The colorful supernatural fog that perpetually blanketed the apocalyptic world wasn't always uniformly thick and impenetrable.
Sometimes, seemingly at random, it would thin dramatically—allowing visibility to stretch clearly across the entire residential community and even beyond.
And right now, at this critical moment—visibility was rapidly widening.
Not only Elric with his enhanced Clairvoyance, but also Natasha, Elsa, Jenna, Grace, Shay, and many other residents scattered throughout Ginkgo Heights' various buildings could finally see what was happening in the central courtyard below.
The stage was set. The audience was watching.
Elric walked calmly to the floor-to-ceiling window, positioning himself for optimal viewing angle. The four most confident women—Natasha, Jenna, Grace, and Elsa—followed just behind him without hesitation.
He casually wrapped one muscular arm around Jenna's waist, the other around Grace's shoulders—holding them both effortlessly against his sides in a possessive display.
Both women leaned into his touch naturally, comfortable with the physical intimacy.
Shay, still wearing her medical mask to hide her disfigured face, paused several steps behind the group. A flicker of unmistakable sadness and longing passed through her visible eyes.
She quietly turned away from the intimate scene and started mechanically cleaning the already-clean apartment, organizing things that didn't need organizing.
She understood her position painfully well:
As long as her face remained severely scarred and "not aesthetically acceptable," she could only lower her presence, help silently from the background, and desperately avoid being deemed unwanted or disposable.
The cruel hierarchy was clear. Beauty granted privilege. Damage meant invisibility.
Downstairs — Ground Level
"Here she comes."
Through the thinning fog, a graceful silhouette emerged from Building 8's entrance—confident, purposeful, striking.
Erin Summers, dressed in her signature black leather jacket, form-fitting black leather mini-skirt, and knee-high heeled boots, walked forward with both hands casually thrust into her jacket pockets.
Her steps were sharp, measured, absolutely confident.
Click. Click. Click.
Her boot heels struck the pavement with a bold, rhythmic cadence as she strode directly toward Rick and his assembled gang of thugs.
Rick was still laughing loudly at that moment, watching with sadistic pleasure as his men continued brutalizing the captured influencer girl they'd dragged from Building 2.
Their leader stood back like a director enjoying his own violent theater production, even shouting instructions and critiques to his men.
"You trash! Move faster!"
"Hurry up! Put more energy into it!"
"If anyone slacks off, I'll personally crush someone's skull as motivation!"
He had once been an absolute nobody—a pathetic basement-dwelling simp whose only interaction with attractive women was through donation messages.
Now he commanded violent mobs like a petty tyrant, drunk on his newfound power and complete lack of consequences.
He raised his voice even louder, reveling in his authority—
—then froze abruptly at the sound of approaching footsteps cutting through the chaos.
He turned sharply, irritation flashing across his face.
"Who the hell dares interrupt me?! Are you looking for—"
Then he saw her.
His eyes widened dramatically. His jaw went slack. His brain seemed to short-circuit.
Erin Summers.
The influencer goddess he used to worship desperately from behind a computer screen, donating his entire paycheck just for a moment of acknowledgment—now walking directly toward him in real life.
"Holy... shit..."
She was even more beautiful in person than in her heavily produced videos and photoshopped images.
For several seconds, Rick almost literally drooled, his higher brain functions temporarily shutting down.
Erin looked at Rick as though he were a rotting sewer rat—something beneath contempt, barely worthy of acknowledgment.
"Disgusting man," she said flatly, her voice carrying absolute disdain.
It was precisely pathetic men like him—violent, entitled, predatory—who had pushed her completely toward preferring women exclusively.
She raised both hands smoothly, dark supernatural light immediately forming and condensing in her palms.
Two spinning light wheels materialized—circular blades of compressed energy rotating at incredible speeds, humming with deadly potential.
They shot forward instantly with a sharp whistling sound.
"Ugh—!!"
This was her awakened Devil Fruit ability:
HALO — Rotational Light Wheels
Fast, razor-sharp, absolutely deadly when properly wielded.
Erin had killed her predatory male neighbor with these exact weapons back on Day 3 of the apocalypse—the man who had tried to force his way into her apartment. That was how she'd survived the initial chaos and stolen his supplies and weapons.
She trusted this power completely after multiple successful uses.
These thugs? Rick? Not even a legitimate challenge in her assessment.
"You have superpowers too?!"
Rick's eyes went wide with genuine shock as he barely rolled backward, the twin halos missing him by mere inches and carving deep grooves into the pavement where he'd been standing.
But the spinning wheels didn't stop or dissipate after missing their initial target.
They shot past him without slowing—
Heading straight toward the dozen men currently attacking the sobbing influencer girl on the ground.
Erin's intent was absolutely clear:
She would eliminate all of them. Every single one.
Even if she wasn't personally attracted to the victim, she absolutely refused to allow another woman to suffer at the hands of violent men if she had the power to prevent it.
SLASH— SLASH—
The light wheels sliced through the clustered thugs with horrifying efficiency, cutting through flesh and bone like they were paper.
Twenty men dropped instantly—limbs separating, torsos bisecting, blood spraying in arterial arcs across the pavement.
The captured influencer girl, shaken and sobbing hysterically, scrambled desperately to pull on her torn clothes and ran for her life toward the nearest building entrance.
The crowd of watching residents erupted from their windows:
"Oh my God, did you see that?!"
"We're saved!"
"She cut down the powered thug's entire gang!"
"That girl from Building 8—she actually did it!"
"Hooray! Hooray!"
The Ginkgo Heights owners' group chat exploded with celebratory messages. People watching from windows throughout the complex cheered wildly, hope surging for the first time in days.
"You BITCH!" Rick roared with volcanic fury, spittle flying from his mouth.
"You think having a superpower makes you special?!"
His face twisted with rage and humiliation—being shown up by a woman, being made to look weak in front of everyone watching.
"You little dyke—I'll break your legs and strap you to a bed! See how arrogant you are then!"
He no longer cared about his earlier plan to keep influencers "untouched" for his personal collection.
He only wanted to hurt her now. Dominate her. Make her suffer.
His arms suddenly expanded grotesquely—swelling to several times their normal size, muscles bulging unnaturally like balloons filled with meat.
His Devil Fruit ability: PARTIAL ENLARGEMENT
Any body part he focused on could grow exponentially—and with increased size came dramatically enhanced strength and durability.
Hands large enough to crush skulls like eggs.
Arms durable enough to resist blade strikes.
He charged toward Erin with his enlarged limbs—
Ready to tear her apart with his bare hands.
His right arm stretched out over thirty feet in length, and his hand expanded until it was nearly fifteen feet wide—a massive, fleshy wall that blotted out the light as it swung down toward her like a falling building.
"Waaah—!"
The palm, easily the size of a small car roof, came crashing down toward Erin Summers with bone-crushing force.
But Erin didn't flinch or attempt to dodge.
"You think my wheels don't come back after I throw them?" she said with cold amusement.
She made a single sharp pulling motion with her fingers, as if yanking invisible strings.
WHRRRRR—!!
Behind Rick, the two halos she had launched earlier suddenly reversed direction—spinning rapidly back toward him like returning boomerangs, their edges glowing with intensified cutting power.
Rick felt the air pressure change and heard the distinctive whistling sound.
"You can control them remotely?!"
Horror flashed across his face as he tried desperately to pull back his massive extended arm—but such an enormous, grotesquely enlarged limb simply couldn't move fast enough to avoid the attack.
SHRICK—!!
Both light wheels carved straight into his enlarged arm simultaneously, cutting through enhanced muscle and reinforced bone with surgical precision.
"AAAHHH—!!"
Blood sprayed in a high-pressure fountain across the pavement.
His giant severed hand hit the ground with a wet, meaty THUD, still twitching with residual nerve impulses.
Rick staggered backward, screaming in genuine agony, collapsing partially as shock and blood loss hit him.
The watching crowd erupted again with even greater enthusiasm.
Upstairs in Building 9, Natasha, Elsa, Jenna, Grace, and even Shay all stared in genuine amazement.
"The girl in leather... she's actually that strong?" Jenna whispered with undisguised admiration.
But Elric... Elric just watched silently, his expression completely neutral.
No surprise. No excitement. No concern.
He had already understood from the beginning—
Neither Erin nor Rick posed any legitimate threat to him whatsoever.
Their abilities were crude toys compared to his multiple mastered Devil Fruit powers.
With a single concentrated magma fist, he could eliminate both of them instantly if he chose.
This was merely... entertainment. Intelligence gathering. Letting them exhaust themselves before collection.
"Tch. Worthless man," Erin spat contemptuously at Rick's writhing form.
Even with supernatural powers, these vermin were nothing against her refined Halo ability and superior combat instincts.
She snapped her fingers decisively.
Her twin light wheels looped upward in elegant arcs, repositioning to deliver the final killing blow to Rick's throat.
But then—
Rick's severed arm stump suddenly twitched violently.
And without warning—
DOZENS OF ARMS erupted from the wound like grotesque tentacles, bursting from his torso and shoulders and back, snaking outward in all directions.
All of them rapidly expanding to massive size simultaneously.
Before Erin could react or reposition—
Half the newly grown arms grabbed her spinning halos out of the air, crushing them in giant fists.
The other half wrapped around Erin herself, massive hands closing around her torso and limbs from multiple angles, crushing her with overwhelming force.
"Hahaha!" Rick roared triumphantly through his pain, his face twisted into a manic grin.
"You didn't know I have TWO abilities, did you?!"
"I ate another ability fruit just yesterday!"
"I awakened Thousand Hands!"
"And combined with my Enlargement power—my total strength is TEN TIMES greater than you estimated!"
Rick pushed himself back to his feet despite the blood loss, grinning insanely, his entire body now writhing with dozens of expanding arms like some nightmarish Hindu deity.
His earlier screams of agony had been partly an act—a calculated deception to make Erin lower her guard and move in for an easy finish.
And it had worked perfectly.
Erin was completely trapped—multiple giant hands crushing her from all sides.
She struggled desperately, her chest being compressed so severely she could barely draw breath. Her ribs creaked dangerously, on the verge of snapping.
She had never seriously imagined she would die... to a pathetic thug like this.
She hadn't flirted with enough beautiful women yet. She had so many plans. She didn't want to go out like this—crushed to death in a parking lot.
Her halos were pinned and neutralized. Her ribs were about to fracture completely.
Rick's multiple grips tightened simultaneously—
"DIE, BITCH!"
Erin gasped desperately—her world rapidly fading to black as oxygen deprivation set in—
Just then—
BOOOOOOM—!!!
A wave of absolutely blistering heat slammed into the entire courtyard like a physical force.
The temperature spiked by at least fifty degrees Celsius in an instant.
A colossal MAGMA FIST—easily ten meters in diameter, burning with the heat of molten earth—erupted into existence directly before Erin's fading eyes.
It crashed down on the dozens of giant hands crushing her with overwhelming destructive force.
The pavement cracked and shattered into fragments.
The night glowed hellish red, casting dancing shadows across every building.
Steam and smoke billowed in massive clouds.
Rick froze completely—his eyes widening in absolute terror as he looked up—
The real monster had finally arrived.
There is 50 chapter Advance, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
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