Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 88: Rats in a Burning Lab

Chapter 88: Rats in a Burning Lab

The floor creaked under my boots.

Chunks of plaster and twisted rebar choked the hallway ahead, forcing every step into a slow, ugly shuffle. I kept the Type-9K close against my chest, finger resting light but ready along the guard, eyes cutting side to side through the broken light.

Behind me, Shen Yifei moved too close.

Her boots scraped a little too loud across the grit, breathing was short and ragged.

I slowed half a step without looking back. Let her catch up.

The overhead fluorescents flickered every few seconds, throwing the hall into a pulsing stutter of shadows. Each flash painted new shapes across the wreckage — broken chairs, snapped tables, a cracked whiteboard drooping from the wall like a broken neck.

The air tasted thick — burnt plastic, dust, and rot. It coated my mouth like ash.

Somewhere ahead, deeper inside the North Block, I heard it:

Gunfire. Muffled. Panicked.

Mixed in with shouting, the scraping drag of furniture against tile.

Humans.

Still alive — for now.

I adjusted my grip on the gun.

And kept moving.

Half a classroom wall had collapsed into the hallway, forcing us into a narrow choke between jagged sheetrock and a pile of desks. I tilted my body sideways, slipping through.

Yifei hesitated a fraction behind me — her shoulder bumping the edge with a soft thud — then squeezed through, spear gripped tight in both hands.

Behind me, Yifei hesitated.

"John..." she whispered, voice catching.

A small, gentle tone. Not the usual bratty whine. Just scared.

I turned slightly, keeping my body between her and the open hallway."Narrow your shoulders," I muttered. "Breathe out. Move."

Yifei nodded enthusiastically and squeezed through after me, spear clutched awkwardly in both hands. Her shoulder bumped the debris with a dull thud. She winced like it hurt more than it should.

I kept my voice low, steady."You’re doing fine. Just stick close."

She nodded again, biting her lip.

Too shaken to throw a smart-ass reply back like she usually would.

Good.

Survive first and talk later.

The hall bent sharply to the right, a broken ceiling beam hanging down like a broken limb, half-blocking the path ahead. I ducked under it, brushing loose plaster off my jacket. Heard her copy me — clumsier, dropping almost into a crouch to fit through.

When she popped up on the other side, she moved up close — closer than before. Her shoulder brushed mine once, twice, before she realised and shifted half a step to the side.

I didn’t tell her to back off.

Didn’t need to.

Ahead, another burst of muffled gunfire — short, frantic. Then silence.

Yifei whispered again, voice tight against her teeth:

"Shouldn’t we... hurry?"

I shook my head once."If they’re still fighting, then we have a chance. If we rush and trip over ourselves again, we’re finished."

She stayed quiet after that.

The dead building seemed to breathe around us — every wall cracked and bleeding dust, every broken window sucking in the cold night air in slow gasps.

The temperature dropped as we moved deeper, the thick stink of decay spreading from the damaged drywall, mixing with the sharp iron bite of old blood.

Yifei edged closer again — I could hear the faint rustle of her torn jacket brushing mine.

Not clinging.

Not crying.

Just... staying close enough to feel that someone else was there.

I didn’t say anything.

Didn’t pull away.

Just kept walking.

Slow. Careful. One boot at a time, into the dark.

The hallway bent again, narrowing.

The air here was worse — still, heavy, thick enough that it stuck in my throat.

Every breath tasted like mould and blood and the sharp chemical tang of something burnt long ago.

I slowed, scanning the shadows ahead.

Three bodies sprawled across the floor just past a collapsed doorway — students, judging by the shredded uniforms, the half-shattered backpacks dumped around them.

Blood slicked the tiles under their bodies — dark, half-dried, glinting under the flicker of the overhead lights.

I raised a hand, signalling a stop.

Yifei pressed in close behind me — too close, her chest brushing my back before she caught herself and stepped half a pace off to the side.

Her spear shook slightly in her grip.

I crouched low, moving forward slowly, gun up.

No movement. No breathing. No twitching fingers.

Dead.

Really dead.

Not the kind that got back up after you turned your back.

I let the Type-9K hang loose across my chest and moved in. With one glance, I noticed the torn throat, mauled. No chance. Another — bullet hole right through the forehead. Neat and very deliberate.

Someone knew what they were doing — or got lucky.

The third slumped against the wall, arms bent defensively around his gut. Blood had pooled thick and black around his waist.

I crouched beside the first body.

Hand sliding through the pockets, checking belts, gear loops.

"Nothing useful..." I muttered.

Shifted to the second body.

Small utility knife, cracked but still sharp.

A crushed box of ammo — two rounds salvageable.

I heard Yifei shuffle closer, breath catching in her throat.

"You... you’re just taking it?" she whispered, a voice so low I almost didn’t catch it over the faint hum of the broken lights.

I didn’t look up.

"They’re not using it," I said. "We are."

She swallowed audibly, but Yifei didn’t complain or hum at me about morals... she moved to the walls and started opening small cabinets and files. "...I’ll help you, okay?"

"Thanks."

I really appreciated her gesture, despite her pale face and trembling hands... Shen Yifei really tried her best to help me.

I patted down the last corpse quickly — snagged a half-empty medkit from his ruined pack. Blood on the zipper, but inside it looked clean enough. I wiped it once against the dead man’s sleeve out of habit before stuffing it into my bag.

There didn’t seem to be anything decent left as I turned to Shen Yifei.

Yifei hovered behind me, shifting her weight from foot to foot, the spear clutched tighter now like she expected the corpses to move at any second.

They didn’t, but it was good that she no longer became overconfident. But they were too broken for that.

However, we shouldn’t and couldn’t linger too much longer... I worried about Mu Qinglan because of the constant experience and kill pop-ups from the system.

I stood, slinging the Type-9K back into a ready position.

"Stay close," I muttered over my shoulder.

"I am," she whispered back instantly, voice sharp with nerves.

I caught her glance at the bodies — quick, guilty, then away.

Her face was pale in the flickering light — not scared of me, but afraid of how easily I moved around the dead, and I also understood that something wasn’t right about myself.

How little I seemed to care, the dirty corpses or scent of death that used to make me gag, or nauseous... it seemed Shen Yifei wasn’t the only one changing, adapting.

She edged closer again, almost brushing my side, neither clinging nor crying. Just leaning in and putting a little weight, and a little warmth on my shoulder, like it anchored her here.

I didn’t pull away.

Just started forward again.

Behind us, the broken hall swallowed the bodies, the blood, the silence.

Ahead, somewhere deeper inside the block, another faint burst of shouting rang out — furniture dragging, someone hammering against a doorframe.

Still fighting.

Still alive.

For now.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.