Apocalypse: King of Zombies

”One Tier 10, over thirty Tier 9s—the rest are all Tier 8,” Ethan said, eyes on the target zone. ”Once we move, I’ll handle the Tier 10. The rest of you hold off the others. As soon as I take it down, we fall back. No heroics.”

”Got it, Captain,” Chris grinned, cracking his knuckles. ”Just a hundred rats. Hardly a warm-up.”

The others chuckled, clearly unbothered. After all, they’d already survived the Bloodfang Wolf tide. Compared to that, this? Looked like cleanup duty.

But Ethan’s face stayed sharp. ”Don’t get cocky. I’ve got a bad feeling—these things might be way nastier than the Bloodfang Wolves.”

”Understood,” the whole squad replied, sober now.

They didn’t doubt him.

If Ethan said they were dangerous, then they were.

He didn’t exaggerate. Ever.

”Get ready.”

A breath passed.

”Go!”

In a flash, the whole squad burst from the brush.

The Ironback Rats finally reacted—lifting their heads, little black eyes blinking, then squealing in alarm.

”Squeee! Squeee!”

Too late.

Ethan teleported directly above the Tier 10. His poleaxe came down in a brutal arc, aiming straight for the skull.

He was going for a clean kill—quick and lethal.

But in that critical instant, the rat’s head snapped back into its shell like a damn snapping turtle.

”Seriously?” Ethan muttered. ”You playing turtle now?”

But he had no time to joke.

A sharp whistling cut through the air—shhk!

The rat’s tail whipped around from underneath like a viper, slicing toward him at a speed that bent logic.

Ethan barely managed to swing his poleaxe around to block.

But mid-strike, the tail jerked off its path, coiling with insane precision—then shot past his weapon, aiming straight for his head.

Shit—

He blinked out with a last-second teleportation.

A half-beat later, he reappeared several yards away, crouched and bleeding, fingers brushing his forehead.

His gloves came back wet.

Blood.

Cold sweat prickled down his back.

That had been less than half a second from death.

His eyes darted to where the others were engaged—and his stomach dropped.

Chris and the rest were already taking hits.

In just seconds, several of them were bleeding.

Even Pumpkin, the orange cat beastkin, took a direct hit—impaled right through the side by one of those wicked tails.

”Holy shit!” Big Mike roared. ”What the hell are these things?! That speed—what the hell are we supposed to do, catch it?!”

The whole team was locked in a brutal standoff, faces grim now, no sign of cockiness left.

Now they understood why Ethan had been so serious.

These weren’t rats.

They were nightmares in armor.

The tails were brutally fast—like spears of living steel, snapping and whipping in every direction, unpredictable and vicious. Heavy-hitter weapons like axes or hammers couldn’t even keep up. They were just too slow.

In no time, they were surrounded.

The rats moved like a swarm, cutting off escape.

Dozens of tails lanced toward them, striking from all sides like a hurricane of daggers.

”Earth Wall!” Garrick shouted.

Massive slabs of stone surged from the ground, throwing up a perimeter.

But even that didn’t help.

The tails pierced straight through the stone like it was paper, stabbing through with terrifying force.

”Ice Bind!” Mia shouted immediately after, sending a wave of frost toward the rats’ legs.

Too slow.

Pssht!

Pssht!

Pssht!

That grisly sound repeated over and over again as tails found flesh.

Blood sprayed.

Another wave of injuries, and they hadn’t even fought for a full minute.

Sean’s metal arm shot out, clamping down on several whipping Ironback Rat tails trying to retreat. He gritted his teeth and yanked with full strength, intending to rip them clean off—

But they didn’t budge.

The flesh was solid. Like high-grade steel cable wrapped in muscle.

Even with all his strength, the damn things held together.

”Hold ’em!” Mia shouted.

She lunged forward, her longsword flashing in an arc. The tension in the tails shifted—SNAP!—finally, several of them were severed.

But her face didn’t show a hint of triumph. Just tight worry.

”If you weren’t holding them down, pretty sure my blade wouldn’t have made a scratch,” Mia said grimly.

That knocked the last of the bravado out of the group.

These rats were on a different level.

Big Mike cursed, then shouted, ”Nugget, take me up!”

The golden eagle didn’t hesitate—swooping low for him to leap on, then streaking upward with a flap of its massive wings.

From above, Big Mike began unleashing barrage after barrage of [Rain of Flames]—the sky rained fire down on the clustered rats.

Boom

Boom boom

Boom

Flames exploded across the forest floor like miniature fire-bombs—but the Ironback Rats simply curled their heads into their shells.

Their heavy armored backs took the brunt of the assault.

Sparks slammed into the shells with deafening cracks, but not a single rat was burned alive. Not one stopped attacking.

Their tails kept whipping skyward, darting toward the team with the same cold efficiency.

From above, Big Mike shouted down, exasperated, ”Are you kidding me?! These little freaks are unkillable!”

Nobody answered. Because everyone else was already too busy trying not to die.

Ethan, still unwilling to give up, teleported once more—blinking right above the Tier 10 Ironback Rat.

He drove his poleaxe straight down, targeting the creature’s shell at full force.

BANG!

The impact rocked the ground. Dirt cracked and dropped as his sheer strength compressed the earth beneath him.

But all that force… and the axe only left a thin crack.

Just a hairline fracture in the armor.

Ethan swore.

He raised his weapon for another blow—

But then came the tail, looping up toward his eye like a needle guided by instinct.

Shit!

He shifted his head aside just in time and let his poleaxe fall with a heavy sweep toward the incoming limb.

The blade struck.

But it didn’t cut.

The tail flexed mid-hit, suddenly slackening like a whip, wrapping itself around the poleaxe instead.

It tightened immediately—trying to wrench the weapon from his hands.

Ethan’s expression darkened as he gripped the poleaxe harder.

No you don’t.

A flash of thought summoned a longsword from his spatial ring. It flew into his other hand just as he arced it toward the coiling tail—an attempt to sever it before it could pull his main weapon away.

But before the blade hit, the tail retracted, vanishing like a snake into cover.

Then the dizziness hit.

Ethan froze for a half-second... and realization slammed into him.

Poison.

He reacted instantly—teleporting over to the rest of the group.

”Abort,” he barked, his voice tight. ”We can’t kill these things. Fall back!”

It was worse than he expected.

Chris and the others were already being overwhelmed. Most of them were bleeding from multiple wounds. Several had deep punctures. Faces were turning pale—with skin already beginning to darken from the poison.

Emily was sprinting between teammates, casting [Cleanse] after [Cleanse] in rapid waves, her healing light like little lanterns in the chaos.

But she was only one person. The rats were attacking faster than she could keep up.

They were outnumbered. Surrounded. Out-defended. And now poisoned.

Hearing Ethan’s command felt like the first breath after drowning.

No one hesitated. They scrambled for mounts.

Golden Eagle Nugget and Dire Eagle Pebble swooped low, picking up three people each.

Ethan leapt onto Bengal Tiger Goldie, spearheading the breakout.

Speckles the jaguar and Pumpkin the orange cat carried the last two as the group charged through the Ironback Rats’ outer line.

Ethan ducked his head low, swinging wild and hard. His poleaxe smashed Ironback Rats left and right, knocking dozens back and parting the horde long enough for his group to burst free.

The rats weren’t fast runners. Once scattered, they couldn’t give chase.

But even as they escaped the kill zone, they didn’t leave unscathed.

Goldie and the others were bleeding from multiple wounds—their heavy bodies riddled with stab marks from the rats’ relentless tail strikes. The riders weren’t in much better shape.

It took everything just to stay conscious as they rode.

They pushed through until, finally, they reached the rendezvous point.

And collapsed.

Up in the valley, Chris and the others—carried out earlier by Nugget and Pebble—were already receiving treatment.

Henry handled injuries.

Emily worked furiously to Cleanse the poison.

The moment they saw Ethan and the others stagger in and hit the ground, they rushed to help, not wasting a second.

Thankfully, Emily’s [Cleanse] worked wonders—each glowing sweep of her hand stripping more of the poison from their blood.

Something that used to seem like a joke-tier power…

Had become the MVP skill nobody could live without.

If she hadn’t been here, they’d all be corpses by now.

Everyone lay stretched out on the ground, panting, injured, pale—but alive.

Barely.

No one spoke at first. Just the sharing of stunned, quiet stares.

They’d fought mutated monsters, apex predators, and swarms of beasts before…but this?

This was another level of hell.

Harmless-looking creatures hiding lethal force.

Poison, armor, brutal teamwork.

That wasn’t a rough battle.

That was a massacre they’d just barely crawled out of.