Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 191: The Great Serpent Transforms into a Dragon

The apocalyptic dragon’s roar startled the survivors like frightened rabbits, their heads snapping in unison toward the churning gray void behind them.

From their vantage point just outside the city limits, they could see the terrifying scale of the event. It wasn’t just the fog at the edge of the city that was violently compressing; the entire atmospheric canopy of Fog City was suddenly condensing, thickening by several magnitudes in the blink of an eye.

Captain Chu Che’s face drained of color. “Everyone back in the vehicles!” he roared. “Move out! Now!”

He cast one final, agonizing look at the mist-formed silhouettes of Uncle Abao and Xiao Wang before turning and sprinting toward his modified SUV.

The other survivors scattered in a blind panic, scrambling back into their designated transports.

As the engines roared to life, the two mist thralls resembling Uncle Abao and Xiao Wang did something impossible. They slowly raised their misty, incorporeal arms and waved, offering a final, silent farewell to the fleeing convoy.

Little Yu wept hysterically as she ran for the bus.

Even Sun Qianqian, the usually bratty, unflappable pink-haired girl, had bright red eyes. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks. “Captain…” she choked out, running blindly toward Chu Che.

“Shut up and run!” Chu Che practically snarled, his jaw locked so tight his teeth threatened to crack.

Did she think he didn’t want to drag Uncle Abao and Xiao Wang into the car? It tore his soul apart to leave them behind. But they were mist thralls now. They were dead.

Chen Ye vaulted into the driver’s seat of the Doomsday Pickup. As Chu Che’s SUV blew past his door, Chen Ye slammed the accelerator to the floor, the heavy tires kicking up a massive plume of dust as he merged into the convoy.

Now that they were free of the suffocating fog, the convoy pushed their speed to the limit.

Chen Ye checked his rearview mirror. The visual was breathtakingly horrific.

The entire gray mass of Fog City was violently churning, looking exactly like a boiling cauldron of water right before it explodes. Something colossal, something of unfathomable mass, was trying to tear its way out of the city from the inside.

A colossal creature? Chen Ye’s mind instantly snapped to the monstrosity he had witnessed lurking beneath the Fog River Bridge.

His horrific suspicion was validated a second later.

A titanic, reptilian head smashed through the impenetrable ceiling of fog. The massive serpent’s body thrashed with world-ending violence, violently coiling and twisting as it surged straight up toward the heavens, desperately trying to shed the millions of tons of dense fog clinging to its scales.

It looked exactly like a prisoner trying to shatter its chains and ascend to a higher dimensional plane.

But the thick fog acted as a living, oppressive cage. Endless tendrils of gray mist frantically wrapped around the ascending serpent, latching onto its massive coils and dragging it back down into the abyss with millions of pounds of crushing pressure.

“Roooar!”

There it was again.

It was a sound that defied biology. It resonated with the terrifying, majestic authority of a roaring tiger, yet possessed the deep, earth-shattering bass of a massive bull. It was a roar that commanded absolute submission.

Chen Ye stared in the rearview mirror, utterly dumbfounded.

Holy shit. It really is the snake! He had only half-joked about it before, but his insane theory was playing out right before his eyes. The serpent was trying to trigger a mythological tribulation. It was trying to shed its mortal coils and transform into a true dragon!

Chen Ye wasn’t the only one watching the spectacle. Sun Qianqian had practically climbed out of her window, her eyes blown wide with awe and terror as she watched the serpent wage war against the sky.

Again and again, the colossal snake surged upward. Again and again, the ocean of fog dragged it back down, completely submerging it in gray.

“Roooar!”

The serpent was unwilling to yield. It launched another massive, physics-defying strike at the heavens, its roar echoing across the wasteland.

And once again, the fog buried it.

Even from miles away, Chen Ye could hear the raw, seething resentment and bottomless despair laced within that final, fading cry.

In the school bus behind him, the survivors were completely paralyzed by the sheer, mythological scale of the event. Before the apocalypse, a scene like this only existed as a hundred-million-dollar CGI set piece in a blockbuster movie. Now, it was their reality.

Chen Ye kept one hand clamped on the steering wheel, quickly pulled over to the side of the clear road, and slammed on the brakes.

He whipped out his smartphone.

Record. Zoom in. Zoom in more! Through the digital lens, the apocalyptic struggle was crystal clear. It was unquestionably the entity from the Fog River.

A terrifying, intoxicating thought flashed through his mind. If… if I ever generate enough Slaughter Points to fully simulate that serpent with my Smoke Apostle abilities…

The mere concept made his blood boil with adrenaline.

But the fantasy popped a second later. He was getting way ahead of himself. He hadn’t even managed to fully decode and master the combat simulation of the Sequence 3 Death God yet. Simulating a city-level, mythological tribulation beast was a pipe dream.

Seeing Chen Ye pull over, Chu Che brought his SUV to a halt. The rest of the convoy followed suit, idling by the roadside as they watched the distant, churning mass of Fog City.

They watched until the serpent finally stopped breaching the fog canopy, leaving only the faint, intermittent echoes of its draconic roars rolling across the plains.

“The mist thralls didn’t attack us today because of that,” Chu Che’s voice crackled softly over the radio. “The city’s entire Anomaly ecosystem was focused on suppressing its ascension.”

Chen Ye nodded slowly. Chu Che’s tactical assessment was almost certainly correct. The giant serpent was the true apex predator of Fog City, and its existence tied into secrets far too profound for them to understand.

But investigating the cosmic lore of the apocalypse was a luxury for dead men. Surviving the day was their only priority.

The convoy slowly merged back onto the ruined highway, falling back into their standard marching order.

Chu Che took the lead point. Chen Ye’s battered, aggressively modified pickup followed closely behind, acting as the heavy vanguard. Sun Qianqian’s driverless SUV maintained the middle, shielding the vulnerable school bus, while Ding Dong’s newly acquired supply van brought up the rear.

Between the nightmare in Rong City and the horrific gauntlet of Fog City, the world had warped into something entirely alien. Before the apocalypse, the sheer scale of the extreme weather anomalies they had endured was scientifically impossible. Add in the reality-bending horror of the Anomalies themselves, and Chen Ye was constantly plagued by a suffocating sense of impending doom.

Even after breaking through to Sequence 2, he felt as insignificant as an insect.

A colossal serpent attempting to evolve into a dragon. A massive, flying whale effortlessly gliding through the stratosphere. Rumors of a god-like elephant roaming the wastes. It all sounded like deranged mythology, yet it was unfolding right in front of him.

The only silver lining was the immediate environment. After breaching the perimeter of Fog City, the weather was pristine. The sky was a brilliant, unblemished blue, and the temperature was perfectly mild.

The desolate wasteland gradually gave way to lush, overgrown vegetation. To their right, vibrant green hills rolled into the distance, dotted with clusters of blooming wildflowers.

Around 3:00 PM, the convoy arrived at the shores of a massive, crystal-clear lake.

“Alright, alright. We make camp here for the day!” Chu Che announced over the radio.

As the captain’s SUV slowly rolled to a stop, Chen Ye saw Xue Nan lean out the passenger window, vigorously waving a scavenged red flag to signal the halt.

The convoy killed their engines.

Chen Ye had to admit, Chu Che had an excellent eye for campsites. A cool, refreshing breeze rolled off the emerald surface of the lake, instantly washing away the grime and tension of the road.

A massive patch of wildflowers blanketed the shoreline near the vehicles. As the wind caught them, the bright blossoms swayed and dipped, almost as if they were curiously inspecting the exhausted, heavily armed survivors intruding on their sanctuary.

In the old world, a pristine, untouched ecological reserve like this would have been heavily monetized, fenced off, and packed with paying tourists.

The survivors began to disembark.

The cool breeze caught their hair, visibly blowing the crushing despair from their faces. For the first time in weeks, genuine, unburdened smiles broke out across the camp.

Xu Lina stepped out of the school bus, threw her arms wide, and tilted her head back, soaking in the sun with an expression of pure, unadulterated bliss.

Several male survivors immediately began stealing glances at her. It was an undeniable fact: the woman was absolutely stunning.

Leaning against his Doomsday Pickup, Chen Ye casually let his gaze drift over her figure.

Xu Lina instantly caught him looking. Her face lit up like a child who had just been handed candy, and right there on the shoreline, she began to dance.

She moved with an elegant, practiced grace, making sure to shoot Chen Ye a sultry, calculated look from under her lashes with every spin.

Chen Ye was in a rare good mood, so he played along, openly admiring the performance. It was a rare, peaceful moment, and he intended to enjoy the view while it lasted.

A small crowd of survivors gathered around, some even clapping a makeshift beat for her to dance to. A few of the men let their gazes turn heavy and greedy, but the moment they noticed Chen Ye watching, they instantly snapped their eyes to the dirt, terrified of offending the psychotic Beyonder.

“Well? Are you enjoying the show?”

A familiar, slightly bratty voice spoke up from his right.

Chen Ye didn’t even need to turn his head. He already knew who it was. However, the moment Sun Qianqian stepped close to him, Hatred—still resting in its fleshy scabbard at his waist—suddenly spiked with a bizarre, aggressive resonance.

Sun Qianqian felt it too. She glanced down at the Fire Dragon Sword tightly clutched in her arms. The ancient blade was vibrating with an identical, violently restless energy.

“She’s not bad,” Chen Ye replied flatly, ignoring the warring Artifacts. “You have to admit, she’s objectively very beautiful.”

“Hmph. Everyone in this entire convoy knows exactly what she’s trying to do to you,” Sun Qianqian scoffed, her tone dripping with vinegar as she glared at the dancing woman. “Are you seriously falling for that? Her form isn’t even that good.”

In truth, Xu Lina’s dancing was merely slightly above average. She hadn’t been born into wealth; she had grown up in a rural, working-class family where her after-school hours were spent doing brutal farm labor, not attending elite ballet academies. It was only after she became an adult and secured a comfortable corporate income that she took a few dance classes.

However, her natural, stunning physical proportions heavily compensated for her lack of technical skill.

“If I were an ordinary survivor, do you think she’d be spinning around in the dirt for my entertainment?” Chen Ye asked, his voice laced with cold, cynical amusement.

“Well, at least you have some self-awareness,” Sun Qianqian muttered.

Chen Ye raised an eyebrow, slightly annoyed by her sudden hostility. “Why are you even over here? Did you just walk over to insult me?”

“I came to apologize to you,” Sun Qianqian blurted out, her cheeks flushing slightly. “For what happened back in Rong City. I’m sorry.”

Her apology was genuinely fascinating to watch. Despite uttering the words, her chin was tilted defiantly upward, highlighting her sharp jawline, and her pink ponytail aggressively bobbed in the wind. She was apologizing, but she refused to submit.

Chen Ye shrugged indifferently. “I’m not that petty. Honestly, if our positions were reversed, I would have attacked you, too.”

He truly wasn’t angry. While she had initially aligned herself with the Sequence 3 Wu Jianshan, she had never actually raised her sword against Chen Ye during the battle.

Sun Qianqian blinked, completely thrown off by his cold, pragmatic forgiveness. Her cheeks puffed out in frustration, and the Fire Dragon Sword in her arms began to hum with a furious, agitated frequency.

At his waist, Hatred responded with a dark, violent pulse of its own.

With a loud, dismissive scoff, the pink-haired girl whipped around, her ponytail smacking his shoulder, and stomped away, her knuckles white around the hilt of her sword.

As she left, another voice spoke from the shadows of the truck.

“She really did come here to apologize, you know. After you executed Wu Jianshan, the compulsion he placed on us broke. She’s been agonizing over it.”

The voice was mild, gentle, and utterly detached.

It was Ding Dong.

Chen Ye turned to look at the plain, utterly unremarkable woman. His gaze immediately fell to the empty, ragged stump where her right arm used to be.

A flicker of genuine surprise crossed his face. “Your arm.”

“It’s fine. I’m alive, and that’s all that matters,” Ding Dong said with a calm, accepting smile. “I came here to apologize to you, as well.”

Her apology carried none of Sun Qianqian’s bratty defiance. It was deeply sincere and painfully grounded.

Chen Ye waved his hand dismissively. “Forget it. If the day ever comes where I need to kill you to ensure my own survival, I won’t hesitate, either.”

He harbored zero resentment toward Ding Dong, and his words were the absolute, brutal truth. If push came to shove, he would hesitate before killing Chu Che, Sun Qianqian, or Iron Lion. They possessed high tactical value.

But Ding Dong? He would cut her down without a second thought.

Strangely enough, Chen Ye vastly preferred interacting with Ding Dong. There was no pretense, no complex emotional maneuvering, and zero lingering guilt. It was purely transactional.

Ding Dong looked at him, and a genuine, relaxed laugh escaped her lips. “I completely believe you. Captain Chu told me once that if there is only one person in this entire convoy guaranteed to survive the apocalypse, it’s you.”

Chen Ye didn’t reply.

Survive. The concept felt agonizingly distant. The deeper he plunged into the nightmare logic of the apocalypse, the more impossible long-term survival seemed.

His mind shifted back to immediate tactical concerns. That scheming bastard Chu Che still hasn’t divided the armory we looted in Fog City. What the hell is he waiting for?

A soft chime from his system interface interrupted his thoughts.

The Doomsday

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