Picking Up My Ex-Wife in the Apocalypse - Chapter 6

The world, freshly soaked in snow, remained bitterly cold. Si Qi wore only a single thin layer of clothing, yet surprisingly, she didn’t feel the chill. It was as if she had suddenly developed a strange, newfound kinship with this frozen earth.

Is this a perk of having an ability? she wondered. She glanced sideways at Si Ruxu, who was still wearing nothing but her light trench coat, her long hair blowing loosely in the wind. Noticing the gaze, Si Ruxu let out a soft, knowing smile. “Starstruck?”

Si Qi shook her head. “Do Awakened not feel the cold? Then why bother hiding from the Great Frost?”

“Our tolerance for heat and cold is significantly higher than that of an ordinary person,” Si Ruxu explained, her voice steady and calm. “But the Great Frost is different. When the storm hits, it reaches absolute zero in every sense of the word. It carries a devastating force that can literally shred a person’s skin.”

As she spoke, Si Ruxu watched Si Qi carefully. If the girl’s potential was high enough, she was more than willing to act as her mentor on this path of power.

“I see. So the Great Frost and the Great Heat are actually the first stages of the ‘screening’ process?”

“Exactly.”

Satisfied with the answer, Si Qi fell silent. A lingering sense of indignation stirred within her. If they knew their home had been turned into a laboratory, were they really expected to follow the designated steps just to satisfy the goals of some higher entity? Everything felt like a game of chess, leaving her to wonder what role she was supposed to play—especially with her rebirth and her dual, mysterious abilities.

Suddenly, the air around them curdled. A freezing wind whipped up the snow, forming jagged blades of ice that shot toward them.

Several figures in black cloaks lunged from the shadows, their eyes glinting with a predatory cruelty. They were clearly there for Si Ruxu. The leader waved a hand, causing the temperature to plummet further as ice crystals hissed through the air like a thousand arrows.

Si Ruxu snapped her trench coat upward, creating a shimmering barrier that deflected the ice with a rhythmic clatter. Beside her, Si Qi clenched her fists, the power in her veins thrumming with life as a flash of crimson sparked deep in her pupils.

Si Ruxu manifested a long whip of crackling lightning, lashing out at the attackers. But by the third strike, the electricity suddenly flickered and vanished from her hand. The cloaked figures dissolved into shadows only to regroup instantly.

A cold dagger lunged toward Si Ruxu’s heart. Just as it was about to strike, the space around her contracted violently, tearing open a black hole that swallowed her whole. A second later, she was pulled into a warm, firm embrace.

The scent of sunshine enveloped her—familiar and grounding. She looked up to see Si Qi’s jaw set tight, her face pale with tension as she stared at the multiplying clones.

“Careful,” Si Ruxu whispered, pulling back slightly. “These might all be clones of a single person. Unless you hit the real body, you can’t hurt him.”

“It’s fine. I’ll try.”

Si Ruxu bit back her warning. Si Qi closed her eyes, sensing the fluctuations in the environment. Space blades flowed with her consciousness, cutting through the shadows, but the figures simply reformed as quickly as they were dispersed.

Si Qi opened her eyes, the blood-red light in them intensifying. In the next heartbeat, a cold dagger pierced through her abdomen.

Si Qi froze; the shock of the wound registered before the pain. Si Ruxu grabbed her hand and threw a smoke grenade, followed immediately by a portable energy shield.

“I told you that you couldn’t take them,” Si Ruxu said. There was a flicker of admiration in her eyes for the “newborn calf” who didn’t fear the tiger. Even at her peak, Si Ruxu had been hounded by this particular enemy.

Si Qi let out a dry, raspy laugh. “So, do we run now?”

“We can’t.” Si Ruxu stood inside the shield with her arms crossed, looking toward the base. “Now, we wait for the base to lock onto my coordinates and send a rescue team.”

“Will this shield hold?” Si Qi frowned. The cloaked clones had emerged from the smoke and were marching toward them in unison.

“I’m not sure.” Usually, Si Ruxu never needed to defend herself; she was the one people feared. This was her first time relying on a mechanical barrier.

Looking at Si Qi’s bleeding stomach and her increasingly ashen face, Si Ruxu produced several Level 6 crystals. She had healing powers, and while her energy was low, stopping the bleeding would be simple. But she hesitated. If the shield could only take a few more hits—or perhaps only one—then Si Qi’s “emergency” second ability was their only real insurance.

Si Qi had no idea she had been designated as Plan B. She used her Space ability to sketch out “killing lines” across the field. Each strike dissolved four or five clones, but it was futile; new ones surged forward to fill the gaps as if their energy source were bottomless.

A dozen clones attacked the shield simultaneously. Within seconds, spiderweb cracks began to crawl across the barrier.

Si Qi poured everything she had into her perception. Suddenly, she felt a shift. These shadows were just clusters of energy, and every one of them was connected by a thin, ethereal thread leading to a single point.

The real body wasn’t among them.

She locked onto a massive boulder up ahead and condensed a lethal space blade. But as she prepared to throw it, a sharp stone shard pierced her heart. Her eyes widened. The agonizing throb in her chest made it impossible to distinguish between physical trauma and betrayal.

There was only one person behind her. She turned her head and met a pair of cold, amber eyes.

Si Ruxu had stabbed her. Using the very stone shard Si Qi had sharpened herself.

******

The light in Si Qi’s eyes died. Crimson patterns crawled across her forehead, and her pupils bled into a terrifying, unearthly red.

She let out a faint, mocking laugh. A massive, unprecedented pressure erupted from her body, tearing at the space around her until the air shrieked. Like an awakened beast, Si Qi ignored the blood pouring from her chest and surged forward. Space blades swirled around her in a frenzied, lethal vortex.

The hidden mastermind, caught off guard by this hidden trump card, barely managed to throw up a shield. It was shredded instantly. Beneath the black hood, a face filled with terror was revealed. The man coughed up blood and tried to flee, but Si Qi was already there.

With a playful, chilling smile, she tore a massive rift between them. The unseen force hurled the man across the snow, leaving a trail of blood thirty feet long before he vanished into the darkness of the woods.

Si Qi stood amidst a world of red. The pristine snow around her was stained with her own blood. She coughed violently, crimson spraying from her lips. As the patterns on her forehead faded, her eyes closed, and she collapsed onto the frozen ground.

Even a fool would understand now: she had been used by Si Ruxu again.

The second ability—the thing that saved her life only when she was at death’s door—had been forcibly triggered by Si Ruxu to save them both. Si Qi remembered Si Ruxu mentioning her “final trump card” that night. It turned out Si Qi’s own life was merely the fuel for that card.

Quiet, measured footsteps approached. Si Ruxu knelt down and placed her hand over Si Qi’s heart. She had aimed the strike with surgical precision, ensuring it would miss anything vital.

What little energy she had left flowed into Si Qi, offering a meager bit of relief. She placed several crystals around her, which disintegrated into dust instantly.

The second ability was purely passive, Si Ruxu realized. Using it once drained every drop of energy in Si Qi’s body. Without immediate replenishment, she would still die. I should probably give her a sack of crystals to carry around for fights, Si Ruxu thought. Fortunately, crystals were the one thing she had in abundance.

It took over a dozen high-level crystals just to stabilize Si Qi’s condition. The battle had caused a massive energy surge; if anyone else showed up now, they were finished. Especially with an S-rank bounty on her head that said “dead or alive.”

Si Ruxu sighed and hoisted the limp Si Qi onto her back. As the snow began to fall again, she trekked toward the shadows.

She had the same idea Si Qi once had: find a patch of mutated plants. They would provide temporary sanctuary. She wasn’t in a hurry to regroup with the base yet. She wanted to bring Si Qi back at full strength to prove her value and ensure her a place in the Core Zone.

Using a compass from her space, she soon found a grove of mutated flora. If Si Qi were awake, she’d realize they were less than a kilometer from her original cave.

Si Ruxu offered the mutated wolf carcass as a trade, asking the plants for protection. The plants accepted, weaving their broad leaves into a makeshift shelter that masked their presence perfectly.

First a cave, now a bush, Si Ruxu thought, wiping the sweat from her pale brow. She was nearly as exhausted as the woman she was carrying. Once inside the leafy house, her vision went black, and she collapsed right on top of Si Qi.

As night fell, crimson threads of energy began to swirl around the two of them. Some of these threads reached into Si Ruxu’s abdomen, nourishing her body—while simultaneously doing something else entirely.

They were stealthily siphoning crystals directly from Si Ruxu’s space.

It seemed that no matter the species, as long as you were thick-skinned enough, you could always keep yourself well-fed.

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