Harem Legion: Queens of the Apocalypse-Chapter 231 Blood Bait and a One-Man Mission

Silence hung in the air. The quiet, the endless debating, the furrowed brows of the women - it all dragged on for two hours. By the time it hit past 3 AM, Magnus was smoking one cigarette after another, while Sarah and Ashton kept busy making coffee for everyone. They were using the hot water from the stove that’d been doubling as a heater.

Dawn was just a few hours away, and none of them - not even Magnus - had come up with a solid plan. The only option left was for him to take the risk alone: kill, and fill the barrel with blood by himself.

It wasn’t that others couldn’t use the Super Fire Crystals - they could - but the effect would only last an hour. And the Ice Regiment barely had any left. They had to be spread between different trucks for emergencies...

By 4 AM, the clock just kept ticking. Once daylight came, those giant mutated chickens, ducks, and geese would wake up. Things would get even messier.

"If it really doesn’t work, maybe we should just go back to the underground granary," Liana finally said, having been wracking her brain all night.

Magnus shook his head slightly. "We can’t hold that place anymore. If it was just the broken section we had to guard, fine. But the whole mountain’s cracked open now. The seams at the top mean they can come down at us from all angles. We can’t defend the granary breach like that."

"What if we park trucks over the breach and pour animal blood on it every two days? Would that work?" she asked.

"Still no good." Magnus let out a tired breath. "You two were working near the main entrance the other night, right? You didn’t go deep inside. Several spots collapsed from the quake. The gaps are big enough for infected creatures to get through. Even bats and sparrows are sneaking in."

"Then what? Are we just gonna sit here and wait to die?" Sophia snapped, her voice cracking from the pressure.

"Waiting to die isn’t the plan..."

Magnus stood up and exhaled hard, drained the last cup of coffee, then looked at them. "We’ve got to gamble now. I’ll take 500 women with a second awakening. Give us 50 Super Fire Crystals. Tonight, we head into Hanford City."

"Hanford City?" Emily stood up too. "You mean to dig for meteors?"

"No. We’re looking for shelter. Something like the underground granary. If we can’t find one, we’ll build one ourselves. We try. If by tomorrow night nothing works, we’ll use the crystals full-force and secure the blood we need before the night after. The convoy’s safety comes first."

"I’m coming with you," Sophia said immediately.

"No. You and Emily stay here. I need someone reliable to watch the big convoy. I’m taking Lana this time. Once we get the blood, we’ll regroup for the meteor dig."

Lana nodded without hesitation and fell in behind Magnus. He was still wearing his thermal underclothes, didn’t even bother changing. Just threw his dirty clothes back on. After a few quick words to the others, he headed off with her.

The convoy was too massive, and none of the women could leave the trucks on their own. The logistics were a nightmare. He had to load the non-Awakened and first Awakening women into one vehicle, then get the second Awakening ones into another...

The whole thing made Magnus want to curse. There was still the matter of repositioning the sleeper trucks. Six long-distance sleeper trucks, five box trucks filled with animal blood, and a bunch of large white barrels ready to haul more.

By the time Magnus finished dealing with all that, dawn was already creeping in. The skies lightened, and the mutated chickens, ducks, and geese were up and moving.

At the front of the convoy, the lead infantry vehicles had barely started when a group of giant white geese waddled over. They walked right up to the trucks, realized there was no path forward, sniffed the air for human scent but got nothing, and turned back with the same wobbling steps.

False alarm.

By 8 a.m., all prep done, Magnus led Lana, Mia, and Margaret in four off-road vehicles - two in front, two behind - as they rolled carefully into Hanford City.

The city looked different in the daylight than it had during Magnus’s previous night reconnaissance. Mutant rat beasts the size of ATVs huddled under any shade they could find, asleep. No sign of the bats. Swarms of sparrow beasts - about the size of motorcycles - zipped between buildings in chaotic flocks.

The massive chickens, ducks, and geese - each the size of a three-story building - roamed in pairs or threes. They weren’t fighting each other, just wandering. Some roosters even let out deafening crows, loud enough to rattle the surviving windowpanes.

The convoy didn’t move fast. Any time they came across poultry beasts or rats still scuttling around, they had to stop. Now and then, one of the curious roosters would give the trucks a peck. That usually ended with the bird screeching and backing off fast when the steel reinforcements jabbed back.

The whole scene looked damn surreal. Almost like something no normal person could even imagine.

By 11 a.m., after inching forward all morning, Magnus finally reached the gates of Hanford Advanced Finance College.

Most of the campus wall had been crushed under mutated beast feet - more than 80% leveled. Only a few taller buildings remained somewhat intact. Everything else was in ruins.

There were no decent hiding spots. Not the kind Magnus had hoped for - spots tough enough that a goose’s head could poke through while its body blocked the entrance, like the mouth of an old underground grain silo.

Couldn’t find those in the city. Damn near impossible.

He’d considered mall entrances. They looked solid enough. Stopped to check one. Regretted it instantly. Inside, the damn place was crawling with rats - thick swarms of the things, dead asleep. Just looking at it made his scalp tighten.

As the vehicles rolled past the school’s front gate, they paused again - this time for two fat roosters strolling along side by side like they were out for a morning walk. Only after they passed did Magnus gently press the gas again, guiding the lead car to the campus cafeteria.

The cafeteria stood three stories tall, not too badly wrecked. The glass doors were shattered, but the building still held. If they sealed the inner windows with steel sheets, doused the walls with animal blood, and scattered some meteor dust by the door, it would become a temporary safe zone.

That’s all he needed - a place to work from.

Magnus had a plan. Kill a beast, drag its head with an off-road vehicle to the cafeteria’s entrance. If the head could fit through the doorway but the body got stuck, the rest of the team inside would be safe. They could draw and collect its blood from within the shelter.

That was the idea Magnus had been brewing on the way. Not a bad plan. But the real problem still lay ahead - what was waiting for them inside that cafeteria?