Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Rivermark State…

After a long, grinding search, Ethan and the others finally found another group worth hitting—more than two hours later.

They didn’t have a choice. Targets that met their requirements were rare to begin with, and they also had to account for the Outland Beasts roaming nearby.

Sometimes they’d spot a perfect group—only to realize the surrounding area was crawling with other beasts. The moment they made a move, they’d get swarmed. And if that happened out here, they were the ones who’d end up as food.

So Ethan would rather be slow than reckless. Right now, ”steady” wasn’t a suggestion. It was survival.

With True Sight, they’d managed to roam through a Rivermark State packed with Outland Beasts for hours without being discovered.

It gave Ethan a flashback to the earliest days of the apocalypse—back when they’d relied on his True Sight to slip past wave after wave of zombies, picking off the right targets to build momentum while everyone else was still drowning.

It was the same pattern now.

Even with how much stronger they’d become, they still had to move like they were walking on glass. Outland Beasts stronger than them were everywhere in this place.

Fortunately, Ethan’s control of True Sight had long since become second nature. With a small team and disciplined movement, the trip had been tense but manageable.

Good targets were rare, but if you stayed patient, you could still find them.

And sure enough—

There they were.

A pack of Outland Beasts that looked like some nightmare mix of lion and tiger. Sword-blade fangs jutted from their jaws, long and gleaming even from a distance. There were a little over a hundred of them.

Ethan named them on the spot.

Lionfang Beasts.

Their strength ranged from Tier 24 to Tier 26—perfect. The numbers were perfect, too.

And more importantly…

There were no other Outland Beasts nearby.

Ethan flicked his eyes at the squad.

Everyone understood.

They burst forward.

This time, there were far more targets than before. Ethan wanted it over fast, so he deployed every thrall at once.

Fifteen Umbral soulless thralls, together with the three already under Ethan’s control, made eighteen thralls in total. Every single one of them was at least Tier 29.

For a pack of roughly a hundred Tier 24 to Tier 26 Outland Beasts, this was not a fight. It was an execution.

With Ethan and the others attacking alongside them, the battle ended in three minutes.

Afterward, they moved like a well-oiled machine—digging out crystal cores, grabbing everything, and getting the hell out of there.

By the time massive numbers of Outland Beasts came rushing in from all directions, Ethan’s group was already hidden inside one of the underground pits they’d prepared ahead of time.

Everything had gone smoothly.

Perfectly, even.

What they didn’t know was that when those Outland Beasts arrived and saw the corpses, they didn’t react like last time—no eager feeding, no excited frenzy.

Instead, one after another, they went pale and scattered, fleeing as if the ground itself had turned hostile.

A few minutes later, more than a dozen Outland Beasts arrived—same species as the dead ones, but far larger.

When they saw the bodies, the Lionfang Beasts let out a grief-stricken roar at the sky, their voices packed with endless rage.

And the moment those roars rang out, every Outland Beast within sixty miles started sprinting toward the sound.

Soon, tens of thousands—no, hundreds of thousands—of Outland Beasts gathered in the area. Looking out, it was just a black, crawling sea as far as you could see.

”ROAR…” (Find them. I want the killer. Drag them to me!) the largest Lionfang Beast thundered.

”ROAR!” The surrounding Outland Beasts answered as one.

Then they spread out and began a carpet search.

Some with long noses swept inch by inch, sniffing the ground.

Some took to the sky to scout from above.

Some burrowed underground, tearing through dirt and rock to search from below.

And all the while…

Ethan and the others had no clue what kind of hornet’s nest they’d just kicked.

They were too busy celebrating.

Over a hundred crystal cores.

More than forty Tier 24s. More than forty Tier 25s. Over twenty Tier 26s.

It was a disgusting haul.

Ethan and Chris both surged from Tier 25 straight to peak Tier 26 in one go.

Henry, Sean, and Skinny Pete all broke into Tier 26.

Everyone else hit peak Tier 25.

They’d only struck twice in a full day, but their strength had leapt forward by an entire level.

Crystal cores weren’t even comparable to leveling up through absorbing mysterious energy.

When the upgrading finished, excitement lit everyone’s faces.

At this pace…

In just a few days, they might be knocking on Stage S.

And when they got there?

That would be the moment they finally stopped hiding—and started putting those Void Realm creatures in their place.

Just as everyone was grinning like idiots over their gains, the dirt wall of the underground cave suddenly shuddered.

Something scraped from the other side—fast, frantic.

Then the wall burst inward.

A small hole opened up, and a tiny head with a sharp beak poked through, blinking at them.

”!!!”

Eyes met.

For a half-second, both sides just froze.

”Jiji-jiji!” The little thing suddenly shrieked in excitement.

Pfft!

A streak of light punched straight through its head.

It jerked once and went limp.

”We’ve been made. Move!” Ethan’s face hardened.

Everyone’s expression changed instantly. Garrick reacted on instinct, throwing himself toward the back to dig deeper—

But before he could, a deafening boom exploded above them.

The ceiling caved in.

The entire underground cave collapsed like a sandcastle.

When they finally scrambled out of the rubble, coughing and coated in dust, the squad’s eyes widened—

And a cold chill slid down every spine.

Outland Beasts.

Packed so tightly it looked unreal.

On the ground. In the trees. In the air.

All around them, a suffocating ring—layered three-dimensional pressure, sealing every direction until there wasn’t even a gap to breathe through.

”How are there this many…?” Chris swallowed hard, throat bobbing.

Ethan’s gaze locked onto the figures in the middle distance—those larger, heavier Lionfang Beasts staring at them like they were already dead.

”I’m guessing the ones we killed had… connections,” he muttered.

The largest Lionfang Beast threw back its head and let out a furious roar toward Ethan’s group.

The sound hit like a hammer. Everyone winced, rubbing their ears, then looked to Skinny Pete for a translation.

Skinny Pete lifted both hands. ”What do you think? It says we deserve to die.”

Big Mike immediately raised both hands, palms out. ”Okay, hold on. There might be a misunderstanding here. Your friends? We didn’t kill them.”

”…”

Ethan and the others all facepalmed in unison.

Sean stared at him like he’d never met him before. ”Big Mike. Nobody asked. And you still confessed.”

Big Mike blinked. ”What?”

”Just… stop talking,” Sean said, exhausted.

Ethan blew out a breath. ”Doesn’t matter. If they tracked us here, they already know. Plus we’ve still got Lionfang blood on us. Denying it now won’t change anything.”

Someone swallowed. Hard.

”Boss… what do we do?” Chris asked, voice tight. ”This lineup—this is not good.”

”This isn’t normal ’not good,’” Ethan said, feeling his head start to throb. ”That Lionfang Beast is Tier 36. And a few of the others are Tier 30.”

”!!”

The words landed like ice water.

For a moment, it felt like everyone’s scalp went numb.

”What about the rest?” Chris asked in a low voice, forcing himself not to look away from the swarm.

”The rest are manageable,” Ethan said quickly. ”None of them have reached Stage S. My guess is Stage S beasts don’t take orders from these guys. But there are still a ton at Stage A.”

He flicked a glance at the biggest Lionfang Beast again—its blade-fangs gleaming as it paced, slow and certain, like it already owned the outcome.

”Dopey takes the Tier 36 Lionfang Beast. The other thralls handle the remaining Lionfang Beasts,” Ethan said, voice going flat with focus. ”As for the rest of the Outland Beasts—we clear them.”

His eyes swept the squad.

”This is going to be ugly.”

A beat.

”No holding back.”

”Got it.”