Chapter 133: Shadows

Three hundred kilometers away, deep beneath the ruined coastal city of Port Haven, a massive subterranean air-raid complex sat buried beneath collapsed skyscrapers and buckled highways.

The underground military installation was packed with thousands of survivors, but there was no sound of laughter, no human warmth, and not a single voice raised in casual conversation.

Hundreds of armed men and female workers moved through the reinforced corridors in absolute silence, their movements eerie, precise, and completely mechanical. Their eyes were dull and glazed over, their expressions frozen in blank obedience.

Upon the forehead of every single person in the complex sat a glowing, intricate mental mark.

At the very center of the bunker’s command room, seated behind an immaculate metal desk, Dr. Lilith Cross held an egg-sized, blood-red meteorite between her slender fingers.

She turned the mysterious stone slowly in the cold white light, tracing the jagged, alien patterns carved into its surface with a polished red fingernail.

Suddenly, a faint wisp of pale white vapor rose unexpectedly from the heart of the crimson meteorite.

It curled gracefully above her skin for a fleeting second before dissolving into nothingness.

Lilith’s fingers halted.

Her hand froze in mid-air. She arched a manicured eyebrow, her cold, calculating eyes narrowing slightly as a slow, dangerous smile crept across her red lips.

"Oh?"

She tilted her head, her gaze boring into the dark stone with renewed, razor-sharp curiosity.

"Ethan..."

Her smile widened into a cold, predatory grin that sent a shiver through the silent, mind-controlled guards standing around her.

"A Space Ability User. You truly do possess some fascinating little tricks, don’t you?"

She tapped the meteorite lightly with her index finger.

Ping.

A tiny, brilliant pinpoint of crimson light flared briefly on the stone’s rough surface, pulsing like a tiny heartbeat before sinking deep into its core.

Lilith leaned comfortably back against the leather backrest of her command chair, her amusement fading into icy, unyielding resolve.

"Even if the psychic tether on Rose has been broken, I have a dozen other ways to track down what belongs to me."

Her delicate fingers closed tightly around the meteorite, her knuckles whitening slightly.

"Ethan... you’ve officially drawn my attention. And I’ve set my sights entirely on that precious Survival Space of yours."

Her voice was soft, melodic, and devoid of petty anger.

There was only the chilling, absolute confidence of an apex predator who had never once failed to take what she desired.

She had lost her psychic link to Rose, but she had gained something far more tantalizing. Whatever miraculous dimensional haven Ethan was concealing in Silvermont City, Lilith intended to find it, breach it, and claim it for herself.

Meanwhile, across the ruins of Silvermont City near the public library, a very different kind of fury was brewing.

The Blackscale Drake stood amidst the rubble of a collapsed four-story department store, its massive, armored bulk casting a terrifying shadow across the broken pavement. Its nostrils flared wide, exhaling jets of hot, sulfurous vapor as it sniffed the cold night air with feral intensity.

Its powerful, muscular frame remained locked in a rigid combat stance, its golden, slit pupils darting rapidly from the cracked asphalt to the jagged rooftops above.

Only minutes ago, its razor-sharp senses had locked onto a faint, distinctive ripple of spatial energy radiating from this exact sector.

It had been close.

Unbearably close.

The scent of the human who had slipped past its territory was practically right before its snout.

Then, in a single fraction of a second, the presence had vanished into thin air.

The Blackscale Drake lowered its horned, armored head, sweeping its snout inches above the gravel, drawing deep, desperate breaths of the surrounding atmosphere.

Nothing.

It took three heavy, deliberate steps forward, its massive, razor-tipped claws tearing deep, jagged furrows into the solid concrete.

The energy signature hadn’t just faded with distance.

It hadn’t slipped away into the alleys.

It had been extinguished completely, as though an impenetrable, invisible mountain had abruptly dropped out of the sky and sealed the scent behind an absolute void.

The black, armored scales along the creature’s spine bristled with mounting rage.

A flicker of genuine confusion passed through its savage golden eyes, instantly replaced by an explosive, violent frustration.

It pivoted toward the empty clearing where the fluctuation had originated, a low, tectonic rumble building deep within its armored chest.

BAM!

The drake slammed its colossal forelimb down onto the street with devastating, concussive force. The pavement fractured into spiderwebs of jagged stone, sending heavy slabs of asphalt flying into the air as its claws gouged a crater into the earth.

The beast reared back its massive head and unleashed a deafening, sky-splitting roar.

The sound wave rolled across the abandoned district like a sonic cannon, shattering the remaining glass windows in a hundred-meter radius and sending flocks of roosting mutant crows shrieking into the night sky.

The drake sniffed the churning dust once more.

Still absolute, empty silence.

Whatever creature had dared to linger on the edge of its domain was completely gone, swallowed by an invisible barrier it had no means of understanding.

The Blackscale Drake’s golden pupils narrowed into murderous slits.

It was an undisputed ruler of the ruins, having survived the dawn of the apocalypse by crushing everything that stood before it through sheer, overwhelming savagery. When it scented food, it hunted. When another beast challenged its territory, it tore it apart.

Yet tonight, its ancient, infallible predatory senses had been rendered utterly useless.

The massive beast paced in tight, agitated circles through the dust, its tail whipping through brick walls and sending clouds of debris crashing into the gutters.

It did not know what kind of power had severed its tracking.

It did not know where the human had disappeared to.

However, the memory of that strange spatial ripple was now permanently burned into the beast’s mind. And the Blackscale Drake was not a creature that would ever let its chosen prey slip away unpunished.