Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Back at their residence, Ethan dumped the mountain of crystal cores in front of Miles—every last one of them, all at once.

It was an absurd sight.

Just the Stage A cores alone numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Stage B was basically uncountable. Even Stage S cores—there were still hundreds left.

To haul it all back, they’d had to get creative. Aside from the few Stage S soulless thralls Ethan stored in his spatial ring when he stayed behind to cover the retreat, the rest of the thralls had simply remained outside, carrying loads like moving freight trucks.

And it wasn’t just Ethan’s ring.

Everyone had crystal cores stuffed on them too—packs, bundles, whatever they could strap down. They’d come back so exhausted they looked ready to collapse, but the payoff was beyond anything they’d ever brought home.

Miles stared at the pile like he couldn’t quite process it.

Even he—Miles—went wide-eyed.

These weren’t the old low-Tier scraps either. The lowest ones in this heap were Tier 18 cores. With this quantity… it was terrifying.

”Captain,” Miles blurted, ”did you guys… kill off every Outland Beast in Rivermark State or what?”

Ethan snorted. ”How could we? Rivermark’s got endless Outland Beasts. We probably killed, at most, one-tenth.”

”….”

Miles went silent for a second, then looked at Ethan like he wanted to argue with reality itself.

One-tenth.

Like that was somehow ”not that much.”

But the disbelief didn’t last. Excitement took over fast.

With this many cores, Fallen Star City’s strength was about to spike again. And the next time any Void Realm creature thought about showing up…

They’d be walking into a meat grinder.

”Oh—right.” Ethan reached to the side and pulled out a separate batch of higher-Tier cores. ”Miles, I saved these for you. It’s enough to push you up to Tier 33.”

As a member of Fallen Star Squad, Miles never got left behind. Ethan made sure of that—always.

Miles took the bundle, expression tight. ”Thanks, Captain.”

”Good.” Ethan’s voice cooled. ”The rest of us are heading to the training complex soon. We’ll lock ourselves in and push another round of advancement. While we’re doing that, upgrade the Fallen Star Guard and the Fallen Star Corps as fast as possible.”

A cold glint flashed through his eyes.

”After that, I’m taking them out to wipe out the remaining Void Realm forces inside the Atlas Federation.”

Those creatures had been squatting in Federation territory like a stain for too long.

It was time to scrub them out.

”Understood,” Miles said. ”I’ll handle it.”

Not long after, Miles recalled the Fallen Star Guard and started distributing the cores.

To be fair, the Guard had already been collecting cores over the past month, and their overall strength had climbed a lot. The Fallen Star Corps had improved too.

But what Ethan’s team brought back?

It was enough to push every Fallen Star Guard member up to peak Tier 29.

And it was enough to lift every Fallen Star Corps soldier up to Stage A.

A hundred thousand Stage A fighters, plus twenty thousand peak Tier 29 elites—backed by the second echelon’s three hundred-plus Stage S powerhouses…

That kind of force could steamroll anything the Void Realm still had inside the Atlas Federation.

Miles managed the distribution.

Ethan and the others went straight to the training complex and shut themselves in again.

Ethan still had several Tier 35 crystal cores in hand. They hadn’t eaten those—too much waste. He planned to refine and absorb them properly to squeeze out the maximum benefit.

The second echelon was training too, pushing their Tiers as hard as they could. The remaining Stage S cores were set aside for them to absorb, enough to bump their strength up by another Tier as well.

For a while, the entire Fallen Star City entered a frenzy of advancement.

Outside the city, the fighting still hadn’t stopped.

There were battles between Void Realm factions… and more and more battles between humans and Void Realm creatures.

With satellite feeds providing real-time intel, the compounds across the Atlas Federation had started hunting Void Realm races with a single goal:

Capture them alive. Drag them back. Create thralls.

Ethan’s standards for thralls were strict.

Other compounds didn’t have that luxury.

To them, if it was still breathing, it went on the cart. They’d been enslaved once. They weren’t going back to that life again.

Thralls were the fastest way to build power.

So they made as many as they could.

And once they had thralls, they could go hunt Outland Beasts, harvest crystal cores, and snowball their strength even faster.

In just this short period, the major compounds’ overall power had multiplied several times over.

Northreach State…

A squad crossed the Bering Strait into the Atlas Federation’s Northreach State—three Stage S elites, over a hundred Stage A fighters, all riding Void Realm creatures with wind-type abilities and flight.

But Northreach clearly wasn’t their destination. The moment they entered Federation airspace, they kept moving, flying hard toward a specific target deeper inside.

Along the way, they passed plenty of Void Realm creatures. Most couldn’t fly. Even when those creatures noticed them, they didn’t bother getting involved.

Then—when the squad had only made it about halfway through the ruins of the Rus Federation’s territory—a group of winged Void Realm creatures dropped in and blocked their path.

The man leading the Cathay Republic force frowned and said coldly, ”We’re from Dragonspire City Compound. If you value your lives, get out of our way.”

By now, the story of a Stage SSS monster stationed inside Dragonspire City Compound had spread across the regions surrounding Cathay Republic. And the farther the rumor traveled, the more exaggerated it became.

That fear had done its job. Most Void Realm races no longer dared to provoke anyone connected to Dragonspire.

Over time, though, that terror had gone straight to the humans’ heads.

Hearing the threat, the Winged Clan elder’s already ugly mood sank even lower.

A mere human dared speak to him like that?

This was practically begging to die.

”Kill them.”

The moment the elder spoke, the Winged Clan behind him moved.

They’d been sitting on a bellyful of anger lately, desperate for something to vent on. And now some idiot had delivered himself to their doorstep.

”Y-you…!”

The man tried to say something else.

He never got the chance.

Storm after storm swallowed him. In seconds, he was torn into shredded meat and dust.

The Void Realm creatures that had been forced into service as mounts managed to dodge away in time.

They watched the Dragonspire soldiers get butchered—and none of them lifted a finger to help.

Why would they?

They’d been coerced into this in the first place. They hated the people from Dragonspire City Compound. If it weren’t for that so-called Stage SSS monster, they would’ve ripped these humans apart themselves a long time ago.

After all, every last one of them strutted around like they owned the world.

When the last human fell, one of the Void Realm mounts spoke up casually.

”You’re finished. Their compound has a Stage SSS powerhouse.”

”…What?”

The Winged Clan elder went stiff.

If anyone else had said it, he wouldn’t have believed them. This world’s power level was supposed to be low—Stage SSS should’ve been impossible.

But he had personally seen a Stage SSS ferocious beast.

If a Stage SSS beast existed… a Stage SSS person wasn’t out of the question.

”Holy shit!” the elder roared. ”Why the hell didn’t you say that earlier!?”

”You killed them too fast,” the mount said, spreading its hands, all innocent. ”I didn’t have time.”

Anyone with eyes could tell—he’d done it on purpose.

The elder’s face turned storm-dark.

”…In that case, I’ll just have to kill all of you too.”

The mount didn’t even flinch. ”You’re a little stronger than us, sure. But you can’t keep us all here. If even one of us escapes and reports this to that… person…”

His voice dropped.

”Everyone your people sent into this world will be erased. Maybe even your entire race.”

”Is that so?” The Winged Clan elder’s eyes went cold. ”Do you know what I hate most?”

He leaned forward, voice sharp.

”Threats.”

Then he barked, ”You think we can’t keep you?”

His wings snapped wide.

”You’re giving yourselves too much credit.”

With that, Winged Clan figures appeared from every direction—dense, blackening the sky.

There were at least tens of thousands.

The mounts’ faces changed instantly.

”How do you have this many in this world!?”

When a dimensional rift opened to unknown territory, most races sent only small vanguard teams to scout. Who in their right mind shoved tens of thousands through immediately? If it was dangerous inside, they’d all die.

The Winged Clan elder gave a nasty smile.

”Who told you the Winged Clan is entering this world for the first time?”

He raised a hand.

”Kill them. No survivors.”

”At once!”

Winged Clan powerhouses surged forward.

And just like that, Cathay Republic’s first team—sent out with the goal of making the Atlas Federation ”have a bad time”—never even reached Federation territory.

They were wiped out to the last.