Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Yamato Archipelago—what used to be Shinano City, in the old Yamato Empire.

Now, it belonged to the Infernals.

Red bodies carpeted the land as far as the eye could see. Conservatively, it was no less than a million—and the number was still climbing. From every direction, more Infernals were racing in, funneling toward the same place.

In the middle of that sea of monsters, an especially hulking Infernal was barking something down at its underlings.

It was the current king of the Infernals.

Back in their original world, Tier 18 had been the ceiling. A lot of Infernals got stuck at peak Tier 18, all roughly the same strength. Nobody accepted anyone else as ”above” them, so they’d always lived tribe by tribe—never truly unified, only teaming up when an outside enemy forced them to.

But after coming here, talent gaps started showing. Some rose faster than others.

And this one—this one had the best talent of the entire species. It had broken through to Tier 23, and that made it the undisputed king.

That was why it could pull this many Infernals together.

Of course, a big part of it was simpler than politics: pressure. An external threat had pushed them into a corner until they had no choice but to band together.

When Ethan and his people trailed them all the way here, even they got hit with shock.

A million Infernals was the kind of number that made your scalp go tight.

”Back up,” Ethan murmured. ”Don’t let them surround us.”

If they got boxed in, everyone besides him would probably get wiped.

The others nodded and carefully eased farther away. This was too big. They needed time to think.

Ethan activated True Sight and swept the mass from a distance. His eyes caught on one Infernal that stood out like a flare among embers.

His expression sharpened—then lit up.

”Tier 23?!”

”I’ll be damned,” Ethan breathed, genuinely pleased. ”So there is a Tier 23 Infernal.”

He glanced back. ”You guys fall back even more. I’m going to go kill that Tier 23 leader.”

”Alright.”

They trusted their captain. Even if the enemy had numbers like an ocean, if Ethan said he could kill someone, he’d kill them.

In short order, the group pulled farther away.

Ethan watched that loud, showy bastard still posturing in the middle of the crowd, and the corner of his mouth ticked up. Then he started closing in, slow and careful.

At that moment, the Infernal king was busy ripping into a few subordinates. Suddenly, a thread of unease crawled up its spine.

It scanned around, suspicious.

Nothing.

Just as it started to think it was being paranoid—

A figure blinked into existence above its head, swinging a massive weapon straight down.

The black glow pouring off the blade made the king’s instincts scream.

”ROAR—!”

It bellowed, and a flaming shield snapped into place around its body. At the same time, fire-type abilities from every direction erupted—countless attacks surging toward the attacker like a tidal wave.

”Absolute Stasis.”

A low voice dropped like a hammer.

The world froze.

”BOOM!”

A poleaxe wreathed in Annihilation Strike crashed down onto the Infernal king’s skull and pulped it into fragments.

A crystal core popped free from the ruined head. Ethan snatched it out of the air—

—and vanished from the spot.

When time resumed, the surrounding Infernals stared at their headless king in stunned silence, like their minds couldn’t catch up.

It had been there a second ago.

So where the hell did it go?

”ROOOAR—!”

Rage detonated across the horde. The sky flushed red as a blanket of fire-type abilities surged after the retreating figure, smashing toward where Ethan had fled—endless, furious, and just a little too late.

Ethan’s eyelid twitched. He immediately chained several Teleportations in a row, blinking out of the bombardment zone.

”Whew…” He let out a breath. ”That was kind of terrifying.”

Then he summoned Dopey and Rocky.

”You two go have fun with them,” Ethan said. ”I’m not sticking around for this.”

And with that, he backed off without hesitation.

Dopey and Rocky didn’t know the meaning of fear. It didn’t matter that the enemy sea stretched to the horizon—they charged straight in anyway.

So the sky-swallowing barrage redirected and smashed down on them.

Luckily, the two thralls were so far beyond the Infernals that the attacks barely mattered. Those skills simply couldn’t do real damage to them.

The moment the thralls hit the horde, the killing turned into a frenzy.

To them, killing tens of thousands versus killing a few million was the same thing.

Just a question of how long it took.

On the other side, Ethan quickly regrouped with Chris and the others. They found a quiet spot, and Ethan swallowed the Tier 23 crystal core, pushing his strength up to Tier 23.

After that, he sent everyone out to intercept the Infernals still rushing in from the outskirts.

From what Ethan had observed, the total Infernal population was around two million.

They’d already killed close to three hundred thousand. About a million were gathered here. That meant there were still a few hundred thousand on the way—perfect targets for the Fallen Star Guard to ambush and cut down en route.

As for Ethan… he couldn’t stray too far from the two soulless thralls, so he had to stay here.

And he needed to keep an eye on them. They didn’t get tired, and they didn’t feel pain—but they still burned energy. Especially Rocky. It was throwing out massive AoE skills like they were free, and if it kept that up, it would eventually drain itself dry.

This wasn’t ten thousand enemies.

This was a million.

No matter how strong they were, wiping them out completely wasn’t going to be easy.

So Ethan stayed ready to pull Rocky back the moment it needed to rest.

The battle dragged on.

Two soulless thralls butchered their way through a million Infernals. Chris and the Fallen Star Guard hunted down the reinforcements still trying to reach the main horde. And Ethan somehow became the laziest person on the battlefield—sitting off in the distance and watching it all like a show.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to jump in.

He did.

But every time he looked at the sky packed with incoming abilities, he made the same decision—observe, don’t be stupid.

And while they were here slaughtering Infernals…

Not far away, in the Seorin Republic, another massacre was unfolding.

Only this time, the ones being slaughtered were Seorin citizens.

And the killers were a dozen-odd strange creatures—green skin, green hair, long noses, small and wiry bodies.

It was obvious where they came from.

The Void Realm.

The Seorin Republic had a Void Realm passage too.

But their passage hadn’t been opened by the Seorin people—it had been accidentally torn open by a mutated bird.

A few curious Void Realm creatures had poked their heads through at just the wrong time, arriving right as the mysterious energy surged. Greedy and thrilled, they’d spent ten days absorbing it.

When they finally tried to go back…

The passage was gone.

With nowhere else to go, they’d been forced to remain on Earth.

Naturally attuned to plants, they’d stayed deep in the forest, keeping to themselves.

Until today.

A group of humans wandered into the woods—and attacked them.

That was when the creatures realized something important.

This world had other living beings besides themselves.

So they left the mountains and the trees and crept closer… and saw sprawling human settlements for the first time.

They were timid by nature. They hadn’t planned on hurting anyone. They only wanted to watch from a distance, curious.

But the arrogant Seorin people saw the weird-looking creatures and decided they wanted to capture them for research.

And that was when the tragedy began.

At first, the Void Realm creatures were terrified under the flood of human attacks.

Then they realized the truth.

These humans’ Tiers were pitifully low.

And once that clicked…

The slaughter started.