Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 106: Sneaking Through the University!

Chapter 106: Sneaking Through the University!

March 18, 20xx — 08:35 AM

Location: Archery Club Room, Longwan University -> East Exit Corridor

—

The air outside the room felt cooler somehow — thinner, like the building was exhaling the weight of too many bodies, too much blood dried into the walls.

I stood at the front, loaded for war. Gauntlet primed. Inventory screen dimmed but ready. SMG holstered. Buckshot shells resting like brass teeth at my hips.

Shen Yifei stood beside me, not behind, not trailing — but beside. Spear slung across her back, compact SMG now locked inside the system’s blue flicker. She gave a single nod, sharp and certain.

"I’ll cover your left."

Simple words, but I knew I could trust her.

Mu Qinglan had raised her arm as well, eyes tracking me in silence. But when I looked at her — really looked — and tilted my chin toward Zhou Xue, she lowered it without protest.

"Stick close to Zhou Xue and Liang Mei. If it gets bad, I want them breathing."

"Got it," she said.

She took a position at the rear guard, her body language already shielding Zhou Xue like a wall in motion. I saw the faint flicker of her SMG’s box blink blue once more, locked and ready.

Chen Xun practically bounced in place, bow in hand, eyes shining like he’d just been handed the keys to a tank. "I’ve never used a real combat bow before, but hell, I’ll learn!"

Deng Hua grinned beside him, slapping an arrow against his palm. "Hey, boss. If we make it outta this alive, you gotta let me buy you a drink. Or give you my mom’s cooking. Something."

"You’re not useless, just untrained. Don’t die before I train you properly," I said.

[Chen Xun’s morale increased: +15 Loyalty]

[Deng Hua’s affection +10 → He now sees you as someone worth following]

Liang Qiu stepped forward unexpectedly, adjusting the straps on her gloves and checking the stabiliser on her bow like she’d done it before. "If you’ll have me... I’ll fight close. I don’t run when people need help."

Braver than she looked. The kind of girl who doesn’t beg to be trusted — just shows up when it counts.

I looked her in the eye. "You want in? Survive today. I’ll accept you officially when we’re back at base."

The effect was instant.

They stood straighter. Not proud — ready.

[Liang Qiu’s resolve hardened: Affection +15, Loyalty +25]

[Deng Hua +20 Loyalty]

[Chen Xun +25 Loyalty]

They thought I’d never let them in.

Now they knew.

Zhou Xue took point at the front of the hallway, a cloth wrapped tight around her mouth and nose. Her hand rose in a quick gesture.

"Eastern passage is clear for now. But they’re scattered all over the courtyard. You’ll need to move fast. If we get caught in a stall, we’re screwed."

I nodded.

"Then we don’t stall."

—

08:37 AM — Eastern Passage — Longwan Courtyard Ruins

—

The air reeked of moss, concrete, and the sharp bite of sun-warmed rot.

Zombies roamed — not in hordes, not controlled. Just wandering. Aimless. Lost. No coordination. No pull from a Control-Type anymore. The way it should’ve been.

If not for that one zombie... this place wouldn’t have collapsed.

Ten meters out, I saw one thin-necked, jaw twitching like a broken hinge. It turned... and hissed. That was enough.

Click-chak.

I fired just once. Two slugs punched straight through its face, bursting it apart like an egg and dropping it like meat.

[+2 ZKP]

[Shooting EXP +4%]

The rest of the group didn’t panic.

They spread out in a fan shape, and a decent distance away from me.

I took point — Shen Yifei at my side.

When another two came shambling from a side hall, Chen Xun loosed his first arrow — it missed, but Deng Hua nailed the second right in the chest. Not fatal, but enough for Liang Qiu to finish it.

Our progress was slow, but clean, without danger.

The sun broke through a shattered window frame as we reached the middle courtyard. Zhou Xue raised a hand.

"Wait."

I froze.

A sound echoed — distant metal on stone. Too slow. Too heavy.

Not a walker.

Not random.

And then I saw him.

A figure limped from the collapsed stairwell on the far end of the courtyard, dragging a length of something behind him. Not rope. Not steel. His arm.

His arm was fused with a rail of twisted scrap metal, ending in a jagged, two-meter blade sharpened by friction and hate.

His chest was scarred — burned black where I’d gutted him before. But he was still alive.

No.

Not alive.

Zao.

Stage-3.

His eye locked onto me across the ruin.

Recognition.

The wound on his side gurgled when he took a step, dragging his bladed arm behind him, metal screaming against tile.

"He’s still alive... damn."

I thought that a battle would follow, but Zao was powerful even at stage two.

Now he had reached stage three. I wondered if he would kill the weaker members with me.

Mu Qinglan exhaled behind me. "You killed him?"

"No. I didn’t. Though I shoved him off a building, it seems he survived."

Deng Hua whispered, "Who is that?"

"Stay quiet," I said. "Move behind cover. Qinglan, take Zhou and Mei. Yifei — with me."

Zao didn’t charge.

He walked in a deliberate pattern.

Like a soldier hearing war drums in his head.

I lowered my stance, breathing out. Felt the Qi crawl across my skin like cold light.

Zao’s eye locked with mine.

Just one.

The left one was missing — gouged out during our last fight, now replaced with a socket of pulsing black rot. But the right one burned.

A red glow surged in that eye, slow and hateful. Like staring down the barrel of a memory that refused to die. His nostrils flared. The black veins along his throat bulged, crawling like worms under the skin. Metal groaned as his bladed arm flexed.

Yifei shifted beside me, spear rising instinctively. "He’s—"

"Wait," I said.

Zao’s massive body hunched for half a heartbeat.

Then he shook his head.

Not confused. Not human.

Just... rejecting the moment.

With a growl that sounded like steel choking on blood, he leapt straight up into the air, landing hard on the remains of the northern walkway. Concrete cracked beneath him, but he didn’t pause.

His back turned. He sprinted away — monstrous legs pounding across the roofline — and in three blinks, he vanished into the shadowed skyline.

The tension snapped like old rope.

Yifei let out the breath she’d been holding. "Why did he run?"

"I don’t think it was fear." I stepped forward, narrowing my eyes at the direction he’d gone. "He remembers me. But he’s got another target now."

Mu Qinglan jogged up beside me. "You sure? He looked like he wanted to carve your face off."

"Yeah. But something stopped him."

I stared at the cracks his weight left in the courtyard tile.

Whatever mutated his arm into a blade hadn’t finished yet. That thing was still evolving.

And it knew it.

"Next time," I muttered, "he won’t hesitate."

Zhou Xue swallowed hard. "We should move. Fast. North’s no longer safe."

I nodded. "Everyone, regroup. Double-time to the outer gate. Stay close. Archers take rear, Yifei with me at the front. Qinglan — eyes on Xue and Mei."

They fell in without question.

And as we crossed the shattered remains of Longwan’s inner courtyard, I could still feel it.

Zao’s presence.

Like a storm cloud just past the edge of the sky.

Waiting to come back.

"Let’s hurry... the next part will be difficult."

—

March 18, 20xx — 08:43 AM

Longwan University — Eastern Gate Exit / Connecting Streets

—

We moved fast.

Not running — not stumbling like the herd we once were — but organised. Silent. Focused.

Each step echoed off shattered concrete and moss-slicked tile as we left the courtyard behind. The rising sun bled orange across the horizon, casting long shadows through the broken skeletons of faculty buildings. Grass had broken through the pavement here. A hollow victory for nature.

Zhou Xue led us down a maintenance stairwell. Her boots barely made a sound. She didn’t speak. Just pointed, gestured, ducked — and we followed.

I took a point beside her.

Yifei covered our left. Mu Qinglan kept glancing back, her expression unreadable as she shielded the girls behind her.

Our breath fogged the air despite the sunlight. It was still cold this early.

The silence didn’t feel natural. No cries. No moans. No distant metal dragging along tile.

Zao was gone. But I didn’t believe for a second he was done.

We reached the bottom of the stairwell and paused just inside the shadow of the east gate tunnel — an arch of thick brick and rusted steel that led out into the streets beyond campus.

Beyond the shadow, just fifty meters ahead, a half-collapsed security fence marked the boundary between university grounds and the open city.

I raised a fist.

Everyone stopped.

A low groan carried on the wind. Then another. Then more.

They weren’t organised — not pulled by any Control-Type — but they were there.

At least two dozen.