Slow Brewing Tension

Ava and Noah shared their first kiss under the half-broken school umbrella stand later that week.

His heart never forgot it.

---

Noah shut his eyes as his mind drifted back to the present.

"Survival first," he whispered to himself with a low tone. "Then I'll find you, Ava. I promise."

...

...

(( Four Days Later ))

It had been four days since they fled the corpse-ridden streets of Verdant Flame City.

Four days of walking with blistered feet. Four days of drinking rationed water and chewing dry roots. Four days of wandering aimlessly under an unforgiving sun with over a thousand terrified and hungry refugees.

Noah walked beside Old Duyi and Lian in silence as they passed another set of travelers arguing over which tree root was edible and which one caused diarrhea.

The noise in the camp never truly stopped anymore. Whispers, grumbles, the occasional sob. The sound of a civilization's corpse still twitching.

Noah wiped his forehead and scanned the land ahead.

They'd finally reached the end of all known paths.

A sharply sloped rocky hill stretched to their left with thick thorn-bushes and stone outcroppings. To the right was dry, dense and tangled woodland, where every breeze felt like a whisper from something watching.

The few refugees who had been outside the city before(the hunters, the traders...) stood in a half-circle arguing about which path was safer.

"No map, no markers, and no clue," Noah muttered. "We're basically a bunch of toddlers picking between getting stabbed or eaten."

The group reached an impasse. Some wanted to go left. Others preferred the forest. No decision was reached.

For now, everyone just… stopped.

A thousand people spread across uneven land, breaking off into clusters, putting down their packs, and flopping to the ground with that same hollow, defeated sigh.

Noah dropped his bag next to a crooked tree and stretched out his sore legs with a dramatic groan. "I swear, if I survive this, I'm writing a self-help book called *How Not To Trigger the Apocalypse: A Memoir by an Idiot.*"

Lian sat beside him, rubbing her aching feet and frowning. "I stink."

Noah arched a brow. "Well, that's a mood switch."

"I haven't bathed in *four days,*" she snapped. "My hair feels like straw. My skin's sticky. And my clothes are sticking to places they shouldn't."

Old Duyi swatted the back of her head lightly with a scowl. "You're worried about a bath? Girl, we might be dead in three days if we don't find food or water."

Lian crossed her arms with a pout. "Sorry for not wanting to smell like a dead goat during the apocalypse."

Noah chuckled. "C'mon, old man. Give her a break. She's a teenage girl... it's practically a survival instinct to be self-conscious."

He leaned over with a sly grin and sniffed theatrically in Lian's direction.

She gasped. "Noah!"

He nodded thoughtfully. "Hmm. Surprisingly not awful. Kind of like wildflowers mixed with sweaty regret. Honestly, your skin still looks pretty."

Lian's cheeks flushed pink. "You're such a jerk," she voiced while shoving his face back.

He chuckled. "Don't be so sensitive."

They pulled out the remaining scraps of food: two half-dried roots and a strip of salted meat the size of a finger. Carefully, they split it three ways, eating just enough to quiet the growling in their stomachs.

Their last bottle of water was passed around next. It was barely a third of its original volume.

Noah took a single sip, passed it to Duyi, then Lian.

As she handed it back, a voice broke their bubble.

"Hey," a rough-looking man who seemed to be in his mid-twenties with sunburned and jittery expression, called out. "You got water?"

Lian opened her mouth to respond but before she could—

"No," Noah cut in flatly.

The man blinked. "I just saw you drinking from a bottle."

Noah held his gaze without blinking. "Then your eyes are better than your manners."

Anger rose within him as the man stepped closer. "You selfish bastards. You're just like the rest—pretending you're broke while sitting on supplies!"

Noah stood and looked at the man with a face full of weary fire.

"Try to take it," he said simply. "And I'll see how many teeth I can knock out with one bottle."

The man's fists clenched, but after a long pause, he sneered and stormed off. "Rot in thirst."

Lian looked down with a frown. "He was just desperate."

"So are we," Noah muttered before sitting back down. "And I'd rather be hated than dead."

A sudden yell echoed from the far side of the camp.

Everyone turned.

A large scruffy man was punching a teenager.

Bam!

Again...

Bam!

And again...

Bam!

"Beg me for food again and I'll crush your skull!"

People pulled the boy away, but the man wasn't stopped. No one dared.

Noah stared at the scene. "Day four, and we're already cracking."

"We need a miracle," Duyi murmured.

Noah sighed and opened his system interface again, blinking as the translucent panels shimmered into view.

-----

<[ CORRUPTION SYSTEM INTERFACE ]>

Name: Noah River

Qi Core: Corruption Core (Level 1)

Title: Catalyst of Collapse

(Perk: Cataclysm Points are earned based on scale of destruction caused)

Corrupted Cores Absorbed: 0

Shop: 🔒 Locked (Requires Host To Achieve Qi Core Level 5)

Skills:

>Passive:

Plague Sense → Detect infected/corrupted cultivators within 200m

> Active:

*NONE*

Cataclysm Points: 21,000 and counting…

[Stats]

----------

Right before his eyes, the Cataclysm Points increased by ten. It turned out that it would continue increasing so long as the plague kept spreading...

Which meant the Plague was still being spread even right now even after destroying an entire city.

Noah sighed and tapped on stats...

---------

[ STATS ]

• Strength: 6

• Agility: 4

• Speed: 5

• Vitality: 5

• Qi Sense: 1

• Stamina: 5

• Durability: 4

• Core Energy Reserves: 3

• Affinity: 2

------

Note: Stats can be upgraded with Cataclysm Points.

Warning: Cannot upgrade stats until at least one Corrupted Core has been absorbed.

---

Noah stared at the screen and groaned.

"Useless," he muttered. "I've got 21,000 post-apocalyptic brownie points and nothing to spend them on."

Lian leaned closer, chewing the edge of the dried meat. "What are you mumbling about?"

"Just trying to come up with a way to get us out of our sticky situation," Noah muttered with a pretentious tone.

"I'm sure we'll find some place safe eventually," Lian responded with an optimistic gaze into the distance.

"Yeahh... hopefully," Noah muttered.

Meanwhile, Noah's mind was elsewhere.

'I'll need every ounce power I can lay my hands on or we could get into real trouble in the coming days with how things are getting in the camp...'

He frowned internally.

'I mean, yeah, I feel a little stronger. Better stamina, sharper thoughts… but it's not enough. Things won't fully kick off until I absorb a corrupted core.'

'And to do that...' his eyes narrowed. 'I need to kill a corrupted cultivator.'

Noah looked up at the horizon with heavy eyes.

He didn't even know how he was going to pull this off.

There were only two options... He would either have to wait for one to find them or go hunting.

Both bore great dangers and while it was a good thing that they hadn't run into any corrupted cultivator... It wasn't necessarily a good thing for his improvement.

"Apocalypse Rule Number One: You don't need to be the strongest. Just strong enough to outrun the guy next to you."

At this same moment, a trail of dark purple cloud suddenly appeared in the distance... and it was moving across the southern sky... very fast.

"What the hell is that?"

Everyone turned towards its direction with looks of confoundment.