Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 145: Echoes from the Atrium

Chapter 145: Echoes from the Atrium

March 20th, 8:51 AM — Longwan Mall, West Wing – Rear Service Passage

Mu Qinglan POV

—

We heard them before I saw anything, not footsteps, howls or screams...

Gunfire.

Sharp cracks and controlled bursts. Although I didn’t use guns often, the one John gave us all had a distinct sound and rhythm I recognised too well — even if my chest tightened each time the echo reached us.

It was coming from below, but we couldn’t rush to them now.

"Is that... them?" Deng Hua’s voice was low. Uncertain. His hands kept fidgeting with the fletching on his arrows. He wasn’t trying to be useful. He was just nervous.

"They’re fighting again," Zhou Xue muttered.

Of course they were.

I hadn’t heard John’s voice yet, but the sound of that many bullets? It was clear the enemy wasn’t just a few zombies and could be called a horde.

He was down there, and probably bleeding.

I stopped at the end of the corridor and watched the shadows and flickering lights that led into the back hallway. The concrete looked unsafe, cracked and water-stained with the stench of moss and rotten eggs.

Behind me, the others shifted restlessly.

No one wanted to speak.

Or maybe no one wanted to say what we were all thinking.

"They’ll be fine... right?" Liang Mei asked.

I didn’t answer and stepped forward, into the space where the old department loading dock opened up. The smell hit me first.

Not blood.

Something older. Like dust, copper, and burned fabric — but heavier than any normal rot. It clung to the tongue. Metallic and bitter.

The hallway ahead had once been part of the staff rest area — cheap vending machines half-melted into the floor, posters warning against loitering or slacking on shift hours. All that remained now were cracks and silence.

"Stay close," I said over my shoulder.

"Miss Mu..." Liang Qiu’s voice trembled a little. "Was that a scream just now? I mean, a human scream?"

"No."

At least I hoped it wasn’t.

I moved down the hall slowly. My fingers rested on the hilt of my sword, Endless Night, still sheathed at my hip. I hadn’t drawn it since we entered the mall. Not yet. Something told me I’d need it soon.

The others followed — Zhou Xue behind me, bow nocked but lowered. Deng Hua hovered near Liang Mei, probably more for his own comfort than hers.

We weren’t a squad. We weren’t trained.

We were students, a businesswoman... a mob at best.

But John asked me to keep them safe.

I’d already come to terms with what that meant. The others hadn’t. Not fully.

Another burst of gunfire echoed from below — louder this time. Then... silence.

No shots. No yelling.

Just a low, hollow roar. Like wind over broken glass.

Then it stopped, too.

The whole mall seemed to hold its breath.

That’s when I smelled it.

Not rot. Not the infected.

Blood.

His blood.

Ever since I returned to a normal human... well, at least a mutated one, I realised that many of the things from being a living dead remained, though I didn’t need blood anymore, I sometimes caught a whiff of John’s... and a temptation stirred in my heart.

My fingers tightened on the hilt of the sword he bought me, the strange warmth that sprouted just for a simple thing.

’John... I miss your voice...’

Tempted to tap my communication device, but I stopped. There was something more important to face right now.

"Mu Qinglan...?" Chen Xun’s voice came from the back.

I didn’t stop walking.

Because whatever had happened down there... it wasn’t over.

And I knew, without a single word or call on the radio—

John was hurt.

And something was still watching us.

—

I guided us to the service stairwell slowly. The lights were dead. Nothing but dust and old handprints marked the rails — some fresh, some blackened with age. A few looked too long, almost like someone had dragged their fingertips rather than held on.

When I reached the second-floor landing, I stopped.

The door had been torn open.

Not broken. Torn. Bent from the inside out, with two warped impressions where the hinges used to be. The frame groaned slightly when I pushed it.

Beyond it was... quiet.

I stepped into the corridor.

It was wide, open. The tile here was newer, less stained — the remains of a tech outlet sat ahead, shelves still lined with cracked phone boxes and dead display screens. Everything had been pushed aside. Not by looters. Not carefully.

Dragged.

The others crept behind me.

No one spoke.

Even Liang Mei kept her mouth shut — I could hear the nervous swallow in her throat.

Ahead, the light dimmed. No overheads here. The few skylights were coated in grime.

Zhou Xue edged closer to me. "Miss Mu... the floor."

I looked down.

A dried blood trail leading into the distance.

Thick in some parts, smeared in others. As if something had been dropped — or pulled.

It’s not his... I told myself, a moment of panic growing within my chest.

I followed it, not rushing but just enough to keep the others behind me moving.

It led past the broken glass counter of a jewellery store. A crawler lay crumpled against the back wall, its skull caved inward like wet plaster. I didn’t stop to check if it was dead.

The blood continued.

We passed claw marks. Deep ones. Ripped through wood. Through tile.

Then... white.

Not a mark.

A smear.

Across the wall — about chest height. A huge palm, a little deformed, but this was definitely a palm print, and there was no blood, only a strange white goo.

The edges were faint, drying now. But the shape was clear. Five long fingers. Too long. A thumb in the wrong place.

Liang Qiu let out a tiny gasp. She tried to cover it, but I heard it.

Even I felt the hair rise on my arms.

"What kind of infected bleeds like that?" she whispered.

"None," I said. "That’s not blood."

At least I needed to say that... to keep myself focused, there was something here which could even affect me.

I couldn’t remember anything so far that could do that.

"Let’s keep following."

"A-Ah... okay." Deng Hua seemed scared, his voice trembled, but there wasn’t any need to blame him. I could see that only Zhou Xue remained focused after meeting that white freak in the vents.

We kept walking. One of the benches up ahead had been flipped. Scorch marks pocked the wall. A small, clean crater in the tile. Slug impact. John’s work.

He’d been here.

Recently.

The scent of his blood was stronger now — copper and heat, mixed with gun oil and that strange, scorched scent from before.

The trail continued.

Down another hallway. Then it opened up.

A broken railing. A wide gap.

And below it... the atrium.

My breath caught.

Blood pooled near the broken central fountain. Brass casings shimmered in the faint light like gold dust. Bodies. Dozens of them. Mostly Crawlers, twisted and ruptured. Something had torn through this space with power.

Their bodies were torn, not slashed. Most of the Crawlers lay broken at the base of pillars or half-folded over benches. One had been nailed to the floor with a spear of glass through its chest — blood soaked into the cracks around it like ink bleeding across stone.

I leaned over the shattered railing.

The chaos hadn’t just happened.

It had been focused. Controlled. The way the corpses spread outward from the fountain, the burn marks against the lower column, the splash of what looked like white paint trailing along the far wall—

My breath hitched.

That wasn’t paint.

It shimmered faintly. Pale cream, semi-translucent, still drying in stringy streaks. The same as the white goo we found earlier, and somehow I thought it was linked to that big white monster that kept running away.

I tightened my grip on Endless Night’s hilt.

"...Are they all dead?" Deng Hua asked behind me. He didn’t step forward. No one did.

"I don’t know."

"What should we do?"

Liang Qiu stepped forward with Chen Xun, the pair seemed to have improved their minds since we were at the university, and they started checking boxes and other things, maybe even trying to find a human corpse.

"We should follow the blood."

After all, this trail was John’s blood.

He was wounded... seriously wounded, and I was losing control of myself.

A heat grew in my chest, the cold qi in my stomach freezing over as my emotions and face became stiff.

"Follow me."

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