Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 80: The Cost of Living - Iron Blood

Chapter 80: The Cost of Living - Iron Blood

John Wang’s POV

March 17th, 2025 — 8:41 PM

Longwan City — Linbei District, Three Blocks from the University

—

The ground trembled under our feet.

Not the earth — it was the sound. The weight of hundreds of infected dragging themselves over cracked asphalt and broken glass, drawn by blood, noise, and hunger.

We sprinted across the ruins, staying low behind rusted-out cars and shattered walls. Breathing hard. Footsteps light.

Every second the pharmacy stayed standing felt like a miracle, ready to run out.

Mu Qinglan ran ahead of me while gripping her bat. She retained her ruthless and aggressive movements from being a living dead. Shen Yifei stood beside me, gripping her spear so tightly her knuckles became white.

Ahead, faint gunfire echoed — short, panicked bursts.

"Close now," Qinglan muttered, her voice flat. Professional.

I could smell the blood even before we saw the building. Fresh. Heavy. Wet.

The pharmacy leaned sideways on its foundations, windows shattered, door buckling outward with the weight of bodies pressing against it. Half a dozen survivors clung to the inside, trying to keep the monsters out with their own shoulders and hands.

It wasn’t going to hold.

A single body pushed too hard, and the whole front would collapse inward.

I spotted her immediately.

The girl with the bow. Blood staining her wrist. Jaw set like iron even while fear flickered behind her eyes.

But what shocked me most was that girl... she was Zhou Xue.

She didn’t look heroic.

She looked half-dead, cornered, and exhausted.

But she was still standing.

Still fighting.

I drew a quick breath.

"On my signal," I said.

Qinglan nodded once. Yifei swallowed but stayed firm.

No more time.

We moved.

We didn’t go through the main door.

Too obvious. Too clogged.

We swept around the side — found a broken service entrance, already cracked open enough for a body to squeeze through.

I led, crouched low, spear reversed in my hands.

Inside, the pharmacy smelled worse — sour rot, blood, fear, sweat. Broken pill bottles crunched underfoot as we slipped through the aisles.

I caught sight of a first zombie — a bloated woman in a torn security uniform. Her head twisted toward me, mouth already stretching open for a shriek.

My knife flashed once, underhanded, jamming through her temple. The body crumpled soundlessly.

Behind me, the cold woman slit another’s throat in one smooth, surgical move. Blood sprayed the dusty shelves.

Yifei shivered once, then rammed her spear straight through a zombie’s chest, pinned it to the wall, and yanked it out again.

Good.

We pushed toward the front. Closer now, I could hear the survivors yelling, sobbing — the door half giving way. Zhou Xue stood right at the centre, bow raised, hand shaking so badly it was almost useless.

Blood poured down her as her skin split from the strain and cold — the bowstring slippery with it. I locked eyes with her for a half-second through the wreckage.

She blinked once, wide-eyed.

She saw us.

Not saviours or knights.

Just three bloodstained wolves hurtling into the fire.

✦ Zhou Xue’s POV

March 17th, 2025 — 8:43 PM

Longwan University — Linbei Campus, Pharmacy Ruins

—

At first, I thought I was seeing things.

Everything felt thin, like I was floating a few inches above my own body.

The pharmacy stank of sweat and rot. My hands were raw, blood sticky down my wrist, the bowstring long since cutting into my skin. I couldn’t even string another shot now.

My fingers kept slipping off the damn nock.

The door buckled again behind us, the survivors jamming their backs and shoulders into it like sandbags trying to hold back a flood. Someone sobbed. Someone whispered prayers to a god I didn’t think listened anymore.

I tightened my grip around the useless bow. Waited for it. Knew it was coming.

That moment when the whole barricade just snaps and the infected pour in. I didn’t feel scared anymore. Just tired. So fucking tired.

Then the side of the pharmacy just blew inward — like a shotgun blast without the noise.

I jerked back instinctively. The noise, the dust, the sudden pressure drop in the air. Three shapes — black, sharp — stormed in through the smoke and shattered wood.

Two women moved like lightning, cutting and sweeping the infected aside with short, brutal strikes. But it was the man who made the world tilt for a second.

A spear exploded forward in the darkness. The black iron tip slicing through a zombie’s neck like it was nothing. He planted his foot and spun in a low half circle, and smashed the blunt end of the shaft into another’s skull, crushing it like a rotten melon.

Blood sprayed in their air like a fountain, staining the broken shelves and walls. Yet that man... he didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down.

It wasn’t clean, nor was it beautiful, but it was just... real.

Fucking brutal and real.

I stood there for a half-second like a goddamn idiot, bow hanging loose from my numb hands, heart hammering against my ribs like it wanted to break free and run.

The infected hesitated — a second of confusion.

I didn’t waste it.

I dropped the bow. It hit the floor with a clatter, too loud in my ears.

Grabbed two broken arrows instead — sticky with blood and dust — one in each hand like little knives.

The first infected stumbled toward me, mouth opening in a gurgling moan. I stabbed the arrow into its face. Deep. I think it screamed, or maybe that was me. I didn’t even feel the shaft snap under the impact.

Another one came from the side. I swung without thinking. Buried the second arrow into its throat. Hot blood sprayed across my arm. The shaft cracked against bone but held.

Pain tore through my palms from the splintered wood, but it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered but standing. Breathing. Fighting.

Across the broken shelves, the male turned his head and caught my eye.

It wasn’t a heroic moment. No warmth. No sympathy.

Just a hard, blood-smeared man, standing there like a wall against the dark, staring at me with the flat look of someone who’s already decided how this ends.

Fight. Or die.

My chest heaved once, shuddering.

Something inside me cracked open, sharp and ugly.

I bared my teeth, sucked in a lungful of dusty air, and screamed — raw, broken, nothing pretty about it.

Grabbed another broken arrow off the ground and slammed it through the eye of another infected, lunging for me. Felt the skull cave in under my palm. Blood sprayed hot across my wrist.

I didn’t care.

Didn’t even hesitate.

He didn’t look back to see if I could keep up.

He just turned, drove his spear into the next corpse, and moved on — like he’d already decided that if I wanted to live, it was on me.

And somehow... somehow that made my heart beat harder, made my legs move faster, made something inside me catch fire again.

Not survival.

Not hope.

Just rage.

And maybe that was enough.

I didn’t think my mind became blank—there was no plan... I just moved!

Another infected staggered in from the right, face half-missing, guts dragging behind it like a broken leash. I stepped sideways, foot skidding on broken glass, and slammed an arrow shaft into its ear. It bucked once, knocked my shoulder hard enough to rattle my teeth, then folded to the ground twitching.

My hands were numb now. Couldn’t even feel the broken wood biting into my palms anymore. Blood ran down my arms like someone had turned on a faucet.

A scream ripped out from behind me. Someone — a boy, maybe Wu Bin, maybe not — dragged down under three bodies.

I jerked half a step toward him before stopping myself.

No... I couldn’t save anyone, act like him! Keep moving, keep killing, one dead zombie is one more chance to survive!

Another infected lunged over a broken pharmacy shelf. I twisted, ducked low, and jammed the arrow into its jaw as it fell. It hit the ground hard, twitching, teeth snapping at the air.

My breath rasped against my throat, torn and wet.

The survivors near the door were scattering now, sprinting past the broken front, some still clutching bags or sacks of medicine they wouldn’t be able to carry far. Most would die before morning.

It didn’t matter.

Another body crashed into me — heavy, rotten, slick with something I didn’t want to think about. I stumbled, almost went down, but threw my shoulder into it, forcing it back. No weapon this time, just fists and elbows and broken instinct.

The broken arrow snapped somewhere behind me.

Fine.

I grabbed another off the floor.

A jagged, twisted piece barely longer than my hand. Good enough.

The male moved somewhere ahead, a blur of black and iron, spear sweeping wide arcs, clearing paths through the horde like a reaper mowing a field.

The two women flanked him — sharp, merciless.

I wasn’t fast like them. I wasn’t strong.

But I could still kill.

And I wasn’t going to die here on my knees.

Another infected shrieked and rushed me.

I met it halfway, driving the splintered arrow through its eye with a hoarse yell that left my throat raw.

It slammed into me, heavy, stinking, dead weight that shook my organs. I staggered but didn’t fall. A black sticky blood with a foul stench soaked my chest, my arms, my legs. I didn’t even know how much of it was mine anymore.

Didn’t matter.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, something cold and wild whispered:

This is the cost of survival!

Another zombie... another kill... I must keep standing... moving.

Don’t stop, Zhou Xue!

The pharmacy walls groaned under the weight of the swarm. Dust rained down from above in fine, choking clouds.

I barely noticed.

I was too busy surviving.

One broken heartbeat at a time.