Harem Apocalypse: My Seed is the Cure?!

Inside the house, the situation had deteriorated from dangerous to catastrophic in the span of minutes that felt like hours.

The Fire Spitter—that nightmare creature Rachel had hoped to never see again appeared again and had targeted their home with devastating precision. Multiple fireballs had struck the structure in rapid succession, each impact creating explosions of flame and destruction that systematically demolished their defenses but also the house's walls and foundations. The front entrance had been completely vaporized in the initial assault, leaving a gaping hole that looked like the mouth of some enormous beast waiting to consume them.

Several rooms throughout the house had been reduced to burning wreckage, flames licking up walls and across ceilings with the kind of hungry persistence that spoke to accelerants or supernatural heat that exceeded normal fire behavior. The acrid smell of burning wood, melting plastic, and scorched fabric filled the air, creating a toxic atmosphere that made breathing difficult and thinking clearly nearly impossible.

Standard infected had begun pouring through the breaches in their defenses, shambling forward with mindless hunger that transformed familiar spaces into killing zones. The living room where they'd shared meals was now a battlefield, furniture overturned to create improvised barriers while the women fought desperately to hold back the tide of viral corruption that threatened to overwhelm them entirely.

But worse than the Fire Spitter's assault, worse than the swarm of standard infected, was the presence of an enhanced infected creature that had entered their home.

"Rachel!!" Rebecca's voice tore through the chaos, cracking with grief and terror as tears streamed down her young face.

She reached out her hand desperately toward her older sister, who lay crumpled on the floor near the destroyed entrance. Rachel's body was motionless except for shallow, labored breathing that suggested she was barely conscious. Blood matted her red hair and trickled down her face from where the enhanced infected's massive fists had connected with brutal force, and her position suggested some broken bones and internal injuries that would have killed a normal person immediately.

"Don't!" Alisha held Rebecca back with arms wrapped firmly around her waist, her own expression twisted with pain as she restrained the struggling girl. Her position on the staircase gave her unfortunately advantage for holding someone back while also providing a clear view of the nightmare unfolding in the living room below.

Rachel had fought against the enhanced infected with every ounce of her developing abilities, using her barrier power to deflect strikes and her enhanced strength to deliver counterattacks. But she had been catastrophically outmatched by a creature that combined superhuman durability with combat intelligence. Her barriers could absorb a few punches, creating brief opportunities for retreat or counterattack, but they shattered under sustained assault and required recovery time she didn't have. Her own strikes, while enhanced beyond normal human capability, weren't powerful enough to cause meaningful damage to the creature's alien-strengthened physiology.

The battle had been one-sided from the beginning, with Rachel's courage counting for nothing against an opponent specifically designed to kill enhanced humans like herself.

"No, let me go! My sister! She's dying down there!" Rebecca thrashed violently in Alisha's restraining grip, her teenage strength amplified by panic and desperate need to reach Rachel despite the obvious suicide such an attempt would represent.

"Idiot! Rachel told us to evacuate!" Alisha shouted, her own voice breaking with emotion as she tightened her hold. "She specifically asked us to run while she bought time with her life! If you go down there now, you'll die too, and her sacrifice will have been for nothing!"

The harsh truth of those words were said. Alisha couldn't bear to watch Rachel suffer and die either, and every instinct screamed at her to intervene, to help, to do something that would change the impossible situation. But she remembered Rachel's expression when she'd given her final instructions—the desperate seriousness, the acceptance of what was about to happen, the plea for Alisha to take Rebecca to safety no matter what happened to Rachel herself.

That expression had conveyed everything Rachel couldn't say aloud: that she loved her sister more than life itself, that she was choosing to sacrifice herself so Rebecca might survive, that she was entrusting her most precious person to someone she hoped could be relied upon in her absence.

"Rachel... no..." Daisy's voice joined the chorus of grief from her position on the stairs beside Alisha and Rebecca.

Tears poured down her face as she watched the woman who had shown her nothing but kindness and support since they'd met being systematically destroyed by a monster that felt no mercy or hesitation. Daisy had never been a fighter, had always relied on others for protection, and the helplessness of watching someone die while being unable to help was breaking something fundamental in her psyche.

"Rachel!" Elena's voice rang out from a different part of the living room battlefield.

She swung her crowbar in wide arcs that crackled with blue-white lightning, doing everything in her power to repel the standard infected that continued pouring through the destroyed entrance. Her enhanced abilities had manifested as electrical manipulation, allowing her to coat her weapon with energy that paralyzed and burned the creatures she struck.

She was killing some infected outright with well-placed strikes to their skulls, while others were sent flying backward with enough force to create temporary gaps in their advance. The lightning coating her crowbar had the added benefit of causing brief paralysis in creatures that survived her initial attacks, creating stumbling blocks that slowed the advance of infected behind them.

But she couldn't maintain this enhanced state indefinitely. Each lightning-coated strike drained her energy reserves, and she could feel exhaustion building in her muscles and nervous system. The enhanced abilities that made her supernaturally capable also imposed costs that normal combat never did, burning through metabolic resources at rates that would lead to collapse if sustained too long.

Thankfully Cindy was also helping her as much as she could but they wouldn't last long at this rate.

"Rachel!" Elena called again with even more intensity after striking another infected creature hard enough to cave in its skull and send its body tumbling backward into the swarm behind it.

The enhanced infected was approaching Rachel's prone form, its massive frame casting shadows across her bleeding body as it reached out one enormous hand toward her with obvious hostile intent. Rachel struggled desperately to push herself upright, her arms shaking with effort as she tried to stand despite broken ribs and what was probably a concussion from repeated blows to her head.

The enhanced infected let out a small growl that carried satisfaction on the other hand.

But at that precise moment, a hardcover book flew through the air with surprising velocity and struck the enhanced infected directly in the face with enough force to make its head snap backward.

Everyone fell into shocked silence for a heartbeat, turning toward the source of the unexpected projectile with expressions of disbelief.

Liu Mei stood there fully clothed in outdoor gear, with a packed bag on her back containing whatever essentials she'd managed to gather during the chaos. She had clearly been preparing to join the others upstairs and escape through one of the upper-floor windows as planned, but something had stopped her from simply abandoning Rachel to her fate.

"Leave her alone, you filthy beast!" She shouted.

The enhanced infected rose to its full height and turned toward Liu Mei with obvious recognition that she represented a new target. Its pale eyes fixed on her as it released a deep, rumbling growl that vibrated through the floor.

"Grrrr..."

"Mei..." Rachel called weakly, managing to focus her blurred vision enough to see who had intervened. "Run... please run..."

The enhanced infected growled again and began stalking toward Liu Mei who immediately turned and ran back toward her room as she led the creature away from Rachel's vulnerable position.

She reached her door and slammed it shut just before the enhanced infected arrived, but the barrier provided only momentary protection. The creature drew back one massive fist and punched straight through the wooden door with enough force to send splinters flying in all directions, its arm reaching through the opening to search for its target.

"Leave her alone!" Rachel tried desperately to stand, but dizziness overwhelmed her as blood loss and head trauma compromised her ability to maintain balance or focus.

"Rachel, you have to come with us!" Daisy quickly descended the stairs and grasped Rachel's arm, trying to provide physical support while urging her toward the stairs. "You can't fight that thing in your condition! We need to leave now before it's too late!"

"No, Mei, she's still in there..." Rachel shook her head weakly, looking toward the room where the enhanced infected had disappeared in pursuit of Liu Mei.

She grabbed a knife from where it had fallen during the earlier fighting and began forcing her battered body toward the enhanced infected despite having no realistic chance of defeating it in combat. Every step sent waves of agony through her broken ribs and injured legs, but protective instincts drove her forward despite the impossibility of success.

But then Rachel widened her eyes in surprise as she witnessed something unexpected through the destroyed doorway of Liu Mei's room.

The enhanced infected, which had been stalking forward with complete confidence, suddenly lost its footing on the floor and crashed down with tremendous impact. From her position, Rachel could see that the floor of the room was coated with some kind of substance that wasn't water—it was thicker, more viscous, creating a slippery surface that even the enhanced infected's supernatural strength couldn't compensate for.

Oil! Liu Mei had prepared a trap using cooking oil spread across her floor, turning the entire room into a skating rink that would send even enhanced creatures tumbling.

"Die," Liu Mei's voice came from outside the window where she had positioned herself after jumping clear of the room.

She held a match and a matchbox in her hands, her expression twisted into cold satisfaction as she executed a plan she must have been preparing from the moment she understood Rachel won't be able to defeat it. She struck the match against the box, watching the small flame spring to life, then threw it through the window onto the oil-coated floor where the enhanced infected was struggling to regain its footing.

FWOOOOSH!!

The fire spread instantaneously across the entire room in a wave of superheated combustion that transformed Liu Mei's bedroom into a blazing inferno within seconds. The oil acted as both accelerant and fuel, creating flames that reached temperatures capable of burning through even enhanced tissue. The enhanced infected found itself engulfed in fire that clung to its body and clothing, turning it into a living torch that roared with pain and fury as alien-strengthened flesh began to char and crack under the assault of sustained heat.

"Mei!" Daisy shouted from the stairs, her voice a mixture of awe and disbelief as the flames consumed the room below.

Liu Mei didn't respond immediately. She was panting heavily, her face smeared with soot as she stumbled back. The heat from the flames rolled through the house in waves, distorting the air and making it hard to see. Walls groaned as structural supports began to crack from the stress of the spreading fire.

She rounded the side of the house, her boots crunching on glass and debris, and shoved open one of the back windows to climb inside. "Now—let's get out of here before—"

She didn't finish the command.

From within the blazing room behind her came a roar. The pitch of it vibrated through the floorboards and made the air itself tremble. All colors seemed to drain from her face.

The enhanced infected crawled through the flames, its body still wreathed in living fire. Its blackened skin cracked and split like overbaked stone, revealing streaks of sinewy red muscle glowing like embers beneath charred flesh. Smoke poured off it in waves as it dragged its massive form out of the ruined room, fire still clinging to its limbs like hateful spirits refusing to let go.

"No way…" Daisy whispered in terror, her knees going weak as the creature stepped forward, every movement accompanied by the sound of sizzling flesh and popping embers. Its inhuman growl was punctuated by the sound of burning muscle tearing, yet it advanced without hesitation, driven entirely by rage and instinct to kill.

"Hey, you two! Enough toying with those things—get back, now!" Mei shouted across the chaos at Elena and Cindy, her voice cracking as she joined the stairs.

"Very funny!" Cindy yelled back, gritting her teeth as she swung her steel pipe, crushing the skull of another infected that lunged toward her.

As she took a step back from her fallen attacker, Cindy froze mid-step. Her blue eyes widened as reflection of fire caught in them. The burning enhanced infected had turned toward her, raising what remained of its mangled arm, flames dripping from its fingertips like molten metal. Its glowing eyes—one still intact, the other just a socket of seething fire—locked onto her with intent to kill.

"Elena…" She whispered.

"What—" Elena struck down an infected at her side with her lightning-charged crowbar, electricity snapping through the air around her. She looked over her shoulder—and froze in horror as she caught sight of the same burning giant looming in the next room, framed by the fire and smoke.

For a moment, time seemed to slow. Both women stepped back simultaneously. Then, as if in a synchronized nightmare, the guttural groans of more infected sounded behind them. They turned rapidly to see silhouettes moving out of the smoke-filled hallway—the shuffling mass of the horde closing ranks.

"Lena!!" Alisha's voice screamed from the staircase. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the banister, unable to do anything but helplessly watch her sister trapped between the deadly inferno ahead and the advancing infected behind.

The roar of the burning enhanced infected deepened to a bellow, the heat around it warping furniture and blistering paint from the walls.

Then, amid the chaos, a sharp crack cut through the storm.

BANG!

A single gunshot echoed loudly across the burning house, momentarily silencing everything else. The bullet hit, punching straight through the enhanced infected's smoking chest. The impact staggered the creature for a split second—but unlike a normal infected, it didn't fall. It turned its head slowly, its burning jaw twisting in a snarl, and fixed its gaze toward the front entrance.

Everyone froze.

Then came a second sound.

A hum—the crackling force of energy coalescing—and a blue flash streaked through the air like lightning unleashed from heaven. The azure light struck the enhanced infected squarely in the chest, followed by an explosion of rippling force that shook the entire building.

BOOM!

The impact sent shockwaves through the floor, dust billowing out from the ceiling rafters. The enhanced infected's body convulsed violently as the energy surged through it, before being violently thrown backward with such force that it crashed straight through one of the load-bearing pillars supporting the front room.

The pillar cracked and split apart, raining pieces of shattered drywall and burning debris as the creature crashed to the floor in a heap of fire and smoke. It wasn't dead—not yet—but for the first time, it looked disoriented, its strength faltering as blue light continued to crackle across its body, weakening it.

Elena and Cindy had dropped to the floor at the first sight of the energy flash, their survival instincts kicking in. Their Dullahan-enhanced perception had warned them just moments before impact. Dust and ash fell around them as they looked up, wide-eyed, to see the silhouette framed in the broken doorway.

And then they saw her.

Standing at the entrance, surrounded by haze and flames, her black hair wild and matted with soot, was Sydney.