Harem Legion: Queens of the Apocalypse-Chapter 30 The Death of a Dream

At 4:30 in the morning, the alarm on Magnus’s phone buzzed. He got up, straightened his clothes a bit, lit a cigarette, and stared blankly ahead, thinking about where to find more female team members today.

The smoke curled upward, choking Sarah on the bunk above. She coughed hard, scrunched her lips in annoyance, peeked down, saw Magnus was deep in thought, and finally just yanked the blanket over her head without saying anything.

By 5 o’clock, everyone was up. At 5:15, Liana led the logistics team and handed out high-calorie breakfasts. By 5:45, the whole team was ready. Magnus did a final check - 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Every vehicle had been fully modified. All the windows were sealed with steel plates. The windshields had reinforced rebar grids welded across them. Wire mesh covered the roofs and flanks, and the fuel tanks were filled to the max.

As for gear - every Awakened and female commando carried an automatic rifle and a sidearm. The other team members had nail guns, shovels, torches. Each person also had a knife, a bottle of water, and two bars of chocolate.

Once all was set, everyone got in the vehicles. Magnus climbed into the lead - the Dongfeng Warrior - and drove out first from the yard of Sophie’s freight depot.

Behind him followed 11 regular SUVs, 3 fire trucks, 24 box trucks, 11 sleeper buses, 6 long-distance passenger coaches, 5 twenty-ton tankers, 2 five-ton tankers. At the end were Sophia and Grace driving another Warrior, plus 10 off-road SUVs to cover the rear.

Altogether, 74 vehicles.

But with so many vehicles in a crumbling city full of abandoned cars, they couldn’t go fast - only slightly faster than walking.

It had been over thirty hours since the apocalypse hit. In that time, Springvale City had lost more than 90% of its population. A city that once held twenty million now had maybe - maybe - two million survivors left, and Magnus wasn’t optimistic even about that.

Once they exited the overpass and entered University District, the roads cleared up a bit. The convoy moved faster.

Magnus had wrestled with the plan last night, but he knew the team had to come here. One, they were familiar with the area. Two, his real goal was Havencrest Medical Academy - and if that didn’t work out, the Viremont Institute of Languages was next.

The nursing school was also in University District, with a staggering female-to-male ratio of 60 to 1. Having a guy in a class was like finding a gem. If no one was left alive there, Viremont would be the backup - less extreme, but still promising.

Emily had suggested earlier they return to the underground garage at Springvale University - the place they had originally set out from - then split into rescue teams while supply trucks stayed parked.

But after running into a Sovereign Vanguard sweep team yesterday, Magnus had made the call: they go to Havencrest together. Get in, rescue whoever they can, and get out fast. No time for delays.

Was this really the same University District they used to know?

Back then, it had charm. Lush willow trees lined the roads. At dusk, young couples wandered beneath them - hand in hand. You’d hear soft whispers from the guy, see the girl smile. Maybe she’d gently punch his shoulder or pinch him playfully.

It was like something out of a painting.

Now... not anymore. The city’s still that same old university district, and the rows of willows are still standing. Only now, there are no couples strolling beneath them - just thick clusters of centipedes crawling up the trunks, and massive spiderwebs stretched between every two trees.

On the street, centipedes and spiders scrambled aimlessly like decapitated flies. Dorms, lecture halls, even the surrounding walls - covered with them. Just looking made your scalp crawl.

As soon as Magnus’s modified Humvee turned the corner heading to Havencrest Medical Academy’s main gate, the speed abruptly dropped...

*****

"Boss! Building One’s pushing through the front!"

Inside the police academy’s supermarket, students from Building Four had managed to hold this place for nearly two days. Over two hundred police cadets took shifts barricading windows and doors. Among them, nearly a hundred were Awakened.

Not because of stronger bodies, but because everyone who wasn’t Awakened was mostly dead by now.

"Boss! Say something! We can’t hold ’em! Those bastards have guns! They must’ve cracked the armory before coming here!"

The one leading them was a tall guy, nearly 1.9 meters, clad head to toe in riot gear like the rest. Standard issue batons in hand. Normally, they wouldn’t flinch at fighting anyone - but not when the other side’s got firepower.

Most of them had at least some gun training, being police cadets. It wasn’t much, but it counted.

"Let them in."

The tall cadet gritted his teeth, gave the order. The dozen or so students blocking the door backed off and lifted the barricade. The guys from Building One - over 300 of them - flooded in.

One of them immediately ripped off his riot helmet, raised a pistol, and fired a shot straight at the ceiling.

"You motherfuckers! Who the hell’s in charge here? Get your ass out now!"

"I - I am..."

The lead cadet flinched, but still stepped forward.

"You are? Are your brains made of shit?"

"Bang! Bang!" Two shots. One to the forehead, one straight through the nose. The guy toppled over with a thud.

"Listen the fuck up! Thirty seconds. Get the hell out. Don’t touch a single thing in the store. You so much as look at anything or stick around one second too long, and I’ll feed you lead!"

He fired another round into the ceiling.

The students from Building Four scrambled out like sheep fleeing slaughter. They had no insect repellent on them. As soon as they stepped outside, swarms of giant mosquitoes started diving down on them from the sky. But thanks to their riot gear and towels around their necks, the damage was minimal. It just messed with their vision.

"Jack! What now? Where do we go?" one shouted through his helmet.

"To the Havencrest supermarket! My girl’s there!"

Jack Jimenez, an Awakened, shoved his way through the crowd, shouting, "Everyone with me! We’re heading to Havencrest!"

Two hundred plus cadets, more than a hundred Awakened among them, no formation, no plan - just weapons in hand and running as fast as they could toward the school gate.

But the worst of it? Even with so many Awakened, they were still short of the one thing that mattered most in this apocalypse...