Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 170: Divine Elephant

Chu Che patted Chen Ye’s shoulder, adopting the air of a seasoned superior. “Not bad, Yezi. A bit rough around the edges, but effective. Just try to be a little cleaner next time.”

Chen Ye: “…”

This guy has completely forgotten how he was cowering behind the rear axle two minutes ago, hasn’t he?

With Chen Ye’s brutal display of power lingering in the air, not a single person in the scavenging party dared to so much as twitch. The terror he had inspired was absolute. Between a man spontaneously combusting and another seemingly possessed by a vengeful ghost, even the most deranged among them realized these two were not prey.

They stood paralyzed, shrinking away from Chen Ye’s blood-red gaze as if staring into the eyes of a primordial demon.

The task of cleaning up the mess fell to Chu Che. While Uncle Bao or Xiao Wang would usually handle logistics and interrogation, both were currently incapacitated by the toxic atmosphere. The burden of leadership rested solely on the captain.

“What’s the story with the masks?” Chu Che demanded, his voice echoing in the dead street.

He needed answers. In the SUV, Xiao Wang’s condition was deteriorating rapidly.

Xiao Hua gritted her teeth, shooting a look of pure, concentrated venom at Chen Ye before answering. “The fog… it’s poisonous.”

“Is there an antidote? Medicine?”

Xiao Hua shook her head slowly. “No. Once the coughing starts, you’re already dead. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Then how did your group survive this long?”

“We didn’t know at first,” she whispered, her eyes clouding over. “We lost dozens. Most of us died in the first week.”

It was a simple sentence that carried the weight of a mass grave. Chu Che glanced back at his car. Xiao Wang was slumped in the passenger seat, his face a sickly, ashen gray. Every few seconds, a wet, rattling cough would shake his frame.

Chen Ye snorted, the crimson light in his left eye pulsing.

Xiao Hua’s face contorted. Her right hand, holding a hidden blade she had kept tucked in her sleeve, slowly began to rise toward her own throat. She fought it, her left hand desperately grabbing her right wrist, trying to arrest the blade’s progress. Her face turned a frantic, bruised purple as she struggled against her own motor functions.

Crouched nearby, Chu Che sighed inwardly. This kid has way too many terrifying tricks. I wonder how Sun Qianqian would fare against him now.

The runes within Chen Ye’s Abyssal Blood Eye began to rotate with a low, ominous hum. His voice was like a glacier grinding over stone. “Are you really going to stand there and tell me a cheap paper mask is the only thing keeping the ‘fog poison’ at bay?”

Xiao Hua’s neck strained backward, her eyes bulging. “Stop! Please… make it stop!”

She was breaking. Seeing Xiao Long’s neck get hacked open was a distant horror compared to the visceral, psychological despair of her own hand trying to butcher her. It was the feeling of her own body developing a separate, homicidal consciousness.

Seeing no mercy in Chen Ye’s expression, the girl gasped out the truth through gritted teeth. “I… I don’t know the science! But if you wear the mask… if you don’t breathe the raw fog at the start… if you don’t start coughing in the first hour… the body adapts! After that, it’s just weather!”

The blade was mere millimeters from her carotid artery. Despite the grime covering her face, her neck was strangely pristine—the mark of someone who still clung to the small vanities of the old world. A single bead of red blood welled up where the steel nipped her skin.

“Let go of Sister Xiao Hua!”

A young boy screamed, charging out from the supermarket. The scavenger who had previously executed Xiao Long—still dazed and uncomprehending—tackled the boy, and the two began a frantic, clumsy scuffle in the dirt.

“Xiao Yan, I’m sorry! I don’t know what’s happening!” the man wailed even as he pinned the boy. “I can’t stop! My body… it won’t listen!”

The remaining survivors watched the scene with heart-shattering terror. They had no name for Chen Ye’s Sequence, but they knew it was something far more sinister than anything they had ever encountered.

Chen Ye let out a shallow sigh and closed the Abyssal Blood Eye.

The psychic tension snapped. Xiao Hua collapsed, and the two brawlers fell apart, gasping for air. The girl huddled on the ground, drawing in huge, desperate lungfuls of the toxic air, feeling as though she had just been dragged back from the gates of hell. Beads of cold sweat poured off her forehead, soaking into the mask.

This man… she thought, her hands trembling uncontrollably. He’s just like the monsters from the Divine Elephant.

Chen Ye looked at Xiao Wang and felt a pang of genuine regret. The kid was a good worker—quiet, reliable, and fiercely loyal to Chu Che. He had been the backbone of the convoy’s daily chores. Now, with Uncle Bao already fading, it looked like Xiao Wang wouldn’t see another sunrise. He must have inhaled a lethal dose of the fog before the masks were distributed.

Being Sequence Beyonders, Chen Ye and Chu Che’s physical constitutions were likely robust enough to filter the toxins, but for a normal human like Xiao Wang, it was a death sentence.

The “cleanup” was swift and merciless.

Chu Che stepped inside the convenience store to perform a final sweep. When he emerged five minutes later, his face was a mask of absolute, righteous fury. He looked like he wanted to burn the entire block to the ground.

Xiao Hua’s expression flickered with shame, but she forced herself to remain stoic.

Chu Che pulled several of the cowering survivors aside, interrogating them in low, urgent whispers. Because of the thick fog and the distance, Chen Ye couldn’t hear the specifics, but he saw the way Chu Che’s fists shook with suppressed rage.

Chen Ye checked his watch. Forty minutes had passed since they first rescued the “injured” man.

“Captain. Clock’s ticking,” Chen Ye called out.

Chu Che walked over, his jaw set so tight the muscles in his face were quivering. “These people… every single one of them… they’ve lost the right to be called human.”

“Keep a few,” Chen Ye said clinically. “We still need guides.”

“You have no idea what they were doing in there, Yezi. I’ve seen some dark shit since the sky fell, but this? This is—”

“Stop,” Chen Ye interrupted, raising a hand. “I don’t need the details. One person being disgusted is enough. Don’t ruin my appetite.”

Chu Che stared at him for a long beat, then nodded grimly. “Fine. Let’s move.”

A few minutes later, the tiny convoy reorganized.

Two survivors were loaded into the bed of Chu Che’s truck: Uncle Zheng, the man with the shattered legs, and the young boy, Xiao Yan. The boy stared at Chen Ye with the wide, haunted eyes of someone looking at a literal devil, his lips moving in a silent, frantic prayer.

As for the rest of the group?

Demons had no place in the world Chen Ye was trying to survive in.

Xiao Hua was placed in the passenger seat of the Doomsday Pickup. She was a shivering wreck, her spirit completely broken by Chen Ye’s mental assault.

“Cooperate, and you live until we reach the city limits,” Chen Ye told her, his voice devoid of emotion. “Understood?”

When she didn’t answer immediately, Chen Ye tilted his head to look at her. The girl flinched so hard she hit her head against the window. “I… I… yes! I understand!”

She nodded frantically, tears streaming down her face. “I never ate anyone! I swear! Please, don’t kill me!”

Chen Ye looked back at the road and shifted into gear. “I don’t believe you.”

The girl collapsed into hysterical sobbing. Chen Ye lasted about thirty seconds before he unsheathed his Heavy Machete and rested the cold flat of the blade against her throat.

The crying stopped instantly.

“Enough with the act,” Chen Ye muttered. “You were the one giving orders back there. You aren’t a victim. You’re a predator who picked the wrong fight.”

With Xiao Hua providing turn-by-turn directions, their progress through the city accelerated significantly. They bypassed blocked intersections and navigated around collapsed overpasses with practiced ease. They were on the main arterial road now. Once they crossed the Wu River bridge, they would be clear of the city center.

The drive was eerie. The silence was absolute, the streets devoid of any other human or Anomaly presence. They simply rammed through any abandoned cars blocking their path, the Doomsday Pickup’s bull-bar clearing the way like a snowplow.

Between Xiao Hua’s local knowledge and Chu Che’s supernatural sense of direction, they were making record time.

“Are you…” Xiao Hua whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engine. “Are you from the Divine Elephant?”

Chen Ye frowned. The term sounded familiar. He remembered Mo Huairen—the leader of the desert caravan—once rambling about a hallucination of a colossal elephant with a castle built upon its back.

“The Divine Elephant?” Chen Ye asked, glancing at her.

“Yes…” she whispered, her eyes wide with a strange mix of terror and awe. “A beast so large it blocks out the clouds. A village on its back. People say that’s where the monsters come from. Are you one of them?”