Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 79: Nightfall

Chapter 79: Nightfall

The cold hit harder the second we stepped outside.

Not the kind of cold you could avoid with a jacket or a bit of movement. The icy chill seeped into your bones, and the filthy stench of rusted iron, mildew and old blood didn’t help either. A heavy air filled the night, wet footsteps muffled but the faint, damp shuffle of things moving somewhere in the dark.

Mu Qinglan led, her boots whispering over broken concrete, body low and fluid like a cat ready to kill. Shen Yifei stuck to my side, tighter than I liked, but I let it slide. Fear wasn’t a sin tonight. It was survival.

We moved fast but quiet, weaving through the wreckage of Longwan’s corpse. Burnt-out cars. Shattered storefronts. Places that once buzzed with life and now served only as traps.

A soft click to my right — Qinglan raised a fist, signalling a stop.

Three infected stumbled out from a wrecked electronics store. Their jaws hung slack, skin rotting in the places their nails had clawed too deep. The closest one twitched toward the noise of Yifei’s breathing.

I slipped forward before it could scream.

One hard stab under the jaw — through the mouth, into the brain. The zombie dropped like a puppet with cut strings. Qinglan took the second. A clean downward strike crushed its temple. The third barely had time to turn before Yifei jabbed her spear through its eye, feet slipping slightly on the slippery ground.

She grunted, pulling the weapon free, with blood spattered across her leggings.

I watched her for a half-second. Shaky. Scared. But still standing.

"Move," I said quietly.

The night swallowed us again as we pushed forward, every heartbeat hammering a little harder against my ribs.

Something bad was happening out there.

I could feel it in the air, thick and heavy as smoke.

It took fifteen minutes of weaving through broken streets before we found a decent vantage point.

A half-collapsed parking structure near the old East District border. Concrete cracked and slanted, the metal rebar twisted out like broken ribs. The air stank worse here — something rotten underneath the concrete — but it gave us height.

I gestured upward. Qinglan nodded once and started the climb without a word. Yifei hesitated, glancing up at the shattered beams, but followed.

I brought up the rear, every step creaking under my boots.

By the time we reached the third floor, the view punched the breath out of me.

Longwan University, Linbei Campus.

What was left of it.

The main gate was a mess — half the northern wall had collapsed under what looked like an explosion. Barricades of old furniture, cars, and even office cabinets lined the breaches, sloppy and desperate. Lights flickered weakly in a few upper windows like the last breath of a dying animal.

And near the west side — near a crumbling pharmacy building — movement.

Small shapes. A group, maybe six or seven.

"Survivors?" Yifei asked, voice breaking the cold silence between us.

Qinglan didn’t answer immediately. She pulled binoculars from her belt, glass flashing as she scanned the street.

Her mouth pressed into a tight line.

"They’re being hunted," she said finally.

I squinted harder. It took a second before my eyes caught it — the shifting mass, the slow, hungry flood of bodies.

Dozens. No—hundreds.

Moving toward the pharmacy like they smelled blood in the air.

A low, steady groaning rose under the skyline, like a chant made from broken throats.

Shen Yifei sucked in a breath beside me. "That’s too many. We can’t—"

"We’re not saving everyone." My voice came out sharper than I meant.

She flinched.

I couldn’t help but sigh, squeezing the bridge of my nose between two fingers. "We’re looking for Zhou Xue. That’s it. That’s the mission."

Qinglan’s head dipped in agreement. She held her metal bat tight, not even tense and ready to follow my foolish mission.

Yifei hesitated, fingers twisting around her spear shaft.

"And if she’s already..." She didn’t finish.

Neither did I.

"Then we find her body," I said.

"And we move on."

The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but I couldn’t afford pretty lies. Not here. Not anymore.

"We need to move fast," Qinglan said, checking the map I’d given her earlier. "North side streets. Less collapse. Should be faster."

My stomach twisted once, a cold, sour knot. We were twenty minutes out if we moved fast. Maybe more if we hit trouble.

By then...

I clenched my jaw, grinding my back molars and nodded.

"We’re moving. Now," I said, voice low and flat. Qinglan’s eyes met mine briefly, steady, without fear. Yifei swallowed hard, then nodded.

Yifei wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then squared her shoulders.

We turned from the dying view of Longwan University.

And we ran.

Time was bleeding away, and more people were dying.

——

Zhou Xue’s POV

March 17th, 2025 — 8:26 PM

Longwan University — Linbei Campus, West District (Pharmacy Ruins)

—

The door wouldn’t hold.

I knew it in my gut, the same way you know when a rubber band is about to snap. The metal pipe jammed through the handles, bent a little more each time something heavy slammed into it from the other side.

Scratch.

Thud.

Scratch scratch.

I crouched behind the checkout counter, bow pressed tight against my thighs, heart hammering out a rapid rhythm against my ribs.

Chen Ming hissed and threatened others to stay quiet using his gun, but it was a useless order in this situation... wasn’t he meant to be smart? Fear overwhelmed them all, no matter how much we bit our lips and prayed.

A girl two aisles down whimpered, biting into her sleeve to muffle it. Someone else dropped a bottle; it clattered and rolled under the shelves.

Every noise drew a harder thud from outside.

They could hear us.

They could smell us.

But they seemed to struggle with sight.

I shifted, wincing as the leather guard rubbed my bleeding wrist. The cloth I’d tied around it was already dark and sticky. My bowstring had cut deeper than I’d thought.

Chen Ming looked at me once — that hard, measuring look he always gave — but said nothing. He knew better than to waste breath.

The boy from the archery club — Wu Bin — knelt across from me, glasses cracked, face pale and sweaty. His hands shook as he gripped an old kitchen knife.

He caught me looking and tried to smile.

It came out crooked and sad.

"We’ll get out," he mouthed.

I didn’t answer.

No nonsense. The bow that I loved so much could save my life at any moment.

I pulled back the bowstring, aiming at the door, despite the trembling in my fingers, the agonising throb as the muscles tightened and cramped. Useless! If my hand didn’t stop shaking... I wouldn’t be able to shoot.

The walls vibrated under another slam. Dust rained down from the ceiling. Something heavy scraped against the broken window frames, pushing, testing.

Soon, they wouldn’t bother testing anymore.

They’d just come through.

A hot, sour taste filled my mouth — fear, anger, regret all crushed into one lump I couldn’t swallow.

I thought about my father.

About how angry he would be if he knew I was sitting here, useless, bleeding, waiting to die like some cornered animal.

No. I refused to die here. Not yet.

I gritted my teeth and notched an arrow, forcing my stiff hand into place.

Whatever came through that door first...

I was ready to kill it.

Or die trying.

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