Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System

"I thought you'd never ask!"

Qinglan's lips curved into a devilish smile, her eyes cold like winter. She sprang up beside me, holding Endless Night tightly with a trail of frost.

Rumble.

The ground shook again.

Fissures split across the street like open wounds, steaming dust rising as the familiar dorsal fin carved a jagged path straight toward the jeeps.

"Now!" I shouted.

Both of us leapt as one, vaulting off the hood of our jeep. My gauntlets roared with eight shells pumping in unison, blasting into the asphalt where the fin sliced through. The explosion of debris slowed it just enough...

Clang!

Qinglan's blade plunged through the earth with a frozen shriek, and a pale snout burst upward, locked in ice. Its skeletal jaws snapped inches from her, teeth scraping sparks against her sword.

My bastard sword came down in a brutal arc. Crack! The skull split clean in two, filth spraying across my coat. The carcass slumped back into the hole with a dying gurgle.

One down.

But the map in the corner of my vision still pulsed red.

"Left!" Qinglan spun without hesitation. Her blade whistled through the air, forming a crescent of frost that collided with another shark bursting from below. It howled, half its body crystallised, and she darted in, cutting deep into its flank before retreating beside me.

I smirked. "Our rhythm's better than ever."

"Don't get cocky. There's more."

She was right.

The asphalt bulged in three directions at once.

***

The convoy roared alive in chaos. Jeeps swerved, soldiers firing heavy rounds into the cracks as pale fins circled like vultures. One beast lunged beneath the last vehicle, bursting through the pavement to swallow it whole—metal, men and all.

"Too late!"

I shot forward, pumping Qi into my legs as they bulged with muscles. The ground shattered beneath my step, propelling me high into the air. My blade caught the Landshark mid-breach, carving from jawline to dorsal ridge.

Black ichor splattered the convoy as the bisected corpse collapsed into two halves.

"Keep the jeeps moving!" I yelled. "Don't stop, or they'll drag you down!"

Qinglan moved like a blur beside me, weaving through collapsing ground with effortless grace. Her sword shimmered, each swing freezing the soil solid, slowing the predators long enough for me to smash them apart.

She cut, I crushed. She froze, and I shattered.

We fall into a sort of trance, instinctively paired together, covering each other.

Another fin tore toward a panicked jeep on the right. Qinglan leapt ahead, her blade spearing down, freezing its nose. The creature writhed, jaws locked open. My gauntlets hammered, eight explosive shells ripping down its gullet until the back of its skull burst out in a spray of bone shards.

The soldiers we saved stared at me in shock, trembling hands gripping their rifles.

"Focus!" I snapped, pointing my blade at the dust cloud. "They're still circling!"

They jolted back to attention, reloading quickly.

Qinglan landed beside me, panting, her cheek streaked with ichor. I reached out, brushing it with my thumb before she swatted my hand away.

"Idiot. Eyes forward."

Rumble!

The earth collapsed beneath us.

Three massive shapes erupted at once, fins slicing through the asphalt like scythes. They converged, circling tightly, forcing Qinglan and me to back up against each other.

"Tch. They're learning," she hissed.

"Then we adapt."

My bastard sword whirled in wide arcs, forcing space. Sparks and shards flew as I parried bone jaws snapping inches from my throat. My gauntlets boomed point-blank into another maw, blasting out half its fangs.

Qinglan's blade sang the most beautiful songs of icy death. Frost spread along the street, halting another Landshark mid-lunge. She flipped over its snout, slashing twice, carving lines of ice that severed its jaw.

The third beast roared from beneath, jaws splitting the road. I grabbed Qinglan's waist without warning, hurling us both skyward as the pavement shattered beneath. Its teeth clamped shut where we'd stood a heartbeat earlier.

"John~ I love it when you manhandle me like this," she shouted mid-air, cheeks flushed red.

"Lan'er...!" I grinned, twisting to land blade-first into the exposed skull below. Bone crunched from the brutal blow as the carcass collapsed in a quake.

Qinglan landed lightly beside me, her breath sharp, sword dripping black gore. Despite herself, her lips curled. "Fine. That one's yours."

We turned together as the last two circled again.

The convoy thundered past, jeeps jolting over the cracked asphalt, avoiding the Landsharks. Soldiers fired from windows to cover our fight. Liang Mei was leaping from rooftop to rooftop, loosing arrows like the goddess Artemis, while her feet smashed their bones like meteor bolts from the sky.

Liang Mei's strikes shattered and crushed bone, slowing the beasts enough for us to intercept.

"Lan'er, right side!" I called.

"Already there!"

Her figure blurred like a phantom, dragging Endless Night in a glittering arc that cleaved the dorsal fin clean off one shark. It shrieked, thrashing wildly before I slammed down with both fists, crushing the bastard's skull against the bent rebar of a collapsed wall.

The final shark circled slowly, avoiding the surface as the ground trembled. It created deep, spider-webbed cracks under our boots as it moved away.

It was going to breach beneath the convoy.

"Not this time."

I slammed both gauntlets into the ground and poured my Earth Qi into the ground. It burst out, forming shockwaves that split the asphalt. The soil caved in, exposing its writhing, pale body mid-burrow.

Qinglan seized the chance. She leapt high, her entire sword wreathed in icy-blue qi.

"Endless Night—Crescent Fang!"

Her slash split the air like frozen moonlight.

The blade carved through the exposed Landshark's spine, severing it clean in two. Both halves writhed a moment, then collapsed into steaming black mush.

Silence.

The ground returned to sleep, no more fins or movement.

The convoy slowed on the other side of the massive sinkhole, soldiers peering over the edges inside the jeeps with expressions of stunned disbelief.

We stood back-to-back close to the epicentre, blades covered in disgusting ooze, breathing faster than usual.

Then Qinglan let out a soft laugh.

"Haa… not bad. For a warm-up."

I shook my head with a grin, flicking ichor off my blade. "You're insufferable."

She leaned closer, with her hand stroking up my bodysuit, and a tantalising smile as she whispered just loud enough for me. "And you love it."

My eyes watched her unable to deny her words as she swayed her ass in that tight sexy bodysuit.

God, I want to throw her down and pound her.

We returned to the convoy as cheers rippled through the soldiers. The road was littered with cracked fins and pools of ichor, the sinkhole started to emit steam silently, and I knew the danger wasn't over.

Because my map still blinked with red dots.

There weren't as many, but the size might be double that of the previous Landsharks.

Beneath the concrete sea, something bigger stirred.

"Lan'er…" I murmured, scanning the horizon.

She sheathed Endless Night slowly, her expression tightening. "You feel it too."

Yes.

The Landsharks weren't adults.

However, we couldn't attack them so deep in the earth, and as the road still stood, dust settled like sheets. The soldiers began lowering their rifles, a few voices cracking into relieved shouts and cheers.

Stop...

The hair on my neck rose before the tremor happened.

RUMBLE!

The ground beneath the convoy quaked like a living drum. A fissure split wide at the centre of the street, asphalt peeling back like paper.

Then the true monster appeared....

[Danger - Landashark Alpha has surfaced!]

The Alpha.

Its fin alone was taller than a jeep. Its head erupted from the street with a spray of pulverised concrete, jaws wider than a garage door. Rows upon rows of serrated fangs clamped shut, ripping apart two parked cars as if they were paper toys. The sheer bulk of its skeletal frame made the others look like babies.

"Fall back!" I roared, leaping forward as Qinglan sprinted to my side.

The beast raced for the convoy as I tried to slow it down with a burst of slugs in its massive max; each shot detonated in a flash of fire. Qinglan's blade streaked with cold moonlight, cleaving across its snout and freezing bone into brittle shards.

However...

Clang!

The moment her sword struck the Alpha's body, the frost shattered, and the impact sent Qinglan flying backwards, off the ground and exposed. It shrieked, thrashing, tail smashing a building into rubble. The shockwave knocked soldiers flat, jeeps rocking wildly.

"Lan'er!"

I shouted her name, rushing to her body without care, rocks sliced my cheek, metal tore into the bodysuit as I leapt into the air and grabbed her body, yanking her from the monster's path. A moment later, its jaws snapped and tore the air apart where she had existed a moment before.

The Alpha roared after missing its strike.

Its body thrashed around, cracking the pavement as it sank back into the earth, retreating with a violent quake that nearly toppled the entire street.

I exhaled, lowering my sword, ichor dripping from its edge.

"Lan'er, Mei Mei you both good to fight?"

Above me, Liang Mei watched the shark, her thigh muscles on display, tight and bulging, ready to strike. "Anytime."

Qinglan slipped from my arms, a faint blush on her cheeks and whispered.

"Let's kill this thing, honey."