Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Ethan Teleported frantically upward and burst from the water just before the massive sharks caught him.

He didn’t slow down. He kept Teleporting higher into the sky.

The sharks launched out of the water after him, but the human quickly shrank to a distant speck. Left with no way to catch him, they finally gave up.

What a shame. Stage SSS humans didn’t come along often, and this one had escaped.

He wouldn’t have been more than a mouthful, but eating a Stage SSS human would still have given them a significant boost.

Unfortunately, he was simply too fast.

The sharks shook their heads and dove back into the ocean.

High above them, Ethan watched the sharks disappear beneath the surface and let out a long breath. His entire body felt drained.

Without Teleportation, he would have had to use Temporal Rewind. Otherwise, there was a real chance he would have died down there.

”The ocean really isn’t a place you can enter casually.”

The thought still left him shaken.

His combat strength had been crippled underwater. His speed alone had dropped by ninety percent. Against sea creatures, he had practically been a lamb waiting for slaughter.

”Wait. This is Earth. Aren’t those things way too strong?”

Ethan had only just realized how absurd the situation was.

Given the sheer number of creatures in the ocean, it made sense that some could devour their way to Stage SS. But he had taken one trip to the ocean floor and encountered four or five Stage SSS Beasts.

That was ridiculous.

He had only reached Stage SSS because he’d traveled to the continent of Eldoria. What had those sea creatures done to reach the same level?

Outland Beasts could gain energy by devouring one another, but the higher their Tier rose, the less benefit they gained from consuming lower-Tier creatures.

Could sheer quantity really make up for the lack of quality?

Even then, there shouldn’t have been so many Stage SSS Beasts.

”Is there some other secret hidden in the ocean?”

Ethan looked down at the endless water, then up at the sky as a thought occurred to him.

Roughly seventy percent of Earth was covered by ocean. Land only accounted for thirty percent.

If so many passages to the Void Realm had appeared on land, how could there be none in the ocean?

Obviously, there had to be passages out there—and far more of them than on land.

So why hadn’t the creatures that emerged in the ocean or the skies above it made their way to land?

The answer was simple.

The sea creatures had eaten them.

Ethan even suspected the Void Realm creatures appearing over the ocean might be stronger than those appearing on land. By devouring those creatures and then one another, the ocean’s inhabitants could have produced so many Stage SSS Beasts.

The ocean was the purest form of survival of the fittest. Once apex predators like sharks gained extraordinary power, their strength would only snowball as they continued feeding.

The thought made Ethan’s scalp prickle.

He no longer dared to linger over the ocean. He activated Riftwalk and left immediately.

He was in terrible condition and needed to return and recover first.

Ethan’s guess was close, but it wasn’t the real reason the ocean had produced so many Stage SSS creatures.

Deep beneath the seafloor lay a passage connected to an ancient battlefield. Many corpses of ancient warriors remained there, untouched by corruption.

Numerous powerful sea creatures had managed to claim a share of those remains. That was what had allowed so many Stage SSS Beasts to emerge within the ocean.

Unfortunately, no one on the surface had any way to discover the secret hidden in the ocean’s depths.

At the shore, Sean and the others stood drenched beside the water, waiting for Ethan.

They had tried entering the ocean to kill a few low-Tier creatures, only to be chased back onto land.

The underwater suppression was too severe. Despite being Stage SS, they had nearly been overwhelmed by a group of Stage S sea creatures. Fortunately, they had stayed close to shore. If they had ventured any farther, they might not have made it back.

”Damn, the ocean’s terrifying. How the hell are we supposed to hunt anything in there?” Big Mike complained.

”It’s definitely much worse than we expected,” someone agreed, still shaken.

”You don’t think the boss is in danger, do you?” Skinny Pete asked nervously.

”Relax. The boss is Stage SSS,” Sean said confidently. ”No matter how quickly those sea creatures have developed, there’s no way any of them have reached Stage SSS. He can handle anything down there.”

The moment he finished speaking, a dimensional rift opened above them.

Ethan stumbled out.

The sight of him shocked everyone.

His body was a mangled, bloody mess, with barely a patch of intact flesh left. He looked like he could collapse at any moment.

”Boss!”

”Captain!”

Mia reached him first and caught him in her arms.

”Captain, what happened? Are you okay?”

The others immediately crowded around, staring at him in alarm.

Emily began restoring his mental energy at once. She could sense that he had almost completely exhausted it.

”Let’s get back first. I’ll explain there.”

Ethan gave them a reassuring look.

With Emily’s help, he soon recovered enough mental energy to activate Riftwalk again.

The exit opened directly above the Commander’s Residence. As soon as they emerged, the others rushed off to find Henry.

Henry was still treating Abyron when they barged in and dragged him away without explanation.

”What are you doing? Can’t you see I’m busy?” Henry protested.

Abyron could only stare after them.

But when Henry saw Ethan’s condition, he jumped. Abyron was immediately forgotten as he rushed over and began treating Ethan.

”Did the passages to the Void Realm open early?” Henry asked, confused.

”No.” Everyone shook their heads.

”Then how did someone as strong as Ethan end up like this?”

”We went to the ocean to collect crystal cores,” one of them explained. ”The boss flew farther out, and this was what he looked like when he came back.”

They still had no idea what had happened, so they all turned toward Ethan.

”A whale ate me,” Ethan said with a bitter smile.

”What!?”

Everyone stared at him.

”You got eaten?”

”Then how did you get out, Boss?”

”I killed the whale and climbed out.”

”Well, sure. It was only a whale. How strong could it possibly be?”

”Tier 44.”

”...!”

”What did you just say?”

”You’re joking, right, Boss? There are Stage SSS creatures in the ocean? And that whale was Tier 44?”

”What else could’ve done this to me? You think a Stage SS Beast could’ve left me in this condition?” Ethan asked helplessly.

”That makes no sense! We nearly died countless times in Eldoria just to reach our current Tiers. How could some whale reach Stage SSS so quickly?”

”How should I know? The only explanation I can think of is that a lot of Void Realm creatures fell into the ocean and got eaten. I took a trip along the ocean floor, and aside from the whale that swallowed me, I saw three sharks and an octopus. Every one of them was Stage SSS.”

”Holy shit. The ocean’s that dangerous?”

”Yeah. So unless you have a good reason, stay out of the water from now on,” Ethan warned them.

”Got it.”

”Can we still hunt crystal cores over the ocean?”

”We can. Once Abyron recovers, the two of us will go. The rest of you can stay here.”

”What about the Beast Sovereign? Aren’t you taking it?”

”No. We’re hunting Beasts for their crystal cores. It’d be better not to bring it along. Besides, those sea creatures might not surface if it’s there, and I sure as hell don’t plan on going underwater after them.”

”Understood.”