Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System Chapter 92: Three Ways to Die

March 17th, 20xx— 10:36 PM

Longwan University — Linbei Campus, North Lab Block, Sector C2

—

Guo Fan’s eyes widened as he opened his mouth.

I didn’t lower the gun.

He backed away. Hands raised slightly. Palms sweating.

The first infected slamd into the barricade.

It hit so hard that the shelf behind it shuddered. Dust dropped from the ceiling in a slow, grey curtain. The entire wall creaked once and settled again.

Liang Qiu stood with a steel pipe in one hand and sothing colder in her eyes.

The second one hit harder.

The barricade bent inward slightly. One of the legs snapped out of joint and clattered sideways.

"Reinforce it," I snapped at Guo Fan as I pushed myself against the fra, grabbing sothing heavy and dragging it with my legs... my muscular thighs a complex that I had from being young... not it’s even worse.

John... do you hate muscular won?

The idiot didn’t move, as my mind thought of John, I spoke to him to help soothe my panic, fear and uncertainty... yet I knew John could lead through this... that’s why I had to beco better, smarter... and a woman suited to stand beside him.

He didn’t move.

Another thump. Sothing clawed through the broken fra, fingers twitching wildly past the boards.

"Guo Fan!"

He turned.

But not toward the barricade.

He bolted for the chemical access door.

"No—!"

He yanked it open without even looking and slipped into the dark.

Then the screaming started.

I couldn’t see what killed him.

But I heard it.

Crunch. Wet. Fast. Bone splitting open like a fruit soone didn’t want. I fired twice into the darkness, just to cover the noise. Two bullets wasted.

"Close it!" I barked.

Liang Qiu moved fast, slamd the hatch shut and kicked a heavy crate in front of it. Deng Hua watched the whole thing unfold with no expression at all.

He turned to .

"We only got two paths now, Ma’am!"

"I see..."

My thoughts were muddled, but I just told and asked myself what John would do. Then realised I couldn’t keep treating these people like inanimate objects.

Deng Hua didn’t look shaken. Just sweaty. His knuckles were white on the crowbar, like it had fused to his fingers.

"Hold your post," I said, breath tight. "Don’t get clever."

I turned back to the front barricade. Liang Qiu had already returned to position, crouched low behind the broken desk, breathing steady. The pipe rested against her shoulder like a second spine. I trusted her to swing when it mattered.

A groan echoed through the hall, low, broken, and wet... like sothing trying to speak through its stomach.

Then the dragging started again. Slower this ti. Heavier... sothing different from a stage one zombie.

John explained everything to about their colours. Green is fast, red has blades... and are dangerous, and the big guys can transform from a big lump to a rapid and deadly tank-like monster.

They were building mass on the other side.

"Good work, Deng Hua!" I called out. "Check Chen Xun."

His face looked confused at first. But he moved without complaint. Slid into the side alcove and crouched beside the wounded scout. I caught the rustle of him adjusting gauze, the soft clatter of a knife handle. No words. No moans.

Chen was still alive. Barely.

I crouched behind the overturned shelf. Pulled my knees in. Gun resting against the edge, barrel up.

Sweat rolled into the corner of my eye, and I didn’t blink it away.

There was a high-pitched ringing in the ceiling now. Pressure shift. Probably the air system is finally giving out.

My thoughts crawled back toward John again. I didn’t want them to.

He was probably clearing so ruined hallway, cool and unreadable as always. Calm voice. Precise eyes. He wouldn’t be panicking like . Wouldn’t be thinking about my thighs or how stiff I sounded whenever I opened my mouth.

He’d be thinking about the exits. The angles. The math of it.

I envied that.

I hated that I envied that.

John was my boyfriend and partner... not competition.

Liang Qiu shifted beside . Not toward the sound — toward .

"You good?"

I blinked.

"Fine."

She stared a second longer than necessary.

"Keep your focus on the front," I said.

A pause.

Then she nodded and turned back.

From the corridor ca an unfamiliar sound — tal scraping on cent.

It wasn’t claws or feet but sothing heavier...

The third wave had arrived.

—

The front barricade exploded inward... not cracked, or bent... It shattered.

The Brute ca through first — eight feet of stitched white muscle, chunks of rotting flesh barely hanging on. It moved wrong — not stiff like a corpse, not lumbering like the infected I knew. It flowed, thick goo stretching between the tears in its body as it dragged itself through the broken door.

Its stomach split open with a wet, yawning sound — teeth. So many teeth. The mouth there snapped twice, spraying white mucus across the floor.

Behind it, sothing faster.

Sothing green.

A blur snapped across the gap, barely human-shaped — wiry arms, elongated fingers, skin drawn tight like soone had vacuum-sealed it. The Green shot sideways off a broken shelf and clung to the wall like a lizard.

My gut clenched.

They were both looking at .

No. Slling .

Their heads jerked slightly, mouths opening — twitching — zeroing in on sothing only they could feel. It was my core. My system marker. Whatever John called it... I had... whatever made different now... they could sense it.

He said I was like a delicious al to them... once they evolved!

Deng Hua roared, swinging the crowbar.

The Brute didn’t even react. It barrelled forward, swatting Deng aside like a drunk shoving a chair out of the way. He slamd into the wall and dropped, weapon clattering out of reach.

Liang Qiu lunged — pipe raised — but the Green moved first.

It dropped from the wall, hit the floor, and vanished in a blur of motion.

Straight for .

I didn’t think.

I moved.

The tal bat ca up on instinct. I caught the thing’s slash with the side of the bat — a sickening crack against its claw — and spun off the impact.

It skidded back on two limbs, hissing, bone fingers twitching.

The Brute scread.

The sound was lower, deeper — like an earthquake before a landslide.

I didn’t wait for it to finish.

I sprinted left, toward the ruined lab benches, toward space. The Green bolted after , lashing out at my legs, my arms, anything it could reach.

Fast. Too fast.

But I was faster now.

Not from strength. From need.

I ducked as low as possible, then slid under a toppled cabinet, spun up on the far side — and smashed the bat upward as the Green tried to follow. It caught the blow in its ribs, and sothing snapped.

It shrieked — a high, glassy sound — but didn’t fall.

Movent to my right — the Brute shifted, twitching violently.

White goo poured from its wounds. Its body twisted unnaturally.

Then it sprinted.

Faster than it should have been. Way faster.

I barely threw myself sideways in ti.

The Brute slamd into the wall where I’d been standing, blowing chunks of cent into the air like a grenade had gone off.

The Green used the distraction to lunge again.

I t it midair, teeth gritted, swinging the bat in a tight, ugly arc. Connected with its neck. It crumpled sideways, rebounded off a table, and screeched again — but it wasn’t dead.

None of them ever died easy.

The horde spilt in behind them — fifty, sixty bodies — a wall of grasping hands and dragging teeth.

Liang Qiu was fighting near the supply closet, swinging the pipe chanically, keeping Chen Xun shielded.

Deng Hua was back up, bleeding from his forehead, gripping a desk leg like a club.

But they weren’t the targets.

Only .

The Brute turned, mucus boiling out of its stomach mouth, and charged again.

I ran.

I ducked, dodged, feinted left, then right — legs burning, lungs searing — the bat gripped so tight in my hand that my knuckles went numb.

The pistol was useless now — four shots left, maybe three — and nothing slow enough to shoot without wasting bullets.

I weaved through the dead, the living, the half-living.

The Green blurred into my side vision again, slashing at my thighs this ti. But I kicked it, hard, catching it across the jaw. It spun, screeching, but not down.

The Brute was slower now, regenerating wounds slowing it, but not by much.

Another second.

Another breath.

I couldn’t keep this up.

I wasn’t John.

I wasn’t—

The chemical lab door shuddered behind .

For a second, I thought the Brute had broken sothing else.

But it wasn’t the Brute.

It was sothing heavier.

Boots.

Then a thick pair of hands wrapped around ... lifting into the air as I saw his face, sweaty... covered in dirt, dust and blood.

But my heart thumped... and almost exploded.

He ca for again!

"JOHN!"