Apocalypse: Every Woman I Invest In Makes Me Stronger

The lead scavenger~a massive bald brute wearing a torn black mercenary vest and bearing a jagged, pale-white scar running from his temple down to his jawline~forced his heavy boot forward.

CRACK!

The villa’s heavy front door shuddered violently under the kinetic impact. A second savage kick shattered the deadbolt housing, and the timber frame splintered inward with a deafening crash that echoed through the high-ceilinged hall.

”Boys! Did you hear that?!” the bald brute bellowed, throwing his head back in rough, jagged laughter that filled the grand salon. ”That was definitely a woman screaming for mercy!”

He stepped across the threshold, his greedy eyes sweeping over the dusty furniture with the smug satisfaction of an apex hunter claiming a trapped rabbit.

”It has been way too long since we bagged some fresh merchandise!” he shouted over his shoulder to the shadows behind him. ”We are going to have a fantastic time tonight, brothers!”

More than a dozen armed mercenaries poured through the ruined doorway behind him, forming a tight, aggressive wedge.

They carried a chaotic arsenal of submachine guns, hunting rifles, and blood-crusted machetes. The cold moonlight glinted off their tactical metal plating as they fanned out across the open living room, their heavy boots grinding broken wood, shattered porcelain, and dry debris into the floorboards.

The sudden influx of armed killers filled the room with the stale reek of cheap tobacco, sweat, and unwashed bodies.

The bald brute strode straight toward the center of the salon, his gaze dropping to the floor where a half-eaten crust of dry bread lay resting near the service hallway. He nudged it contemptuously with the toe of his combat boot.

”Looks like they were dining in style,” he chuckled, raising his rifle. ”Spread out! Check every single corner, every closet, and every bathroom. Nobody leaves this floor until we find that little mouse!”

The mercenaries grunted in affirmation, swinging their rifle barrels toward the dark corridors.

One of the scouts pushed past the wreckage of a side table and pointed a trembling finger toward the dark entrance leading down into the basement crawlspace.

”Boss! Over here! The sound came right from this section!”

The scarred brute grinned, revealing a row of yellowed teeth, and marched heavily toward the basement threshold. He stared down the pitch-black stone steps, his expression twisting into aggressive confusion as absolute silence greeted him from below.

”Hey! Come out of the dark, little girl!” he barked, kicking a loose stone down the staircase. ”You can’t hide from us forever!”

He turned his head back to survey the empty living room, his brow furrowing as a nagging sense of unease tickled the back of his mind.

”Wait a minute...”

He rubbed the heavy stubble along his jawline, his eyes narrowing as he looked around the desolate salon.

”We clearly heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs just outside this room. There were two people standing right here a second ago!”

His subordinates exchanged uneasy, bewildered glances, lowering their weapons slightly. They had swept the immediate perimeter, but the villa offered no answers~only the distant, mournful howling of the night wind through shattered glass and the faint, dragging groans of low-tier ghouls echoing from the avenue outside.

None of them had seen anyone escape through the front veranda.

And none of them possessed the slightest comprehension of how two human beings could evaporate into thin air right in the middle of a sealed room.

Meanwhile, light years away from the ruined sprawl of Century Skyline, an entirely different reality enveloped the interior of the Survival Space.

The abrupt, absolute shift in atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature left Evelyn completely disoriented.

One microsecond, her hand had been gripped tightly by a terrifying stranger inside a dark, hostile villa filled with the ghosts of her trauma. The next instant, her canvas shoes stumbled against a soft, cool expanse of natural earth beneath an immense, crystal-clear sky that possessed no ceiling of concrete.

Her knees buckled under the spatial momentum, and she nearly lost her footing entirely.

A steady, calloused hand released her wrist, granting her the stability she needed to catch her balance.

She staggered backward three paces, blinking rapidly as her wide eyes scanned her new surroundings in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.

A vast, rolling expanse of dark, fertile soil stretched out as far as her eyes could see, fading into a mist-shrouded horizon. The air she drew into her lungs was astonishingly crisp, cool, and rich with the natural, sweet aroma of damp earth and growing green life. Far off in the center of the open plain, a pristine lake shimmered like polished glass under the dome’s ambient light, its surface rippling lazily under a gentle, nonexistent breeze.

There were no shattered high-rises blocking the stars.

There were no blood-splattered boulevards littered with skulls.

There were no low-tier ghouls dragging their decaying limbs through alleyways.

For the first time since the sky turned red at the dawn of the apocalypse, the atmosphere did not carry the suffocating, nauseating stench of absolute decay.

Evelyn froze like a marble statue.

Her jaw dropped slack, but no sound managed to escape her throat. Her hands hovered uselessly in the air.

”Where... where in the world are we?” she whispered, her voice trembling in profound awe.

Before Ethan could formulate a comforting reply, a soft, crystalline chime rang out from the open air nearby.

A radiant pillar of pale azure light materialized near the wooden cabin, its illumination crystallizing into a floating, translucent communication screen.

Instantly, a familiar, desperate voice broke through the quiet domain, thick with agonizing anxiety:

”Ethan?! Ethan, are you there?!”

It was Victoria.

The CEO’s voice cracked, vibrating with raw, unbridled panic and remorse. ”I’m sorry... oh God, I am so sorry, I lied to you...”

A ragged sob interrupted her transmission. ”My niece Evelyn is still trapped down in that basement! Please, I am begging you, go back to the villa and bring her here safely! She is the absolute last family I have left in this entire wasteland. I...”

She cut off mid-sentence, her breathing hitching as she struggled desperately to regain control over her breaking emotions.

”Please, Ethan. If you ever had an ounce of mercy... can you please help me save her?”

Beside Ethan, Evelyn’s head snapped upward at the sound of the speaker.

Her eyes dilated to their absolute limit as she recognized the beloved voice echoing through the spatial anchor.

”Auntie?!”

Without a second thought, Evelyn bolted across the dark soil, sprinting toward the glowing column of light as tears instantly flooded her lower lashes.

Ethan raised his left hand calmly, blocking her path with a firm wall of spatial authority.

”Hold on. Wait a second.”

He pivoted toward the shimmering communication node, his dark eyes frosting over with cold amusement.

”Victoria Sterling, you have certainly mastered the art of guarding complex secrets, haven’t you?”

On the remote end of the link inside the air-raid shelter, the CEO froze in absolute terror.

”I treated you with complete good faith,” Ethan continued, his tone dropping into a steady, razor-sharp edge. ”I handed you an Evolved Core to awaken your personal Ability, giving you an absolute lifeline to protect your own skin in this harsh world, and I trusted you enough to grant you total freedom of movement.”

Ethan’s gaze sharpened into a cold glare.

”And this is how you repay that trust? You deliberately lied to my face, concealing the existence of another survivor hiding right beneath your feet.”

Victoria’s face materialized on the floating display screen. She looked thoroughly wretched, her shoulders hunched and her complexion drained of color as wave after wave of crushing guilt washed over her features.

”I am sorry, Ethan. Truly, I never intended to actively deceive you,” Victoria pleaded, her voice shaking as she lowered her eyes in shame.

”Evelyn and I were both trapped in that house when my sister-in-law was slaughtered,” she murmured, her voice barely carrying across the link. ”After witnessing that nightmare, we developed an absolute, unyielding terror of strange men. I was utterly terrified that you would turn out to be another monster like those executioners, so I panicked and...”

”So, in your calculated judgment, you decided I was no different from those baseline animals?”

Ethan cut her off with a sharp, cold laugh.

Victoria flinched as though she had been struck across the face with an iron rod. ”I never said that...”

”No, but your actions spoke volumes.”

His voice remained quiet, yet the undeniable weight of the betrayal left the seasoned executive entirely speechless.

Ethan cast a sidelong glance toward Evelyn, who stood a few feet away, her eyes locked onto the glowing projection. Fresh tears were streaming down her pale cheeks, but the paralyzing dread that had choked her back in the villa had completely evaporated, replaced by an overwhelming tide of profound relief.

He pivoted back toward the anchor point.

”I can completely understand why you were terrified for your niece. What your family endured was nothing short of demonic. But you could have simply told me the truth instead of turning me into a criminal in your mind.”

Victoria pressed her lips together until they turned bloodless.

She knew he possessed every right to condemn her. She had been so consumed by her pathological fear of betrayal that she had lied to the only powerful protector capable of keeping them alive.

And now, with Evelyn standing safely on the other side of the spatial divide, her deception stood completely exposed.

Ethan crossed his arms over his chest, a teasing spark dancing in his dark eyes.

”Fine. I went out of my way and rescued your niece, exactly as you were crying for.”

Victoria looked up toward the screen with a faint, desperate glimmer of hope.

Then, Ethan’s mouth twitched into an unmistakably roguish grin.

”However, you deliberately lied to me and abused my trust. So, CEO Sterling, tell me... exactly what are you prepared to do to properly make it up to me?”