Olivia didn't even see it coming.
A massive force slammed her backward with devastating speed.
CRASH!
Her body struck the cracked concrete wall hard enough to send dust and fragments raining down. Before she could recover her bearings, before she could activate any defensive ability, a hand closed around her throat with iron strength—lifting her clean off the ground and pinning her against the wall.
The one holding her was Elric.
His chest still bore a gaping wound from the combat knife she had psychokinetically driven straight through his heart moments earlier. Yet instead of blood, molten orange fluid dripped from the injury like cooling volcanic rock, hissing and steaming as it hit the ground.
She stared, utterly stunned.
"You... how are you still alive?"
Her earlier confidence, her unshakeable composure, her commanding presence—all of it evaporated in an instant. For the first time since stepping onto this rooftop, her eyes held genuine fear.
"No human survives a fatal strike like that." Her voice trembled despite her best effort to control it. "What... what kind of monster are you?"
Elric's expression remained calm, almost distant. As she watched in disbelief, the wound across his chest began to fold back into itself—living magma flowing like liquid flesh—and then sealed completely. Within seconds, there was no wound at all. Just smooth skin where a killing blow should have left him dead.
He didn't answer her question.
He didn't need to.
Her shock was answer enough.
She began to gather her ability instinctively—threads of hardened spectral fiber glinting at her fingertips, preparing to slice through his arm—but Elric didn't give her the chance.
His grip intensified, forcing her completely still. Her threads flickered and before they could even form properly.
And she realized, with a cold wave of clarity, that she could not break free.
Her breath hitched.
Her pride—the immaculate, untouchable reputation she had maintained for years—cracked like ice under pressure.
For the first time in her entire life, Olivia was powerless.
Her breathing grew ragged. Her vision blurred at the edges. And the look in her eyes shifted into something raw and vulnerable—humiliation, fury, and helplessness all mixed together.
"Just kill me," she rasped, the words tasting like poison.
But before Elric could finish subduing her completely—
CRASH!
A window exploded outward from the adjacent building.
A thick, sinewed tentacle—pale and pulsing with visible veins—tore through the opening and crashed onto the rooftop. It emerged from a massive chrysalis-like cocoon that had been growing on the side of the abandoned hospital building.
The tentacle lunged straight at Elric with terrifying speed.
Elric's expression darkened immediately.
"So it's waking up already..."
He released Olivia instantly, his body flickering as he activated spatial displacement. His form swapped places with a broken lamp post across the rooftop in a fraction of a second.
The tentacle struck the wall where he'd been standing instead, smashing through concrete in an explosion of debris and dust.
But it didn't stop there—it whipped around with unnatural intelligence and followed him, tracking his new position.
"Tch. Persistent thing."
Elric wasn't worried about being harmed—his magma body could handle most physical attacks. But he was worried that Olivia would use this distraction to escape.
Which, of course, she immediately attempted to do.
The moment his grip released her throat, Olivia staggered forward gasping for air, then shot into the air using her thread ability to propel herself upward with enhanced momentum.
She was running.
"You're not getting away."
Elric's hand ignited with intense heat—molten energy spiraling up his entire arm until it glowed like a forge.
"Magma Fist!"
He drove a devastating punch forward. A burning arc of superheated force blasted through the tentacle, melting it into steaming, liquefied slurry that splattered across the rooftop.
The cocoon screeched from inside the building—a sound that was part-organic, part-mechanical—shaking the entire rooftop structure.
Elric turned to pursue Olivia—
But two more tentacles lashed out simultaneously from different angles, forcing him to evade again with rapid spatial shifts.
Olivia didn't look back.
Her expression was pale and trembling, but her silver-gray eyes burned with a promise of vengeance.
"I'll remember your face, Elric," she said from the edge of the broken window frame, her voice thick with humiliation and suppressed fury. "Don't die out here in this wasteland. I will return everything you did today—with interest."
She launched herself across the gap toward the waiting helicopters hovering nearby, her thread ability allowing her to swing between buildings like a spider.
Elric saw his opportunity closing.
He prepared to intercept—magma flaring along both arms, ready to cut the sky itself—
And then he paused.
The cocoon still stirring violently behind him, threatening to fully emerge.
He made a tactical decision.
He let her escape.
For now.
The helicopter blades carried Olivia away, her figure shrinking against the burning horizon of the ruined city.
Elric watched her go, jaw set with determination.
"We're not finished, Olivia."
The rooftop shook again violently.
CRASH! CRASH!
Elric barely had time to move before three more tentacles burst through multiple shattered window frames behind him simultaneously. Now five in total whipped toward him at once, thrashing through the air like living steel cables.
"Tch—getting annoying now."
With no time for another magma blast, he activated rapid spatial displacement—his body swapping across multiple points on the rooftop in quick succession, each shift creating an afterimage blur.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
The tentacles tangled themselves in confusion for a brief moment, giving him the opening he needed.
Elric exhaled once, centering himself.
Then he moved.
He lunged toward Olivia's fallen combat knife—the military-grade blade she'd psychokinetically thrown through his chest earlier. A far better weapon than the cheap bent fruit knife he'd been carrying.
One clean sweep—enhanced with room—
Slick. Slick. Slick.
Three severed tentacles slapped against the concrete, twitching violently before dissolving into steaming biological sludge.
The remaining two retreated back into the cocoon.
The rooftop finally stilled.
Elric immediately activated his Clairvoyance ability, scanning the sky with enhanced vision.
"...She's gone."
He could see Olivia's helicopter disappearing into the distance—already miles away, heading toward some unknown Dragon Division base. Yvonne was aboard as well, along with the other soldiers.
The aircraft were now just specks against the gray, mist-shrouded horizon.
Elric let out a quiet breath.
"A shame."
He wasn't frustrated, just pragmatic and thoughtful.
He had no flight ability—so chasing them was impossible. He had to let them go.
But something fundamental had changed in him during this encounter. A new awareness. A new understanding of the world's true scope.
The Dragon Division—a black-level clearance military organization that had apparently prepared for this apocalypse.
The Family—powerful enough to command helicopter extraction teams and elite ability users.
Organizations with reach, knowledge, resources, and power far beyond what he'd imagined.
Things he had never been aware of—until today.
This world was larger, deeper, stranger—and far more dangerous than he had initially assumed.
But with time, he would encounter them again.
He knew this as clearly as instinct.
For now, he had more immediate concerns.
Elric looked down at the weapon he'd claimed—the blade that had pierced his chest.
A 1.5-meter combat knife, jet-black, forged from military-grade alloy. The handle was engraved with one word in elegant script:
"OSBORNE"
Olivia's family name.
This blade was worth far more than the bent survival knife he'd been carrying before.
He tucked it into his belt.
One more trophy. One more reminder of the encounter.
Part 17: Return to Base
In a series of rapid spatial shifts, Elric returned to the classroom below where the survivors remained huddled.
The surviving students froze the moment he appeared—every single one of them stepping back reflexively. They had watched the entire rooftop battle through the shattered windows. They knew exactly what he was capable of.
Their terror hung in the air like static electricity.
Elric ignored it completely.
"Time to go," he said simply to Elsa and Liana.
Both girls stepped forward immediately without hesitation.
Liana's face was flushed with guilt. "I... I couldn't get close to Yvonne during the chaos. I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Elric replied calmly.
In that situation, approaching Yvonne while she was surrounded by armed Dragon Unit soldiers would have been suicide. He understood tactical reality.
Before leaving, Elric placed several bottles of water and basic medical supplies beside Zane, who lay injured but stable against the wall. A small gesture of respect for the former Marine who had tried to protect the students.
Nothing more.
Then he and the two girls left the ruined building.
After several rapid position shifts through the mist-shrouded campus, Elric arrived back at the faculty apartment building he'd claimed as his base.
"We're back," he called as they entered through the reinforced door.
The response was immediate.
Natasha, Jenna, and Grace rushed out from the hallway to meet him, concern evident on their faces.
But as soon as Natasha and Grace caught sight of Elsa standing quietly behind Elric...
They both stopped mid-step.
And simply exchanged a long, silent, knowing look.
No confrontation.
No dramatic accusations.
Just the tired, resigned acknowledgment of women who already knew exactly what kind of man they were dealing with—and had accepted it.
Only Jenna reacted openly with emotion.
Her cheeks puffed indignantly. Her eyebrows shot up. Her voice turned sharp and full of attitude:
"Oh, great. You went out for five minutes and came back with another one."
She crossed her arms, glaring at Elric with mock outrage that barely concealed her actual frustration.
Elric sighed heavily, already feeling exhausted.
The day was not over.
Not even close.
But he had survived. He had gained valuable intelligence. He had acquired new allies and resources.
And he had made his first real enemy in this new world—someone who would undoubtedly return.
Let them come, he thought. I'll be ready.
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