Apocalypse: King of Zombies

At 10:10 a.m., a massive wave of Enhanced streamed out through Fallen Star City’s gates, marching in formation toward Harrison City.

Harrison City sat more than seventy miles from Redwood County—about an hour’s drive, back when ”normal conditions” was still a thing.

But with over twenty thousand people, the compound didn’t have anywhere near enough vehicles. And after the apocalypse, driving wasn’t exactly convenient anyway. So they moved on foot. Besides, these days, when they went out to hunt zombies in other areas, they ran there, too.

And now, all twenty thousand-plus of them were Tier 9 Enhanced.

At Tier 9, their speed could match cars.

While everyone else sprinted forward in a relentless tide, Ethan and the others rode their mounts, trailing behind at an easy, unhurried pace.

People were jealous, sure—but nobody complained. As Fallen Star City’s Commander, it was part of the badge. A symbol of authority.

Harrison City…

Harrison City was only a mid-sized city, but its population had been anything but small—well over a million.

When the apocalypse hit, the Harrison City government had moved fast, quickly putting together a compound and launching rescue operations.

But unlike Clearford City, Harrison City didn’t have serious military backing, so the compound’s overall strength wasn’t that impressive.

When the Tier 10 Zombie King arrived—leading hundreds of thousands of zombies—the compound barely managed any resistance before it was smashed apart.

Now Harrison City belonged to the dead. Zombies were everywhere.

Of course, that didn’t mean there were no humans left.

After the compound fell, most of the survivors in Harrison City ended up as zombie food… but plenty managed to escape.

Some fled to nearby small towns. Others were still hanging on inside the city, scraping by day to day—not because they didn’t want to run, but because they couldn’t make it out anymore.

At that moment, in a broken room tucked inside a stretch of ruins, more than a dozen Enhanced huddled together, trembling.

Outside, a large pack of zombies prowled, sweeping the area and hunting for their trail.

”What do we do, Captain?” A petite girl in the team spoke up, her face drained white. ”If this keeps up, they’re going to find us sooner or later.”

”What do you want me to do?” the squad leader snapped back, helpless. ”With things like this, the second we step outside, they’ll tear us apart. All we can do is pray they don’t notice us!”

The zombies crept closer and closer. Everyone in the room looked pale as paper, each person bracing themselves to fight to the death if it came to it.

Then—suddenly—chaotic footsteps sounded from not far away.

The zombies that had been searching in this direction froze. One after another, they turned their heads toward the noise.

The people hiding inside whipped their gaze that way, too—and immediately saw a huge crowd sprinting straight toward them.

”Are those people insane?” the petite girl whispered, frowning. ”This place is crawling with zombies, and they’re making that much noise?”

”Heh.” The captain’s eyes lit up with excitement. ”Who cares? Perfect timing. They’ll draw the zombies’ attention. Once they start fighting, we slip away.”

The others were instantly energized, faces bright with relief. They’d thought they were dead for sure—only for a sudden turn of fate to drop a lifeline in their laps.

Only the petite girl still looked uneasy, glancing at the onrushing crowd. She wanted to warn them… but didn’t dare to speak.

The zombies, seeing so many living bodies appear out of nowhere, practically went wild. They surged forward, charging the newcomers.

And when the rushing crowd saw the zombies stampeding toward them, they looked just as thrilled.

”Kill!”

With that roar, the human wave slammed forward to meet them.

Fireballs, Wind Cutters, ice spikes—ability after ability tore through the air, blasting into the zombie horde.

Tier 9 skills weren’t even in the same league as Tier 6. Faced with that overwhelming storm of attacks, the zombies—none of them above Tier 8—were wiped out in no time.

The group swept through the aftermath, moving with practiced ease as they collected crystal cores and tossed them into the backpacks slung behind them.

Inside the ruined room, the hiding survivors stared, stunned into silence—eyes wide, jaws slack—completely dumbfounded by what they’d just seen.

”Th-they’re… insanely strong,” the petite girl breathed, swallowing hard.

The others nodded stiffly.

Thousands of zombies—gone in the blink of an eye. Just how strong were these people, exactly?

”Captain, where do you think they came from? When we were in the compound, I never saw a team this strong.”

”How would I know?” the captain shot back. ”Forget them. While they’re not paying attention, we need to run. If they turn out to be the violent kind, we’re dead.”

”But… they saved us. Shouldn’t we go thank them?”

”Thank them for what? They weren’t trying to save us. Move!”

”…Okay.” The petite girl sighed, helpless, and followed as the squad slipped out of the room and sprinted off into the distance.

They didn’t make it far.

A moment later, the whole group came scrambling back, faces twisted with panic.

The noise of the fight had carried. From every direction, zombies began pouring in like floodwater. With nowhere to go, they had no choice but to duck back into the wrecked house and hide again.

Luckily, the zombies didn’t even glance their way. They charged straight at the people from Fallen Star City instead.

But against twenty thousand Tier 9 Enhanced, those zombies weren’t ”attacking” so much as lining up to die. However many came, that many fell.

The Enhanced fought in tight coordination, roles clearly divided—frontliners soaking hits, ranged attackers pouring out damage, melee fighters carving openings, and dedicated harvesters ripping out crystal cores. Every movement was smooth and practiced. You could tell they’d done this a thousand times.

They advanced steadily, shredding every wave that reached them. When someone got tired or their mental energy dipped, they rotated out without a hitch—popping crystal cores to recover while they harvested more cores from the bodies. The harvesters would then slide into the line to replace them.

It was like watching a tireless slaughter machine chew through a horde.

Even Ethan and the others were impressed by the sheer speed.

Up in the air, Ethan sat astride Flint, his peregrine falcon, staring down at the battlefield with a faint look of surprise.

Yeah… numbers really did matter.

And if you had numbers and strength? That was just unfair.

Wherever twenty thousand Tier 9 Enhanced passed, zombies didn’t last even a single exchange. Ethan and the rest had basically turned into spectators.

”Looks like there’s nothing for us to do,” Chris said beside him, yawning.

”Seriously,” someone else agreed. ”We shouldn’t have even come. With the way they’re killing, even a Tier 10 zombie showing up would be pointless.”

Ethan laughed. ”Since we’re here, don’t just sit around. Get moving—let’s take Harrison City as fast as we can.”

”…Fine.” Chris and the others nodded, resigned, then jumped off their mounts, drew their weapons, and plunged into the zombie swarm.

Ethan didn’t idle either. He flickered—one Teleportation—and appeared inside the horde.

The mutant beasts followed suit, including several white-furred apes, all of them throwing themselves into the fight.

”Holy shit! Look!” a Fallen Star City soldier suddenly shouted.

At his cry, everyone turned toward the direction he was staring.

And one after another, their eyes widened.

They’d thought hitting Tier 9 meant they were basically at the ceiling. The way they’d been mowing down zombies like chopping vegetables had puffed their confidence up fast.

But what they saw next crushed that pride into dust.

Fallen Star Squad—each of them holding their own circle of death.

Zombies lunged in from all sides, wave after wave, and they stayed completely calm. No matter how the horde surged, it couldn’t break within six feet of them. Wherever their weapons passed, zombies dropped like grass under a scythe.

”So strong!!”

”Commander is a beast!”

”I’ve heard people talk about how terrifying Fallen Star Squad is, but seeing it in person… they were understating it.”

”Yeah. With a Commander this strong, how could Fallen Star City not be strong?”

”Then we better step it up. Don’t let the Commander look down on us!”