Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 186: Arch-Nemesis

Chen Ye carefully placed the severed eyeball on the table next to the heavy machete.

Instantly, the blood-red scabbard reacted. Long, wet blood-threads erupted from the fleshy leather, frantically extending toward the eyeball under the cold, unblinking gaze of Chen Ye’s remaining Blood Eye.

The threads snapped around the wet sphere, violently dragging it back toward the scabbard.

A small, unsettlingly cute mouth—lined with rows of razor-sharp, needle-like teeth—split open on the surface of the red leather. It lunged forward, swallowing the eyeball whole in a single, greedy bite.

The eyeball was slightly too large, causing the fleshy scabbard to bulge and struggle as it forced the mass down. Like a starving human, the weapon chewed the offering with deep, guttural satisfaction.

Not a single drop of blood spilled onto the table.

In that exact moment, a profound, chilling connection snapped into place between Chen Ye and the blade. It was a bizarre sensation.

He leaned in closer. An intricate, dark pattern shaped like a closed eye had manifested on the scabbard’s surface. As Chen Ye stared at it, the pattern suddenly peeled open. The pupil within the dark design swiveled, locking perfectly onto Chen Ye’s glowing red Blood Eye.

A phantom weight settled into his nerves. The heavy machete no longer felt like a tool; it felt like a biological extension of his own body, a phantom limb forged of cursed steel and resentment.

Chen Ye immediately pulled up the system interface to check Hatred’s new data.

To his surprise, the ranking had shifted.

[Hatred: Number: 2000]

It had only moved up a single spot?

He knew perfectly well that the higher an Artifact climbed on the global ladder, the exponentially harder it was to advance. Breaking into the top two thousand was a monumental achievement, and clawing past even a single competitor at this tier required catastrophic power.

But he had sacrificed a human eye for this.

He scrolled down, his gaze catching on the weapon’s inner monologue.

[Hatred’s Words: Respected Holder, I humbly thank you for your generous flesh. Your sacrifice has granted me profound spirituality and raw power. Rank 2000 is merely a stepping stone. My ascent has only just begun. Look forward to my slaughter!]

[AND AS FOR THAT BASTARD SWORD! HAHAHA… Your granddaddy has finally reclaimed his rightful throne! Enjoy eating my dust, you piece of scrap! HAHAHAHA…]

Chen Ye stared at the blue text. The blade’s consciousness read exactly like a petty, arrogant villain gloating over a minor victory.

Still, the promise of future passive evolution dulled the sting of the trade. His failing right eye wasn’t some mythical Spirit Pill that could instantly blast the weapon into the top ten.

He checked the combat modifiers.

[Ability 2: The willow branches act as an extension of your own nervous system, granting hyper-precise control. Maximum extension increased to 70 meters. (Upgrade Effect: Length doubled under a blood moon.)]

The description had fundamentally changed. The branches were no longer erratic, “activated tentacles”; they were now perfectly synced with his own physical reflexes. The base range had leaped from 50 meters to a staggering 70 meters. Under a blood moon, the strike radius would expand to 140 meters. In urban combat, that kind of reach was devastating.

Trading a half-blind eye for a Rank 2000 Artifact and a massive tactical upgrade was a mathematically sound transaction.

By the time he reached Sequence 3, his right eye would have gone permanently dark anyway. Even while hovering in Sequence 2, the rapid mutation of his left Blood Eye was actively suffocating his normal vision. Using a doomed organ to permanently bind the most powerful Artifact in his arsenal was a ruthless, but ultimately profitable, bargain.

If he ran into the mist thralls again, Hatred would be ready.

***

Miles away, in the deep ruins of Fog City.

“Crimson Blaze, Swift! Dragon Soul Shatters the Void!”

The pink-haired girl spun, her longsword singing a deadly arc through the thick fog. She chanted the incantation under her breath, and with every syllable, the steel blade pulsed with a rhythmic, deafening heartbeat.

A wave of incinerating heat exploded outward, vaporizing the surrounding mist and forcing the charging horde of mist thralls to grind to a halt.

Sun Qianqian’s pink hair whipped wildly in the superheated updraft. Her delicate features were illuminated by the roaring flames, giving her the ethereal, merciless visage of a descending goddess. The bratty rebelliousness she usually wore like armor was entirely gone. Her face was locked in an expression of absolute, glacial sovereignty.

Despite the dirt streaking her cheeks and the torn fabric of her clothes, she looked utterly majestic.

The twisted, anomaly-warped figures that had just been shrieking, desperate to drag her into the darkness, now hesitated, their unnatural instincts screaming in fear.

“Incinerate the Vile!”

“Reduce the Eight Wastes to Ash!”

She screamed the final syllables.

The longsword violently tore free from her grip with a deafening, draconic roar. The blade dissolved into a massive, writhing eastern dragon forged of pure, blinding fire, and plunged headfirst into the horde.

Had Chen Ye or Chu Che been present to witness the strike, they would have been paralyzed with shock.

This fire dragon was exponentially larger, denser, and infinitely more terrifying than the one she had unleashed during their escape from the Second Elementary School.

The moment the mist thralls made contact with the roaring flames, they didn’t burn—they were instantly atomized. A massive, perfectly circular vacuum of dead air and ash was scorched into the center of the street.

A few yards behind her, Ding Dong felt the suffocating, lethal pressure of the horde finally lift. She stared up at the massive fire dragon coiling protectively around the pink-haired girl, and her knees gave out. She collapsed onto the asphalt, gasping for air.

If it weren’t for Sun Qianqian, Ding Dong would have died a dozen times over on this miserable trek.

Over the past few days, the girl had grown terrifyingly powerful. Even against these immortal, unkillable mist thralls, Sun Qianqian was no longer the desperate, scrambling survivor she had been.

That sword… Ding Dong thought, her chest heaving. It has to be a natural Artifact. A brief, sharp pang of envy hit her. But Ding Dong was a pragmatic, fiercely grounded woman. The envy vanished as quickly as it came, leaving no trace of greed in her plain features.

***

When Chen Ye had violently rammed her with the Doomsday Pickup, he had nearly snapped her spine in half.

After Wu Jianshan died, Ding Dong had instantly realized she had been nothing but a pawn in the Sequence 3’s manipulative scheme. The crushing shame of having blindly attacked Chen Ye still ate at her. She fully intended to bow her head and offer a sincere, formal apology the moment they reunited.

When she and Sun Qianqian had first escaped to the school gates, Ding Dong, though battered and bleeding, had forced herself back to her feet. She had intended to march straight back into the infested compound to retrieve the convoy’s abandoned supply van.

At the time, Chen Ye had already blasted through the gates and vanished. The school grounds were a literal meat grinder of rampaging anomalies.

To her shock, Sun Qianqian had barely hesitated before agreeing to escort her back into hell. The girl understood that losing a van full of vital supplies would cripple the convoy. Furthermore, Captain Chu Che had pulled Sun Qianqian aside a few days prior, quietly impressing upon her the absolute necessity of resource management.

Ding Dong had been in agonizing shape. Chen Ye’s bumper had practically broken her in half.

As they fought their way back to the van, a towering anomaly wielding a rusted, oversized meat cleaver had ambushed them.

Before Ding Dong could react, the rusted blade came down, cleanly severing her right arm at the shoulder.

If Sun Qianqian hadn’t unleashed a wave of fire a split-second later, the anomaly would have taken Ding Dong’s head next.

Fortunately, while the Boxer Sequence lacked the mythic, god-like cellular regeneration of the Titan Sequence, it granted a baseline physical endurance far exceeding that of a standard Sequence cultivator like Chen Ye or Chu Che. Through sheer, blinding willpower, Ding Dong had managed to tourniquet the stump, climb into the driver’s seat, and pilot the heavy van out of the kill zone.

The horrors they had faced on the road since then were indescribable. Just thinking about them sent ice through Ding Dong’s veins.

Without her right arm, Ding Dong had lost seventy percent of her combat effectiveness. A Boxer Sequence cultivator was not a Titan. Her arm was gone forever. It would never grow back.

But as she looked back at the idling supply van, she felt a grim sense of peace.

It was worth it. The supplies were secure.

For a woman who had just lost her arm, that van was her only tether to sanity. It proved she wasn’t completely useless.

***

The massive fire dragon completed its final arc, and the surviving mist thralls scattered into the dense fog, vanishing from sight.

The grueling three-minute survival window had finally closed.

Both Sun Qianqian and Ding Dong let out long, shuddering breaths. Even Little Yu, who had been curled into a terrified ball in the backseat of the van the entire time, slumped bonelessly against the upholstery.

“Sister Ding Dong, are you okay?”

Sun Qianqian immediately killed the flames and rushed over, gently pulling the older woman to her feet. For Ding Dong to have survived this long using only her non-dominant left arm was a miracle of sheer grit.

“I’m… I’m fine,” Ding Dong rasped, steadying herself. She looked down at the pink-haired girl, her expression turning dead serious. “Qianqian. Your sword. It’s a natural Artifact, isn’t it?”

Sun Qianqian blushed, suddenly looking extremely guilty. “Sister Ding Dong… I swear I wasn’t trying to hide it from you on purpose.”

“It’s fine that you hid it,” Ding Dong interrupted, her voice dropping to a harsh, urgent whisper. “But you cannot tell anyone else. Ever. Especially not Chen Ye. Do you understand?”

“I know, I know,” Sun Qianqian nodded rapidly. “He actually cornered me and asked about it before. I played dumb.”

“Good. I might not own an Artifact, but I know exactly what they do to people,” Ding Dong said grimly. “In the old world, a nice apartment was enough to make fathers and sons butcher each other over the inheritance. A natural Artifact in the apocalypse? It will turn everyone around you into a rabid dog.”

Sun Qianqian looked down at the hilt of the Fire Dragon Sword, her grip tightening.

Before the world ended, she had simply grabbed it from her grandfather’s study, thinking it would make a decent self-defense tool. She never could have imagined that the old family heirloom was a dormant, natural-born Artifact.

According to Chu Che’s lectures, natural Artifacts were terrifyingly rare, and every single one possessed the latent potential to crack the global top ten.

Sun Qianqian didn’t have delusions of grandeur. She didn’t expect her sword to become a world-ending weapon like the Empty Whale. Breaking into the top one hundred would be more than enough.

Just a few hours ago, the Fire Dragon Sword had undergone a massive, spontaneous evolution.

She had checked the system, ecstatic to find that its global ranking had skyrocketed to exactly 2000.

It was an unbelievable leap in power, and it had saved their lives against the mist thralls just now. While she still couldn’t completely overpower the rule-based anomalies, the sword’s newfound strength had kept them from being overwhelmed.

But as she pulled up the system interface to check the blade’s status, her heart skipped a beat.

Wait. Why did the Fire Dragon Sword just drop to 2001?