Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 102: The Wicked Are Tormented by the Wicked

After two hours of breathing technique cultivation the previous night, followed by a full night’s sleep, Chen Ye woke up feeling sharp and revitalized.

Outside, the temperature was already climbing.

The cockpit of his truck wasn’t stuffy, exactly—it was just hot. Without a front windshield or doors, the scorching desert wind slammed directly into Chen Ye’s face as he drove.

The truck bed was packed to the brim with Supplies, the heavy load making the chassis groan and creak with every bump.

To save gasoline, Chen Ye had switched the vehicle to pure electric mode.

The Doomsday Pickup’s battery was fully charged, but the electric drive system was still the original stock part: the powertrain from a ‘Chili Fish Head’ Mini EV.

Asking the motor of a tiny, boxy micro-car to pull a heavy-duty pickup loaded with tons of cargo was pushing it to its limit. It struggled, but fortunately, it was still usable.

During the migration, the convoy moved at a crawl most of the time anyway.

They only needed to drive for their lives when they encountered situations like yesterday, where an Anomaly was actively hunting them down. In many cases, the Anomalies wouldn’t even have time to react before the guide had already led the convoy far away from the danger zone.

With electricity available, Chen Ye took out the Fruit-brand electronic watch he had looted from the Longevity Village chief’s house.

Seeing the charging icon light up on the screen, Chen Ye felt a momentary sense of dislocation.

Items rich with such a modern, civilized flavor were becoming increasingly rare.

The watch booted up, displaying the date: December 29, 2030.

In a daze, he realized it was already the final days of 2030.

The New Year was almost here.

He looked out at the shimmering heat waves distorting the horizon. With this weather, it certainly didn’t feel like the New Year was approaching. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call this midsummer.

Just then, the sedan directly in front of Chen Ye broke down.

The small car shuddered violently twice, then lost all power, dead in the water.

Chen Ye recognized the vehicle.

It had originally belonged to the survivors who escaped from Deer City. The owner had died in Longevity Village, and the car had subsequently been seized by four brothers.

In this wasteland, having a working vehicle made them the elite of the convoy.

It wasn’t that no one else coveted the car. First, the convoy’s rules were strict—no one dared to rob others right under Captain Chu’s nose.

Second, these four brothers were not easy targets.

Rumor had it they were escaped convicts who had broken out of prison together when the world ended.

The car doors opened, and several men spilled out, cursing and spitting, their tempers flaring in the heat.

One of them, a bald man, spotted Chen Ye approaching and quickly jogged over.

Chen Ye didn’t slow down. The bald man had to hustle to keep pace with the moving truck, a greasy, fawning smile plastered on his face.

“Brother Chen! Brother Chen! We’re out of gas. Can you spare a few liters? As soon as we find a gas station, us four brothers will pay you back double!”

Chen Ye raised an eyebrow and lowered his sunglasses slightly to look the man in the eye.

“Get lost.”

The blunt refusal made the bald man’s face flush a deep, angry red.

Because they were close, the other three brothers heard it clearly.

One of them instantly flashed a look of vicious hostility, stepping forward as if to start trouble, but his companions held him back.

The bald man looked extremely awkward. He hadn’t expected Chen Ye to be so utterly disrespectful.

He hesitated for a second, then abandoned Chen Ye and sprinted toward the lead vehicle—the modified off-road SUV.

Clearly, he intended to try his luck begging Chu Che for fuel.

Fortunately for him, the convoy wasn’t moving fast, and with a desperate sprint, he managed to catch up.

The answer, however, came quickly. Chu Che had no intention of wasting gasoline on these four.

The rejection left the brothers visibly agitated.

Without gas, they would have to follow the convoy on foot. And right now, there were no spare camels to go around.

Suddenly, Chen Ye’s pickup truck swung around in a wide arc and drove back toward them.

The four men’s faces lit up with joy. They thought Chen Ye had changed his mind and returned to lend them fuel.

Instead, they watched as Chen Ye pulled out a toolkit, walked up to their stalled sedan, and started working.

Chen Ye was… he was dismantling their windshield.

If the car was still running, Chen Ye wouldn’t have touched it. That would be robbery, a direct violation of Captain Chu’s rules.

But now? The car was out of gas. It was abandoned junk. Stripping it now wouldn’t put Captain Chu in a difficult position, nor would it leave room for anyone to criticize him.

After all, Captain Chu was a man who cared deeply about order and rules. Chen Ye wasn’t foolish enough to create friction between himself and the leader.

“Chen Ye, don’t push people too far!”

The lead bald man’s face turned ashen. His fists clenched and unclenched, trembling with suppressed rage.

Behind him, a younger man was already rummaging through the trunk for a weapon, intent on teaching Chen Ye a lesson.

This was the same young man who had wanted to start a fight when Chen Ye first refused the gas.

He was the third of the four brothers—reckless, arrogant, and stupid.

Before the apocalypse, relying on his wealthy family background, he had beaten a man to death on the street over a verbal argument. He ended up in prison, but thanks to his family’s connections, he was only sentenced to three years.

He had planned to wait for the heat to die down and then have his family pull strings to get him out early.

He never expected the world to end first. He had escaped prison with the others, and after the initial panic of the apocalypse faded, his old arrogance had returned.

If it were Iron Lion stripping their car, the third brother wouldn’t dare to move. Iron Lion’s deterrent power was too immense; just looking at that two-headed giant made one’s scalp tingle.

But Chen Ye? The third brother felt no fear.

To him, Chen Ye looked just like them—an ordinary human.

The other three didn’t stop him. In fact, they seemed ready to let their brother show Chen Ye who was boss.

It wasn’t that they didn’t know Sequence Beyonders were powerful. It was just habitual thinking—they were used to solving problems with violence.

Plus, Chen Ye was alone.

And then there was the truckload of Supplies. The sight of it made their eyes red with greed, robbing them of their sanity.

Among the survivors, Chen Ye was publicly considered the weakest Beyonder.

After all, he just controlled smoke. What kind of offensive power could light, airy smoke possibly have?

Besides, in their world, bad guys bullied good guys. Since when did bad guys get bullied?

“Go to hell…”

The third brother crept up behind Chen Ye, gripping a steel pipe. He raised it high, aiming for the back of Chen Ye’s head, ready to bring it down with lethal force.

If this strike connected, even a Beyonder with enhanced vitality would likely be critically injured.

“Get lost!”

Chen Ye didn’t even turn around. He simply exhaled a puff of smoke.

The smoke instantly solidified, transforming into a massive, grey hand that slapped outward with terrifying force.

The entire process was as fast as lightning.

The young man was struck as if by lightning. He was blasted away like a cannonball, kicking up a trail of dust as he flew over a dozen meters through the air. He hit the ground hard, blood spraying everywhere, his fate unknown.

The other three were instantly dumbstruck.

The previously arrogant bald man was experiencing a Sequence ability up close for the first time.

A wave of hot wetness spread through his pants.

The three men’s legs trembled uncontrollably; they had pissed themselves in terror.

Chen Ye was slightly surprised—he hadn’t expected to be able to hit that hard—but his expression remained cold and unchanged.

“I said, get lost!”

The three men fled in a panic, scrambling away without daring to take a single item from their car.

As for the third brother lying in the dirt, life or death unknown? None of them dared to go back for him.

Not far away, the third brother’s body twitched. Blood overflowed from his mouth.

As darkness encroached, he suddenly remembered the youth he had beaten to death on the street years ago. Was he also lying on the cold ground like this, waiting for death to arrive?

Is this what they mean by… the wicked are tormented by the wicked?

Chen Ye glanced at the convoy, which was already getting far ahead. He sped up his work.

There were still many usable parts on the sedan.

If his pickup had enough horsepower, he would have towed the car with a rope and stripped it completely later. With the System, he didn’t have to worry about compatibility issues.

Unfortunately, that was just a fantasy.

The powertrain from the ‘Chili Fish Head’ Mini EV was already crying for mercy just hauling the loaded pickup. There was absolutely no way it could tow a dead sedan through the desert sand.

He stripped the front windshield, the side mirrors… he even took the four wheels.

But the convoy was getting too far away.

Chen Ye had to reluctantly give up on the rest. If he fell too far behind, he risked being targeted by Anomalies again. Plus, his truck’s load capacity was maxed out.

Gritting his teeth, Chen Ye drew his Heavy Machete and slashed twice at the hinges of the sedan’s doors.

The Doomsday Pickup had lost its doors yesterday.

The Blood Resentment Machete was now an Artifact; cutting through simple metal hinges was child’s play.

He tossed the two sedan doors into his truck bed, then casually placed the ill-fitting windshield glass where his pickup’s original glass should be, tying it down roughly with rope. It would barely work for now.

There were no traffic police in the apocalypse.

Once the System mission was complete, he could pay Slaughter Points to have the System adapt these scavenged parts into perfect fits.

In the lead vehicle ahead, Chu Che had been watching the rearview mirror.

Captain Chu nodded in approval. “This kid… it hasn’t been that long. Could he be a genius, too?”