The Eerie Little Prince Just Wants to Lie Low in the Apocalypse - Chapter 1

“There’s a wave…”

“There’s a wave of aberrations rapidly approaching the village. Estimated arrival in fifteen minutes.”

“Everyone, get in the trucks! Now!”

“Xihe, you don’t have any abilities. Go with the trucks to the safe zone.”

“I don’t want to. I want to stay with you all.”

“Be good! Wait for us at the safe zone. Mom and your older siblings will come join you very soon. Be good, Xihe, be good…”

“No, I can fight aberrations too. I won’t leave.”

“Second child, throw the third one onto the truck!”

“Mom!”

A tear slid from the corner of his eye. Drip, drip. Its icy touch struck his cheek, covering the warm trail of tears, then slid down his neck, melting into a chilling, damp darkness.

Countless pitch-black, terrifying figures surged rapidly from all directions, raising stiff, twisted arms. In the next moment, a countless number of bloody hands lunged towards his face.

And hidden behind those bloody hands, a pair of eyes glowing with a piercing crimson light pierced through the horde of corpses, staring fixedly at him.

“Hah!!”

Awoken from the nightmare, Lu Xihe gasped for breath, his heart pounding violently, unable to calm down for a long time. The scene of the aberrations invading the village remained vivid in his mind to this day.

Watching helplessly as his mother, brother, and sister fought the aberrations, only to be swallowed by the tide and disappear without a trace, Lu Xihe once again cursed his own powerlessness.

If he had abilities or a system, if he could have stayed and fought alongside his family, it would have been better than squatting here, barely surviving like this.

Why… why did he have nothing at all?

The roof of the truck container had a large hole. Raindrops pattered in, and Lu Xihe’s seat was right under the hole. Drenched for half the night, he was soaked through.

Even in the fiery heat of September, Lu Xihe couldn’t help but shiver.

The container was packed tightly with people. With every breath, the stench of rain-soaked, rusted metal mixed with the odor of repeatedly trampled feet assaulted his nostrils, making his head spin.

Since he was already soaked, he might as well not be suffocated by the smell. Lu Xihe simply climbed onto the roof of the truck, letting the rain fall on him as he breathed in the fresh air outside.

It had been a long time since he’d been outside. Ever since the aberrant apocalypse descended, he had been hiding in dark, damp cellars, almost forgetting what the outside world looked like.

But the world now was no longer the one he remembered. Everywhere lay shattered corpses and remnants, with aberrations wandering about, devoid of life.

Lu Xihe walked to the front of the truck and sat down, originally thinking the metal frame there would be good to hold onto. Little did he expect to overhear a shocking secret.

The nearest safe zone was still at least five days’ drive away, but the food on the truck was nearly gone. The ability users in the driver’s cabin were discussing…

“Boss, we’re almost out of food. At this rate, we probably won’t make it to the safe zone.”

“It’s all because of those useless people in the back. They can’t help with anything, yet they eat so much.”

“Should we just throw them off? They won’t contribute much even if we reach the safe zone anyway. Didn’t R City issue a notice saying newcomers would be allocated food and shelter based on the number of ability users per village unit? If we bring all these burdens, we’ll have to work extra to earn food for them.”

“Since we’re out of food anyway, throwing them off or not makes no difference. Why not… let them help us one last time? After all, we’ve protected them for months. It’s time they repaid us.”

“And what about the people who go missing?” the man the others called “Boss” asked quietly.

“Just say I have a spatial ability that can only expand a little each time. Once it’s big enough for one person, we’ll let someone in?”

After this person finished speaking, the cabin fell into a long silence until the ‘boss’ spoke again: “Go ahead and do it.”

Hearing this, Lu Xihe thought they were planning to throw the people in the back compartment out one by one. Unexpectedly, someone used an ability to pass through the wall to the back and returned with a little girl.

Were they planning to… eat people?!

This was utterly insane. How was their behavior any different from the aberrations?

Watching as the man reached out to grab the little girl’s neck, Lu Xihe could no longer hold back. He kicked through the cabin window, leaped inside, and snatched the girl from the man’s grasp.

Lu Xihe’s sudden appearance surprised the men, but they didn’t panic. The one called the boss raised his hand and waved, and instantly, Lu Xihe and the little girl were tightly bound by vines.

“A hero? I like that.” The man’s lips curled into a faint smirk as he placed the little girl back into the rear compartment, his gaze settling on Lu Xihe’s face. “You, I like even more.”

Lu Xihe was forcibly dragged by the vines to the man’s front. The man reached out and gently stroked his face, his eyes swirling with a disgusting lust. “How pitiful. If you had followed me earlier, you wouldn’t have had to huddle in the back compartment, drenched and miserable.”

Goosebumps rose all over Lu Xihe’s body. He gripped the vines around his neck tightly, glaring at the man with pure disgust.

This man had harbored improper intentions toward him since high school. Back then, he had been restrained by the law, but now, in the apocalypse, the law had long since collapsed. As the strongest person here, his hidden, filthy desires were no longer concealed.

“Spit on you? You’re not even worth it!” Lu Xihe mustered all his strength and spat toward the man, but the distance was too great, it didn’t even reach the vehicle.

Lu Xihe’s pitiful state greatly amused the man and stirred his desire for revenge. He extended the vines to the right, placing Lu Xihe among the bushes. Watching as Lu Xihe was scratched and wounded by the branches, the man laughed triumphantly and arrogantly.

“Well? Are you convinced? If you admit your mistake now and beg me to take you in, I’ll ensure you have a comfortable journey to the safe zone.”

“Convince me to submit to a beast like you? Never!” Lu Xihe struggled violently, trying to break the vines.

“Ungrateful. Then today, we’ll eat you first.” The man’s voice turned sharp and cruel. He gave a signal to the others behind him and swung his hand, tossing Lu Xihe into the cabin.

The cabin had been isolated by their abilities, so no sound from the front could reach the back. No matter how loudly Lu Xihe screamed, it was useless.

A knife sliced into his thigh, carving out a piece of flesh. Excruciating pain instantly swept through his entire body, making him break out in a cold sweat.

The ability users laughed heartily at Lu Xihe’s agonized expression. A fire ability user conjured flames in his palm and roasted the freshly cut meat over the fire. Before long, the scent of grilled meat wafted through the cabin, making the men’s mouths water.

Enduring the piercing pain, Lu Xihe glanced around, gritted his teeth, and made a resolute decision.

He was going to die sooner or later. Rather than being eaten by these scum, it was better to turn into an aberration, at least then he might have a chance to bite them back.

After all, his parents, brother, and sister were gone. With aberrations running rampant, he didn’t even know if he was truly alive. A person with nothing left to lose fears nothing, not even a wretched life.

Lu Xihe mustered every ounce of his strength and crashed into the right-side car window at an incredible speed. The sound of his shoulder bone shattering echoed in his ears, but he succeeded in tumbling out of the window and falling into the eerie tide.

Everything was about to end.

Six months ago, a strange illness suddenly emerged.

Patients would transform into eerie beings within 24 hours, their vital signs vanished, consciousness disappeared, and their bodies became as hard as steel, impervious to blades and bullets, biting anyone in sight.

Those bitten would also transform into eerie beings within one to two days after being injured. The spread was alarmingly fast, and in just seven days, the aberrant apocalypse descended.

Lu Xihe’s home was in a remote mountainous area. When the aberrant apocalypse first arrived, the entire village fortified their homes, stockpiled food, and stayed indoors, living through a relatively peaceful period, until the first eerie being entered the village.

Aberrants were immensely strong and incredibly tough. Ordinary people were no match for them, forced to endure being bitten and torn apart, ultimately despairing as they felt their bodies gradually transform until life reached its end.

Families without cellars were the first to be killed by the aberrants. Those with cellars hid in the pitch-dark underground, barely holding on a little longer.

In those days of rampant despair and panic, some people gradually awakened supernatural abilities, while others later bound themselves to systems, as if heaven itself was aiding humanity in resisting the aberrant apocalypse.

With the support of supernatural abilities and systems, humanity gained a sliver of capability to fight back against the aberrants.

As time passed, people gradually discovered that aberrants seemed to fear sunlight. The more intense the midday sun, the lower their activity, and prolonged exposure could even cause them to melt and die.

Leveraging this weakness, the remaining villagers slowly gathered at the home of the family with the largest cellar at the village entrance, cooperating and supporting each other to survive together.

This way of life lasted for several months, until a few days ago when a massive tide of aberrants suddenly surged toward the village. The leading eerie being seemed to have awakened human-like intelligence, knowing how to tear down walls and dig into the ground house by house. Even cellars were no longer safe.

Wherever the aberrant tide passed, nothing was left alive. In just a few minutes, the neighboring village had already fallen.

A villager who had awakened the clairvoyance ability observed the approach of the aberrant tide and urged everyone to board vehicles and evacuate to the nearest safe zone.

The aberrant tide arrived swiftly. The village had been invaded once before by aberrants. After awakening abilities and systems, everyone had cleared the wandering aberrants from the village, but many houses and vehicles had been damaged. In the end, after repeated repairs, only one large truck remained drivable.

Lu Xihe’s mother and older brother had both awakened supernatural abilities, and his older sister had bound herself to a system. Only he had nothing.

When this aberrant tide struck, the available vehicles couldn’t carry the entire village to safety. There was only one seat left, and his family gave the chance to escape to Lu Xihe.

Unfortunately, now that chance was about to be wasted by him.

His body plummeted downward. Lu Xihe closed his eyes, awaiting death’s arrival, but the expected biting and pain never came.

His back slammed heavily onto the muddy ground, he had been incredibly lucky, landing in a gap within the aberrant tide.

It seemed heaven had not forsaken Lu Xihe.

He got up and ran toward the hillside. The flat ground was swarming with aberrants. To survive, he had to climb the mountain.

Whether it was death unleashing his greatest potential or something else, the aberrants along the way were strangely easy to deal with. A push, a shove, a toss, they all fell and didn’t pursue him further.

Nevertheless, Lu Xihe dared not let his guard down. The slope beside the winding mountain road was nearly 70 degrees steep, a barren incline left behind by a landslide, devoid of any trees or vegetation to cling to. Yet, gritting his teeth, Lu Xihe managed to climb it.

Only when he looked back and saw the eerie tide of creatures growing more distant did his frantic heart finally settle back into place.

He was still alive.

For a long time, Lu Xihe couldn’t shake off the overwhelming surprise of having fallen into the tide of those creatures and yet escaping without being torn apart.

As the sky gradually brightened and sunlight spilled across the land once more, a new hope ignited within Lu Xihe’s heart.

Taking advantage of the fact that the creatures hid in dark places during the day, and those few exposed to sunlight moved sluggishly, he searched hard for a place where he could take shelter at night.

After nearly a full day of climbing steep cliffs, he finally found a cave halfway up the mountain where he could rest.

The creatures didn’t use their hands and feet to climb, so this spot, situated midway up the cliff, was inaccessible to them. If not for the risk of starvation, it would have been an ideal refuge.

Picking up a loose stone at the cave entrance, Lu Xihe moved cautiously deeper inside. Just as he rounded a corner, a sharp question echoed from within:

“Who’s there?”