Elric pressed down on the accelerator again—hard.
The G-Wagon surged forward with a roar of engine power, tires screaming against pavement, and Andrew's broken body was swallowed beneath the heavy vehicle like nothing more than an inconvenient speed bump.
They burst through the destroyed campus gate at high speed, leaving Houston University—and its horrors—behind them.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the engine and rapid breathing.
Then Jenna stretched lazily in her seat with a teasing grin spreading across her face, her voice light and deliberately provocative:
"Ohhh~ that was Natasha's boyfriend back there, wasn't it?"
She leaned forward between the front seats, eyes glittering with mischief.
"Natasha, your dear ex-boyfriend just got run over by your new husband. You're not sad? Not even a little? You're not going to blame Elric for that, right?"
Natasha's face flushed bright crimson, her hands clenching into fists on her lap.
"You—! Stop talking complete nonsense!" Her voice came out sharper than intended, trembling slightly. "I broke up with him months ago! He has absolutely nothing to do with me anymore. Why would I possibly blame Elric for prioritizing our survival?"
But despite her defensive tone, there was genuine desperation underneath—a need for Elric to understand that she felt no loyalty to her past.
Elric didn't look at her, keeping his eyes fixed on the debris-strewn road ahead.
"Mm. I know."
Just two simple words. Calm. Matter-of-fact.
But Natasha's entire body relaxed at hearing them, and internally. He understood. He trusted her.
Jenna clicked her tongue dramatically, clearly enjoying the dynamic.
"Look at that—loyalty speedrun achieved. Impressive efficiency, Natasha."
Natasha covered her burning face with both hands.
"...Please stop commenting on my personal life..."
But there was no time for embarrassment or teasing.
Because—
The sky went dark.
A massive shadow suddenly covered the entire G-Wagon like an eclipse.
The monster's arm—the same one that had demolished the dormitory buildings—was reaching past the campus boundary, stretching impossibly far like a nightmare made of muscle and bone.
"Are you kidding me!?" Elric cursed loudly, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "It can reach THIS far outside the campus!?"
The colossal hand descended from above like a collapsing mountain, fingers spread wide enough to crush the entire vehicle flat.
The girls screamed in unison—
"ELRIC!!"
But the impact never came.
WHOOSH!
The G-Wagon vanished—reappearing hundreds of meters down the road in an instant, tires screeching as physics tried to catch up with the impossible displacement.
Elric had used his spatial swap ability on the entire vehicle, passengers and all, teleporting them to safety.
The monster's hand crashed into empty pavement behind them with devastating force, creating a crater and sending chunks of asphalt flying like shrapnel.
The G-Wagon flashed across broken roads like it was teleporting through a video game, each burst of movement bending distance itself in ways that made the passengers' stomachs lurch.
Teleport. Accelerate. Teleport. Accelerate.
It felt like riding inside a spaceship punching holes through reality itself.
The monster's massive arm reached again—and again—but finally, distance began forming between them as they moved farther from campus.
After ten relentless minutes of continuous spatial leaps mixed with high-speed driving, the monster's arm eventually withdrew, pulling back toward the university like a retreating tide.
The creature itself did not pursue them beyond campus boundaries.
Because it couldn't move.
Elric had noticed something critical during their escape—the creature's enormous eight legs were rooted, fused directly into the ground like the trunk of a massive tree. It was anchored to the campus itself, preventing it from traveling any significant distance.
It could only stretch its limbs outward to hunt.
If it ever fully frees itself from those roots, Elric thought grimly, the entire city will fall within minutes.
Natasha finally exhaled with shaking relief, her hand pressed against her chest.
"We made it... We're actually alive..."
Jenna immediately threw her arms around Elric's neck from behind and kissed him enthusiastically on the cheek.
"My hero~! You're absolutely amazing!"
Grace and Elsa both let out the breaths they had been unconsciously holding, their faces pale but grateful.
They weren't cheering loudly or celebrating—but their eyes said everything that needed to be said:
We would have died without him. Every single one of us.
They had successfully escaped the University District.
Elric turned the G-Wagon west, heading toward their intended destination:
Ginkgo Plaza—a high-end residential and commercial area on the wealthy side of Houston.
According to Natasha, it would take approximately two hours to reach by road under normal conditions.
These were not normal conditions.
The atmosphere outside the vehicle was a completely different kind of nightmare than what they'd experienced on the relatively sheltered university campus.
Collapsed streets with massive sinkholes. Burned-out cars overturned and smoking. Storefronts smashed open, their contents looted or scattered. Bodies lying in the gutters, some fresh, some already being consumed by the fog.
Screams echoed constantly in the distance.
Roars of mutated creatures hunting through the mist.
Gunshots firing sporadically—sometimes stopping abruptly mid-burst.
The apocalypse in the city proper was far more brutal and chaotic than what the campus survivors had witnessed in their relatively isolated bubble.
The urban streets felt like navigating through the final level of a nightmare survival game—except there were no respawns, no save points, no second chances.
Along the highway and side alleys, Elric's enhanced vision detected more than a dozen different mutated creatures prowling through the fog:
Muscle-twisted wolves the size of bears, their bodies grotesquely swollen. Eyeless humanoid figures that moved with disturbing coordination. Something that crawled horizontally like a centipede but screamed like a terrified person. A bird-like creature with too many wings and a mouth full of human teeth.
Everywhere, ordinary humans were being dragged down by these horrors and devoured without even the faintest hope of resistance.
And that was only the monsters.
The humans were somehow worse.
There is 50 chapter Advance, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
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