Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 175: The Last Kilometer

Chen Ye found this young woman fascinating, in a morbid sort of way.

When they first encountered her, she had been playing the part of the composed, benevolent leader of a survivor Base, looking down on everyone with an air of practiced authority. Her followers had treated her with a reverence that bordered on worship.

Then, after Chen Ye had stripped away that facade with a display of raw power and calculated cruelty, she had pivoted instantly. She became the pitiful victim, a weeping waif attempting to scrape together whatever microscopic fragments of conscience Chen Ye might have left.

Now, she seemed to have reached a state of nihilistic calm. She sat there with an eerie equanimity, as if she had finally accepted her own death. It had to be said, the girl was a natural actress. It was no wonder she had managed to claw her way to the top of her little group of scavengers.

Chen Ye didn’t bother answering her question about her impending death. He just kept his eyes on the road.

Xiao Hua began to ramble, her voice taking on a neurotic, repetitive quality. “Before I met you, I thought all Cultivators were like Xia Bo. I thought they were just people with fancy tricks who could be easily broken by a mob.”

She let out a dry, hollow laugh. “Xia Bo was a good man. If it weren’t for him, I would have died months ago. One morning, I hadn’t eaten in three days. I was so weak I couldn’t even crawl. Xia Bo gave me his last crust of bread. He hadn’t eaten in three days either.”

She looked out at the swirling fog. “In the old world, I would have married a man like that. But unfortunately… he was too kind. He saved a dozen of us. We scoured every square inch of the city for Supplies, but it was never enough. When Xia Bo announced we had to cut down to one meal a day to survive the winter, people got angry. They knew he was right, but hunger makes people crazy.”

“It only took a few whispers from the right people. A few lies. The mob rushed his room and beat him to death while he was sleeping. None of the people he had saved said a word. Not one.”

She paused, her eyes glazing over. “You can guess the rest. I was there, too. I helped. Someone said that if we ate the flesh of a Cultivator, we would inherit his power.”

She giggled, a sound that made the hair on Chen Ye’s neck stand up. “What a liar that man was. We didn’t get any powers. We just got a taste for meat.”

Chen Ye puffed on his cigarette, staring into the pitch-black void ahead. Chu Che was pushing them through the night, and the monotony was making him drowsy. Listening to her dark little bedtime story was better than nothing, even if it was a vision of human depravity. He had seen too much of the wasteland’s underbelly to be genuinely shocked anymore.

“Actually, you and I are exactly the same,” Xiao Hua continued, her voice gaining strength. “You kill people to survive. I did what I did to survive. There is no difference between us.”

Chen Ye exhaled a slow, deliberate plume of smoke. “There’s a massive difference. I kill to keep breathing. You turned into a ghoul. I have a bottom line. It might be buried deep, but it’s there. The things you did? I wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole.”

The girl sneered. “Hahaha! You’ve slaughtered half a city and you’re talking about a ‘bottom line’? You’re going to make me die of laughter, Mr. Hero.”

Chen Ye nodded solemnly. “Those people were monsters who preyed on the weak. Even in the old world, they would have been lined up against a wall and shot. I’m just accelerating the paperwork.”

Xiao Hua suddenly lurched forward, her face twisted with a sudden, adolescent rage. “And what gives you the right?! Who are you to decide who lives and who dies? Are you the judge? The jury? God?!”

“I was just trying to stay alive! I did nothing wrong!” she screamed, her voice cracking into a shrill, hysterical screech.

Chen Ye calmly turned his head and blew a thick cloud of smoke directly into her face. She choked, sputtering and recoiling into the corner of the passenger seat.

“I have the right because my fist is bigger than yours,” Chen Ye said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly soft register. “Is that a good enough reason for you?”

The girl went rigid, her mouth hanging open. She had spent the last hour trying to trap him in a moral debate, hoping to make him feel hypocritical enough to let her walk. She hadn’t expected him to be so utterly, refreshingly unreasonable.

In the wasteland, most people were still bound by the ghosts of old-world logic. But Chen Ye was a creature of the new world. He didn’t care about “rights.” He only cared about results.

“Enough. One more word and you’re out the door,” Chen Ye muttered. “Yawn… stay quiet and let me drive.”

Xiao Hua slumped back into the seat, her face ashen. The stench of urine from the previous passenger was thick in the air, but she didn’t seem to notice. She had played every card she had—pity, logic, seduction—and this man had simply ignored them all.

The Doomsday Pickup jolted violently as it struck something in the road.

Chen Ye manipulated his smoke to form a colossal, semi-solid hand. The spectral limb reached out, grabbing an abandoned delivery truck and shoving it several dozen feet to the side to clear a path.

Wait. Chen Ye slowed down. The delivery truck had burst open, spilling its cargo across the asphalt.

“Bzzzt… Captain, we’ve got a courier truck full of packages up here.”

“Ignore it,” Chu Che’s voice barked back instantly. “Iron Lion is waiting. Do not waste another second!”

Chen Ye looked at the scattered boxes, a familiar itch of greed taking over. He ignored the captain’s order and commanded the smoke hand to sweep across the debris. The spectral fingers scooped up a dozen random boxes and tossed them into the truck bed like a child collecting toys.

Inside the bed, the young survivor named Xiao Yan groaned as he was pelted with the packages. Xiao Hua watched the display of supernatural power, the fear in her eyes deepening into a permanent, haunted hollow.

The bridge, which should have been a five-minute crossing, had taken nearly four hours. Between the giant snake and the graveyard of cars, their progress had been agonizing.

Finally, the wheels of the Doomsday Pickup hit solid ground on the other side of the river.

“Bzzzt… Yezi, go straight for two kilometers, then hard left,” Chu Che called out. “We’re closing in. I can sense Iron Lion’s Marking, but it’s moving too fast. Something is wrong.”

“Captain, I don’t have an odometer in this thing! Just tell me when to turn!”

The convoy pushed deeper into the New City district, but the air grew heavy with a new kind of tension.

“Stop! Pull over!” Chu Che suddenly yelled.

Chen Ye slammed the brakes, the tires shrieking.

“Bzzzt… there are too many signatures ahead. They’re active. Swarming. We can’t push through in the dark. We rest here.”

Chu Che didn’t wait for an answer. He deployed a Concealment Barrier in the middle of the street and killed his engine.

“Yezi, throw up your mist,” Chu Che suggested. “Double the protection.”

Chen Ye shook his head. “No. I’ve tried layering them before. The conflicting supernatural energies cause the mist to destabilize. It actually makes us easier to spot. We stick with yours.”

Chu Che went quiet, likely analyzing the mechanics of that failure.

“Captain, those guns from the Mechanic…”

“Not now, Yezi,” Chu Che interrupted, his voice hollow. “Tell me… Uncle Bao and Xiao Wang… what do you think they look like now? As Mist Thralls? Do they still remember us? Or are they just… gone?”

Chen Ye had no answer. He sat in the dark, listening to the silence.

The rest stop lasted five hours. As soon as the first hint of gray light began to permeate the fog, Chu Che ordered them to move. The visibility had dropped to less than thirty feet.

They drove for ten more grueling hours, threading the needle through the city’s ruins.

“Bzzzt… Yezi! We’re within a kilometer!” Chu Che’s voice erupted with a rare burst of excitement. “Step on it! He might be pinned down!”

Chen Ye felt a surge of genuine relief. He was actually looking forward to seeing that big, lovable idiot.

But suddenly, the girl in the passenger seat let out a strangled gasp. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her face twisted into an expression of primal, absolute horror. She grabbed the door handle with her left hand while her right hand, still clutching the knife, began to jerk toward her own chest.

She threw the door open and hurled herself out of the moving truck.

In the rearview mirror, Chen Ye saw Xiao Yan do the exact same thing, leaping from the truck bed as if he were trying to escape a burning building.

The two survivors hit the pavement, rolled, and scrambled to their feet. They didn’t run away. They stood in the middle of the road, staring at each other with wide, unblinking eyes.

“No! Please!” Xiao Yan shrieked. “Sister Xiao Hua, I don’t want to die!”

“Run, Xiao Yan! Run!” Xiao Hua wailed, her arm lifting the knife against her own will. “I can’t… I can’t stop it! It’s controlling me!”

She began to slash at him. Then herself.

Chen Ye didn’t stop. He didn’t even look back. He had a mission.

He was going to find Iron Lion.

The two survivors were left behind, their fates sealed by the Anomaly that had taken hold of them. Chen Ye focused on the road ahead, the Heavy Machete’s countdown ticking away in his mind. Nothing else mattered now.