Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 152: Don’t Die Before I Find You!

Tomorrow was the final day. The ritual was scheduled for the evening.

Despite the dense throng of Anomalies haunting the perimeter of the school, the survivors’ palpable excitement couldn’t be contained. Whispers buzzed through the walls. According to the Bishop, tomorrow’s sacrifice would elevate the Death God’s power to unimaginable heights.

Once that happened, even if every Anomaly outside the gates swarmed them at once, they would be utterly annihilated. It wouldn’t just be the school—the entire Rongcheng District would be reclaimed. The Anomalies would be purged, and humanity could finally return to the way things used to be.

Chen Ye lay on his crude bed, his Sequence Beyonder hearing easily picking up the rustling and eager chatter from the neighboring rooms.

In the bed next to him lay Chu Che.

Both men were lost in their own dark thoughts.

Chen Ye didn’t buy a single word of Wu Jianshan’s messianic garbage. He’d gladly take the man’s Huazi Cigarettes, but trusting his promises was a death sentence. Once Wu Jianshan ascended to Sequence 4, backed by those two loyal idiots, Sun Qianqian and Ding Dong, Chen Ye and Chu Che would be nothing but sitting ducks.

He absolutely refused to let that happen.

Chu Che’s mindset was largely the same. As for Iron Lion, the hulking man had returned after dinner, hit the mattress, and was already snoring. “If there’s nothing to do, what else is there to do but sleep?” had been Iron Lion’s exact, simple-minded reasoning.

Through the crack in the door, Chen Ye watched the cultists patrol past their classroom for the third time. Every pass was accompanied by the sweep of a flashlight beam cutting through the window, probing the dark to ensure the two new “Deputy Bishops” were actually asleep. Wu Jianshan wasn’t taking any chances.

“Captain, need to take a leak?” Chen Ye whispered into the dark.

“A bit,” Chu Che murmured back.

“Shall we go together?”

“Alright.”

Just as the flashlight beam swept into the room for the fourth time, both Chen Ye and Chu Che were already standing by the window. On their respective beds, cleverly arranged bundles of clothes and blankets formed convincing, sleeping lumps.

“Captain Chu, are you…”

“We have a silent agreement,” Chu Che interrupted, keeping his voice low. “You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”

The two exchanged a sharp, knowing look.

Chen Ye stepped forward, his foot landing on a staircase forged of swirling gray fog. In an instant, his physical form dissipated into the shadows, leaving no trace behind.

As for Chu Che, a thick rope had already been quietly secured to the windowsill. Down below, a head poked out from a lower-floor window—Xiao Wang, the convoy assistant, waiting alongside Xue Nan and Xu Lina.

In the freezing shadows near the school gate.

A figure shrouded entirely in a heavy black robe materialized under the glare of the blood moon. The sudden intrusion sent an immediate ripple of sinister commotion through the surrounding sea of Anomalies.

“I know you beasts can understand human speech,” the robed figure rasped, the voice distorted and flat. “Bring out someone who calls the shots!”

The temperature plummeted. A pristine, snow-white figure drifted into view just yards away. From head to toe, the Snow Woman was a canvas of white, her long hair dragging against the frozen earth. Bathed in the red moonlight, her porcelain, doll-like face remained completely devoid of emotion. Her pale eyes locked onto the intruder.

The robed figure stood perfectly still, completely unfazed by the suffocating aura of death.

Squish. Slither.

“Hehehe… Who is this mysterious little morsel? Planning some dirty work in the dark?”

Without disturbing a single snowflake, a massive, grotesque tangle of flesh and tentacles slid into view—the Eight-Limbed Human Face.

Huff… Huff…

A colossal, mangy wolf’s head suddenly loomed directly in front of the black robe, its bloodstained fangs mere inches away. A wave of foul, rotting breath blasted against the fabric, but the figure didn’t even flinch.

“Living human… so fragrant! Delicious!” the wolf snarled.

The cloaked figure acted as if the giant beast didn’t exist. “Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. Wu Jianshan is holding a mass sacrifice. You all know exactly what that means.”

The restless, chittering darkness instantly fell dead silent.

Dozens of massive, unnatural eyes snapped open in the fog—crimson, emerald, sickly yellow. Every single gaze belonged to an unspeakable terror.

Having delivered the bait, the robed figure turned and walked away, dissolving seamlessly into the freezing night.

From the depths of the horde, a voice as cold as absolute zero echoed. “Sequence 4… it’s merely Sequence 4. Does Wu Jianshan truly dare to be this arrogant?”

“Do not underestimate him,” another rasped. “He fed a Pathfinder Sequence Beyonder to that woman earlier, causing her strength to violently surge. Right now, he has five living Sequence Beyonders trapped in there. If he manages to feed them all to her… we will be the ones butchered.”

“When do we strike?”

“The sooner, the better. Tonight.”

“Who was that human in the robe? Why hand us this intelligence?”

“Who knows? Humans are treacherous, complicated creatures.”

“Complicated is good! Hehehe… Then it’s settled. We feast tonight.”

“Wait…” a low voice rumbled. “That human’s scent… it felt a little familiar…”

In an abandoned, desolate corner of the school grounds.

Chen Ye pulled a small glass vial from his jacket. It contained his final reserve of the Death God’s Blood Tears—every last diluted drop he had scavenged, pooled together into a shallow, crimson layer at the bottom.

The thick liquid seemed terrifyingly alive, boiling and writhing against the glass as if trying to escape.

Taking a deep breath, Chen Ye dumped every single one of his hoarded Slaughter Points into the system to push this vial to its absolute limit. He had watched the upgrade countdown agonizingly tick down to zero just moments ago.

He was currently hovering at the absolute peak of his current Sequence. The barrier separating him from Sequence 2 felt like a thin sheet of paper, ready to be pierced. Whether he lived or died tomorrow depended entirely on tonight’s breakthrough.

Knowing the horrific origin of the Blood Tears made Chen Ye’s stomach churn, but desperation left no room for hesitation. If he didn’t secure this power, he’d be a corpse by sundown tomorrow.

Popping the cork, Chen Ye tipped his head back and swallowed the writhing blood in one gulp.

He instantly ignited his breathing technique. The moment the Blood Tears hit his stomach, an unprecedented, explosive wave of sheer energy detonated through his veins. Deep within his consciousness, the solid wall blocking his path to Sequence 2 began to violently crack.

Two hours later.

Chen Ye slipped back into the dark classroom, only to find Captain Chu Che already waiting. They shared a brief, knowing nod, neither asking what the other had been doing in the dark.

Just as Chen Ye moved to lie down, Chu Che abruptly tossed a small canvas bag at his chest.

Chen Ye caught it, blinking in surprise.

Hovering directly above the bag were two glowing, ethereal words: [Chen Ye!]

The letters blazed like a neon sign in the gloom, almost stinging the eyes. It was a Marking—the signature ability of the Pathfinder Sequence.

“Keep those stones on you. Drop one every so often. I’ll be able to see them,” Chu Che whispered.

The Pathfinder’s Marking ability allowed the user to tag any object. More importantly, it allowed the user to dictate exactly who could see the glowing marks and who couldn’t, acting as a supernatural, selective tracking system.

Chu Che had explicitly tagged Chen Ye.

“Captain Chu, you’re…”

“We both know the score. Cut the nonsense,” Chu Che said, his voice grim and weary. “When the chaos hits, we scatter. We run separately. Whoever survives, survives.” He pointed to the bag. “With those stones, at least I have a chance of tracking you down later.”

He locked eyes with Chen Ye. “Remember. Until I find you… don’t die.”

Glancing over, Chen Ye noticed another set of glowing letters hovering directly above the snoring giant in the corner: [Iron Lion]. Chu Che had been preparing for this inevitable fallout from the very beginning.

But before Chen Ye could reply, the air in the room suddenly grew unbearably heavy.

Both men snapped their heads toward the school gates.

A suffocating, paralyzing aura of terror swept over the compound. Something had breached the perimeter.

In the corner, Iron Lion’s eyes snapped open from his deep sleep. In the exact same instant, the phantom eyes of the Mad Lion manifested and flared wide.

Up on the third floor, Sun Qianqian and Ding Dong jolted upright in their beds, cold sweat soaking their clothes as they stared blankly at the wall facing the gates.

In Classroom 4-1, Wu Jianshan, who had been deep in meditation, suddenly coughed, his skeletal face twisting into an expression of sheer horror.

Every single survivor in the school was violently ripped from their sleep.

At the entrance of the school, a bloated, rotting foot stepped over the threshold, crushing the pristine white snow beneath its immense weight.