Apocalypse: King of Zombies

When the mass of soulless thralls appeared, the Flamekin all frowned.

Thralls didn’t give off a readable aura. You couldn’t judge their strength from presence alone.

But even so… the threat was unmistakable.

The kind that made your skin crawl.

Ethan pointed at the Flamekin, his voice turning ice-cold.

”Kill them.”

The instant the order fell, Dopey, Aeralon, and Aerisara surged forward first, crashing into the Flamekin line like three living siege weapons.

Chris and the others immediately barked commands of their own, sending their thralls in as well.

In the blink of an eye, all forty-eight thralls moved together—heavy, brutal attacks slamming into the Flamekin formation from multiple angles.

The Flamekin powerhouses’ expressions changed on the spot.

”Stage S soulless thralls…!”

”Move—kill them!” the wounded Flamekin shouted, voice hoarse with panic and rage.

The Flamekin weren’t weak. They’d seized and held a human city—of course they had teeth.

Aside from their peak Tier 35 elder, they had two Tier 33 senior captains, more than a dozen Stage S captains, and the rest were all Stage A.

A terrifying lineup.

That was exactly why Ethan had made sure to remove the elder first—because that old man was the one variable that could’ve flipped everything.

Now, with that threat gone, Dopey, Elder Corvin, Elder Gale, and the other high-end thralls could slaughter freely.

The battle detonated instantly.

Skills tore across the field, heat and shockwaves ripping through the air so violently that even the Awakened watching from farther back couldn’t safely close in for a moment. They could only hold position and support from range until the lines stabilized.

Under orders, the Stage S-level thralls immediately hunted down the Flamekin’s own Stage S fighters—locking them into brutal close-range engagements.

And Chris’s group didn’t stand aside either.

They led the three hundred-plus Awakened of Fallen Star Squad’s second echelon straight into the fight.

At the high end, Fallen Star City’s side completely crushed the Flamekin.

Those three hundred Awakened didn’t fight like a mob. They fought like a machine—covering each other, layering skills, filling gaps instantly. Their abilities were diverse, complementary, and built for team combat.

They had tanks. Healers. Controllers. Ranged damage. Close-quarters finishers.

A full ecosystem.

In raw firepower, Calvin’s lightning-type abilities were absurd—burst damage that made the air scream. Vivian, with her Strength-type ability, was a nightmare up close. And everyone else brought their own brand of lethal variety.

Compared to them, the Flamekin’s all-fire toolkit looked one-dimensional.

This was exactly why other races feared humans.

In group battles, humans had too many angles—too many tools. Too much coordination potential.

And Awakened were even worse—humans with an extra layer of advantage stacked on top.

So when Awakened fought other races, the edge became brutally obvious.

The three hundred-plus didn’t rush. They advanced in steps, holding formation, refusing to get baited. The Flamekin had the numbers, but they couldn’t break the line.

And the real reason they couldn’t stabilize at all—

Was the three monsters rampaging inside their formation.

Dopey. Elder Corvin. Elder Gale.

Two peak Tier 35s and a Tier 34 tearing through their ranks like a blender.

The Flamekin formation collapsed into chaos.

Against that kind of top-end pressure, they were helpless.

And it got worse: these thralls didn’t fear pain.

The Flamekin’s attacks could damage them—burn flesh, crack bone, tear chunks away—but it didn’t slow them down. It didn’t shake their focus. It didn’t make them hesitate.

They just kept coming.

Relentless.

Silent.

Killing.

Ethan didn’t jump in right away.

He stood off to the side instead, anchoring the field and pressing down on the Flamekin with pure presence.

In truth, he was quietly recovering his mental energy through Emily’s Energy Link.

Even so, just having him there was enough to warp the battlefield. He was the one who’d just ”killed” their elder. Every Flamekin feared him, and no matter who they were fighting, a piece of their attention kept drifting back to Ethan—watching for him, bracing for him.

Then, at a certain moment, the corner of Ethan’s mouth lifted.

In the next instant, he teleported straight into the middle of a cluster of Flamekin powerhouses.

Another monster had entered the fight.

Ethan opened Nullspace Domain. His poleaxe turned into a storm of black arcs as he carved through the Flamekin line. Anyone caught cleanly by the blade was cut in half at the waist, their bodies dropping before the blood even finished spraying.

Ethan’s toolkit was terrifying in its own right, but he actually didn’t have a true, dedicated large-scale nuke. If he had to name something, Telekinesis barely counted—since it let him control multiple objects and strike more than one target at once.

But he’d never liked relying on it.

He liked the feeling of wading into a crowd with a poleaxe, the weight of the hits, the raw impact. It scratched some brutal itch in his bones.

Besides, their team didn’t lack AoE skills. He didn’t need to waste one of his precious ”skill selection” chances on something the squad already covered.

And in the end, big-area attacks were great for mowing down weaker enemies… but against stronger ones, they didn’t mean much.

Ethan’s opponents were usually stronger than him.

As for the ones weaker than him? That was what the others were for.

So he’d never bothered.

With Ethan joining the battlefield, the Flamekin’s situation turned from bad to hopeless.

Once he’d smashed the remaining Flamekin Stage S fighters to the ground, the Stage S-level thralls no longer needed to stay locked on high-tier targets. They immediately peeled off and began cutting down the rest.

And that was when the lower-Tier Flamekin finally broke.

Those Stage S fighters weren’t just their top combat power—they were their captains. Their backbone. The voices everyone listened to.

They’d already been shaken when their elder fell.

Now the captains were down too.

The remaining small fry didn’t just panic—they collapsed.

When Dopey tore a peak Tier 29 Flamekin in half like it was ripping apart wet cloth, something inside the Flamekin ranks finally snapped.

”R-run…!”

The shout spread like contagion.

Flamekin scattered in every direction, no longer thinking about pride or ”being superior.” Their minds held only fear—animal, raw, desperate.

General Cross’s voice thundered over the chaos.

”All Clearford City personnel—stop them! Don’t let a single one escape!”

”Yes!” Enhanced across the area roared back.

And for the first time in days, their eyes didn’t hold fear.

They held the dizzy, vicious thrill of revenge.

Thinking of everything the Flamekin had done—burning families alive, laughing while people screamed—these Enhanced were drowning in hatred.

So when the fleeing Flamekin surged toward them, they didn’t back away.

They attacked.

”Kill them!”

Skills flew like rain, slamming into the fleeing Flamekin from all sides.

A lot of those skills couldn’t truly injure the Flamekin. The gap was still there.

But they could slow them. Trip them up. Block a path for half a second.

And half a second was enough.

Watching Fallen Star City’s powerhouses slaughter the Flamekin was satisfying.

But contributing—even if it was just one heartbeat of interference—felt better.

It felt like taking something back.

”Looking for death!” Some of the fleeing Flamekin snarled when they saw these ”low-tier humans” daring to block them.

Rage flared—humiliation, disbelief, the instinctive hatred of a master seeing a slave raise its head.

But before they could retaliate properly, Fallen Star City’s fighters were already on them.

”Get out of the way!” Flamekin screamed, trying to force a path through the crowd.

No one moved.

The people of Clearford City weren’t afraid anymore.

Their attacks only got more vicious, more desperate, more relentless. Skills crashed down in a messy storm that kept interrupting the Flamekin’s escape routes.

”Damn it!”

The Flamekin’s faces twisted. Desperation turned into brutality.

They hurled flames into the mass of humans around them.

In an instant, whole patches of the crowd were swallowed by fire.

Ethan’s heart jolted when he saw it.

He wanted to shout for them to fall back—wanted to force them away from the slaughter.

But when he saw their faces—those steady, burning eyes—his throat locked.

Maybe they didn’t want to be protected anymore.

Maybe they just wanted to matter.

Ethan clenched his jaw and raised his voice instead, sharp as a blade.

”Speed it up! Kill faster!”

Only that—only ending it as quickly as possible—could reduce the deaths.

And in the end…

Not a single Flamekin escaped.

Over ten thousand Flamekin were wiped out to the last.

Clearford City’s Enhanced paid for it in blood—tens of thousands of them died.

But the survivors looked almost crazed.

Some dropped to their knees and sobbed like children.

Some lay on the ground screaming until their voices broke.

Some grabbed weapons and hacked at Flamekin corpses, venting every ounce of pain and humiliation they’d swallowed.

The people from Fallen Star City watched, eyes stinging.

They hadn’t lived that nightmare themselves…

But looking at Clearford City now, they could feel how deep the suffering had gone.

And in that moment, every one of them felt the same thing—quiet, visceral gratitude.

Thank God…

we’re from Fallen Star City.