. Being locked alone in a basement for nearly a week while waiting for missing family in an apocalyptic wasteland would drive anyone to the edge of madness.

However, casually pinning kidnapping and murder on a man who had only offered shelter was a line he would not tolerate.

"Do you have a single shred of proof for that accusation?"

"Proof?"

A harsh, wretched laugh tore from the girl’s throat~a sound midway between a choked sob and hysterical laughter.

"You want proof?"

Her eyes glazed over slightly, staring past his shoulder at a horrifying memory only she could see.

"I’ve seen what men like you are capable of doing!"

Her tone dropped into a terrifying, hollow whisper, choked with lingering trauma.

"They dragged my mother out into the courtyard. I was hiding down in the basement mezzanine, staring blindly at the security monitor..."

She swallowed hard, her throat working convulsively.

"I had to watch them torture her. And then..."

Her jaw trembled so violently she could barely articulate the words.

"Then they twisted her neck right in front of the lens."

The final sentence drifted away into the silent room like ash.

For a terrifying second, she stopped breathing entirely. Her fingers dug into the wooden doorframe until her skin turned ghostly white, squeezing her eyes shut as though physical pressure could crush the horrific footage looping in her mind.

Yet the digital ghost remained indelible.

She had been forced to watch her mother murdered through a security screen, trapped meters away in the dark, too paralyzed by terror to utter a single sound.

She hadn’t possessed the power to save her.

She hadn’t even been granted the mercy of a final goodbye.

"My aunt is the only blood I have left in this world," her voice shattered completely into fragments of absolute despair. "Please..."

She let her head drop forward, hot tears dripping steadily from the point of her chin onto the dusty floorboards.

"Please... just give her back to me."

Ethan stood motionless, the sharp irritation evaporating from his chest as profound comprehension took its place.

This young woman hadn’t merely suffered loss; she was a psychological prisoner of a horrific execution she had been forced to watch helpless from the shadows. Given that severe background trauma, it was entirely natural for her primitive survival instincts to brand every unfamiliar male as an imminent executioner.

With Victoria vanishing into the red sky for nearly a week without a word, her traumatized imagination had predictably painted the worst possible fate.

Ethan exhaled a slow, controlled breath through his nose.

"Listen to me carefully. Your aunt is completely fine."

He kept his stance stationary, ensuring he did not crowd her personal space or trigger her fight-or-flight response.

"She is alive, she is safe, and she has awakened a formidable Ability. She is doing far better than you are imagining."

He paused deliberately, giving her shattered nerves a moment to absorb the unexpected anchor of hope.

"I can take you to her right now. You can speak to her face-to-face."

He was just about to suggest opening the communication link through the system’s newly unlocked calling function when the girl suddenly shrieked.

"Don’t you dare come any closer!"

Her shrill, terrified voice tore through the dead silence of the luxury villa.

"What do you actually want from me?!"

Ethan’s expression hardened instantly.

He had no opportunity to formulate a reassuring reply.

From the overgrown driveway outside, the sudden, rhythmic crunch of heavy boots striking gravel shattered the night. Several figures were rushing toward the front veranda, accompanied by the metallic clatter of assault rifles and machetes scraping against tactical gear.

Ethan’s dark eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits.

Her hysterical scream had just broadcast their exact location across the abandoned neighborhood.

Judging by the cadence of the approaching footsteps, they were facing a heavily armed scavenging party.

"Shut your mouth!"

Ethan’s voice dropped into a commanding, lethal growl.

"If you want those animals outside to burst in here and drag you into the dirt, keep screaming at the top of your lungs!"

The girl’s breath hitched, her shrill cry cutting off instantly.

She stared up at him in sheer disbelief, trembling from head to toe. For the first time, she truly registered the chilling shift in his aura. The calm, composed stranger of a moment ago was gone, replaced by an apex predator whose absolute dominance left zero room for argument.

He wasn’t bluffing.

Whatever else he might be, he was a dangerous, capable man, and her survival instincts screamed at her not to test his patience further.

Outside on the porch, the footsteps ground to a sudden halt.

Then, a burst of coarse, vile laughter echoed through the open windows.

"Hey, brothers! Did you hear that high-pitched squeal?"

Another harsh, gravelly voice chuckled greedily.

"We’ve been sweeping this sector for hours. Didn’t think lady luck would hand us a virgin prize tonight!"

Ethan’s jaw locked.

He swiveled his head toward the shattered entryway, tracking the rapid closing distance of the intruders.

"If you value your life, grab my hand right now."

His tone was low, unyielding, and absolute.

"I am taking you to your aunt. This exact second."

The girl froze, her terrified gaze bouncing wildly between the dark front hallway and Ethan’s steady hand. Tears continued to carve paths through the grime on her cheeks, her lips trembling as she wrestled with the terrifying dilemma of choosing between two unknowns.

The strange man standing before her had appeared out of thin air through impossible spatial tricks. She did not understand him, and she certainly didn’t trust him.

But the scavengers howling on the porch...

She had lived through the collapse of civilization long enough to know precisely what kind of fate awaited a young woman caught by roving executioners in the dark.

She bit down on her lower lip so hard the skin turned pearlescent white before breaking into a fine line of crimson.

Then, with a desperate, jerky motion, she gave a small, trembling nod.

Ethan didn’t waste a single microsecond.

He lunged forward, his long fingers wrapping securely around her delicate wrist.

"Hold on tight."

Before she could inhale another breath, his spatial authority flared.

Flash.

The air around their bodies distorted violently, the living room curving like a reflection mirrored on the surface of a stormy lake.

In the blink of an eye, both figures vanished into thin air.