Apocalypse: King of Zombies

”Patriarch, what’s going on here?” one of the clansmen asked anxiously.

Ryuji shook his head. After months on the run, even he hadn’t encountered anything like this before. Over a hundred clansmen had vanished into thin air, leaving no trace behind—like they’d never existed at all.

A chilling sense of unease crept into his heart.

He turned to look around.

Now, only a few dozen clansmen remained.

”Quick! Go check with Genesis Biotech!” he ordered.

”On it!” someone responded immediately, nodding and preparing to head off.

But just as the man was about to leave, the camp’s alarm blared to life. Red warning lights began flashing wildly, and chaos erupted on Genesis Biotech’s side as panicked shouts filled the air.

A squad of Awakeners, clad in sleek nano-combat suits, came rushing over.

”Patriarch, people from our camp have gone missing. Did you see anything?” one of them asked urgently.

”This...” Ryuji froze in place, his face blank with shock. He was about to ask them the same thing.

”No idea. Our clansmen are missing too!” he replied.

”What?” The Awakeners looked stunned. ”How many of your people are gone?”

”Over a hundred,” Ryuji said grimly.

The Awakener squad exchanged surprised glances. ”Oh... we’re missing four.”

”...” Ryuji’s face darkened. He was speechless. Compared to his losses, theirs barely counted as a scratch.

They were all in the same camp.

Why was the difference so massive?

Ryuji pressed them urgently, ”Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

”Probably a Zombie King invasion,” one of the Awakeners said matter-of-factly.

Ryuji’s frown deepened. He couldn’t wrap his head around it. What kind of Zombie King had such bizarre powers, capable of making hundreds of people vanish without a trace?

They needed to act fast.

”Move! We have to find our people, now!”

”Yes, sir!” the surrounding clansmen responded, nodding in unison.

Everyone sprang into action. The entire camp descended into chaos. The blaring alarms were deafening, red warning lights flashed incessantly, aircraft zipped through the air, and people scurried below like ants in a disturbed nest.

They practically turned the camp upside down, but there wasn’t a single clue about the missing people.

Meanwhile, Ethan had made his way to a building at the far end of the camp.

It was a warehouse.

This was where the camp stored its survival supplies.

Inside were essentials like food and purified water for humans. There were even greenhouses for growing vegetables.

Ethan entered the first warehouse and found rows of barrels filled with filtered water.

These humans had gotten smarter. They’d learned from the last incident at the safe zone lab. To avoid poisoning, they no longer used a centralized water system. Instead, they stored water in individual barrels, which was relatively safer.

There was even a dedicated Awakener team assigned to guard the supplies.

But with the chaos outside, the guards had all rushed off to regroup, leaving the place mostly unattended.

Water wasn’t of much use to Ethan.

Even storing it in his spatial ring felt like a waste of space.

So he didn’t bother with it.

He moved on, heading toward the vegetable greenhouses. Of course, these weren’t your typical greenhouses. There was no soil inside. Everything was grown using nutrient solutions.

This method not only saved space but also sped up crop growth.

Inside, they were cultivating lettuce, cilantro, spinach, green onions, and more...

Ethan wasn’t exactly a vegetarian, so he had no interest in the vegetables. He kept moving and arrived at the second warehouse. Inside, he found a stash of human food—canned fish, canned beef, and compressed biscuits, all with a shelf life of five years and still perfectly good.

”Not bad...” Ethan muttered, waving his hand to store the supplies in his spatial ring. While he didn’t particularly enjoy eating this stuff, it could be useful for trading with others.

You can never have too many resources, after all.

He moved on to the third warehouse, and this one actually surprised him.

Before he even got close, he heard the distinct clucking of chickens.

It turned out this warehouse was being used as a chicken farm.

The chickens were crammed into tiny cages, unable to move around, all for the sake of fattening them up as quickly as possible. Their feed was laced with drugs and growth hormones, allowing them to reach full size in just a couple of weeks.

”All about tech and cutting corners...” Ethan muttered with a smirk. He decided to take the chickens back with him—his underlings would probably enjoy the treat.

With a swift slash of his tachi, he dispatched the chickens and stored them all in his spatial ring. The entire chicken coop collapsed in the process.

...

Meanwhile, outside, people were still running around like headless chickens, searching everywhere but finding nothing. The whole situation felt bizarre.

How could people just vanish into thin air like that?

It was even more terrifying than the abilities of the Nightmare Zombie King.

The folks from Genesis Biotech were on edge, though their concern was more about the possibility of Phantom Infected. Losing four people wasn’t a big deal to them, but the uncertainty of the situation left them uneasy.

Ryuji and his group, on the other hand, were genuinely panicking. Losing over a hundred clansmen was practically a death sentence for their entire tribe.

But no matter how hard they searched, they couldn’t find a single clue. They were like ants on a hot pan, running in circles with no idea what to do.

”Patriarch, we really can’t find them!” one of the clansmen said anxiously.

Ryuji scanned the area and noticed that the Genesis Biotech people were all busy and gathered together. He lowered his voice and said, ”Let’s stop looking for now...”

”Huh?” The clansmen exchanged confused glances.

Ryuji leaned in and whispered, ”The Genesis Biotech folks are all distracted and grouped up. Their supply warehouses are just in the back. I say we take advantage of the chaos and grab some supplies. If anyone asks, we’ll just say the Zombie King took them. No one will trace it back to us.”

”Hey, that’s a great idea!” someone exclaimed, their eyes lighting up.

They’d been eyeing Genesis Biotech’s supplies for a while now. Since they couldn’t find their missing people, they might as well make up for the loss in another way.

Besides, Genesis Biotech would keep searching for the missing people. In the meantime, they could help themselves to some resources.

It was just another survival instinct in the harsh reality of the apocalypse.

”Kaito, take a few people and handle it. I’ll keep an eye on Genesis Biotech from the outside. Be careful—just don’t get caught in the act, and we’ll be fine,” Ryuji instructed.

A young man stepped forward from the group. ”Got it. No problem.”

He waved to a few others, picking out a small team. Under the cover of darkness, they slipped away, moving stealthily toward the warehouses at the back of the camp while Genesis Biotech remained distracted.

Ryuji, meanwhile, led the rest of the group toward the Genesis Biotech camp to blend in with their people.

...

By this time, Ethan had just finished collecting supplies and was about to leave when he sensed human presences rapidly approaching.

He immediately activated his stealth ability, vanishing into the shadows.

Moments later, he saw a group of about a dozen people dressed in black. They moved with cat-like silence, their steps light and deliberate as they sneaked into the warehouse area.

Ethan watched their suspicious behavior with interest, curious to see what they were up to.

The group whispered among themselves as they reached the first warehouse. When they saw the barrels of clean, filtered water, their eyes practically glowed. It had probably been ages since they’d seen water this pure. They quickly opened a few barrels and started guzzling it down, gulping noisily.

When they stumbled upon the vegetable greenhouse, they were even more ecstatic.

They rushed inside, grabbing lettuce, green onions, and garlic, stuffing them into their mouths like they hadn’t eaten in days.

Ethan observed silently from the shadows.

He couldn’t help but find it amusing. These ”ingredients” were seasoning themselves for him.

How considerate...