Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 165: On the Road

Facing Chen Ye’s money-grubbing grin, Captain Chu Che simply rolled his eyes.

“Do you think Artifacts are like cabbages? That you can just pull one out of the dirt on every street corner?”

Chen Ye wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. He chuckled, grabbed the leather-bound notebook, and walked a few paces away. He leaned against the truck bed, digging through the backseat of the cab for a quick snack while he read.

Opening the notebook, Chen Ye’s eyes widened. He finally understood what he was holding.

Ever since the apocalypse began, Captain Chu had been meticulously recording every single Anomaly their convoy encountered.

From the terrifying White-Dress Scissor Lady they had barely escaped in Apricot Blossom Town, to the grotesque Resentment-Binding Willow in Longevity Village, and finally, the horrific God-Worshippers at Rong City No. 2 Primary School.

Flipping through the handwritten pages, Chen Ye realized the true, staggering value of the book.

The apocalypse had descended too rapidly. Humanity’s collective research on Anomalies was virtually non-existent. When most survivors encountered a monster, their only reaction was blind panic. If they couldn’t run, they simply waited to die.

This was the first time Chen Ye had seen actual, methodical field research targeting the supernatural horrors of the wasteland. He had no idea Captain Chu had been quietly compiling this data in the background.

Chu Che had even formulated several concrete “Laws” regarding Anomaly behavior.

Chen Ye slowly began to read the bolded text.

First Law: Anomalies are indescribable, unfathomable, unclassifiable, and possess no fixed nature. If you ever begin to believe you have ‘sufficient experience’ in dealing with Anomalies, you are already dead. When facing the supernatural, relying on past experience is a fatal mistake.

Second Law: Anomalies and humanity are mutually exclusive. Coexistence is impossible. The conflict ends only when humanity exterminates all Anomalies, or Anomalies exterminate all of humanity.

Third Law: Only Sequence Beyonders possess the capacity to permanently kill an Anomaly.

Fourth Law: The human mass dictates the attraction radius. The larger the concentration of living humans, the greater their supernatural ‘gravity,’ making them exponentially easier for Anomalies to detect. Conversely, a smaller group is exponentially safer. Note: Humans are like sparks in the dark. A single spark illuminates a negligible area. A massive convoy is a roaring bonfire, acting as a beacon that draws Anomalies from miles away.

Fifth Law: Stagnation equals death. The longer a human presence remains in a single geographic location, the stronger their residual aura becomes, greatly increasing the likelihood of discovery by apex predators. (This is the primary reason human survival dictates constant migration).

…

Chen Ye slowly turned the pages. Many sections were heavily crossed out, rewritten, and crossed out again, showing the evolution of Chu Che’s understanding.

He eventually reached a section where Chu Che had attempted to classify the monsters.

The captain had broadly divided them into two categories.

The first was Ordinary Anomalies. This category encompassed feral beasts like the Crawlers, the Giant Snake Anomaly, and the Mist Thralls. They were brutal, physically overwhelming, and the most common threat in the wasteland.

The second, far more terrifying category was Rule-Based Anomalies. This included the unknown entity that had mimicked voices on the highway last night, and the Weeping Paper Effigy from Apricot Blossom Town.

Chu Che had even documented rumors of several Rule-Based Anomalies that Chen Ye had never encountered.

According to Chu Che’s notes, Rule-Based Anomalies were exceedingly rare, infinitely more powerful, and invoked a sense of absolute, inescapable despair. Even among high-tier Sequence Beyonders, there were zero confirmed reports of anyone successfully defeating a Rule-Based Anomaly in direct combat. You either survived their ‘game,’ or you died.

Chen Ye was completely engrossed.

The value of this notebook was truly immeasurable. If they ran into a large, established survivor settlement, this single book could be traded for an armory of top-tier Supplies. Any convoy that possessed this knowledge would see their survival rate skyrocket.

“Hey, stop reading. Time to hit the road,” Chu Che called out, interrupting his focus.

“Bah! Bah! Bah! Don’t say ‘hit the road,’ say ‘roll out’!” Chen Ye spat three times on the ground to ward off bad luck. “Seriously, Captain Chu, can’t you use words that don’t sound like we’re heading to our own execution?”

Right now, Chen Ye was extremely superstitious about death flags.

Chu Che laughed, completely unconcerned, and reached out to snatch the notebook back.

“Hey, I wasn’t finished!”

“You’ve read enough. You lived through the rest of the entries anyway,” Chu Che said, tucking the book back into his coat. “Let’s go. If we don’t move now, we’ll never catch Iron Lion.”

Before climbing into his truck, Chen Ye cast a longing glance at the Heavy Machete resting on the floorboards.

The holographic upgrade timer still had over seventy hours remaining. If he had a choice, Chen Ye would have holed up in a bunker and waited out the timer before daring to drive through the ruins of Dawu City.

Unfortunately, Iron Lion didn’t have seventy hours. If it weren’t for Uncle Bao’s critical condition forcing a delay, Chu Che would have ordered them to start driving the second they reunited.

Just as Chen Ye grabbed the door handle, a violent, hacking sound ripped through the fog.

“Cough! Cough! Hack… ACK!”

Chen Ye turned to see Xiao Wang, the convoy assistant, violently convulsing near the SUV. The young man was bent double, hacking so hard it sounded like he was trying to forcefully eject his own lungs onto the asphalt.

“Xiao Wang, are… are you okay?” Chen Ye asked, taking a slow step backward.

“I… cough… I’m fine… hack… Captain…” Xiao Wang wheezed.

It took nearly a full minute for the coughing fit to subside. When Xiao Wang finally straightened up, his face was flushed a dark, feverish red, and his posture was alarmingly lethargic.

Chen Ye looked at Xiao Wang, and then looked closely at the surrounding wall of gray mist.

“Captain Chu, don’t you think this fog is significantly thicker than it was ten minutes ago?”

Chu Che frowned, scanning the perimeter. Chen Ye was right. When they had first reunited, visibility within the fog had been roughly forty feet. Now, it had shrunk to less than thirty.

“Captain Chu, do you happen to have any spare masks in that SUV?”

Pragmatism always ruled Chen Ye’s mind. The unnatural fog was starting to feel distinctly hostile. Regardless of whether it was an Anomaly or just toxic weather, strapping a filter over his face was step one.

“Yeah, we looted a few boxes from the church’s medical supply before we ran,” Chu Che nodded.

Xiao Wang quickly rummaged through the back of the SUV and handed Chen Ye an unopened N95 mask.

Chu Che thought for a moment, then grabbed one for himself. The oppressive, cloying nature of the fog was making him deeply uneasy.

Xiao Wang also strapped a mask over his face, but it felt like a case of locking the barn door after the horse had bolted. Even with the mask on, the young man continued to emit wet, rattling coughs.

Chen Ye subtly shifted his weight, putting another three feet of distance between himself and the assistant.

Yes, the physical constitution of a Sequence Beyonder was leagues above an ordinary human. But in the apocalypse, “just in case” was the mantra that kept you breathing.

The tiny convoy finally set off. Chen Ye took the lead in the Doomsday Pickup, with Captain Chu Che’s SUV following closely behind.

It wasn’t an ideal formation. Captain Chu possessed absolutely zero combat capabilities. The entire offensive power of the convoy rested solely on Chen Ye’s shoulders, effectively making him the vanguard, the shield, and the battering ram.

Chen Ye was highly reluctant to play the hero, but he had no choice. He needed Chu Che’s Marking radar to navigate the wasteland and track Iron Lion.

“Testing, testing… Chen Ye, do you copy?”

The radio clipped to Chen Ye’s visor crackled with Chu Che’s voice.

“Captain Chu, there are literally two of us. Is the radio protocol really necessary?” Chen Ye sighed.

“Maintain radio contact at all times. And keep your speed down,” Chu Che ordered. “Turn on your fog lights so I can track your bumper. This fog is getting worse by the minute. Cough… hack…”

The violent coughing at the end of the transmission didn’t belong to the captain. It was Xiao Wang, sitting in the passenger seat.

It sounded like the fluid in his lungs was building up.

“Captain Chu, what fog lights? This is a beat-up pickup truck. I have two headlights, and one of them is cracked. Just stay close to my tailgate!”

“At least turn on your hazard flashers!”

“Have you ever seen this truck use hazard lights?!”

If the old world traffic police still existed, Chen Ye’s Doomsday Pickup would have been impounded before it even left the driveway.

The radio went silent.

Chen Ye checked his rearview mirror. Through the dense gray soup, he could clearly see the twin, piercing yellow beams of the SUV’s fog lights tracking his bumper. In this kind of suffocating weather, specialized fog lights were worth their weight in gold.

Chen Ye clicked on his standard headlights. The white beams reflected harshly off the fog, creating a blinding glare, but it was better than driving in pitch blackness.

The sun, which had been a blurry red smudge earlier, was completely gone now. The fog had thickened into a solid, impenetrable ceiling, blocking out every single ray of natural light.

The ambient temperature, however, continued to climb. The biting winter frost was entirely gone. Chen Ye had stripped off his heavy down jacket and tossed it aside, and he had even kicked off his fur-lined snow boots.

The humidity inside the cab was skyrocketing. The air felt heavy, wet, and cloying.

It was the kind of miserable, bone-damp weather that residents of the southern swamps might tolerate, but for a northerner like Chen Ye, it was suffocating. It was the kind of dampness where a shirt hung out to dry would stay wet for a month.

Visibility continued to plummet.

At this rate, by tomorrow morning, they wouldn’t be able to see past the hoods of their own cars.

Chen Ye tried focusing the power of the Abyssal Blood Eye, hoping the supernatural artifact could pierce the veil. But the red tint only offered a marginal improvement. The Blood Eye’s primary function was combat and aura detection, not thermal or x-ray vision. Against a purely physical weather phenomenon, it was severely limited.

Forced to crawl at ten miles per hour, the drive was agonizingly tense.

Chu Che’s voice crackled over the radio every few minutes, calling out course corrections based on his supernatural radar.

“Hard left. Stop. Wait five seconds… okay, inch forward.”

They had run this exact drill dozens of times during their previous migrations, so Chen Ye followed the orders without complaint. He knew Chu Che was actively sensing the auras of lurking Anomalies in the fog and navigating a safe path around them.

It was still incredibly nerve-wracking. Sometimes, Chen Ye would be creeping forward blindly, only for the fog to suddenly part inches from his bumper, revealing a massive, overturned semi-truck or a sheer concrete wall. Chu Che’s radar could detect monsters, but it couldn’t detect inanimate obstacles.

Fortunately, as they slowly merged back onto the ruined remains of the main highway, the debris cleared up.

However, hitting the highway meant one terrifying thing.

They were approaching the city limits of Dawu City.

Compared to Rong City, Dawu City was a massive, sprawling, Tier-1 metropolis. Before the apocalypse, it had boasted a population easily triple that of Rong City. And in the wasteland, a higher population density before the fall meant a higher concentration of terrifying, mutated horrors after.

And their mighty convoy currently consisted of exactly three and a half people.

Uncle Bao was currently hovering with one foot in the grave, so counting him as half a person was probably being generous.