Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Fifteen miles south of the Clearford compound, a sea of zombies was advancing at a slow, steady crawl.

Wherever they passed, houses collapsed. Farmland got trampled flat.

It was a straight-up disaster scene—if you hadn’t seen a million-class horde with your own eyes, you’d never truly understand how insane it was.

High above the horde, a massive peregrine falcon circled tirelessly.

The zombies below had noticed it a long time ago. They just didn’t have any long-range way to touch it, so they chose to ignore it.

As long as that bird didn’t come down, they couldn’t do anything.

But if it did? They’d strip it down to bare feathers in seconds.

Just then, two more giant birds flew in from the distance.

The horde glanced up once, couldn’t be bothered, and kept shambling toward the Clearford compound.

Ethan watched Big Mike and Garrick arrive, and the tight knot between his brows finally loosened.

”Captain, we’re here!”

Big Mike and Garrick both went a little pale staring at the packed mass below.

”Good. You’re here.” Ethan grinned, then pointed down at the horde. ”See those zombies? Cocky as hell. You two go give them some trouble.”

”...”

”Captain,” Big Mike said, swallowing hard, ”you sure about this?”

”What’s to be scared of?” Ethan said. ”You’ll be riding flying mounts. They can’t hit you. All you have to do is spam skills straight down.”

Big Mike blinked, then his face lit up. ”Oh. Hah. I like that.”

”Yeah,” Ethan said, then his tone turned sharp. ”But take it easy. Especially you, Big Mike—keep eating crystal cores to replenish your mental energy. Don’t go and knock yourself out again. If you fall from up there, I’m not saving you.”

”Don’t worry, Captain,” Big Mike said quickly. ”We’ll watch it.”

”Good. Go.”

”Roger!”

Big Mike threw his head back and laughed. ”Zombies! Daddy’s here!”

He kicked Nugget forward and dove toward the airspace above the horde. A heartbeat later—

One streak after another of [Rain of Flames] slammed down from the sky, hammering into the zombie mass like meteors.

”ROAR—!”

The zombies below instantly fell into chaos, surging and scattering in every direction.

Except… there was nowhere to go.

They were packed too tightly. Even running was a joke.

Each [Rain of Flames] hit and an entire patch of zombies vanished—burned to ash in an instant.

Big Mike was Tier 10 now. The power behind his [Rain of Flames] was obscene. These zombies simply didn’t have the durability to take it.

”ROAR! ROAR! ROOOAR—!”

Countless zombies tilted their heads up and bellowed at him, like sheer rage could scare him off.

Too bad Big Mike didn’t care.

Watching the carnage below, he looked downright euphoric.

”Hahahaha! This is amazing!”

He kept firing without pause. [Rain of Flames] rained down nonstop, and wherever it landed, the ground below turned into a temporary dead zone—an empty, smoking vacuum.

On the other side, Garrick was also going wild, hurling rocks down in a steady barrage.

Huge stones crashed into the horde. Any zombie that got hit exploded into mangled paste.

Compared to Big Mike’s [Rain of Flames], Garrick’s falling-rock area was much smaller.

But it wasn’t like he could help that. When his ability evolved after breaking through to Stage D, it didn’t evolve toward large-scale rockfall. Instead, it evolved into an ability that could alter terrain.

It didn’t boost his combat power all that much, but it was practical as hell.

With Big Mike and Garrick blasting away, the million-class horde finally started to slow.

Sure, the number they killed was nothing to the whole mass—barely a drop in the ocean.

But the way they were throwing abilities everywhere completely messed up the horde’s formation. The entire ”line” got tangled, and the advance speed of the whole group took a noticeable hit.

That was exactly what Ethan wanted.

They weren’t going to stop 3+ million zombies with a few people. But slowing them down? Buying time?

That mattered.

The longer he could stall them, the better his odds of finding the Zombie King.

And if Big Mike and Garrick’s little air raid pissed it off enough to make it show its hand…

Even better.

Ethan didn’t just sit back and watch. While he searched, he also kept a longsword under his control, sweeping it through the horde below and harvesting zombies like wheat.

The three of them abused the airstrike advantage shamelessly over a horde of more than three million. The zombies couldn’t do a damn thing about it, which felt amazing.

But after a little over ten minutes of slaughter, the panicked horde suddenly stabilized.

Then, like they’d rehearsed it, the zombies all bent down, grabbed rocks off the ground, and whipped them up at the three of them.

”Holy shit—get higher!” Ethan barked.

Golden Eagle Nugget and Dire Eagle Pebble reacted instantly, shooting upward the moment they saw what was happening.

Still, there were just too many rocks. Even with their quick reactions, countless stones smacked into them.

The rocks didn’t do much real damage, but there were so many that it still hurt like hell.

”Fuck!” Big Mike snarled. ”These zombies actually know how to coordinate!”

”It’s probably the Zombie King using mental interference,” Ethan said, frowning.

There was no other explanation. To make a swarm that huge move with that kind of unity? The Zombie King had to be reaching in and forcing the rhythm.

The problem was, Ethan still hadn’t found it.

It didn’t seem to be inside the horde at all.

And if it wasn’t inside the horde but could still control that many zombies… that was terrifying.

They’d always known zombies had some kind of special way to communicate. Especially high-tier zombies—when they controlled low-tier ones, they could transmit orders to all their underlings at once.

How many they could command depended on strength. The stronger the zombie, the more minions it could lead.

But no matter what, up until now, those high-tier ”commanders” had always been inside the horde when they gave orders.

This Zombie King might not be.

Meaning it could be controlling the horde from long range.

That was a whole different level of threat.

”But if it knew to make them throw rocks at us,” Ethan muttered, thinking fast, ”then it’s seeing what’s happening here.”

He narrowed his eyes. ”Which means it shouldn’t be too far away.”

Big Mike looked down at the horde, irritated. ”Captain, what now? If they keep doing this, we can’t really drop down and mess with them.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Skills had range limits. Even if you were casting downward, if you got too high, the power dropped off hard—or the skill just dissipated before it hit.

Like Big Mike’s [Rain of Flames]. From their current altitude, it would fizzle out before reaching the ground.

Garrick’s falling rocks were the same. They looked like real stones, but they were made from earth-element energy—too much distance and they’d disperse as well.

Ethan thought for a second, then reached into his spatial storage ring and pulled out several chunks of Ironback Rat carapace.

”Nugget, Pebble,” he said. ”Grab these shells with your talons and hold them under your bodies. Then you won’t have to worry about getting pelted.”

”Oh—right!” Big Mike’s eyes lit up. ”We still have those. Haha, boss, you’re seriously a genius!”

Nugget and Pebble perked up too, each snatching a massive slab of carapace and holding it like a shield beneath themselves.

”Alright,” Ethan said. ”Go. Keep hitting them.”

Nugget and Pebble dove again.

The zombies below saw them coming and immediately started scooping rocks and launching them upward.

This time, the stones hammered into the Ironback Rat shell plates and bounced off harmlessly, unable to hurt Nugget and the others at all.

”Haha, now we’re talking!” Big Mike howled.

He lifted his hand, grinning like a maniac. ”Zombies—today we’re gonna see if your rocks are tougher, or if my [Rain of Flames] is!”

Then he unleashed again—streams of [Rain of Flames] crashing down in a furious barrage.

Garrick refused to be outdone, sending massive boulders slamming into the horde in steady, brutal rhythm.

Ethan, though, didn’t follow them down.

Instead, he had Peregrine Falcon Flint carry him outward, sweeping the surrounding area as he searched.