A bright flash of green light surrounded Liam again as the protective barrier reappeared, manifesting in a desperate burst of survival instinct.
The knife hit the dome with a hollow metallic bang, rebounding off like it had struck solid steel. The impact jarred Elric's arm, sending vibrations up to his shoulder.
Inside the translucent bubble, Liam screamed again, half in agony from his wounds, half in sheer terror at how close he'd come to death. His blood was already pooling at his feet, dark and viscous.
"Y-you're insane! You're actually killing people!"
One of the male students yelled, stumbling backward, his face pale and sweaty. His hands shook as he pointed at Elric with trembling fingers.
"Yeah, you're going to jail! Do you even know what you're doing?!"
Another shouted, his voice cracking with hysteria. He looked around wildly, as if expecting police sirens to materialize from the fog at any moment.
Their voices cracked, breaking like adolescent boys, despite most of them being in their early twenties.
They were college kids—greenhouse flowers who had never smelled blood before, never seen death up close, never witnessed real violence outside of movies and video games.
The apocalypse had been four days long—soon to be five—but their minds were still living in yesterday's world.
A world where killing someone meant the police came. Where laws still mattered. Where there were consequences for violence, where society's rules still held weight.
They couldn't accept what they were seeing. Their brains refused to process that the old rules no longer applied, that they were witnessing attempted murder and there was no authority coming to stop it.
Elric didn't even glance at them. Didn't acknowledge their protests or their threats.
His breathing was calm. Focused. His heart rate barely elevated despite having just stabbed someone.
"Swap."
He reached out with his ability, focusing his will, trying to trigger his position exchange again. If he could just get inside the barrier with Liam, finish what he'd started—
—but nothing happened.
Failed.
The familiar sensation of his power activating never came. It was like trying to lift something too heavy, feeling the strain but getting no result.
Too heavy. He couldn't move someone bigger than him yet. The limitation was frustrating but absolute.
"Tch. Guess that's your lucky day," Elric muttered under his breath, clicking his tongue in annoyance.
The Temporary Reprieve
Liam, still bleeding inside his shield, still clutching his mutilated hand to his chest, stared at him in shock through the translucent barrier. His face was pale, lips bloodless, eyes wide with the reality of his near-death experience.
"W-wait—what are you gonna—"
"Nothing." Elric straightened up, lowering the blood-stained knife. "You'll live. For now."
The words carried a promise and a threat in equal measure.
Then he opened his palm, revealing two small gray stones that shimmered faintly in his hand—teleportation markers, the objects he'd prepared specifically for this moment.
"Later," he whispered, so quietly that only those closest could hear.
And with a soft flick of his wrist—
Whoosh!
His body blinked out of sight. Gone. Vanished like smoke dispersing in wind, like a mirage collapsing into the fog.
For a few seconds, no one moved. No one spoke. No one even seemed to breathe.
Only the sound of dripping blood filled the courtyard, a steady drip... drip... drip that seemed impossibly loud in the silence.
"I—I think he's gone," one of the students stammered, his voice barely above a whisper, as if afraid that speaking too loudly might summon Elric back.
Liam's shaking hands pressed against his side, trying uselessly to stem the flow of blood. His breath came in short, ragged gasps that fogged in the cool air.
"God... damn it..." He slumped to his knees, his shield finally flickering out as his concentration failed completely. Relief and pain blurred together into something indistinguishable. "I... survived..."
The words came out as a sob.
But before he could even exhale fully, before he could process his narrow escape—
A girl's scream cut through the fog, high and panicked.
"Liam! Jenna—Jenna's gone!"
Liam's head shot up, the movement sending fresh waves of pain through his body. "What?!"
He turned toward where Jenna had been standing moments ago, where she should have been after being swapped out of the barrier.
There was nothing. Just empty space, just concrete stained dark—blood? When had she been bleeding? And a strange emptiness where her presence should have been.
His entire body went cold, colder than the blood loss alone could account for.
"No... no no no no..." he mumbled, stumbling toward the spot on trembling legs, leaving a trail of blood behind him. "Jenna!"
His goddess. His reason for living. The girl he'd protected and worshipped for years.
Gone.
The wound on his side pulsed with each heartbeat, blood soaking through his shirt and dripping down to pool at his feet.
Then his vision blurred, the edges going dark and fuzzy. The pain, the fear, the loss—it all hit at once like a tidal wave, overwhelming his already shocked system.
"E-Elric..." he muttered weakly, his voice barely audible. "You bastard..."
And then—blackness.
Liam collapsed face-first onto the cold concrete with a heavy thud, unconscious before he even registered he was falling.
Blood continued to pool around his still form, spreading slowly across the rough surface.
The mist swallowed the scene whole, creeping in to obscure the violence, covering everything with its toxic veil as if the confrontation had never happened at all.
And somewhere in that fog, Elric walked away with Jenna, leaving nothing behind but blood and broken people.
There is 15 chapter Advance with 2 chapters every day, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
patreon.com/B_A_3439