Apocalypse: King of Zombies

In the office of a compound in some backwater little town inside Golden Valley State, right up against Deepwater City’s territory, a woman with a powerful build and a surprisingly sweet face sat in her chair, lost in thought.

Just then, someone knocked. A woman slipped inside and said quietly, ”Vivian, someone from the Deepwater City compound is here.”

”Oh?” Vivian lifted her head, genuinely a little surprised. ”Send him in.”

”Yes.”

Deepwater City’s compound showing up out of nowhere… Vivian’s lips curved faintly. So they’ve got their eye on mine.

A moment later, the woman returned with a middle-aged man in tow.

”Vivian, hello!” the man said the instant he stepped in, all politeness.

”You’re being too courteous. And you are?”

”My name is Christopher Dawson, from the Deepwater City compound.”

”Mr. Dawson.” Vivian’s tone stayed calm and measured. ”What brings you to my little compound?”

Dawson smiled. ”You’re too modest. Your compound is already the strongest one in the entire area around Deepwater City—second only to Deepwater City compound itself. ’Little’ doesn’t really fit.”

He paused, then continued smoothly, ”That said… Vivian, you should know this too. Your strength is impressive, but your numbers are still too small. If one day a large zombie tide hits, it’ll be hard for you to hold. Have you ever considered relocating to Deepwater City to develop there?”

”Deepwater City is a lot more dangerous than this remote town,” Vivian said, shaking her head. ”If a huge zombie wave comes, Deepwater City would be the first place it slams into. I’ll pass.”

”You don’t know the full picture.” Dawson leaned in slightly, voice confident. ”Our Deepwater City compound is sitting at nearly two hundred thousand people now. Tier 6 Enhanced alone have already surpassed one hundred thousand. As long as it isn’t a million-class zombie tide, we’re confident we can hold.”

”If that’s the case,” Vivian said, eyes steady on him, ”why come looking for us at all?”

”Vivian—this is the apocalypse. People only survive by sticking together. Every extra bit of strength is another bit of hope.” Dawson’s expression turned earnest. ”Your compound isn’t weak. If our two compounds merge, the odds of survival jump dramatically.”

Vivian nodded slowly, like she was weighing it. Then she said, ”Mr. Dawson’s right. In the apocalypse, you have to unite.”

She tapped a finger lightly on the desk.

”How about this,” she went on. ”Tomorrow, I’ll bring some people to the Deepwater City compound and talk details with whoever’s in charge over there.”

Dawson’s face lit up. ”That’s wonderful. Then I’ll head back and report in. I won’t take up any more of your time, Vivian.”

”Mhm. Go on.”

After the man left, the woman beside Vivian couldn’t hold it in anymore. ”Vivian, are we really merging into Deepwater City compound? Then everything we’ve worked for all this time—doesn’t that just become pointless? And from what we’ve found, Deepwater City compound’s leader is a total pervert. He already has dozens of women. I feel like there’s a really good chance he’s targeting you!”

Vivian chuckled softly.

”A merge is happening,” she said, unhurried. ”But after the merge, who’s calling the shots… that depends on strength. Not on which compound has more bodies.”

A confident smile pulled at her lips.

She had every reason to be confident. She’d been among the earliest people to fight back against zombies after the world ended—and she was a Strength-type Awakened.

When her Strength-type ability reached Tier 6, its boost jumped from 1.5x to a full 2x. And the Tier 6 skill she’d gained—[Energy Armor]—gave her the ability to fight above her own Tier.

But the most important part?

Yesterday, they’d run into a Tier 10 zombie that still didn’t have many underlings, and she’d killed it.

Which meant that now—she was a Tier 10 Awakened.

With her absurdly strong ability on top of that, as long as a Tier 11 didn’t show up, she wasn’t afraid of anyone.

”Vivian…” the woman swallowed. ”What are you saying?”

”Tomorrow,” Vivian said coldly, ”we bring Kate and the others. We wipe out Deepwater City compound’s leadership and take the whole Deepwater City compound for ourselves.”

Her own compound’s growth had been crawling lately, and she’d been annoyed about it.

She hadn’t expected the solution to walk right up to her door.

Meanwhile, near Stonebridge City, in a remote little town called Ashford… a massive battle was erupting.

One side was defending the city. The other was laying siege.

The defenders were down to fewer than fifty thousand. The attackers had a full two hundred thousand.

And the worst part was, the attackers had hauled in mortars—whole batteries of them—along with heavy machine guns.

The compound’s walls had already collapsed. It was obvious the defenders had lost. What was happening now was just a cornered beast fighting on.

At the very front of the battlefield, a figure wreathed in crackling lightning tore through the crowd like a god of war. Wherever he went, people dropped in heaps—yet more and more kept surging in to box him in.

Heavy machine-gun fire hammered into him from every direction. A single round couldn’t do much, but when thousands of rounds stacked up, it still took a toll.

On top of that, he’d been fighting past his limits for a long time. He was already running on fumes, held upright purely by brute strength and a refusal to give in.

”Calvin, give it up,” someone called out. ”Joining the government is the proper path. People like you—ordinary nobodies who got lucky and awakened some strong ability—so what? You really think you can fight the government?”

Calvin didn’t answer. He just kept killing, wild and relentless.

A sigh, then the voice came again, softer—almost coaxing. ”Why bother? This is just dying struggle. Even if you’re not afraid of death… aren’t you thinking about the people inside the compound? I guarantee you, a lot of them don’t want to die.”

Calvin’s body jerked, like the words physically hit him. He turned his head toward the compound.

Inside, countless eyes stared back at him—pleading, desperate, clinging to him like he was their last rope over a cliff.

His heart shuddered.

”Commander, don’t listen to him!” someone shouted from behind. ”We live and die with the compound!”

”Yeah! Live and die with the compound!”

The compound erupted in cheers and screaming voices.

But not everyone shouted.

Plenty of people just stood there, silent—eyes trembling, faces gray with fear.

You could tell just by looking: they didn’t want to die.

This battle had been decided a long time ago. They couldn’t win. If they kept resisting, their compound would be wiped out.

And inside the compound were elderly people. Children.

Calvin’s eyes filled with struggle. He’d never imagined it would be like this—that he wouldn’t be brought down by zombies, but by other humans.

If the enemy was a legitimate government-built compound, he wouldn’t have resisted this hard.

But these people… they wore the government’s name like a mask while doing things that made his skin crawl.

A lot of the people in his compound had fled here from Stonebridge City compound. From their stories, he already knew the leadership of Stonebridge City’s ”government compound” was rotten to the core.

The higher-ups drank and partied every day while ordinary people inside could barely get enough to eat.

And the way they toyed with women—along with practices like keeping living people to ”raise zombies”—made him furious.

If he’d been strong enough, he would’ve wiped out Stonebridge City compound a long time ago.

He just hadn’t expected them to strike first—and come for his people.

Calvin understood it, too. His compound had already lost. Fighting on was pointless.

”Maybe… most of them just want to live,” he said, letting out a long breath.

Then he raised his voice. ”Fine! I’ll agree to join you. Tell them to stop!”

”That’s more like it.” The other man sounded pleased. ”From now on, we’re all family.”

Then his tone sharpened.

”But you’re too strong. We’ll have to put a leash on you.”

Calvin’s eyes went cold. ”How?”

”Cut off your right arm.”

”...!”

”Commander, don’t!” people screamed behind him. ”If it comes to it, we’ll fight them to the death!”

”Yeah! Commander! We’re not afraid to die!”

Voices roared, raw and furious.

A young man on the attacking side snorted. ”Like you have a choice.”

Then he looked straight at Calvin, smiling without warmth. ”Think carefully. If you don’t agree… I’ll just kill everyone in there. We don’t take ’unstable factors.’”

Pain twisted across Calvin’s face. After a long moment, he shut his eyes.

”…Fine,” he said, voice hoarse. ”I’ll do it.”