Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 207: Flesh and Blade

Chapter 207: Flesh and Blade

The halberd scraped down my gauntlet and spun back toward my side. I twisted and caught it again with my forearm, letting the impact flow through my stance.

She pressed in, eyes sharp, muscles coiled with tension.

"You’re fast, but lack the power."

She didn’t answer.

Another strike.

Then another.

She aimed low, then high, then twisted mid-swing to catch me off-balance. I deflected every blow with a shift of my arm or a shoulder roll. My gauntlets rang like drums with each block.

Her stance was solid, and she had strength, at least four times that of a normal human.

Rather than brute force, it felt close to a more refined Stage Three Brute.

Still...

I wasn’t even using half of mine.

I planted my feet and didn’t budge as she swung again, and against. The halberd slammed into my forearm, but she grunted, sweat oozing from her brows.

Voices called out from below.

"Liya! What are you doing?!"

"Fall back, idiot! We don’t know who he is!"

"Do you want to die!?"

She didn’t answer them; she just narrowed her eyes and rushed at me again. This woman called Liya couldn’t see the Stage Three zombies like me.

"Hmph." I stepped back only enough to guide her strike off-centre, then caught the polearm’s shaft and pushed her off with a light shove.

"You’re strong," I said. "But you’re burning too much energy."

"Shut up," she snapped. "If you weren’t a threat, you wouldn’t be on that roof watching us like a damn crow."

"Maybe I just loved the bounce of your—"

Woosh!

She tried to stab my eyes!

Her stance dropped lower, hips twisting, shoulders tightening, and then she lunged once more, this time faster and more focused.

I blocked the first blow, ducked the second and parried the third with my gauntlet, but she faked and stepped inside my guard, then used the half of her halberd like a club, slamming into my ribs with a solid thunk.

"Nice...!"

"W-What?!"

Shocked by my response, she staggered, her breathing worse than before; her red hair clung to her face, and her eyes burned with rivalry.

I caught the next swing with both arms and twisted, wrenching the halberd free and sending it skidding across the rooftop.

I didn’t follow through.

"You done?"

She gritted her teeth and lunged for it, but never reached it.

Because the air behind us cracked like a whip.

A roar followed, deep and guttural, vibrating through the stone.

We both turned.

One of the Stage Threes had finally moved.

It exploded through the wall across the street like a cannonball, a blur of muscle, bone, and blackened Death Qi.

My eyes widened.

"Tch—!"

It wasn’t just one.

Two more leapt from the shadows behind the building, jaws wide and claws slicing through the air.

The fight was over.

The real one had just started.

***

The first Stage Three lunged for her—no warning, no buildup, just a blur of movement and a jagged claw arcing from above.

"Shit—"

I grabbed her collar and yanked her back.

The claw slammed into the rooftop, tearing a crater where her head had been a second ago.

"Stay sharp," I snapped, spinning in place.

The monster’s body twisted with unnatural joints, black saliva dripping from its split jaw. I swung my leg into its midsection and kicked it back with enough force to send it crashing through the ventilation unit.

Liya landed on one knee beside me, wide-eyed.

She looked at me like she didn’t know whether to thank or curse me.

Her halberd lay behind the monster’s crater.

I sprinted forward, ducked under the second Stage Three’s sweeping claw, and slid into the weapon. My boot caught under the haft, and I launched it toward her with a sharp kick.

"Catch!"

She snatched it midair, twirled it once, and rose to her feet without breaking rhythm.

We stood shoulder to shoulder.

Another roar echoed across the block as more black shapes crept into view—Stage Ones and Twos drawn by the noise, flooding the lower level.

A voice screamed below.

Her squad.

The rifleman was being pulled backwards by a screeching brute. The other fired wildly, his shots bouncing off the creature’s thick hide. The woman with the crossbow had an arrow nocked but couldn’t get a precise angle.

"Hold them off!" Liya shouted, stepping forward.

"Focus," I muttered.

I raised my gauntlets and angled both arms toward the street below. The chambers spun. The air hissed.

Click—Vwoom—

"Eat this."

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Flaming Slugs buckshot across the alley like artillery.

The Stage One pack disintegrated in the blast, limbs and heads tossed into the street like kicked trash. The Brute staggered, burned and half-blind, before the crossbow bolt slammed into its exposed temple and dropped it.

Liya didn’t speak.

She just nodded once.

"Back to back," I said.

We moved like a combined unit.

A Stage Three with exposed ribs rushed us from the left. I ducked, she spun, and her halberd cleaved its head clean off. Another tried to leap overhead, which I caught in midair, slammed it into the ground, and crushed its neck under my gauntlet.

More came...

Endlessly, we fought against Stages Two and Three.

Unlike them, I could see their numbers dwindling... but something shifted in Liya’s movements. Her raw aggression weakened; she matched her rhythm to mine as if trying to learn everything from me.

Her halberd flowed more like water around my movements.

I filled the gaps in her footwork with force, while she covered my blind spots with sheer skill and lethal accuracy.

The rooftop felt like it might collapse from the weight of the fight.

But neither of us moved an inch.

Liya exhaled sharply as she slammed her back against mine. "You’re not bad."

I caught her sly smile; the beads of sweat dripping down her face made her look even more beautiful and wild.

"I was about to say the same."

The air became still again.

Corpses piled in mounds across the rooftop. Blood pooled around broken stone. For a moment, it was just breathing and footsteps. Hers and mine, slow and sharp.

"System, scan the area."

[Scanning...]

[Lifeforms Detected — Non-hostile: 4]

[Hostile Threats Remaining — 15]

[Classification: Stage Three]

[Designation: Blade-Type (1), Unknown Brute Variant (1)]

’Blade-Type?’

[New form. Data incomplete. One arm resembles an organic cleaver. The other arm has mutated into reinforced bone plating. Speed rating exceeds standard Stage Three.]

I clicked my tongue.

That sounded like an issue.

"Where?" I asked, already moving toward the ledge.

[Southwest. Moving fast.]

Liya leaned over next to me, her halberd’s blade dripping with gore. "One of them’s circling. It didn’t join the rush."

"No," I said. "It waited. The smart bastard."

We both watched as the last of the lesser undead stumbled into the streets—easy cleanup. Liya’s allies regrouped below, battered but alive, shouting up at her, but she raised a fist to silence them.

Then it hit.

A blur of grey and black streaked between the two buildings below, faster than the eye could follow.

It moved like a phantom.

Efficient with no wasted motion.

A single jagged blade extended from its right arm, fused at the elbow, curved backwards like a butcher’s knife made of metal and tendon. Its other arm was heavier, shield-like, thick with calcified flesh.

It struck a broken wall in passing and left a three-foot gash.

"What the hell..." Liya gasped.

It wasn’t just fast, but powerful and accurate.

You might see the same movement from trained human fighters, not a shambling corpse but a hunting dog that looked for an opening.

"Stay close..."

"Huh? Why?"

[Alert: Blade-Type closing in—fast!]

My eyes widened.

It was above us.

The damn thing had run up the building across the street and launched itself like a missile. The shield arm angled for a landing, absorbing the shock as it skidded across the roof with enough force to rip tiles from the surface.

Liya moved to intercept—but the creature was already turning.

Too quick.

It feinted left, then twisted and stabbed toward her chest with its massive blade.

There wasn’t time for her to block it.

I dashed forward, abandoning defence to save her life and stepped in.

Steel clashed with bone. The tip of the cleaver slammed into my gauntlet hard enough to knock me backwards and send pain jolting through my arm.

"You!"

"Focus!" I barked, digging my heels in.

The Blade-Type didn’t retreat; it used the momentum to follow up.

And I could feel the strain building in my wrist.

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