Zarek led them through the back of the commercial plaza, past empty stockrooms and a loading bay that smelled of rot.
He checked the exit door before opening it. No movement outside. No voices. Nothing waiting for them.
He pushed it open.
The street beyond was worse than he expected.
Cars sat abandoned at every angle. Some had crashed into storefronts, their hoods bent around poles. Others had been crushed under fallen concrete. A bus lay on its side near the intersection, windows shattered, the inside stained dark.
Buildings leaned or had collapsed entirely. Black roots had broken through walls and wrapped around balconies, streetlights, and power lines. They looked wet. Almost oily.
The air smelled of smoke, damp soil, and something bitter he couldn’t name.
No people calling for help. No survivors fighting over supplies. No voices coming from the buildings. The abandoned cars and open doorways suggested that people had been here, but the streets themselves were empty.
Elsa stopped near a car with its driver’s door hanging open. A child’s backpack lay on the road beside it. She looked at it for a moment, then looked away.
Ayesha stayed close to Zarek but kept checking the windows and intersections. Her rifle was empty, but she held it like it wasn’t. Every sound made her turn her head.
Zarek took it all in and a grin was starting to appear on his face.
The old world had rules. Police. Prisons. People who thought they could tell him what to do. All of that was gone now. What was left was a city full of wreckage and a world where the only law was who could take what.
He liked it.
"Where are we going?" Elsa asked.
"Somewhere with fewer walls."
"Is outside really safer?" Ayesha asked.
"No," he said. "But out here, I can see what’s trying to kill me."
They crossed the street between two abandoned cars. Zarek checked the nearest intersections as they went, looking for movement behind shattered windows or beneath the wreckage.
A black stain spread across the side of a delivery truck. Something had scratched deep grooves into the metal, leaving long strips of exposed steel.
He couldn’t tell whether a mutant had done it or something else entirely.
Ayesha noticed him studying the damage.
"What is it?"
"Nothing I recognize."
"That doesn’t bother you?"
"Of course it does."
She seemed surprised by the answer.
He glanced at her. "Being curious doesn’t mean being stupid. If something can tear through a truck like that, I’d rather know before it tries the same thing on me."
He continued across the road.
Ayesha followed without another question, although she began checking the wreckage more carefully.
They walked.
The black roots grew thicker the farther they went.
At first, Zarek thought they were spreading at random. Then he noticed patterns. Some buildings were covered in thick masses of the stuff, while others had only thin strands creeping across the road.
One patch had pushed up through the asphalt in a circle, lifting the road into jagged slabs. A streetlight nearby had been swallowed almost whole, its pole bent under the weight.
He crouched next to one of the exposed roots. The surface looked wet. Fine strands spread through cracks in the pavement and disappeared underground.
He didn’t touch it.
"Does this look normal to either of you?"
Elsa shook her head.
Ayesha kept her distance. "Nothing about this is normal."
"True. But this looks different even for the end of the world."
He stood up. He had no idea what the growth was or what it wanted, and guessing wouldn’t help him. He filed the observation away and moved on.
If the city was changing, the things living in it would change too. The mutants he’d fought so far might not be the worst of what was out here.
A faint crack came from beneath his boot.
He stepped back. The asphalt around the exposed root had split into several narrow lines, each running farther than he’d initially noticed.
One disappeared beneath a parked car. Another continued toward the building across the street.
He watched for several seconds, waiting to see whether anything moved.
Nothing did.
"Keep your distance from the roots," he told the women.
Elsa glanced at the cracked road. "Do you think they’re dangerous?"
"I think we know almost nothing about them. That’s enough reason not to touch them."
He didn’t intend to waste time experimenting with something he couldn’t identify. If the roots were harmless, avoiding them cost him nothing. If they weren’t, a little caution might save him a great deal of trouble.
He memorized the location and moved on.
They reached an open stretch of road. He checked his gear as he walked.
His sword was still his best weapon. The system’s enhancement had made him stronger than before, and that advantage had helped him in every fight since receiving it.
But the hotel mutants had been fast. The men in the plaza had been armed. He couldn’t always pick where a fight happened or who he fought.
He needed more power.
The system’s investment mechanic was one way to get it. Elsa was already bonded to him. He’d given her food, water, a weapon, and training. She’d earned achievements. Her Favorability had climbed to 30.
But 30 was nothing.
He needed Elsa to become stronger and achieve more. The greater her accomplishments, the more valuable his investment could become.
Improving her Favorability could also increase his returns, but that was the part he disliked. Fighting monsters was straightforward. Getting someone to like him was a different problem entirely.
He glanced at her. She was still favoring her injured arm, still gripping that pry bar like it was the only thing keeping her alive.
Then he looked at Ayesha. She walked a few steps behind, watching him like he might turn around and cut her down at any moment.
Two women. One bonded. One not. Both problems in different ways.
He could kill monsters. He could kill people. He could take whatever he wanted from the ruins. But making someone like him? That took time. Time he didn’t want to waste.
What a headache.
He pushed the thought aside and focused on what came next.
Elsa had exceptional potential. Ayesha had potential too, and there could be others out there worth finding. Relying on a single investment was stupid.
He needed more women like them. People with high potential who could grow, achieve things, and generate returns.
The system flagged them when they were close. That meant he had to go where people gathered. A shelter. A survivor camp. Somewhere with enough people that a few of them might be worth his time.
But there was a problem.
A shelter might contain dozens or even hundreds of survivors, but numbers alone meant nothing. Most people would probably offer little beyond another mouth to feed.
Some might possess useful skills, while others could become valuable through training and experience.
The difficult part was identifying the right people without getting trapped in someone else’s organization.
He had no interest in becoming a subordinate, following a shelter leader’s rules, or sharing his resources simply because a crowd demanded it.
If he found someone worth investing in, he wanted the freedom to make that decision himself.
For now, he would keep moving, gather information, and become strong enough that approaching a shelter wouldn’t mean walking into a situation he couldn’t control.
The world had barely ended, and he was already planning how to turn its survivors into opportunities.
Ayesha stopped walking.
"Did you hear that?"
Zarek turned. At first, there was only wind.
Then a sound rolled through the street. Low and rough, like something tearing.
A roar.
It came from beyond the intersection, past a collapsed building covered in black growth. The sound was too rough to be human. But there was something inside it that didn’t belong. Something almost like a voice.
Elsa’s grip tightened on the pry bar. Ayesha raised her empty rifle.
Another roar. Louder. Something heavy hit concrete. Then scraping. Long and slow, like claws dragging across stone.
The debris on the ground shook.
Zarek couldn’t see it yet. But whatever was making that sound was big. Big enough to move rubble just by walking.
His heart beat faster. Not from fear.
He tightened his grip on the sword.
"Well," he muttered. "That’s new."
From behind the ruined building came another roar. Closer now. Furious. And horribly, unmistakably human.