Chapter 130: Return to the Shelter

Inside the underground air-raid shelter, the stagnant air carried the familiar scent of damp concrete, rust, and oil. The low murmur of quiet conversations died down the instant a subtle spatial tremor rippled through the reinforced entry corridor.

Relief washed across the women’s faces as the dimensional threshold settled, revealing Ethan stepping through the Space Anchor Point after his long reconnaissance across the eastern district.

Debbie let out a long, quiet breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, her shoulders sagging from their rigid tension. Daisy, who had been resting against the wooden support pillar, straightened up with her hands relaxing against her sides. Elena, Tessa, and the others greeted him with visible smiles, their anxiety dissipating at the sight of him standing intact and uninjured.

Ethan acknowledged their greetings with a calm nod before focusing his mental authority on the spatial pocket. Opening the dimensional rift to his internal domain, he brought out the companions who had been recovering inside~Daisy, Sofia, and Debbie~along with the newcomer he had escorted out of Century Skyline.

The moment the spatial distortion cleared, the atmosphere within the crowded underground chamber froze.

Dozens of eyes settled instantly on the unfamiliar woman standing quietly at Ethan’s flank.

Victoria wore a simple, dust-stained white dress that reached her ankles. Despite her translucent complexion, her hollow cheeks, and the deep, visible exhaustion lingering in the dark circles beneath her eyes, her mature, aristocratic beauty was impossible to diminish. Even stripped of luxury, her tall figure, elegant posture, and the delicate contours of her features commanded immediate attention in the dim bunker lighting.

For several seconds, absolute silence hung over the underground shelter.

The women looked at Victoria, taking in her refined demeanor and the subtle way she stood close to Ethan for safety. Then, almost in complete unison, their gazes shifted toward Ethan.

Their expressions conveyed far more than words ever could~a mixture of wry exasperation, knowing glances, and silent resignation. It seemed that every time he ventured beyond the barricades on a dangerous combat mission, he inevitably managed to return with another strikingly beautiful woman.

Ethan kept his expression entirely neutral, deliberately pretending not to notice the silent interrogation burning into him.

Penny gave a quiet, audible huff, crossing her arms and looking pointedly toward the rusted steel door. Zara lowered her dark eyes, leaning back against an ammunition crate and continuing to clean the barrel of her sniper rifle, though the faint tips of her ears had visibly warmed to a light pink.

Before anyone could voice an awkward comment, a sudden, astonished gasp shattered the quiet.

"Victoria?"

Aria, who had been holding little Haley near the sleeping cots, hurried forward. Her eyes were wide with utter disbelief as she stared at the newcomer’s face, blinking repeatedly as though convinced the subterranean shadows were playing cruel tricks on her mind.

"Is that really you? Victoria from the class of ’01 at Silvermont No. 3 High School?"

Victoria stiffened, her dark eyes darting from the child to the woman approaching her. Confusion flickered across her face for a brief second before sheer recognition hit her like a physical blow.

"Aria!"

Victoria’s pale lips parted, her entire face lighting up with raw, unvarnished emotion. "My God... I can’t believe you’re alive!"

Aria rushed across the concrete floor, closing the distance and wrapping her free arm fiercely around her old classmate. Victoria dropped the handle of her leather suitcase without a second thought, throwing both arms around Aria’s shoulders and burying her face into her neck.

For a long moment, neither woman could utter a single coherent word.

Then, the heavy tears that had been held back by months of isolation and terror began to fall freely.

Back in their school days, the two had been virtually inseparable~sharing teenage secrets, spending afternoons studying together, laughing over the most trivial drama, and swearing to remain lifelong friends no matter where their careers took them. But after graduation, Victoria had traveled abroad for business school, while Aria had married and settled into family life in the suburbs. Their paths had naturally drifted apart as the years rolled by.

Neither of them had ever dreamed that their next meeting would occur decades later in the concrete bowels of an underground shelter during the collapse of human civilization.

Yet here they were, breathing, intact, and holding onto one another amid the ruins of their hometown.

The awkward, suspicious tension that had briefly clouded the bunker evaporated in an instant.

Victoria stepped back slightly, wiping her wet cheeks with the back of her trembling hand, a genuine, tearful smile breaking across her lips as she looked down at Haley. The young child blinked curiously up at her, reaching out a tiny hand that brushed against Victoria’s dust-streaked dress. The raw warmth of the reunion seemed to introduce a fragile, precious ember of humanity into a space that had grown cold and grim.

As Aria led Victoria toward the cots, softly recounting how Ethan had saved her and her daughter, Victoria’s dark eyes wandered thoughtfully across the interior of the shelter.

The facility was barely over a hundred square meters in total floor space. With every survivor Ethan brought back, the subterranean chamber was becoming severely congested. Crates of dried rations, bulk rice, and bottled water occupied one entire corner, stacked nearly to the low ceiling. Racks of assault rifles, ammunition tins, and melee blades were neatly lined along the western wall, leaving barely enough open floor for more than twenty people to sleep and move without brushing shoulders.

Yet, despite the cramped conditions and the ever-present threat of starvation or slaughter outside, the survivors here lived in remarkable harmony.

Elena walked over to Ethan, handing him a canteen of purified water with a quiet nod of respect. Tessa knelt beside him with practiced, clinical efficiency, placing her gentle hands over his shoulders to inspect his muscular frame for any hidden punctures or venom traces from his skirmishes. In the far corner, Debbie was patiently spooning warm broth for Nina, while Sofia organized medical bandages into clean plastic totes.

Victoria watched the coordinated scene with a profound sense of awe.

Her sharp, corporate instincts~honed by decades of managing high-stakes corporate enterprises~could not help but analyze the subtle dynamics at play. There were so many exceptional, capable women in this bunker, and every single one of them displayed genuine, unshakeable trust in Ethan.

She clicked her tongue inwardly in disbelief.

What kind of person has he become since the world ended?

The Ethan she vaguely remembered from the corporate headquarters had been a quiet, unassuming junior employee who kept his head down and blended into the background. That ordinary salaryman bore no resemblance whatsoever to the formidable, decisive leader standing before her now.

He was commanding, extraordinarily powerful, and carried an aura of absolute authority that drew people to him naturally. More remarkably, in an era where lawlessness turned survivors into violent beasts who abused the weak, he had maintained absolute order, providing safety and dignity to everyone under his protection without descending into tyranny.

Victoria’s slender fingers tightened around the handle of her suitcase once more.

The secret she had held back earlier~the truth about what remained concealed in the crawlspace beneath her ruined villa~surged to the surface of her mind. She opened her mouth slightly, the urge to confide in him pressing heavily against her chest.

Yet, as she watched Ethan quietly coordinating guard rotations with Elena and checking the defense perimeter, she hesitated.

The secret she carried was too bizarre, too dangerous, and carried implications she could barely understand herself. If she spoke now, amidst all these people, it might cause panic or disrupt the precarious balance he had fought so hard to build.

Perhaps... it’s better to wait until the time is right, she thought, lowering her eyelashes and stepping back to sit beside Aria.

Meanwhile, Ethan leaned against the cold concrete wall, his sharp eyes surveying the crowded room.

The physical limitations of this air-raid shelter were reaching a critical breaking point. With the addition of Victoria, the air was growing stale faster than the manual ventilation intake could scrub it. Sleeping spaces were overlapping, and hygiene was becoming an increasingly delicate logistical nightmare.

The Survival Space was the only permanent answer.

Although Victoria’s newly awakened Air Control ability could generate an emergency burst of oxygen for twenty people in a crisis, it was an active skill that exhausted her energy completely and went on a six-day cooldown. It could save them from immediate suffocation, but it was not a sustainable, passive ecosystem.

His thoughts drifted toward the unconscious Rose, who still lay unmoving on a cot inside the dimensional realm.

I still need an advanced Mental Ability Core to break the seal on Rose’s mind, Ethan reasoned, his jaw clenching slightly. Or, I must track down an Ability User with high-tier plant manipulation.

The Survival Space required an established ecosystem. Without plants capable of photosynthesizing on a massive scale, the space could not sustain life passively. And without someone to accelerate botanical growth, any saplings or vegetation he transplanted from the city would wither in the dark, foreign soil before a cycle could form.

"What are you brooding over?"

A soft, familiar voice interrupted his train of thought.

Ethan turned to find Daisy standing beside him. Her arms were folded loosely across her chest, a faint, delicate blush warming her fair cheeks, and her expressive eyes held a rare, hesitating vulnerability that she usually kept concealed behind her sharp wit.

Ethan understood the meaning behind her look instantly.

With the SSS-Rank Life Drain acquired from Victoria’s awakening added to his spatial mastery and the Breath of Corrosion, he now possessed the three pinnacle SSS-Rank abilities required to execute the profound ability fusion they had discussed.

And according to the ancient, mystical pathways of dual-cultivation and spatial energy resonance, finalizing that fusion required a profound, intimate bridging of their physical and spiritual cores.

"Wait until everyone is asleep," Ethan murmured, his voice dipping low so only she could hear.

Daisy’s eyelashes fluttered, her throat working as she gave a barely perceptible nod, turning her face away to hide the mounting heat in her cheeks.ℯ𝐥.𝒄ℴ𝓶