Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Once she’d thought it through, the worry on Isolde’s face faded. She turned to Tharok.

”Can you still fight?”

”Cough… I’m not dying yet.” Tharok wiped the blood from his mouth, eyes cold. ”As long as you can lock him down, my attacks will erase him instantly.”

Rimekin backing out had surprised him too, but he didn’t really care. If anything, it was convenient—one less variable.

And if he played it right, he could make this human and this arrogant woman both bleed themselves dry.

Then he’d harvest everything.

Once one side was gone, the other wouldn’t be a threat either.

”Good.” Isolde nodded once.

”Move!”

The two elders led their remaining upper ranks and surged straight toward Ethan’s group.

Ethan’s lips curled into a cold smile. He lifted a hand.

In a breath, forty-eight soulless thralls were released.

The number was still forty-eight—but the lineup had been swapped again and again. The quality now was on another level entirely.

Including Dopey, there were four peak Tier 35 thralls.

The instant the thralls appeared, both races hesitated, staring in shock, clearly thrown by where they’d even come from.

But while the enemy froze—

The thralls didn’t.

At the command from Ethan’s side, the soulless thralls charged like a tide, slamming into the Frostborn and Stormkin elites.

”Hmph. Just a bunch of soulless thralls.” Isolde’s voice dripped with contempt. ”Courting death.”

”Absolute Freeze!”

The temperature around them plunged.

A terrifying wave of freezing power swept outward and instantly sealed every thrall in ice.

Isolde let out a cold laugh. ”That’s all?”

And then—

Crack.

Crackcrackcrack—!

It sounded like glass shattering.

The first thrall broke free, and the rest followed almost immediately. The ice that should’ve held them… didn’t even last two seconds.

Isolde’s face snapped tight with disbelief.

”How is that possible—?”

She didn’t even have time to finish the thought.

A figure was already rushing her.

”Frost Armor!” Isolde wrapped herself in an icy shell without hesitation, then slashed her hand forward.

A massive ice spike speared toward the attacker.

Boom!

The spike hit Dopey cleanly—yet it didn’t injure him at all.

His body merely jolted for a fraction of a second before he kept coming.

Isolde’s eyes widened. ”What kind of monster body—!”

”Frost Blast!”

A torrent of frost surged out like a river, smashing into Dopey and dragging his speed down again and again.

Her voice turned sharp with confidence. ”So what if your body’s tough? Under my control, you won’t even touch my—”

A blade of light shot in from behind.

It slammed into Isolde’s back.

BOOM!

Her Frost Armor shattered instantly.

Her whole body was hurled hundreds of feet away. She skidded across the ground, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth as she snapped her head up, staring at the thrall that had struck her.

”Another… peak Tier 35!?”

The Luminari elder’s face was blank, as lifeless as ever.

Behind him, radiant wings unfolded, and he shot forward. Light rained down in a savage barrage, punching through the storm of frost around Isolde like it was paper.

Isolde’s expression turned ugly fast.

She tried to freeze him—again and again—but his speed was insane. Every time her control started to take hold, he’d slip away like a flash of sunlight.

And his attacks were brutally heavy.

In moments, she was forced on the defensive, pinned down hard.

Seeing the Luminari elder suppressing Isolde, Ethan didn’t waste a second.

He sent Dopey toward the Stormkin elder—Tharok.

That bastard’s damage really was terrifying. Even Elder Corvin—already converted into a soulless thrall—had been hacked open, flesh splitting under the lightning.

And that was with Tharok injured.

If Tharok were at full strength, even Elder Kael—now a thrall himself—probably wouldn’t have been able to handle him.

No wonder Tharok dared to claim he was unbeatable at the same tier.

But raw attack power meant nothing in front of Dopey.

Dopey specialized in one thing:

Making the arrogant kneel.

When Dopey moved in, Chris immediately sent Elder Corvin to handle the other Stage S elites.

They weren’t about to do some shameless two-on-one.

Tharok recognized Dopey at a glance—the same soulless thrall that had tanked his Thunder Strike earlier without taking a scratch. His expression sank.

But he wasn’t scared. He trusted his own firepower completely.

Thunder Strike was just his most basic move.

He had nastier ones.

”I’d like to see just how tough that body of yours really is,” Tharok sneered.

”Thunder—End of Days!”

The moment the words left his mouth, a black bolt of lightning ripped down from the sky and struck Dopey dead-on.

”BOOM—!”

A violent shockwave exploded outward, dust and debris blasting up in a choking cloud. The ground itself trembled like it had been hammered.

Tharok stood tall, eyes cold with arrogance.

”With that strike, no one under Stage SS can tank it. If it hits, you die.”

And then—

A shape burst out of the dust.

Fast.

Straight at him.

Tharok’s smug expression hadn’t even finished settling before it cracked into pure horror.

”How—!?”

Too late.

Dopey was already in his face, that plain, ugly, no-nonsense fist swinging for Tharok’s head.

That was when the weakness of lightning-type abilities really showed.

Lightning was monstrous for burst and killing power… but it didn’t come with much in the way of defense.

With Dopey in melee range, Tharok had no choice but to grit his teeth and meet him head-on, his own fist wrapped in raging lightning as he punched back.

”BOOM!”

Their fists collided.

Tharok’s arm buckled on impact, bending unnaturally as his body skidded backward dozens of steps.

Dopey only slid back a few steps.

Then he surged forward again like nothing had happened.

Tharok’s face twisted.

He threw out one violent lightning technique after another, blasting Dopey over and over—

And it did nothing.

Not even a crack.

His proudest killing power couldn’t pierce Dopey’s defense.

Dopey closed the distance again.

Another punch.

Tharok stumbled back dozens of steps, boots carving grooves into the ground.

And then it turned into something brutal and repetitive.

Dopey got close.

He punched.

Tharok got driven back.

Again.

Again.

Again—

Fist after fist, hammering him until he couldn’t stabilize, couldn’t counter, couldn’t build rhythm. He was being beaten so hard he barely had room to breathe, let alone fight back.

Still, they were both Tier 35.

Even with the advantage, killing Tharok outright would take time.

Ethan could flatten Tier 35 elders in two hits because of Absolute Stasis—because his enemies had no time to defend at all. And Ethan always went straight for the head, his brute strength stacked with the terrifying amplification from Annihilation Strike.

Even then, Ethan still couldn’t one-shot a peak Tier 35 It usually took two.

That wasn’t because Tier 35 was weak.

It was because Ethan’s kit was just that disgusting.

Dopey’s physical defense had already surpassed what most Stage SS bodies could manage, but his raw strength was only a bit above a peak Tier 35.

So yes—within Stage S, he was basically unbeatable. With that kind of defense, he could grind anyone down without fear of losing.

But grinding down a peak Tier 35 still took time.

And while the two elders were getting suppressed, the rest of their Stage S fighters had it even worse.

The thrall lineup still included Elder Kael and Elder Corvin—both Tier 35—as well as Elder Gale and two Tier 34 Luminari captains. Beyond them, there were more than a dozen other Stage S thralls.

It was a massacre.

Tier 35 vs Tier 35—even if you had the upper hand, finishing the kill took time.

But Tier 35 vs Tier 32, Tier 33, or even a newly advanced Tier 30 Stage S?

That was different.

If they wanted someone dead, it happened in seconds.

Under the relentless pressure from Elder Kael and Elder Corvin, one high-ranking fighter after another from the two races either died on the spot or collapsed, broken and powerless.

As for the non–Stage S fighters on both sides… they couldn’t even get close to this battlefield.

They could only watch from a distance, helpless and frantic, as their elites were carved apart right in front of them.