Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 58: Execution Before the Duel

Chapter 58: Execution Before the Duel

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March 17th, 20xx — 05:10 AM

Zone 3B-Δ – Rooftop

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Jiang Roulan hit the stairwell hard. Her shoulder struck first, then the rest of her body crumpled onto the rusted landing below. I didn’t need the system to tell me she was in critical condition. I’d seen people die enough times to recognise the signs.

But something in me didn’t break. It shifted.

Not grief, not rage.

Focus.

The Titan Marrow Sutra surged through my limbs like boiling oil moving beneath glass. Controlled. Contained. Waiting.

[Bond Alert: Jiang Roulan — Critical Status. Stabilisation Window: 06:59]

[Parasite-Type Mutation Detected — Stage 2 Confirmed]

The rooftop was a mess. Sloped concrete, cracked tiles, twisted vents. Patches of blood smeared across debris and broken rebar. Someone had set up a forward watch here—old crates, ammo scattered, a burned-out radio still sparking in the corner.

Eight men remained. I could hear them moving. Talking. Laughing.

None of them had seen me yet.

The Type-9K appeared in my hand with a brief flicker. The black spear shimmered just beneath the surface of my thoughts, ready.

[Weapon Equipped: Type-9K SMG – 30/30 Rounds]

I moved into cover behind a crumbling vent stack. My boots didn’t make a sound.

The first shot caught one of them in the back of the neck.

He dropped before the others realised what had happened.

The second man turned just in time to catch two rounds in the chest. Blood sprayed across the wall behind him. He slumped without a word.

Two down.

The third started to run, and I let him. Holstered the gun. Summoned the spear. It slid into my hand like it belonged there.

I closed the gap fast, grabbed his collar, and yanked him backwards into my shoulder. The spear went in through his back and out of his gut. A wet, gurgling noise slipped from his mouth before he dropped.

Three.

The fourth and fifth came at me together, thinking numbers made them safer. One swung high with a pipe. The other rushed low with a combat knife.

I ducked the first swing, caught the pipe with my off-hand, twisted, and snapped the man’s wrist.

But I didn’t stop.

I drove my knee into his chin, heard his jaw break, then turned the spear into the second man. He barely lifted his knife before the point found his throat. Blood pulsed out in thick bursts as he fell.

Five.

The rest of them hesitated.

That was smart.

I lifted the SMG again. The Type-9K barked twice.

The sixth collapsed, one leg gone beneath the knee. The man screamed as he fell, clawing at his thigh like it would grow back.

The last one dropped his weapon, hands raised. He was young. Barely older than me.

"Wait," he said. "Please—"

The spear went in clean through his left eye.

He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Then the rooftop vibrated.

A slow, heavy thud.

Metal scraping stone.

My eyes snapped to the far end of the rooftop.

The awakened had arrived.

He stood half-shrouded by shadow, his body lean and twitching. His right arm was no longer just flesh. It had become something else—steel and flesh fused, pulsing with slow, deliberate veins of sickly purple. The blade extended from elbow to fingertip, curved, jagged, breathing.

He remained silent as he charged at me.

The speed was wrong—too fast for his size. He moved like his joints weren’t human, and then his attack followed. The blade came in at my neck, arcing through the air in a savage horizontal slash.

If I’d still been angry, I would’ve missed the timing

But I was calm.

I pushed off the ground and ducked under the swing,

The blade howled above me, almost knocking me off balance. I lunged forward, striking the man’s abdomen hard.

Every muscle in my leg locked as I pushed off.

The impact lifted him off the ground. Bang!

We both slid, opposite directions, across the rooftop, boots grinding, with slow, measured breaths.

Dust rose in the silence that followed. Pebbles clinked down the sloped edge.

He stopped near the roof’s ventilation unit. I stopped near a stack of broken pallets.

The monster straightened himself, and so did I.

We looked at each other across ten meters of cracked stone and blood. The male tilted his head slowly, lips curling into a smile as his blade arm twitched.

Meanwhile, the throbbing in my chest increased... The Titan Marrow Sutra pulsated with delight at this battle.

"Lao"

He called out to me, a name, maybe?

"John."

"..."

Flick! Lao cut the air, probably cleaning his blade, before lowering himself. It was clear he was coming again, and this time I was ready.

The way he moved was twitchy, off-rhythm. Like something inside him was burning too fast.

His stance was low, but there was no discipline behind it. Just instinct and something worse.

The pulsing purple lines across his blade-arm throbbed like veins on the verge of rupture. His body flexed with unnatural tension, the skin stretched too tight across his ribs, and his jaw clamped so hard it looked ready to crack.

Then he was gone.

I shifted left, barely catching the blur of motion as he launched forward. Faster than before.

The blade came down vertically this time, from above—not a strike, a cleave.

I sidestepped and turned my body with it, letting the blade slide past the air near my shoulder. It slammed into the rooftop behind me, tearing through concrete with a CRACK that shook my teeth.

Chunks of stone, spraying through the air.

I countered.

One step in—tight movement—and I brought the spear up for a mid-thrust.

He dropped his weight and spun.

The blade twisted unnaturally and pulled back mid-motion like a whip. I’d never seen a weapon behave like that.

It hissed when it retracted like it was alive.

Sparks of black and silver filled the air as our weapons collided, his strength weaker, but the blade of his arm sank slightly into my spear’s heft.

We separated again.

This time, I felt the air between us shift. The pressure in my body was rising. My Qi wasn’t just flowing—it was climbing. The Sutra was feeding it rhythm, starting slow, as if analysing how I fought, moved, and then it began to pump faster.

My steps became faster, the spear lighter... almost as if the sudden increase in my body’s attributes hindered me until now.

Like a sports car trapped in first gear.

He spoke again.

"You smell clean," the awakened said, voice rough, lips twitching. "Haven’t eaten yet, have you?"

"What?"

He laughed—a sharp, broken sound. "Doesn’t matter. You’ll rot just the same."

The purple blade pulsed.

Then it elongated.

Not by movement or trick—the sword actually grew.

It went from a meter to nearly two as if matching my spear, bone and metal stretching like wet rope, the end jagged and curved inward like a meat hook.

My stance shifted.

He came again, dragging the blade low, then arcing it upward into a rising slash aimed at my legs.

I jumped.

The hook scraped the rooftop beneath me, slicing a trench into the tiles.

I landed and twisted, dropping my body and sweeping the spear at his legs.

He jumped too—but his landing was off. His ankle buckled for half a second.

I pressed forward.

My spear jabbed three times in quick succession. One high. One low. One toward the centre.

He blocked the first with the edge of the blade, parried the second with a deflection using his left hand, then flinched, unable to keep up.

The third pierced his guard.

Right in the ribs.

The tip sank into his flesh, a shallow hit, but it hurt him.

He backed off, panting now, hunched.

I could see the muscles around the wound twitching, the purple veins near his shoulder flaring brighter, almost reacting to pain.

"You bleed," I said flatly.

He chuckled, but there was no humour in it. "So do you."

He was right.

My left arm stung, a shallow cut from one of the earlier swings. I hadn’t felt it until now, but because this bastard mentioned it... not it hurt like hell.

But I could feel the heat inside me rising.

The Titan Marrow Sutra didn’t just want combat. It wanted dominance.

And right now, I wasn’t giving it enough.

He stood straight again and extended his blade arm to the side. The muscle twitched, then split along the edge—tiny rows of jagged teeth appeared.

I didn’t wait for whatever that was.

I surged forward. The spear moved with me. Clean, two-handed grip.

He braced.

I feinted left, then turned hard to the right. My shoulder dropped. My hips pivoted.

The spear tore upward in a vertical arc, meant for the chest.

He raised the blade to block—too slow.

CLANG.

Steel struck flesh. Then something gave.

The sound that followed was wet.

The edge of my spear penetrated his throat, cutting deep along his right shoulder, straight through the muscle mass that fed the living blade.

He screamed as thick, black blood poured over me like rain.