Picking Up My Ex-Wife in the Apocalypse - Chapter 14

In the final thirty minutes, Si Qi watched Si Ruxu’s face. It was pale once again from energy depletion and gently funneled her own power into her.

After this first Purge ends, I’ll take her back to the base, Si Qi thought. There must be a way to fix her core there. Sometimes, a dark thought flickered in her mind: if Si Ruxu never recovered, would they just stay like this, relying on each other for a lifetime?

She watched Si Ruxu in the quiet. Most of their time together was spent in silence; perhaps the path of flight was simply too bitter and exhausting for words. Si Ruxu always seemed to avoid her gaze.

Si Qi finally buried her urge to ask about the truth of their breakup. Only in novels did every “I don’t love you anymore” hide a tragic, heart-wrenching secret. In reality, it was often just a cold end.

The countdown hit zero. On the sky-screen, the words flickered: HUMAN TRIBULATION.

It was exactly as Si Ruxu had predicted. A thick, grey mist instantly swallowed the world. From within the fog came a rhythmic, wet shuffling sound. Si Qi’s body tensed, and a second later, she felt a cord snap around her arm.

Her breath hitched, but Si Ruxu’s cool voice drifted through the haze. “The mist is thick. Stay tied to me so we don’t get separated.”

Si Qi’s frantic heart steadied. Si Ruxu lashed out with a lightning whip, snagging something and dragging it back. Si Qi stared at the creature. It was a resurrected Awakened—or what was left of one. Its eyes were vacant, glowing with a hollow red light. Even as the lightning charred its flesh, it continued to claw toward Si Ruxu with mindless persistence.

Si Qi frowned. How is this different from a zombie? These bodies were physical, but what about those who had been cremated in the Sky Fire? What form would they take?

A sudden realization struck her. She erupted with power, using a spatial rift to fling away a shadow in front of Si Ruxu. A split second later, a golden energy blast grazed Si Ruxu’s cheek, leaving a thin trail of blood.

“Si Ruxu! They aren’t just zombies. They’re Awakened! They still have their powers!” Si Qi shouted as the surrounding shadows began to stir in unison.

Si Ruxu’s gaze sharpened. She admitted her oversight as she condensed globes of lightning and hurled them in every direction. The stench of burnt flesh filled the air, followed by bursts of flame from the attackers. Si Qi closed her eyes, sensing the fluctuations; she intercepted a Water-type blast and used a spatial fold to crash it into a fireball, extinguishing the heat in a cloud of rising steam.

The area fell into a temporary, deathly silence. Si Qi could feel them waiting. They possessed a twisted intelligence; that first wave had been a mere probe to gauge their strength. Now, they were strategizing.

“Si Ruxu,” Si Qi whispered, her back soaked with sweat. “Those were the physical ones. But what about the ones who were turned to ash by the fire? What form do they take in this ‘Tribulation’?”

“Deal with the present first,” Si Ruxu replied grimly. “We take them as they come.”

*****

Space blades whistled through the mist. As a barrage of elemental attacks rained down, Si Ruxu deployed her energy shield. It was a base-made model, effective against low-level powers. Most high-level Awakened had died in the forest fire, having ventured too deep.

Even so, thousands of resurrected enemies were impossible to kill all at once. Si Qi kept crystals floating around her for constant fuel, while Si Ruxu systematically picked off the physical Power-types lunging at them.

Eventually, the attacks ceased. Si Qi sensed the air and let out a short breath of relief. She waved her hand, and a parade of various colored crystals—harvested from the fallen—began filing into the small pouch Si Ruxu had given her.

The pouch, which had been nearly empty after days of survival, was now bulging again. She turned to Si Ruxu with a shy, dusty smile. “Awakened crystals are more durable than beast ones, right?”

Si Ruxu nodded. “Yes. Good job.”

Not taking a single loss, Si Ruxu thought. Killing and looting in one go.

In this game of survival, the rules favored the system. Self-recovery for Awakened was agonizingly slow, requiring hours of meditation or crystals. Yet Si Qi was a miracle—she could recover while fighting, and she was even fueling Si Ruxu simultaneously.

If this apocalypse is a game for higher beings, why did they create Si Qi? Si Ruxu wondered. Is she a new rule? She didn’t have the answer yet. Years later, she would realize she was currently standing at the crossroads of destiny: one path leading to death, the other to a profound loss.

*****

They rested briefly. Si Qi swallowed an energy bar in two bites. She didn’t know where to run, so she simply focused on replenishing her strength.

Si Ruxu stared into the mist for a long time before looking at the damp ground. “The ones without bodies died in the woods,” she said stiffly. “What if we just get as far away from the trees as possible?”

Si Qi immediately focused on the lingering traces of the Sky Fire and tore through space, blinking them far into the distance. In the final millisecond of the transition, Si Ruxu saw a pale, skeletal hand reach out from the very ground where she had been sitting.

After several consecutive blinks, Si Ruxu signaled for her to stop. She stood in silence for a few seconds before suddenly lashing out with a bolt of lightning to Si Qi’s right. Si Qi turned; a pair of white hands were reaching through the electricity to grab her.

The blood-red patterns on her forehead flared. The moment the hands touched her, they crumbled into ash with a piercing shriek.

Si Qi tilted her head, her vision clearing as the patterns reached her eyes. She gasped as a wave of numbing horror washed over her.

They were surrounded by a sea of dismembered limbs and severed torsos. Charred bodies hung from the nearby trees, their necks twisted at impossible angles as they grinned at her.

“Si Ruxu… I can see them now,” Si Qi’s voice was thick with the taste of copper.

“Don’t be afraid. Tell me what you see.”

“They’re moving. Even as severed meat, they’re hunting us. The ones without bodies… the charred ones… they’re all here.”

Si Ruxu forced herself to stay calm, gripping Si Qi’s hand to offer comfort. Since she couldn’t see the horrors herself, Si Qi was bearing a hundred times the psychological burden. “It’s okay, Si Qi. You’re strong. So am I.”

Si Qi felt like vomiting. She didn’t even notice a grey hand reaching for Si Ruxu’s throat. Suddenly, a spatial rift opened and a red-tinged figure appeared, crushing the grey hand with her bare palms before turning to look at Si Qi.

Si Qi snapped out of it, seeing nothing but disdain and annoyance in the stranger’s eyes.

“Is this how you protect people?” the masked woman snapped. “These hands can phase through anything. If she gets caught, you’ll have to chop off her arm to save her life.”

Si Qi was too overwhelmed to feel jealous this time. “Are you an enemy?”

The masked woman let out a low, dry laugh. “I’m your enemy.”

With that, she grabbed Si Qi and threw her out into the circle of encroaching remains. Si Qi’s stomach lurched as the rotting meat closed in. She had to use her Space ability frantically, tossing the fragments away as she tried to crawl back to Si Ruxu.

The masked woman’s voice drifted over, sounding like she was enjoying the show. “I’ve masked my scent and hers. But I can only mask two people. If you come back in, the cloak fails and it’ll attack all three of us.”

“I can’t save both of you. I can see your ‘friend’ is injured. It’s better for you to handle this alone than to drag her into the crossfire, isn’t it?”

Si Qi paused and slowly retreated. She didn’t know who this woman was, but since she had saved Si Ruxu, she likely wasn’t an immediate threat. And she was right—Si Qi didn’t want Si Ruxu in danger.

She began clumsily hurling the fragments of flesh away, making sure to steer them far from Si Ruxu’s position.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the masked woman called out again. “How can someone be this stupid? Haven’t you noticed they turn to ash the moment they touch you? Just absorb your energy and hit them directly!”

Si Qi looked at the writhing meat. It took every ounce of her courage to touch it. She held her breath and slapped a piece of flesh away; it disintegrated instantly upon contact. She grit her teeth and began a 360-degree whirlwind of strikes, clearing the area with her bare hands.

On the other side, Si Ruxu stood still. As long as the “Future Si Qi” was standing there, she knew the current Si Qi would be safe.

“You aren’t worried about her?” the Future Si Qi asked. her voice sounded exhausted, tinged with a raspy edge.

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Si Ruxu replied calmly. “Why should I be worried?”

The Future Si Qi let out a short, hollow laugh. “I suppose I shouldn’t underestimate you. You were always smart… then and now.”

It wasn’t a compliment. If one listened closely, she sounded like she was speaking through gritted teeth.

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