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

The buzzing grew into a deafening drone.

Not giving us a chance to react, the flying hornets attacked.

Shadows swarmed across the fractured street as the first wave of flying horrors descended. Their wings beat like sheets of steel slamming together, whipping dust into our faces. The monsters weren't just mutated zombies anymore!

Whether twisted into the shape of hornets or born from actual hornets, I couldn't tell from the stretched bodies and elongated, skeletal ribs, sharp enough to tear steel. Their compound eyes glowed sickly green, and split mandibles dripped with saliva that burned where it landed, hissing on the asphalt.

Taloned limbs lashed out midair, more insect than human, more predator than carrion.

"Contact! Open fire!" a soldier screamed, unloading a burst of rifle fire.

Bullets chewed through the closest mutant's wing, shredding leathery flesh, but the damn thing only shrieked louder before plummeting into the jeep below. Its claws pierced steel plating like paper. Men scrambled out, one cut in half by a single swipe.

"Hold your line!" I bellowed, raising my bastard sword. The edge blazed with fire and frost, qi burning bright. "They're fragile—aim for wings to bring them down or their heads!"

Qinglan followed me.

She leapt from the jeep hood like a mantis, Endless Night flashing in beautiful arcs of white. Her frost split the air as she bisected a shrieking flyer mid-dive, the two halves freezing solid before shattering against the pavement.

"Ugly bastards," she spat, spinning with predatory grace.

Liang Mei followed, legs bulging with explosive power as she vaulted twenty metres in one bound. She kicked a mutant square in the chest. The impact sent it cartwheeling through a billboard in a spray of ichor.

Did her kick just create a hole in its chest!?

Another swooped low, jaws unhinging too wide, dripping acid. I pivoted, gauntlets roaring with eight shells. BOOM—its head detonated in a plume of green mist, the body spiralling down to crash in flames.

Jiang Siwan held her Desert Eagle steady; the recoil made her breasts jiggle.

"John, we can handle this. Do something!"

Still, for every one that fell, three more took their place.

"Sir! They're coming straight out of the Hive!"

I risked a glance.

The beehive-like mound ahead was splitting open, its pulsing walls oozing foul resin. Black shapes poured out in a torrent. Dozens, maybe hundreds, all clawing, shrieking, wings catching the light of dawn as they blotted out the sky.

I bit down.

This wasn't just a nest but a complete deathtrap.

"Fall back! Into cover, so they cannot overwhelm us!" I shouted using all my lungs. "Cut through them!" A sharp stinger shot past my face as I cleaved the bastard in two. It only caught me with a slight glance, but the wound burned with a searing fire.

Sparks leapt as I surged forward, carving a path through the swarm. "Qinglan! Mei Mei! With me—straight to the Hive!"

"Gladly!" Qinglan's laugh rang sharp as she dived into the heart of the storm.

The sky was nothing but wings and claws.

Buzzing filled the air, a deafening chorus that scraped the nerves raw. The first wave of flyers dove straight at the convoy, acid saliva raining down like molten hail. The smell of burned asphalt and seared flesh choked the street.

"Suppressing fire! Keep those bastards out of the sky!"

The soldiers obeyed Jiang Siwan instantly.

Rifles roared, machine guns rattled, tracers stitching red lines through the morning haze. Mutants shrieked and spun, wings shredded, bodies tumbling like broken kites. With each wave destroyed, the number of reinforcements from the hive dropped.

From three for a kill to two... then finally only one for one.

"John you fool, wait for me!" Li Ya's voice cut through the chaos. She spun her halberd in a glowing arc, flames rippling along the steel. With a single step, she cleaved one flyer in half, fire clinging to its corpse until it hit the ground as a blackened husk. "If we stay here, they'll overwhelm us! Let me join you!"

I know!" I slashed across a mutant's torso, my bastard sword humming with qi. Bone split with a wet crack, ichor spraying my faceplate. I shoved the corpse aside and raised my voice to the comms. "Siwan, I'm leaving the convoy to you. We're going inside! Hold position and cover us if needed. I'll take point."

The jeeps pulled tight into a circle, guns mounted toward the swarm. The rattle of coordinated fire filled the street, brass casings spilling like rivers across the asphalt.

"Qinglan, Mei Mei, Ya Ya, Yifei—you're with me!"

"Who the fuck are you calling Ya-Ya!?

"Finally," Shen Yifei grinned, her spear already twirling. The weapon's point blurred in tight circles, each motion shedding sparks of golden qi. "You never call for my anymore... I was getting a little annoyed."

Qinglan stood at my shoulder, white frost curling around her shoulders, but I noticed her deep breaths and slight exhaustion. Endless Night might be powerful, but... Her lips curled into that terrifying, yet seductive half-smile. "Let's go darling, I want to hunt these filthy creatures more and more!"

My first girlfriend is a bit of a psychopath...

Mei Mei crouched, while taking a sprinting position, her butt lifted, legs flexed like coiled steel before she exploded forward like a bomb. Her cotton-candy ponytail whipped in the wind as her cheeks flushed with battle lust. "Hyah!"

With a simple dash, she tore apart three hornets...

Damn, her ass looks so fine.

My eyes followed Mei Mei's curvy rump with each violent bounce, much like the huge hornets that seemed enraged by her existence.

The swarm descended and started ignoring the normal soldiers.

I took the chance to tap my earpiece.

"Siwan, take the cores from the hornets chests, and swallow as many as you can."

"Are you crazy John!?"

"I just don't want my hot milf lover to die."

"Y-You!?"

Closing the call, I rushed after the hornets, my gauntlets humming as I shot eight long-range slugs at the hornets chasing Mei Mei and ripped apart a flyer mid-scream. I followed with a rising slash, bisecting another that tried to dive at Mei Mei.

Hot on my feet, Qinglan and Li Ya followed.

Qinglan matched my pace, her blade a storm of moonlight. Every cut froze wings in mid-beat, shards of ice scattering like shattered glass as corpses dropped out of the sky.

Honestly, it was beautiful.

Li Ya swept in wide arcs, her halberd a burning scythe. She spun, the flame trailing a circle of fire that engulfed three at once. Their wings crackled, bodies twisting into ash before they hit the pavement.

The battle wasn't fair...

Ever since the horde attacked, our power levels skyrocketed with all the cores and ZKP.

Shen Yifei and Mei Mei constantly fought against the hornets, both matching their speed. Like a bolt of lightning against a gust of wind. Her spear lanced through the air, each rapid thrust punctuated by the crunch of bone.

She danced between the shadows, golden qi streaking in curved waves that left the flyers pinned to walls, as Mei Mei's spear skewered them.

"Now! Enter the hive!"

We advanced in a wedge, cutting down anything that dared descend. The Hive loomed closer, a pulsing mound of resin and bone, its surface slippery with slime, its massive mouth a tunnel breathing steam and stink.

A flyer screeched from above, jaws snapping wide to spit acid. I caught its throat mid-dive with my gauntlet, slammed it into the ground, and crushed its skull under my boot. The bones splintered, acid hissing against the asphalt but missing the team.

"Nice footwork," Qinglan teased, voice sharp with adrenaline. She spun and bisected another attacker, never missing a step.

Mei Mei shot past me, her foot smashed into the hive wall with a resonating bang, her leg half buried in the solid yet squishy wall. "Ah... it's sticky and cold!" The crack echoed like thunder, the wall collapsing under her boots. She grinned at me, dragging her bare legs free, the bodysuit damaged beyond repair... her bare ass too hard to look away from. "See, John? My legs are unbeatable!"

"Not just your legs..." I muttered before Qinglan covered my eyes.

"Cover your fat ass, it's hanging out! You damn hairy rabbit!"

"Ack!?"

The acid melted parts of everyone's bodysuits, but thankfully, they would repair once out of combat for a small amount of ZKP.

Li Ya growled as she drove her halberd through three in a row, flames bursting outward in a shockwave that turned the swarm behind them into burning wreckage. "Stop flirting and keep moving!"

Even Yifei joined in... her eyes lingering on me as she frowned. The next moment, her spear pierced a flyer's skull before twirling and slamming it into the ground. "They can't help themselves."

Jiang Siwan and the remaining soldiers hid in a small building, watching the entrance as I waved over and contacted them. "We'll enter the hive now, if we don't return in two hours, head to the planned area and extract the members back to Homebase."

"J-John!? What do you mean..."

Her voice sounded more vulnerable than usual, but I couldn't let her collapse like this.

"We have a mission, Siwan."

"..."

"Be safe. I'll wait three hours."

We broke through the thickest part of the swarm and reached the hive. But ahead, the Hive pulsed like a living heart. More figures crawled across its surface. They lacked wings but were fanged and twisted with sharp limbs. Hundreds, waiting to launch.

"Let's go!"