Apocalypse: King of Zombies

The Beast Sovereign pursued the Soulkin Patriarch, while the other Stage SSS Outland Beasts hunted down the fleeing Stage SSS fighters from the intelligent races.

The fighters who had invaded the Veilmist Range hurriedly withdrew, but the Outland Beasts had spent days seething with rage. There was no way they would let these enemies escape.

The beasts charged out of the mountains once more.

Hunter and prey switched places again, and the war escalated all over.

This time, however, the intelligent races had suffered catastrophic losses among their strongest fighters. They had no chance of turning the situation around.

Ethan didn’t join the pursuit. The Outland Beasts now held an overwhelming advantage at Stage SSS and no longer needed his help.

Besides, the intelligent races didn’t have crystal cores. Killing them wouldn’t make him any stronger, so there was no reason to waste his time.

Raiding their homes, on the other hand, sounded very appealing.

Most of the Eldoria Continent’s resources were concentrated among the pinnacle races. If those races were about to be wiped out, their treasuries had to contain plenty of good stuff.

So Ethan led a massive army of Outland Beasts straight toward the pinnacle races’ territories.

Their Stage SSS fighters were either dead or on the run, leaving only Stage SS fighters to defend their homes.

For a Stage SSS fighter like Ethan, raiding them was hardly a battle. It was a complete mismatch.

While countless Outland Beasts clashed with the pinnacle races’ defenders, Ethan marched straight into their territories and began looting.

One treasury after another was broken open by force. Anything that caught his eye went straight into his storage ring.

Unfortunately, most of the intelligent races’ possessions were useless to him. The only things worth taking were a few special weapons, energy crystals, and the handful of crystal cores he could find.

He didn’t bother with the weapons. His spatial storage ring didn’t have enough room, so he focused on energy crystals and crystal cores.

Energy crystals could help increase cultivation speed. Ethan already had one the size of a soccer ball, and it could significantly accelerate the rate at which someone raised their tier.

But the Fallen Star Squad had always relied on crystal cores to advance. Compared to that, absorbing mysterious energy felt painfully slow.

Ethan had already reached Stage SSS. Even with the cultivation talent he’d gained from climbing all ninety-nine steps of the Celestial Stairway, plus an energy crystal and a spirit-gathering ritual circle, reaching Tier 42 through ordinary cultivation would still take him several years.

And that was with every possible advantage stacked in his favor.

An ordinary Stage SSS fighter would need decades to advance a single tier.

That was only if they were talented. Someone with poor talent might not make any progress even after centuries.

Compared to absorbing mysterious energy, consuming crystal cores was practically cheating.

But crystal cores weren’t easy to obtain.

On the Eldoria Continent, anyone who wanted them had to enter the mountain ranges and hunt Outland Beasts. The danger was obvious. Most who went in never came back out.

That was one of the reasons this war had escalated so quickly. Many races had secretly pushed the conflict forward because it offered a rare opportunity to collect crystal cores.

Even the resource-rich pinnacle races didn’t possess many. The few Ethan found had probably been saved for their younger generations.

Energy crystals, however, were a different story. The pinnacle races had plenty of those.

Aside from providing mysterious energy for cultivation, energy crystals could power arcane skyships and other devices that required an external energy source. They were effectively hard currency among the races of the Eldoria Continent.

Unfortunately, Ethan’s spatial storage ring was too small.

After looting only one pinnacle race, he had nearly filled it. And that was after limiting himself to energy crystals and crystal cores. If he tried to take anything else, he wouldn’t have room at all.

Left with no choice, Ethan released all the soulless thralls stored inside his ring.

They belonged to the members of the Fallen Star Squad, and most were Tier 35.

These thralls had once been a tremendous help. Back when the squad was liberating the major compounds, they had depended heavily on them.

But now, everyone in the Fallen Star Squad except Miles had reached Stage SS or higher.

Stage S thralls were no longer useful. Keeping them in the storage ring only wasted space.

”What a shame.” Ethan shook his head.

Creating them had taken a great deal of effort. He hadn’t expected them to become obsolete so quickly.

But there was nothing he could do. The Fallen Star Squad had simply advanced too fast.

Thralls couldn’t be transferred to another master, so Ethan could only give them to the Outland Beasts as food.

Fortunately, Dopey was the only thrall he felt any attachment to.

After handing over the rest, Ethan helped the Outland Beasts kill every Stage SS fighter defending the territory. Then he took the Stage SS Outland Beasts with him and headed for the next pinnacle race.

There were too many enemies below Stage SS to eliminate quickly. He left them behind for the rest of the Outland Beasts to deal with.

And so Ethan traveled from one pinnacle race’s territory to another with an army of Stage SS Outland Beasts, looting every treasury he found.

If there were crystal cores, he took the crystal cores.

If there weren’t, he took energy crystals.

And even then, he only chose the best. Large, high-quality crystals went into his storage ring. Anything too small or impure wasn’t worth his time.

He could afford to be picky.

Meanwhile, the surviving Stage SSS fighters from the intelligent races were still fleeing the Outland Beasts. As they ran, reports kept arriving that their homes had been raided.

They were furious, but powerless to do anything.

Returning home under these circumstances would only make things worse.

While the Stage SSS fighters played their deadly game of pursuit, Ethan spent an entire day looting the territories of all twenty-four pinnacle races.

He collected an enormous number of energy crystals, packing his spatial storage ring so tightly that even Dopey no longer had room inside. The thrall had to remain outside and follow Ethan from place to place.

The haul of crystal cores was far less impressive.

All twenty-four pinnacle races combined had fewer than ten thousand. Most were below Stage SS. Only a few dozen were Stage SS, and there wasn’t a single Stage SSS core among them.

Ethan also found several items left behind by the humans of the Eldoria Continent and took all of them. Of particular interest were several ancient manuals. Once they returned, he could have Miles translate them and see whether they contained anything useful.

Even without many crystal cores, Ethan was satisfied with the raid.

The real reward was the pleasure of looting his enemies.

These bastards had been trying to kill him from the moment he arrived. Emptying their treasuries felt incredible.

During that same day, the war between the Stage SSS fighters changed dramatically.

The Beast Sovereign killed the Soulkin Patriarch, while the three Tier 47 Outland Beasts killed one of the other two Tier 47 enemies.

The Celestials Patriarch and the last Tier 47 fighter had disappeared. No one knew where they were hiding, and the entire beast race was searching for them.

The Outland Beasts had also killed many of the remaining Stage SSS fighters. Only a small number escaped and went into hiding.

But the Outland Beasts were everywhere.

As long as those survivors remained somewhere on the Eldoria Continent, they would eventually be found.

This time, the intelligent races were truly finished.