Apocalypse: King of Zombies

The artillery kept pounding without pause, turning the whole area into a cratered wasteland. Tens of thousands of zombies fell under the bombardment.

Just when people started to think the horde was nothing special…

The zombies suddenly went berserk.

They ignored the explosions like they didn’t exist and charged the riverline in a mad sprint.

”Heavy machine guns! Suppressive fire!” Colonel Mitchell didn’t panic. His commands stayed crisp, steady.

Gun crews immediately shoved the heavy machine guns into position.

A second later, the air filled with a deafening roar.

The guns chewed into the onrushing horde.

Even Tier 6 zombies couldn’t stand up to that kind of sustained fire.

Zombies dropped in rolling waves.

But when the front row fell, the next row filled in immediately.

The machine guns were killing fast—yet the horde still kept closing.

Not long after, zombies reached the riverbank. Without hesitation, they threw themselves into the water and started swimming across.

”All Tier 6 Enhanced with ranged output—step up and bombard them!” Colonel Mitchell kept directing the fight like a metronome.

From the more than ten thousand Tier 6 Enhanced, over half stepped forward. They began hurling skills into the river as fast as they could.

In the water, the zombies were basically living targets. They died quickly.

Most Tier 6 skills were starter abilities—mostly single-target—but right now the number of zombies in the water still wasn’t overwhelming. For the moment, they could hold.

Right then, two giant birds flew in from the opposite side and dropped down beside Chris and the others.

”Emily,” Big Mike said, landing and stumbling up to her, ”heal me up. I’m going back in.”

Emily didn’t waste words. She flicked a hand, and a transparent glow fell onto Big Mike.

In seconds, he went from drained and shaky to lively again, like someone flipped a switch.

Emily’s recovery support was way better than stuffing crystal cores down your throat.

Big Mike threw his head back and laughed. ”Hahaha—zombies! Big Mike’s back!”

He mounted Golden Eagle Nugget and surged into the air again. Moments later, [Rain of Flames] started crashing down in a furious storm, harvesting lives by the hundreds.

People couldn’t help staring at him with open envy.

Nearby, Tier 6 and Tier 7 Enhanced were desperately lobbing fireballs one by one. Watching Big Mike’s screen-wipe carnage, their fireballs suddenly felt… kind of pathetic.

”Emily, I need it too!” Garrick grumbled, not about to let Big Mike hog the spotlight.

A moment later, he was refreshed as well—then he flew back over the horde, summoning massive stones to smash down again and again.

The battle instantly hit a boiling point.

Artillery continued firing, targeting the densest clusters and steadily shaving down the horde.

Heavy machine guns never stopped screaming, mowing zombies down in lanes.

Under that many layers of output, the horde’s numbers dropped fast. In just a few minutes, zombie casualties cleared one hundred thousand.

Everything looked like it was trending the right way…

But it was only the surface.

After more than ten minutes of nonstop bombardment, the thunder of artillery began to fade. A soldier sprinted up to Colonel Mitchell, face tight.

”Commander! We’re out of shells!”

”Understood.” Colonel Mitchell waved him off, not looking surprised at all.

”Hold the riverbank,” he ordered. ”No breaks.”

”Yes, sir!”

With the artillery gone, the battlefield felt strangely quieter.

But without the shells ripping holes in their backline, the zombies behind only got wilder.

Wave after wave pushed forward. More and more broke through the machine-gun lanes and hurled themselves into the river, swimming hard for the far side.

In an instant, pressure spiked.

The Tier 6 ranged Enhanced could kill Tier 6 and below quickly—but there were fewer than ten thousand of them capable of ranged output. At first they managed.

As the river filled, they started falling behind.

And skill use was expensive. Even with crystal cores, recovery took time. People had to pause. Nobody could cast nonstop forever.

Before long, the first zombies reached this side.

The shoreline was packed with melee Enhanced, cutting them down before they could climb up.

But once one made it…

A second followed. Then a third.

As time passed, more and more zombies swam to the far bank, colliding head-on with the soldiers and defenders in brutal close combat.

Luckily, the humans still had the terrain advantage. The zombies couldn’t break through quickly.

For a while, the two sides locked into a stalemate.

But that stalemate only lasted half an hour.

Half an hour later, the machine-gun roar began to die out too.

It was obvious what that meant.

They were out of bullets.

Colonel Mitchell let out a heavy sigh. What was coming… had finally arrived.

In less than an hour, with artillery and heavy machine guns working together, they’d already killed close to eight hundred thousand zombies—far beyond their original estimate.

Add in what Big Mike and the others had already slaughtered earlier, and the total was over a million.

But the horde still had nearly two million left.

That number was still soul-crushing.

Without the machine guns cutting lanes through them, the zombies surged forward like a broken dam.

The Silverstone River was practically filled with corpses now. Zombies simply sprinted across, stepping on the bodies of their own kind like a disgusting bridge.

”Brothers!” Colonel Mitchell shouted, voice ripping through the chaos. ”The real challenge is here. Fix bayonets—kill!”

He locked his bayonet in place and charged first, straight into the oncoming tide.

”Kill!” The Enhanced roared back, surging forward to meet the horde.

At this point, there was no retreat.

Only a fight to the death.

”We move too!” Chris yelled.

”Fallen Star Squad—kill!”

At his signal, Henry, Emily, Mia, Skinny Pete, and the rest drew their melee weapons and rushed into the zombie mass.

Behind them came the mutant beasts: Bengal tiger Goldie, the panther Speckles, the orange cat Pumpkin—and eight enormous white-furred apes.

Eight white-furred apes, all Stage C (Tier 12). The Fallen Star Squad, every member Tier 10 or above. Goldie, Speckles, and Pumpkin at Tier 9.

The lineup was still terrifying.

Wherever they passed, the zombies were instantly washed in blood.

The battle hit its most brutal, most desperate peak.

And yet Ethan wasn’t on the battlefield.

He’d searched every nearby area again—slowly, carefully, refusing to miss a single corner.

In the end, he could only reach one conclusion:

The Zombie King wasn’t nearby.

But that made no sense. How was it commanding the horde, then?

”Don’t tell me it can borrow other zombies’ eyes,” Ethan muttered.

That felt impossible. And even if it could borrow vision, it couldn’t possibly be commanding the horde through some relay, could it?

He watched the distant fighting, anxiety twisting in his chest. But he knew this was the moment he couldn’t let himself panic. He had to stay calm.

”If it’s not in the area, then the only possibility is that it’s in the horde!”

”But I’ve practically looked at every single one, and there’s no Zombie King. I checked all those Tier 9 zombies too—none of them have abilities. They can’t be controlling millions of zombies. They’re not the Zombie King.”

Ethan’s expression darkened, irritation boiling over.

”Then where the hell is it hiding? Don’t tell me… it’s hiding inside another zombie’s body?”

He was still fuming when a thought snagged hard.

”Huh… wait.”