Apocalypse Villainess? Nah, I'm Nice

Sean Raines stared blankly for a moment at the white male lion before him, and at the small Zombie it had just swatted flat with one paw. If the White Lion hadn’t roared and whipped its tail—knocking away other attacking Zombies and nearly hitting him in the process—he might have stayed dazed for even longer.

Swallowing hard, Sean Raines suppressed his awe and threw himself back into the fight.

He had actually heard that Marcus Monroe was a Transformer.

But the man had never transformed in front of him before. And, to be honest, he wasn’t very impressed by the other Transformers he had seen.

Not because they transformed, but because their actual strength was just too weak!

He’d heard that it was incredibly difficult for Transformers to Promote, yet Marcus Monroe was the exact opposite, Promoting faster than many Natural or Original Ability Users. Most importantly, he had never transformed in public.

All these reasons combined had caused Sean Raines to subconsciously forget about it.

He just assumed his superpower was the White Light Blade.

But when he saw the White Lion, it all came flooding back.

’No doubt about it, that’s Marcus Monroe!’

’So majestic!’

If he weren’t surrounded by Zombies, Sean Raines really would have wanted to get closer and touch that long, white mane!

Unlike Sean’s mix of awe and envy, Marcus Monroe was not in a good mood.

When he and his men charged over and saw all the Zombies, he knew he had no choice but to transform. A human form might be more agile than a lion’s, but its defenses were far weaker. Seeing the unusually sharp claws and teeth on these Zombies, he knew he would be at a disadvantage if he continued to fight in human form.

His team members had already expended a lot of energy fighting the Superpower Users in the stronghold. They couldn’t bring out their full strength now. As their leader, he had to use a powerful display to build their confidence, to show them with his strength: We can defeat these Zombies!

Left with no other choice, he transformed at the critical moment while rushing to rescue Sean Raines.

After turning into his lion form, a murderous desire welled up uncontrollably from the depths of his heart. These enemies before him, these hideous walking corpses—he yearned to tear them to shreds!

That battle lasted a full eight hours.

It drained everyone’s superpowers, leaving them completely exhausted.

However, that battle also made everyone present realize just what a powerful man they were following.

His lion form was so powerful and agile, weaving through the horde of Zombies, shredding them with teeth as sharp as the finest blades. His four limbs were all weapons. A single swipe of his paw could send a Zombie flying dozens of meters, its bones shattered and its flesh mangled!

In his lion form, he could single-handedly fight six or seven mutated Zombies at once!

In the eyes of his men, he was practically invincible!

As a Ninth Rank Superpower User, this was the first time Marcus Monroe had pushed his Transformation superpower to its absolute limit!

In the end, they were finally victorious!

When the head of the last Zombie was lopped off, when not a single living enemy remained in the stronghold, all the team members, including Sean Raines and Marcus Monroe, let out a massive sigh of relief.

Some of them simply collapsed onto the ground.

Sean Raines was actually in the best shape of all of them. It wasn’t that he hadn’t fought hard, but after he used up all his talisman paper and Spiritual Power, he had relied on pure physical skill to kill Zombies. And physical stamina was the easiest kind to recover, especially since he had several supplements with him.

Although the battle had successfully destroyed the Rovarian stronghold on Mount Gorrow, their own losses were also considerable.

Of the more than three hundred team members, a headcount revealed that one-third were gone. Of the remaining two hundred, nearly half were severely wounded. All in all, only about twenty people could still move around.

Of course, Marcus Monroe was one of those twenty.

Realizing it was impossible to return to the Southern Front immediately, Marcus had Sweetie, who was waiting outside the mountain, send a message back. Then he prepared to conduct a thorough search of the stronghold.

The first place to check, of course, was the collapsed laboratory building.

After some effort, he and a few team members who were still in decent shape cleared away some of the debris. Marcus saw the half-collapsed tunnel. After a careful inspection, he couldn’t help but admire Sean Raines’s sharp sense of danger.

The tunnel led to something like a large underground warehouse. Based on the containers inside and the damp ground, it was a place specifically for storing finished experimental subjects—that is, the Zombies.

Though he wasn’t sure how these Zombies had been ”activated,” it was clear that if Sean Raines and the others had been even a step slower, they would have either been blown up or swarmed and eaten by these Zombies. At such close quarters, even the most powerful Superpower User wouldn’t have been able to use their abilities!

Now, he was almost certain that the Zombies on the Southern Front had come from this place.

And judging from the conditions inside the stronghold, its construction hadn’t been completed a day or two ago, or even a year or two ago. This meant the Rovarians had landed on Astorian soil from the sea long ago and had been using Astorians as test subjects for their Zombie Virus research! The date of their success was likely not too long ago, probably just before the siege of Harborcrest Base.

”What savage ambition!” a team member exploring the stronghold with him cursed viciously.

”You can say that again. Instead of staying in their own country, they come running to someone else’s to run rampant. Good thing we found them. If they had been allowed to continue, we might not have even been able to hold Southreach in the end!”

At these words, everyone shuddered.

They had a point.

The enemy was carrying out these sinister deeds from the shadows, constantly turning their own countrymen into Zombies and then sending them back to slaughter other Astorians. What a vicious scheme!

Marcus Monroe frowned slightly. After a long moment, he spoke slowly, ”For the most part, that seems right, but some pieces still don’t connect. They would need a lot of people for these experiments. Where did they get them? Who transported them here? And after turning people into Zombies, what method did they use to send them out?”

”Sean Raines and his people were watching this place the whole time, but they didn’t see anyone coming or going. Yet back then, while we were at the Southern Front, the Zombie numbers were constantly being replenished. We need to thoroughly investigate what was going on.”

”...That’s true.”

The other team members thought about it and realized he was right, nodding one after another.

Needless to say, these middlemen were definitely enemies.

The feeling of having enemies still lurking in the shadows, watching them like a predator, was not a comfortable one.

They were determined to root these people out.

”They must have other strongholds elsewhere...”

Marcus Monroe nodded slightly. ”It’s possible.” He then turned and said, ”Go tell everyone to recover as quickly as possible. Don’t be stingy with the Crystal Cores or medicine. We had a very good haul of Crystal Cores this time. As for medicine, they can get whatever they need from Sean Raines. After we recover, we have a lot more work to do... The rest of you, continue the search with me!”