Apocalypse: King of Zombies

When everything returned to normal, the remaining fighters looked at High Elder Aeron’s body with a sense that they might be next.

Even with so many people protecting him, Ethan had still killed him at will. That level of power made their hearts sink.

Their only hope was to exhaust his mental energy. Only then would they have a chance of defeating him.

Using such terrifying abilities repeatedly had to consume an enormous amount of energy. There was no way he could keep it up for long.

And they were right. Ethan’s mental energy was nearly depleted.

Unfortunately, they would never learn that the Deadlock Dimension had another absurd ability: Ethan could drain other people’s mental energy to replenish his own.

Eight walking batteries were waiting nearby.

Chris and the others had stayed well away from the fight, and the Stage SS fighters had paid them no attention. Most of them were only Stage S, far beneath the notice of anyone at Stage SS.

Every enemy present was focused entirely on Ethan. None of them realized that his companions were also his reserves of mental energy.

With a thought, Ethan began rapidly draining Big Mike.

Having experienced this once before, Big Mike didn’t let anything show. He only grumbled inwardly, Why am I always his first battery?

In the blink of an eye, his mental energy was emptied and transferred to Ethan.

Big Mike alone wasn’t enough to refill Ethan completely, but he still restored a substantial amount—enough for Ethan to use Absolute Stasis and Annihilation Strike twice more.

The instant his mental energy recovered, Ethan activated Absolute Stasis again and went straight for the other Tier 40 Outland Beast.

There were no surprises.

The perfect combination of Absolute Stasis and Annihilation Strike crushed its head before it could make a sound. Ethan immediately collected its crystal core in his spatial storage ring.

With the two most dangerous Tier 40 Outland Beasts dead, Ethan finally relaxed a little. The rest of the fight would be much easier.

The surviving fighters, however, felt half their remaining hope die with them.

Those two beasts had been their strongest combatants. Losing both only made their desperate situation worse.

And this was just the beginning.

Ethan had no intention of giving them another chance. He drained Mia’s and Garrick’s mental energy in succession, then repeatedly combined Absolute Stasis with Annihilation Strike to kill the remaining Tier 39 fighters and Outland Beasts.

All that remained were fighters at Tier 39 and below.

Weaklings.

To the current Ethan, anyone weaker than him was a weakling. He didn’t even need Absolute Stasis anymore. A small amount of Annihilation Strike was enough to break through all their defenses and kill them in one blow.

As more and more Stage SS fighters fell, the surviving members of the other races and the Outland Beasts completely panicked.

Wasn’t his mental energy supposed to run dry any moment now?

What the hell was going on?

He had already wiped out every high-tier fighter, yet he still looked full of energy. He didn’t seem even remotely exhausted.

They wanted to flee, but there was nowhere to run inside this separate dimension.

They couldn’t beat him, and they couldn’t escape. The survivors were on the verge of breaking down.

Ethan didn’t care. He charged into their midst and attacked relentlessly. Almost every swing of his poleaxe claimed another Stage SS life.

”Fuck it! If I’m dying anyway, I’m taking someone with me!” a Verdantborn warrior roared before charging toward Chris and the others.

He reached them and was about to wipe out the group of low-tier trash when the space around him seemed to split apart.

His body was cut in half.

”!”

Several other fighters who had been about to follow him stared in shock.

Those humans were strong too?

Still, no matter how strong they were, they had to be easier to deal with than the monster slaughtering everyone behind them.

So even though the first attacker had been cut in half, it didn’t stop the others from targeting Chris’s group.

They all knew they were going to die. The least they could do was take someone with them.

The six surviving fighters from the other races charged Chris and the others together.

The Outland Beasts had no such schemes. They continued attacking Ethan with everything they had. They understood that killing anyone else would only waste their strength. Their only chance of survival was to kill the human in front of them.

As the six fighters approached, Chris, Sean, and Henry—the three Stage SS members of the group—immediately stepped forward to shield the others.

Sean activated Adamantine Form without hesitation.

His body doubled in size and turned completely golden, radiating sheer physical power.

He activated Damage Reversal next. A ring of black currents began circling his body. Then he cast Thornmail on himself, pushing his defenses as high as he could.

Once he was ready, he took a step forward and planted himself in front of everyone else.

Emily quickly cast Warding Armor on him, while Henry added Divine Shield, raising Sean’s defenses to their limit.

Ethan glanced at the six fighters charging toward them.

One was Tier 39, one was Tier 38, two were Tier 37, and the last two were Tier 36.

They were the final six fighters from the other races. Ethan had already killed the rest.

He didn’t intervene. He trusted Chris and the others to handle them.

The six fighters soon reached the group, only for a radiant light to shine over them. Weakness immediately spread through their bodies.

The Deadlock Dimension had already reduced their strength to eighty percent. Under the radiance, they found themselves unable to use even seventy percent of their full power.

Their expressions changed, but one look at the humans ahead restored their confidence. The strongest among them were only three newly advanced Stage SS fighters.

They attacked without hesitation, unleashing ability after ability at Sean, who stood at the front.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The barrage forced Sean back step by step, and blood began trickling from the corner of his mouth.

But he held.

”How is that possible?”

The six Stage SS fighters stared at him.

A weakling who had only just reached Stage SS had blocked the combined attacks of six Stage SS fighters.

That was ridiculous!

Were all humans this monstrous?

Sean grinned. He raised his club and swung it at the Tier 39 Galeborn elder at the front of the group.

Black light erupted from the club and shot toward him.

It contained all the damage Sean had just absorbed, returned in full.

The light gave off no sense of how powerful it was. The Galeborn elder casually cast a shield and paid the attack little attention.

The moment it struck, he regretted it.

Boom!

His shield shattered instantly.

The attack punched straight through his chest and sent him flying hundreds of feet. He slammed into the ground and spat out a mouthful of blood, his face filled with horror.

”How can a casual attack from someone who just reached Stage SS be this powerful?”