Apocalypse: I Can Upgrade Everything

Chapter 199: Your Turn

It took the combined strength of a dozen male survivors, straining until their veins bulged, to finally drag the gargantuan fish to the shore. Or, more accurately, they dragged Iron Lion, and Iron Lion dragged the fish. In this bizarre operation, the giant had served as both the lure and the gaff.

The moment it left the water, the predator began a frantic, bone-breaking struggle. One particularly bold survivor stepped forward, intent on clubbing the beast into submission before it could thrash its way back into the depths. He didn’t even get a swing in. A massive tail fin whipped through the air like a slab of wet concrete, sending the man flying twenty feet back. He hit the ground in a heap, out cold.

“Good god, the temper on this thing!”

“Old Qian, you were a pro angler before the Fall—have you ever seen anything like this?”

“Never. Not this size, not this species. It’s wrong.”

“A mutant? Like the Butterfly Fairies from last night?”

“Likely. The world’s gone mad. A fish this big… it’s a man-eater for sure. If it weren’t for Mr. Chen, we’d never have landed a haul like this.”

The survivors huddled in small groups, their whispers a mixture of awe and terror. Even the most seasoned fishermen among them couldn’t place the creature.

Iron Lion approached, dripping lake water and looking like a prehistoric titan. Seeing the fish still snapping its jaws, he lunged forward, his fist whistling through the air.

CLANG!

The impact sounded like a sledgehammer hitting an anvil. Despite the metallic resonance, Iron Lion’s fist punched a hole the size of a dinner plate directly into the fish’s reinforced skull. In the water, the beast had been a threat; on land, it was merely meat under Iron Lion’s thumb.

“You first, or me?” Chen Ye asked, raising a cynical eyebrow at the pink-haired girl and Ding Dong.

Ding Dong didn’t waste breath on words. She stepped forward, her expression a mask of absolute serenity. A soft breeze tugged at her empty right sleeve, which fluttered like a ghost in the wind.

A peculiar, heavy tension began to warp the air. Before Chen Ye could comment, Ding Dong shifted her weight into a low horse stance, her remaining arm coiling like a spring.

“HA!”

She exhaled a sharp, focused burst of breath. A golden fist-shadow erupted from her hand, lancing across the lake. It didn’t splash. It didn’t ripple. It sliced through the surface like a thermal lance through butter, boring a vacuum hole deep into the water.

The survivors watched in confused silence for a heartbeat. Then—

BOOM!

A localized shockwave detonated. A pillar of white water erupted forty feet into the air. When the spray settled, dozens of fish lay floating on the surface—some ten feet long, others barely reaching two.

Chen Ye stared at her, genuinely surprised. “Sequence 2?”

“Boxer Sequence 2: Mountain Shatterer,” Ding Dong replied. A faint, knowing smile touched her lips, though her eyes remained calm.

“You lost an arm and your power doubled?”

“With only one limb, I stopped wasting energy on balance. I focused every ounce of my intent on a single point. Focus breeds advancement.”

“So, what? All Boxers have to self-amputate to level up now?”

“Just me,” she said simply. She answered his questions with a clinical lack of secrecy that almost made Chen Ye feel like a comrade.

Chen Ye gave her a genuine thumbs-up. “Impressive.”

With the lake now a churn of foam and scales, Sun Qianqian didn’t wait to be asked. She formed a sword-seal with her fingers, her lips moving in a rapid, silent incantation.

“SWIFT!”

The long sword strapped to her back gave a violent shiver before shrieking out of its scabbard. It became a streak of silver light, diving into the blood-stained water.

The gore from Ding Dong’s explosion had acted as an unintended chum line. A slender, serpentine eel—a nightmare of silver scales reaching nearly 65 feet in length—had emerged from the dark depths to feed.

The flying sword entered the water with the silence of a needle. It danced around the giant eel in a series of blurring arcs. The creature thrashed, dyeing the blue-green water a deep, sickly crimson. Seconds later, the sword emerged, its flat side acting as a rudder to push the massive, dead eel toward the shore.

“Miss Sun is a goddess!”

“The motorcade’s top blade… no doubt about it.”

“Sister Ding Dong is terrifying, sure, but in a real duel? I’m betting on the sword.”

“It’s the Sword Immortal Sequence. How do you even fight that?”

The survivors whispered, their voices carrying across the water. They assumed the superhumans couldn’t hear them. They were wrong. Sun Qianqian’s chin tilted up, her expression radiating a smug, kittenish pride as she glanced at Chen Ye.

“Your turn, ‘Mr. Hero’.”

“Lethal,” Chen Ye remarked, glancing at her blade. “Is that thing a natural Artifact, or did you grow it? It’s too sharp for a ‘bastard sword’.”

Sun Qianqian huffed. “Mind your own business and get moving. You’re stalling.”

Chen Ye chuckled. As he reached behind his waist to grip the hilt of the Heavy Machete, he felt a familiar, jagged vibration. The machete was restless—angry, even. It had reacted the moment the flying sword left its scabbard. Chen Ye was now certain: his machete absolutely loathed her “Bastard Sword.”

The survivors’ chatter died down as Chen Ye stepped to the edge. If the others inspired awe, Chen Ye inspired a cold, primal dread. The rumors within the convoy were legendary: that he used people as live bait for Anomalies, that he was a sadistic butcher who thrived on chaos, that he was the reason the convoy’s numbers stayed low.

Chen Ye knew the stories. He didn’t care. In this world, if you couldn’t be a saint, being a monster was a solid backup plan.

He looked out over the water. The surface was already red, the scent of iron drawing in more shadows from the deep. Chen Ye reached up and slowly slid off his sunglasses.

His blood-red left eye hummed. The dark, runic sigil in the center of the pupil began to rotate with a sickening, wet mechanical click.

He didn’t need to punch the water or send a sword flying. He simply scanned the depths, looking for a pair of eyes looking back. The less intelligent the beast, the easier it was for the Abyss to find a grip.

Three seconds passed. Five.

Chen Ye slid his sunglasses back on, a cold, predatory smirk tugging at his lips.

“What was that?” Sun Qianqian asked, looking at the seemingly undisturbed water. “You just stared at it?”

“Wait for it,” Chen Ye whispered.