Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 165: Eerie Smile

Chapter 165: Eerie Smile

March 21st, 9:18 AM — Sub-Basement Storage Hall

John Wang POV

——

The Ghoul crouched in the blood, still smiling.

It wasn’t the twitchy grin of a beast cornered. It was quiet. Steady. Like it had reached the next stage of its design.

Its body shifted again, not to attack but for some other purpose. The ribcage flexed outward—once, twice—like something was expanding inside it and stretching for more space.

Tang Wei took a step forward, shotgun raised. Her voice was tight. "It’s doing something."

"Kill it now," I said, already moving.

Mu Qinglan struck first, her blade flashing silver-blue under the flickering lights. She cut across its right side, splitting through skin and sinew. At the same time, I drove both blades of Crushing Moon into the opposite side, carving deep.

Blood poured—but something else moved under the surface.

A twitch. A bulge.

Too late.

The Ghoul’s chest convulsed.

It inhaled with no lungs. Just a sucking contraction of flesh. A thick black vapour spewed from the open wound—wet and warm, with the weight of rotted meat and acid bile.

I inhaled it by reflex.

It hit like a body blow.

The taste was chemical, like dead plastic and burned sugar. My throat closed up. My lungs burned as if someone poured hot oil inside them, and I stumbled back, coughing violently, vision swimming.

Tang Wei fell to one knee behind me, retching into her sleeve. Roulan backed into the wall, eyes squeezed shut, her gun clattering against the floor as she dropped it. Even Shen Yifei pulled away, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, trying to steady her stance.

Only Qinglan didn’t move.

Her stance was solid—centred. Blue light flickered faintly around her boots, Qi pooling in her legs to anchor her body. She stepped forward into the miasma like it wasn’t even there and slashed again—one clean stroke that bit deep into the Ghoul’s exposed stomach.

Then came the pop.

A wet, bursting sound. Muffled. Like a balloon rupturing underwater.

The Ghoul’s chest split open further—not like a wound, but like something giving birth.

Mutated crawlers plopped out.

Small at first. Pale, boneless things. Misshapen limbs. Twitching, eyeless heads. They fell onto the floor in a wet, slapping cascade—limbs folding beneath them, some dragging uselessly.

Then they moved.

Crawling.

Snapping.

Dozens of them.

"Oh fuck—" Tang Wei shouted hoarsely. She fired into the nearest cluster. The buckshot blasted a wave of half-born monsters into shredded meat—but more kept coming, skittering over the bodies of the dead.

Zhou Xue, barely upright, notched an arrow and loosed it into one of the crawler’s gaping mouths, pinning it to the concrete with a wet thud. The Ghoul watched it all. Standing in the centre, unmoving, blood running down its body in thick streams.

Still waiting with an eerie smile.

The floor writhed.

Crawlers rolled off the Ghoul’s body in waves, each of them half-formed—grey-skinned, hunched, their limbs long and bent in the wrong places. Some didn’t even have proper jaws—just splitting cartilage where teeth should have been. Others were fused in places, stuck to each other like malformed twins.

But they moved.

And they were fast.

"Keep them off the walls!" I shouted. "Don’t let them surround us!"

Roulan grabbed her Type-9k and fired short, controlled bursts into the tide. Three crawlers dropped, headless. Two more climbed over their bodies, shrieking without sound. Mu Qinglan stepped beside her, sword flicking left and right in brutal, efficient arcs. Each cut split flesh, bone, and meat.

I charged forward, fists raised.

Crushing Moon fired mid-step—bang, bang—sending slugs into the swarm’s front line. Limbs exploded, torsos crumpled. I drove through the gap, kicking aside a twitching crawler that tried to latch onto my leg.

Behind me, Tang Wei was on one knee, reloading with one hand and firing with the other. The shells ripped through another line, spraying black fluid across the tiles.

Zhou Xue was on her second quiver, arrow after arrow punching into skulls with near-mechanical precision.

Shen Yifei spun her spear in tight sweeps, clearing space. Blood soaked her arms, and a deep scratch ran down her side, but she didn’t stop.

Still, they kept coming.

They weren’t coordinated.

Just endless.

And the Ghoul—still bleeding, its body twitching—hadn’t moved an inch.

It was letting them fight for it.

I slammed a crawler against the wall, crushing its spine beneath my gauntlet. The impact left a black smear, but two more came from under the shelf.

We couldn’t hold this forever.

I turned to Tang Wei. "Flashbang! Left side!"

She didn’t hesitate.

The canister arced into the crowd and popped—white heat and thunder.

The Crawlers recoiled, spasming.

I used the gap.

My blades tore a path through the dazed cluster. I could feel the strain building in my arms, the drag of Crushing Moon growing heavier with each pulse of Qi. But I kept pushing. Every blow mattered. Every meter we took back mattered more.

I didn’t feel the weight anymore. Not really. The gauntlets felt like extensions of my will—blunt, brutal, and hungry.

Every step forward slammed another body to the ground. The Crawlers were slowing. Weakening.

Then I saw it.

The Ghoul had stepped forward.

Not running.

Just walking.

Each footfall is deliberate. Confident.

It stepped over its spawn like they were garbage, like they didn’t matter. Its body still bled from a dozen wounds. Its arm hung at the wrong angle, broken, dangling. But the wound across its chest had stopped leaking. The vertical maw had closed, stitched itself partially shut with black sinew.

Not healed.

Just rearmed.

It raised its one good arm and pointed.

At me.

No words.

Just that motion.

The others were ready.

"Now," I said.

Tang Wei raised her shotgun.

Roulan raised her SMG.

Zhou Xue knocked two arrows.

Yifei and Qinglan moved with me, one on each flank.

I sprinted straight at it.

So did the others.

The Ghoul didn’t flinch.

I hit it first.

Crushing Moon slammed into its chest with a shotgun burst—point-blank. The force sent it staggering. Qinglan’s sword came down across its left side, slicing clean through its remaining arm. The limb hit the floor with a dull thud.

Then Yifei’s spear pierced through its knee, twisting hard. The joint snapped sideways, and it dropped half a meter into a knee.

Tang Wei fired.

One slug.

Straight into the side of its head.

The impact ripped away part of the skull, but it kept moving.

Roulan followed up, full-auto burst, bullets ripping into the creature’s core.

I saw the change.

Its chest didn’t close this time.

It couldn’t.

It tried to stand, but Yifei shoved her spear down again, and Zhou Xue’s double-shot hit it through the throat.

Then Qinglan moved past me—no words, just presence.

The Endless Night flickered once.

Twice.

Three times.

Each swing was precise. Controlled. Beautiful.

The third strike split the Ghoul clean down the centre, from the top of its head to its sternum. Its maw, already half-healed, tore fully open again, flaps of meat and bone falling apart in slow motion.

It dropped.

Black ichor oozed across the floor, steaming and still.

[Stage 3 Ghoul Eliminated — Aberrant Variant][ZKP Gained: 3000]

[Titan Marrow Sutra—Stage 2: 35% -> 62%]

[Mu Qinglan’s Swordsmanship Levelled Up!]

[Shen Yifei’s Spear Mastery Levelled Up!]

It didn’t twitch.

Didn’t scream.

Just... died.

The silence after was deep.

Thick.

We stood there for a moment, weapons still raised, breath still held.

Then Tang Wei muttered, "Is it over?"

I looked down at the monster that caused us so much trouble.

And for the first time in hours, I nodded with a sense of peace, falling to my ass and dropping onto the ground, even with the sticky blood... I was exhausted, so damn tired and everything felt so tiresome.

"Yeah."

It was dead.

Finally...

I watched quietly as Zhou Xue slumped against the wall, her bow lowered, sweat streaking her face. Tang Wei sat down hard beside a crate and exhaled slowly, shoulders trembling.

Yifei retrieved her spear in silence. Qinglan stood motionless beside the corpse, the tip of The Endless Night still dripping. Roulan stepped past me and stared at the thing’s ruined body, then looked back at me.

"You sure it’s dead?"

I turned to look at Roulan and shrugged.

"I’m sure."

Mu Qinglan sheathed her sword and snapped. "Then let’s get out of here."

I didn’t argue; we finished them all, and so my quick break ended, and I climbed up, with help from Tang Wei, who grinned at me bitterly. But even as we turned to leave, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way it had smiled.

Like it had seen something coming.

Like it hadn’t been afraid of dying.

Just... waiting.