Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Fallen Star City…

By the time Chris and the others got back, most of Fallen Star City had already returned as well.

And the second they heard from Miles that their boss had been ”chased” by a Stage SSS ferocious beast, the entire room basically froze.

”Miles, you’ve got it wrong,” Chris said, shaking his head. ”That bull was only Stage SS, not Stage SSS.”

”It wasn’t the bull,” Miles said. ”It was another ferocious beast. A weird one.”

He held up his phone and passed it over.

As soon as everyone saw the photos, eyes widened across the board.

”Holy—what is this? Another Stage SSS just popped out of nowhere?”

”It might’ve been attracted by the fight between Boss and that Titan Bull,” Sean said grimly, thinking it through.

”Yeah. Probably.”

”Damn,” someone cursed. ”Did Boss step in dog crap today or something? Stage SS and Stage SSS—stuff you never see—and now they’re showing up back to back?”

Mia bit her lip hard, worry written all over her face. ”Where did they go?”

Miles lowered his voice. ”Captain used Riftwalk. He disappeared with it. After that, even the satellites couldn’t track him.”

He paused, then continued, eyes sharp.

”But I have a guess.”

”When Captain activated Riftwalk, it was right near the Atlas City compound—at the old Void Realm entrance. I think there’s a good chance they entered the Atlas City Void Realm.”

”The entrances are closed,” Henry said immediately.

”You mean…” Garrick’s eyes widened. ”Boss’s Riftwalk can open a Void Realm passage?”

”Yeah,” Miles said. ”It’s very possible. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gone that far just to activate Riftwalk, and he definitely wouldn’t have done it right at the entrance location.”

Everyone slowly nodded. Miles’s logic was hard to argue with.

Big Mike’s eyes lit up despite the situation. ”So… in the future, Boss can take us to go wreak havoc in other Void Realm worlds?”

Garrick looked at him like he’d lost his mind. ”You still have room to think about that right now? Shouldn’t you be worried about Boss’s safety?”

”Uh… yeah, okay, fair,” Big Mike said, then scratched his head. ”But honestly, with Boss’s personality—if he still had the spare brainpower to open Riftwalk, he probably wasn’t in immediate danger.”

”What do you mean ’not in danger’?” Sean’s face was tight. ”That’s a Stage SSS ferocious beast. Boss might’ve been planning to die together with it—open Riftwalk and trap it inside!”

The room went heavy.

Mia’s face turned pale in an instant.

”Probably… not,” Big Mike muttered. ”Boss is way too slippery to pull some noble self-sacrifice stunt like that.”

”…”

Everyone shot him a hard look.

But… annoyingly, it wasn’t completely wrong.

They all knew Ethan. If there was one thing he wasn’t, it was self-sacrificing.

Right then, a voice rang out from outside the door, sharp and familiar.

”Big Mike—are you seriously talking trash about me behind my back?”

The entire room snapped to attention.

They rushed outside—

And saw a dimensional rift hanging in the air, and a familiar figure stepping out of it like he’d just gone on a casual errand instead of walking away from death.

”Ethan!”

”Boss!”

”Captain!”

In an instant, everyone surged toward him, relief and adrenaline hitting so hard it almost made their legs shake.

At that moment, one figure beat everyone else to him.

Mia.

She surged forward and threw herself into Ethan’s arms so hard it almost knocked the wind out of him.

”You scared me to death,” she said, voice shaking, on the edge of a sob.

A Stage SS Titan Bull? She’d believed Ethan could slip away from that.

But a Stage SSS ferocious beast… that was different. That was the kind of name that made your brain go blank.

Ethan patted her shoulder gently. ”I’m fine. See? I’m back.”

”Mm.” Mia nodded, wiping her tears against his clothes—then quickly stepped out of his arms.

Their relationship was basically public knowledge at this point, but in a crowd like this, she still knew when to rein it in.

For once, nobody teased her. No jokes. No whistles.

They had bigger questions.

”Boss—where’s the Stage SSS beast?” Chris asked, eyes sharp.

”In the Atlas City Void Realm,” Ethan said with a grin.

”Holy shit…” A bunch of people stared. ”Boss, you locked it in there!?”

”How did you escape it?”

”I didn’t lock it in,” Ethan said, spreading his hands. ”It chose to stay inside.”

”…Huh?” Big Mike blinked hard. ”So it… imprisoned itself?”

”No idea.” Ethan shrugged again. ”But it’s not what you’re imagining. It didn’t want to kill me. If it did, you wouldn’t be looking at me right now.”

Sean frowned. ”Then why did it come after you? And why go into the Atlas City Void Realm?”

”It recognized Dopey,” Ethan said. ”Seems like they go way back. It made me take it to the place where I found Dopey, so… I took it.”

”Wait. It’s from the same era as Dopey?”

”Yeah.”

”…How old is that thing?”

”No clue.”

Ethan exhaled and lifted a hand, cutting off the flood before it turned into a shouting match.

”Alright, we’ll park that topic for now. That thing can’t get out in the short term. But I have two extremely important things.”

The room snapped into focus.

”Boss, say it,” Garrick said immediately.

Ethan turned to Miles first. ”Miles. Start screening every Enhanced in Fallen Star City right now. I want to know if anyone has a seal-breaking type skill. Anything that can dispel, unlock, unbind—whatever you want to call it.”

Then he added, voice firm, ”And notify every major compound. Tell them to do a full screening too.”

Miles frowned. ”A seal-breaking skill? I’ve never even heard of something like that.”

”Neither had I,” Ethan admitted. ”But skills are weird. There are too many possibilities. With enough people… someone’s gotta have something in that direction.”

Miles nodded once. ”Got it. I’ll arrange it.”

He immediately waved over an aide and started issuing orders on the spot.

Chris watched Ethan closely. ”Boss. Why do you need a skill like that?”

”It’ll matter,” Ethan said, not explaining. ”You’ll find out.”

Then Ethan’s expression turned heavy.

”And the second thing.”

Everyone held their breath.

”The Void Realm passages worldwide,” Ethan said slowly, ”will reopen in at most one month.”

The room detonated.

”What!?”

”One month!?”

Big Mike’s eyes bulged. ”Holy shit… aren’t we screwed then?”

No one laughed. No one rolled their eyes.

They all understood what that meant.

The first wave had only been vanguards.

Next time could be the real invasion.

Garrick’s voice came out tight. ”Boss… with our current strength, can we actually hold back that many Void Realm races?”

Ethan looked at him like he’d asked whether water was dry. Then he sighed.

”What do you think? We’re still nowhere near strong enough.”

Chris’s brow knotted. ”Then what do we do? A month isn’t enough to reach the level needed to fight whole worlds. That’s a fantasy.”

”Yeah.” Ethan’s gaze sharpened. ”So we need another path.”

While he said it, another thought kept grinding in the back of Ethan’s mind—something he hadn’t told them yet.

Back in that Void Realm world, he’d used True Sight on the Dread-Eyed Lion’s crystal core…

And what he saw didn’t match what he ”knew.”

He’d seen crystal cores from Stage D all the way to Stage SS:

below Stage D: red

Stage D: purple

Stage C: blue

Stage B: green

Stage A: teal

Stage S: orange

Stage SS: yellow

So Ethan had always assumed Stage SSS would be black.

He’d even believed the black crystal core he held was Stage SSS.

But the Dread-Eyed Lion’s core wasn’t black.

It was gray.

Which meant the black one in Ethan’s hands…

Might be something else entirely.

Something above Stage SSS.

Stage EX.

Just thinking the words made Ethan’s heart stutter.

If that guess was true, then once he reached peak Tier 47, he could use that black crystal core to break through into Stage EX.

And from everything Nerissa and the Void Realm captives had ever implied, the Void Realms connected to Earth didn’t seem to have anything beyond Stage SSS.

If that held true—even counting the foreign zones Ethan hadn’t personally seen—then a single Stage EX…

Could flatten every Void Realm race connected to Earth.

But there was a catch.

A brutal one.

He’d have to reach peak Tier 47 first.

And that… wasn’t going to be easy.