Apocalypse: I Raised the Ultimate Antagonist from Scratch

Han Zheng sat motionless in his chair under the soft glow of the desk lamp, holding the leather-bound book in his broad hands.

A quick look at the first few pages made its ownership immediately clear: it was Yang Jun’s diary.

Han Zheng slowly flipped through the handwritten entries. There was no direct confession regarding Lin Qing’s fall from the ridge, nor was there any explicit mention of any intent of harming her.

Yang Jun had been far too cautious to commit an obvious crime like that to paper. But what was written across the pages made Han Zheng’s dark eyes narrow into slits of profound suspicion.

Entry after entry was filled with bitter, venomous hatred directed toward the people Yang Jun held responsible for the brutal death of his younger sister.

Han Zheng knew Yang Jun’s personal background file inside out. Before the apocalypse broke out, when they had worked on missions together, every personnel record had been thoroughly vetted.

Yang Jun was an only child. He had never had a sister.

A deep, baffling confusion washed over Han Zheng, quickly turning into cold, sharp calculation. Where had this sister come from? Why would Yang Jun write pages of raw, agonizing grief about a family member who didn’t exist in any official record?

Han Zheng didn’t know how or why Yang Jun had this delusion, but he recognized one thing with absolute clarity: Yang Jun’s diary was a major anomaly. It was a psychological tear in Yang Jun’s mental armor—a dark, raw wound that could be picked at until the man broke completely and spilled the truth about what he had done to Lin Qing.

Closing the leather cover with a quiet snap, Han Zheng slipped Yang Jun’s diary into his inner coat pocket.

---

The next morning, the sky above the mountain pass was a dull, bruised grey. Cold winds whipped through the outer gates of the Research Center as the morning supply convoy prepared to roll out.

”Move those fuel drums to the secondary flatbed! We clear out in three minutes!” Han Zheng’s deep voice boomed across the transport bay.

Standing near the rear tires of the lead armored hauler, Yang Jun stumbled under the weight of a heavy iron toolbox. His skin was pale, his eyes bloodshot, and his hands trembled violently from sheer, unyielding physical exhaustion. He hadn’t slept more than an hour after his midnight maintenance shift before being dragged back out into the freezing wind.

”Get moving, Yang Jun,” Han Zheng said coldly, stepping up beside him. His tall, broad frame completely shadowed the smaller man.

Yang Jun flinched, pulling his head down as he hoisted the toolbox onto the truck bed. ”I’m moving, Commander...”

Han Zheng stared down at him with an intense, unblinking gaze that felt like a heavy weight pressing against Yang Jun’s chest. ”You look distracted, Yang Jun. Mourning someone?”

Yang Jun froze, his hands tightening around the steel handle of the box. A sudden spike of panic flared in his chest, but when he looked up, Han Zheng’s face was an unreadable mask of stone.

”N-No, Commander,” Yang Jun rasped, swallowing hard. ”Just... tired.”

”Make sure you stay sharp today,” Han Zheng replied, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly calm murmur. ”A man carrying hidden grief makes mistakes on the road. And when people make mistakes around me, I ensure they pay the full price.”

Han Zheng turned and climbed into the driver’s seat of the lead truck, leaving Yang Jun standing in the freezing draft, his heart hammering wildly against his ribs. The psychological trap had been set.

By mid-afternoon, the operations were running at full speed across multiple sectors. While Han Zheng’s primary heavy transport detail was loading construction materials at the northern commercial hub, a secondary supply team was making its way back along the southern valley route.

The secondary team consisted of Lieutenant Chen, Zhou Ming, and three of Guo Jiong’s trusted depot guards. Their two trucks were heavily loaded with grain sacks and medical crates retrieved from the lower distribution center.

Lieutenant Chen adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, squinting through the windshield. ”The temperature down in this valley section is way higher than up on the ridge. The snow is melting fast.”

”Look out ahead!” Zhou Ming suddenly shouted from the passenger seat, pointing down the winding two-lane road.

A few hundred yards ahead, a low rock wall had collapsed across the road. But worse than the debris was what was moving around it. A localized warm pocket created by the trapped valley sun had thawed out a massive cluster of zombies.

Hundreds of rotting, mud-covered corpses—previously frozen solid in the roadside ditches—were twitching, standing up, and stumbling onto the narrow pavement.

ROAR—!

The heavy rumble of the supply trucks’ diesel engines reverberated off the valley walls. Instantly, the heads of the thawed horde snapped toward the road.

”Dammit! Reverse! Reverse!” Lieutenant Chen barked into his radio, slamming the heavy truck into back gear.

”Lieutenant, look behind us!” a depot guard yelled over the comms from the trailing vehicle.

From the tree line behind them, dozens more thawed zombies were pouring down the muddy slopes, attracted by the engine noise. The road was blocked in front, and the rear route was rapidly closing. They were caught in a deadly pincer movement on a narrow mountain ledge.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Inside the Research Center’s central command room, a high-priority distress ping flashed bright red on the primary console.

Lin Qing, who was reviewing base defense layouts at a side table, instantly stepped up to the main terminal. Her dark eyes swept across the screen, taking in the red danger icons surrounding Lieutenant Chen’s convoy coordinates.

”Command, this is Lieutenant Chen!” his panicked voice crackled over the radio speaker. ”We hit a thawed cluster in the southern valley pass! Road is blocked by debris and a massive horde, and our rear extraction path is being cut off! We’re pinned!”

Lu Feng reached for the mic to order a relief squad, but Lin Qing reached out, her pale hand firmly pressing the master override switch.

”A relief squad will take twenty minutes to reach that valley,” Lin Qing said, her voice dropping into a state of absolute, ice-cold composure. Her instincts took complete control. She didn’t hesitate for a single second. ”They don’t have twenty minutes. Clear the satellite display for Sector 3 South.”

Lu Feng blinked, rapidly tapping the keys. The high-resolution, top-down satellite imaging grid expanded across the main screen, showing real-time infrared heat signatures of the valley route.

Lin Qing grabbed the radio headset, pulling it over her ear. Her dark eyes mapped the terrain with effortless, razor-sharp precision.

”Lieutenant Chen, listen to my voice very carefully,” Lin Qing commanded over the open channel, her tone carrying an overwhelming, natural authority that instantly silenced the panic on the other end of the line. ”Do not attempt to push through the front debris. Stop your backward movement immediately.”

”Lin Qing?!” Lieutenant Chen gasped over the static. ”There are over two hundred of them coming down the rear slope!”

”I see them on the grid,” Lin Qing replied calmly, her eyes tracing a faint, overgrown line on the satellite map two hundred meters to their left.

”Seventy yards before the rock collapse, there is an abandoned forestry access road hidden beneath the tree canopy. It bypasses the lower valley completely and connects to the upper ridge trail.”

”A forestry road? It’s completely overgrown with brush!” Lieutenant Chen yelled back over the sound of gunfire as the guards fired through the truck windows.

”Your heavy haulers have reinforced steel bull-bars,” Lin Qing stated, her voice steady and unyielding. ”They will cut through the light brush with zero damage to your axles. Cut your wheel hard left right now. Accelerate at forty percent throttle—do not stop for any individual targets.”

Inside the lead truck, Lieutenant Chen took a deep breath, trusting her voice completely. ”Hard left! I will follow your lead!”

The heavy truck roared, its tires spinning in the slush as it veered off the paved road, crashing directly through the rotting wooden guardrail and plunging into the dense pine trees. The heavy iron front frame smashed through brush and small saplings, clearing a path for the trailing truck.

”Keep your speed steady,” Lin Qing’s calm voice echoed clearly through their radio speakers as she tracked their moving blips against the satellite thermal overlay. ”In fifty yards, the path forks. Take the right incline. There is a small group of twelve thawed subjects fifty meters ahead—do not engage with firearms. Maintain momentum and plow directly through them. If you stop, you’ll lose traction on the mud.”

”Understood!” Lieutenant Chen gripped the wheel, slamming the gas pedal down as the truck smashed through the small group of zombies, scattering them into the mud before climbing the steep hill.

”You are clear of the main horde,” Lin Qing reported, her dark eyes scanning the satellite layout ahead of them. ”Follow the ridge line for two miles. It will merge back onto the main highway past the valley bottleneck. The road ahead is clean.”

Over the radio, the heavy sound of gunfire faded, replaced by the steady hum of tires rolling onto solid, elevated ground.

”We’re on the upper ridge road!” Lieutenant Chen reported, letting out a massive, shuddering breath of relief. ”We’ve completely lost the horde! Lin Qing... that was unbelievable. Thank you!”

Lin Qing set the headset back onto the console, her expression completely calm, her chest rising and falling in a steady, unhurried rhythm.

Around the command room, the Lu Feng and others looked at her with wide eyes and profound, quiet awe. Without raising her voice, without a single moment of panic, she had used an orbital satellite map to guide two heavy supply trucks through an invisible terrain bypass, saving five lives and two truckloads of vital supplies.

Lin Qing looked down at her hands, a subtle, quiet curiosity stirring deep within her mind once again. Navigating a live tactical grid, reading satellite imagery, and commanding troops through an active ambush wasn’t something a normal civilian learned overnight. It was etched into the very fabric of her soul.