Apocalypse: King of Zombies

”So you’re saying… if the ground could actually handle it, you could keep this ritual circle running nonstop?” Ethan asked, honestly impressed.

”Obviously,” Henry said, chest puffed out. ”As long as the crystal cores haven’t burned through all their energy, it’ll keep running. And I only used Tier 5 cores just now. If we use higher-Tier cores, it can pull in even more mysterious energy.”

Chris’s eyes widened. ”So if the ritual circle can run… does that mean we’ll be able to absorb mysterious energy in the daytime to raise our Tier?”

”Yep,” Henry said, grinning. ”Exactly.”

”Holy shit,” Big Mike said, staring at him like Henry had just sprouted wings. ”Henry, that’s insane.”

The others looked just as shocked.

Honestly, Henry really was a freak genius. With zero guidance, he’d managed to tinker his way into a ritual circle that was actually practical.

Sure, he’d only made small tweaks to the one they’d found—but ”small tweaks” on something like that weren’t something just anyone could pull off.

”The biggest problem now is materials,” Henry said, frowning. ”A normal floor can’t support the ritual circle while it’s running.”

”Materials are easy,” Ethan said. ”Atlas City’s compound has plenty of steel plants. We’ll have them make you a runic disk out of the hardest material possible, exactly to your specs.”

He tapped his chin, thinking back to what he’d seen. ”From what I can tell, the energy load on the disk itself isn’t that crazy. The explosion happened because the floor was too brittle—once it cracked, the ritual pattern shifted, and that set it off. If we make a thick tungsten-steel disk, we should be fine.”

Henry’s eyes lit up. ”Oh—yeah. That’ll work!”

”Good.” Ethan nodded. ”Chris, you go with Henry to the steel plant. Explain what we need and tell them it’s urgent.”

”Got it.”

Not long after, Chris and Henry found the person in charge and laid out the requirements.

Since the order was coming from Fallen Star Squad, the plant manager didn’t dare slack off. He halted their other work immediately and reassigned everything to their request.

In just a single afternoon, they produced a tungsten-steel plate—three feet across and a full twelve inches thick—made from pure tungsten steel.

Chris and Henry came running back, both of them practically glowing, hauling the heavy disk like it was treasure.

Then Henry got to work again, carving with intense focus.

The tungsten steel was insanely hard, but the daggers, swords, and spears they’d brought back from the Void Realm were sharp enough that cutting into it wasn’t a problem.

Before long, a complete ritual circle was etched into the disk.

This time, Henry pulled out several Tier 9 crystal cores and slotted them into the holes.

The moment the cores went in, the ritual circle lit up.

Right after that, everyone felt it—the mysterious energy in the air around them seemed to wake up, surging toward them in a rushing tide.

”Damn!”

”That’s cracked!”

Thumbs shot up all around.

”Start absorbing,” Ethan ordered.

Everyone immediately sat down and began drawing in mysterious energy to raise their Tier.

After the apocalypse, Earth had always had mysterious energy—it just stayed dormant most of the time. Only when the nine strange stars known as the Nine-Star Dipper appeared did that energy become active.

Which was why they’d only ever been able to absorb it at night.

But this ritual circle could stir the mysterious energy, forcing it into an active state—basically replicating the effect of the Nine-Star Dipper appearing.

The difference was scale.

This ritual circle was local—only the area around their living quarters benefited. Everywhere else, nothing changed. Meanwhile, the Nine-Star Dipper made mysterious energy active across the entire planet.

That said, according to Henry, the ritual circle could be made bigger. The larger the circle, the larger the area it could affect—though the consumption would also skyrocket.

At its current size—three feet in diameter—it could only make mysterious energy ”active” within roughly a thirty-foot diameter around it. Beyond that, the effect dropped off sharply, and past sixty feet, you couldn’t feel it at all.

But for Fallen Star Squad, a thirty-foot zone was more than enough.

And with Tier 9 crystal cores powering it, the mysterious energy was so thick it was almost ridiculous—denser even than what they usually felt at night when absorbing under the stars.

Following the methods recorded in the Energy Absorption Technique, everyone greedily drank in the mysterious energy flooding the air around them.

Two hours later, a violent surge of energy suddenly rolled off Ethan’s body.

Everyone jolted awake. The moment they realized what was happening, they stopped absorbing immediately.

They could all tell—Ethan was about to break through. If that was the case, nobody was going to compete with him for energy.

The fluctuations around Ethan intensified, building higher and higher… then, two minutes later, everything settled back down into calm.

At the same time, in the constellation map inside Ethan’s mind, the second star—Mizar—lit up completely.

And then Ethan’s consciousness slipped into that familiar void again.

Endless points of light floated before him.

Seeing it, Ethan didn’t panic this time. He’d been here once already. He knew exactly what it meant.

He could pick another skill.

Ethan immediately activated [True Sight] and scanned.

Sure enough, the choices available at Stage C were totally different from Stage D.

Back at Stage D, what he’d seen were skills like Fireball and Wind Cutter. But now the lights in front of him were things like Rain of Flames, Tornado, Hailstorm—wide-area, battlefield-clearing attacks.

There were single-target options too, like Thunder Strike and Ice Spike, and just from the names you could tell they were leagues stronger than Lightning Bolt or Ice Shard.

Support skills were there as well—Strength Boost, Speed Boost, Energy Armor—and the amplification was clearly a tier higher than anything from Stage D.

But even here, not all skills were created equal.

A lightning-type skill like Thunder Lance was obviously stronger than Thunder Strike. And an ice-type skill like Frost Blast was definitely above Ice Spike. What you ended up with still depended on luck…

For other people.

Ethan wasn’t ”other people.” He got to choose.

He also knew there was a time limit, so he didn’t waste even a second. He pushed [True Sight] to the max and searched fast.

This time he had experience—and a clear goal—so it went quickly.

Two minutes in, Ethan’s eyes snapped to a particular light.

His heart kicked. There you are.

”That’s the one.”

He locked onto the point he’d chosen. Instantly, it shot toward him, streaking through the void like a comet, and sank into the center of his forehead.

The moment it entered, Ethan’s vision went black—and his consciousness was kicked out of the void.

He opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the squad, all of them staring at him like they were afraid to blink.

”Ethan—did you break into Stage C?!”

”Yeah,” Ethan said, breathing out.

”What’d you get? What skill?”

”Annihilation Strike.” A smile tugged at the corner of Ethan’s mouth.

This time, he’d gone in with one thing in mind: a real, decisive killing move.

At first, he’d considered picking an AOE skill—something to erase crowds. But during the search, he’d realized his [Telekinesis] had evolved. It wasn’t limited to controlling a single object anymore.

Now he could control a whole cluster at once.

In other words, his ”single-target” tool had already turned into a group-control weapon. That made an AOE spell less urgent.

So he shifted to single-target power.

He checked plenty of elemental options—lightning-type, fire-type—but most of them had obvious ceilings. Strong, sure, but not the kind of move that could end a fight instantly against truly terrifying opponents.

Then he saw Annihilation Strike, and he knew immediately.

Because the skill’s power scaled with how much mental energy he was willing to burn.

If he dumped everything he had into one hit, it could unleash damage at more than five times his own strength.

Even against a Tier 13 powerhouse…

Ethan was confident he could one-shot them.

You could say it like this: Ethan, who’d always been weirdly short on direct offensive options, finally got his answer.

The moment he stepped into Stage C—Tier 12—everything changed.

He had officially entered the ranks of the truly powerful.