Chapter 128: The Awoken Gale

Ethan looked at Victoria standing before him, her shoulders trembling under the weight of weeks of suppressed grief and fear.

In this cruel, post-apocalyptic world, pure sympathy had never saved a single life. If someone lacked the strength to fight back, their survival was nothing more than an borrowed grace that could be revoked by any passing beast or scavenger.

"Victoria, take this."

Ethan reached into his storage space and retrieved the diamond-shaped Core he had obtained from the Hyena King.

He held it out to her. The crystalline surface pulsed with a deep, steady inner radiance, casting soft reflections across her pale features.

"This Core can help you awaken an Ability."

Victoria stared at the crystal resting in his palm.

Her pupils contracted sharply as she sensed the concentrated energy radiating from it. The air around the gem seemed to vibrate with a faint, warm hum that sent a tingle across her skin.

She knew all too well how precious Cores were.

During her solitary weeks hiding in the darkness of the villa, she had watched through the narrow slats of the curtains as survivors fought and butchered one another in the streets over stones far smaller than this. She had seen desperate women strip off their dignity and clothes in frantic attempts to trade their bodies for a single fragment of a Core, only to be cheated, abandoned, or murdered the moment the predators grew bored.

In the Apocalypse, a Core was not merely a treasure; it was the absolute dividing line between life and death.

And the one Ethan was holding out to her felt exponentially purer and more terrifyingly potent than any ordinary crystal she had ever glimpsed from a distance.

"This is too precious..."

Victoria instinctively took a step backward, raising both hands to her chest.

"I can’t accept something like this, Ethan. I haven’t done anything to deserve it."

Ethan didn’t let her back away. He stepped forward smoothly, his fingers reaching out to gently yet firmly wrap around her slender wrist, halting her retreat.

"Take it."

His voice was calm, firm, and entirely devoid of hesitation.

"In this world, you can’t rely on luck alone to survive. Hiding in a basement will only work until someone kicks down the door. Without an Ability, you’re always going to be at a disadvantage."

He looked directly into her tear-glistened eyes, his dark gaze cutting straight through her lingering doubt.

"You’ve already seen what happens to people who can’t protect themselves. You watched your family die because they had no power against the beasts. You know better than anyone why you need the strength to defend yourself."

Victoria’s gaze dropped back down to the gleaming diamond crystal.

Every single word Ethan spoke hammered into the deepest, rawest wounds in her heart.

She remembered her husband transforming into a mindless corpse before her eyes. She remembered her brother screaming as the mutated hound sank its fangs into his flesh. And most agonizingly, she remembered the sound of heavy boots on the floorboards above her head, the brutal blows, and the fading whimpers of her sister-in-law dying so that she might live.

She didn’t want to live in terror anymore. She never wanted to crouch in the pitch-black dirt, clamping her hands over her mouth while the people around her bled out.

Her fingers trembled violently as she reached out, accepting the crystal from his palm.

The moment her skin touched the facets, a gentle, soothing warmth spread across her hands. It flowed up her arms like a gentle current, filling her chest with an unexpected sense of security.

She looked up at Ethan.

In a lawless wasteland where fathers betrayed sons and neighbors murdered each other for scraps of moldy bread, this young man—a former junior employee she had barely known—had freely handed her a priceless treasure that could alter her destiny forever. And he had done so without demanding a single compromise or condition.

A profound, suffocating sense of gratitude bloomed in her chest.

Her eyes shone with a fierce, newfound resolve. Without another second of hesitation, she lifted the diamond-shaped Core to her lips and swallowed it.

She wanted an Ability.

She wanted the power to protect her own life, so that she would never again have to watch someone die for her while she remained a helpless spectator.

The moment the Core slipped down her throat and dissolved into her bloodstream, a cascade of glowing golden notifications erupted in rapid succession before Ethan’s eyes.

[Gifted a Leader-Level Core to a female target with a Beauty Score of 96.]

[First gift to this target. Base Return unlocked.]

[Victoria Sterling, 37 years old. Beauty Score: 96. Rarity: 99.]

[Base Return: 120x.]

[Emotional fluctuation detected: Immense Gratitude + Strong Will to Survive!]

[Super-High Bonus Drop triggered!]

[Returned: SSS-Rank Ability, Life Drain.]

[Life Drain: Absorbs biological energy and converts it into the user’s own energy. The amount absorbed is inversely proportional to the target’s biological level.]

[Victoria Sterling has awakened an SS-Rank Ability: Air Control.]

[Air Control: Allows the user to form 10-centimeter Air Blades and attack targets within a range of 100 meters. By exhausting her available energy, the user can generate enough breathable oxygen to support twenty people for one hour.]

[Cooldown: 6 days.]

A sudden, searing wave of heat erupted directly from Ethan’s core.

His body tensed as a profound, ancient stream of energy flooded his veins and meridians, bringing with it a deep, predatory hum unlike anything he had ever felt before.

’An SSS-Rank Ability? Life Drain?’

Ethan’s eyes flashed with silent excitement.

The ability to directly siphon biological energy from enemies and convert it into his own reserves was an absolute game-changer for prolonged warfare. It essentially granted him infinite stamina and sustainability in mass battles.

Even better, Victoria’s awakened SS-Rank Ability was Air Control—a power capable of generating pure, breathable oxygen. That secondary function alone instantly solved the single greatest bottleneck of his Survival Space: the suffocating ten-day oxygen limit for its inhabitants.

Before Ethan could delve further into his new power, a faint, high-frequency disturbance in the air pulled his attention back to Victoria.

She was standing still, her head tilted down, staring at her open right hand in stunned disbelief.

The air directly above her palm was beginning to twist and distort, bending the fading twilight like heat shimmering off summer asphalt.

Slowly, a razor-thin, translucent blade of hyper-compressed air condensed into solid form. It was only ten centimeters long, hovering a fraction of an inch above her delicate skin, yet the violently spinning currents around its edges produced a faint, razor-sharp whistling sound that made the hairs on Ethan’s neck stand up.

Victoria stared at the spinning wind blade, hardly daring to breathe.

Then, guided by pure, unbridled instinct, she flicked her wrist and swung her hand toward the marble floor of the balcony.

The Air Blade shot forward like a phantom.

Crack!

A sharp, whip-like impact cracked across the terrace.

A straight, deep trench appeared instantly in the solid marble where the invisible blade had struck. The edges of the cut were clean, sharp, and smoking with pulverized stone dust.

Victoria froze completely.

She looked at the shattered stone at her feet, and then slowly turned her palm back toward her face.

"I..."

Her voice caught hard in her throat.

"I really... I really have an Ability!"

The sheer, breathtaking reality of what had just happened crashed over her all at once.

For the first time since the sky turned red and the dead rose to devour the living, she possessed the power to defend herself. She was no longer a defenseless sheep waiting for wolves to find her cellar. She no longer had to cower, starve, or plead for scraps from armed marauders.

A broken, breathless laugh escaped her lips, quickly melting into heavy, cathartic sobs.

Before Ethan could take a step back, Victoria surged forward and threw both arms tightly around his neck.

She clung to him with all the strength left in her body, burying her wet face against his broad chest as hot tears soaked through the fabric of his shirt.

This time, they were not the bitter tears of despair or grief.

They were the overwhelming tears of a condemned prisoner who had just been granted absolute freedom and a second chance at life.