LOGIN"Aunt Ruby?"Hayley's eyes lit up when she saw Ruby open hers.The next second, Ruby coughed up a mouthful of bright red blood. "Ugh!""Aunt Ruby!" Hayley dropped to Ruby's side immediately, grabbing her wrist. Her skin was ice cold, like a corpse's. "Aunt Ruby..."Just then, Alex came rushing over."Hayley, we just received a message from Ascendant Creed."He pulled up a recording and hit play."Ms. Reid, you've impressed us once again. To Ascendant Creed, you are now invaluable. Your aunt has been injected with a special compound. Without the antidote, she won't last a week. We have no desire to harm you or anyone you care about. Join us. The great Ascendant Creed is where you belong, and you will become its true leader. You have my word."Hayley stood there, listening to the cold, emotionless voice, lofty like some distant god. Her chest rose and fell, anger simmering beneath the surface."Don't listen to them."An old voice cut in.An elderly man in a wheelchair approach
If the guards ever tried to resist, they died.So no one ran.They all believed the outside world was nothing but a zombie hell.And now, they were staring at something just as stable as Ascendant Creed's system.Except here, there were no zombies. More importantly, life here had gone back to how it was before the apocalypse."Feels pretty good following our boss, huh?" Griffin said with a grin."Yeah! Griffin, we're sticking with you from now on. Wherever you go, we go!""Stick with our boss," Griffin corrected.The ten of them exchanged looks, then one of them scratched his head. "To be honest, we still don't even know who our boss is."Griffin went silent.Hayley handed the new arrivals over to Robert. All of them would be absorbed into her base."I've got good news." Liam walked over quickly, his face lit up. He gave her a once-over, clearly relieved she was safe."What is it?""We took Crestford."Hayley had been worrying about Ruby, but at that, she snapped her head
"Wait!" Hayley called out to the starry-eyed man. "What exactly is Ascendant Creed trying to do?"The man stopped, something heavy settling across his expression. "Ascendant Creed's goal is evolution. Stop going up against them. Even if you destroy the Sovereign Academy, the Sovereign Research Institute, or Sovereign Industries, you still won't touch their core. Those are just the surface. Go back and lie low. Stay away from them."He finished and walked straight toward the helicopter behind him, its engine still running. The rotors thundered as it lifted off and disappeared into the distance.Hayley stood there, the word "evolution" echoing over and over in her mind.At 3 a.m., a Haylight League helicopter arrived. Under the startled eyes of Tavian's people, Hayley led Ruby and the others aboard."Hey, don't forget to introduce me when your aunt wakes up!" Tavian shouted."Of course. I'll tell her there's a handsome guy here who fell for her while she was asleep."Tavian beam
"None of them tried to come here?"Tavian shook his head. "They thought about it, but getting here is hard. This island is far from the mainland. All I can do is hope they hold on. God willing."Hayley nodded, thinking it over.It was the same everywhere. The whole world looked like this now. The only problem was that none of these groups had come together. Spread this thin, they didn't stand a chance."Where are you from?" Tavian suddenly asked."Henerland.""You've got to be kidding.""Wish I was." Hayley gave a small smile and let the topic drop."By the way, who's the sleeping beauty in your group?""My aunt."Ruby had started running a fever back on the boat and had been unconscious ever since."She's incredible. I've never seen anyone that beautiful. When she wakes up, could you introduce me?"Hayley paused.Right then, she heard the thudding chop of rotor blades overhead. A helicopter was coming in.The moment she heard it, something felt off. Liam could not have g
Hayley slammed the throttle forward and shot across the sea, clearing the fighter jets' range in seconds.She lifted her head and looked back at the aircraft pulling away behind her.They gave up?No way Scott suddenly went soft and let her go. Her gaze settled on the last helicopter, the one that looked different from the rest.Someone had let them go.Hayley wasn't the type to stand on ceremony. If someone let her go, she wasn't about to question it. She just ran with it."Move!"They drifted across open water for a full day.There was no signal at all. Nothing but ocean in every direction, no towers, no relay points. There was no way to reach her league. By her estimate, they were already on the far side of the ocean.It was way too far out.She needed a signal tower. That was the only way to reconnect.Near evening, her device finally picked up a weak signal."There's a signal tower over there!"Following the signal, she found a small survivor base on an island. The is
Five minutes later, Hayley shoved open the gates to District Two and led Willow and the others out in a sprint.It was already 8 p.m. Outside, security teams were everywhere, sweeping the area and hunting people down. The entire island was on lockdown.Half the guards were in District Three, putting down zombies and clearing the area, while the other half were stationed everywhere else, tightening security and tracking suspects.There were 20 guards in the control room alone, all of them glued to the surveillance feeds, scanning for anything out of place.Boom!Boom!Boom!Explosions started going off across the island.Every guard searching outside immediately rushed toward the blast sites."Over here! People coming out of District Two!" one guard shouted the moment he spotted Hayley's group. He immediately realized they were the ones who had snuck onto the island.But the second Hayley crossed out of District Two and into the open area, every single monitor feed in front of
Hayley hit every spot on the human body that hurt like hell but wouldn't cause permanent damage.Every strike of hers avoided vital organs, delivering nothing but pure, concentrated pain.Her aim was sharp and wickedly precise.The group figured that whoever Griffin was to her, he had to have don
Hayley sprinted straight toward the research building. A card reader and keypad blocked the entrance. She typed in a string of numbers.With a beep, the door unlocked.She and Leonard rushed inside at full speed.Thankfully, every piece of information Cyril had given her was accurate and extremel
The next morning, an armored vehicle sped down a deserted highway, cutting through the open wilderness.As it got closer to the city, the road ahead split into two completely different scenes.On the right, the outbound lane was jammed with cars. Wrecks piled into more wrecks, trapping every vehic
When Wallace heard that, the friendly smile on his face stiffened.Liam was no fool.The old system was gone, and the entire world had entered the era of base rule.In this short, chaotic age where every base acted like its own kingdom, no one had any responsibility to support anyone else for fre







