Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Once the swarm finally pulled back, everyone moved fast to clean up the battlefield.

They’d taken losses, sure—but the gains were even bigger. Tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of zombie corpses meant the same number of crystal cores. That wasn’t pocket change. That was a payday.

And with this many people, scavenging went fast. Before long, every last crystal core had been dug out. The convoy tightened up again and kept moving.

The road was rough.

It took another two days to get more than a million people all the way to Silverlake City compound.

Along the way they ran into several more large-scale zombie tides, and they still lost tens of thousands.

There were just too many people. A moving crowd like this was like fresh blood to a vampire—everything nearby got drawn in. Zombies, mutant beasts… it never stopped.

And even with Ethan and the Fallen Star Guard personally escorting them, it was still that bad.

If it had been any normal compound trying to relocate on this scale, getting half the people to the destination would’ve been a miracle.

When the million-plus finally reached the compound, Silverlake—now Fallen Star City—instantly became packed to bursting.

Even as a major compound with a massive footprint, it still couldn’t comfortably hold that many bodies.

Silverlake already had over 2.6 million. Add another 1.3 million, and the total population shot up to 3.8 million.

More people meant more problems.

Resources tightened overnight.

Tempers got shorter.

And since this was four different compounds being shoved together, friction was inevitable. Arguments, fights, petty power plays—stuff that used to be small suddenly had a crowd to echo in.

Even Miles was starting to look like he needed two heads to keep up.

He’d always wanted to build something big in the apocalypse.

He just hadn’t meant this big.

Somehow he’d ended up managing the largest compound in the entire Atlas Federation.

As the problems kept piling on, Miles had one ugly realization: life back in the old Fallen Star City had been comfortable as hell.

Ethan and the others could only give him sympathetic looks.

Not because Ethan couldn’t help—he absolutely could.

But if Ethan started stepping into day-to-day governance now, it would weaken Miles’s authority. That would make long-term control harder, not easier.

So Ethan made his choice: be a pure figurehead Commander.

A name. A shadow overhead. A threat nobody wanted to test.

As long as his strength stayed unquestioned, he didn’t need to micromanage anything.

And it was unquestioned.

The Silverlake locals had seen him take a poleaxe and decapitate a Void Realm powerhouse in a single strike. To them, Ethan was basically a living myth.

Meanwhile, the people from the other compounds had watched the Fallen Star Squad carve through horrors on the road. Their fear and respect ran deep too.

So yeah—after the merger, things were messy.

But they weren’t going to explode into real chaos.

And while the Squad wasn’t getting involved, Vivian, Grace, and the others kept helping Miles. It took some weight off his shoulders… even if it didn’t stop him from looking dead inside.

On the second day after the four-compound merge, Ethan finally got a problem that belonged to him.

A call came in from Nova City compound.

Rowan Pierce.

He was asking for help.

Several red-skinned monsters were moving toward his compound. Less than six miles out.

Over the phone, Rowan sounded like he was one breath away from crying.

Ethan didn’t hesitate.

He gathered everyone and left the new compound immediately, heading for Nova City compound by air.

They weren’t the kind of people who got to stay home.

This trip to Nova City was probably going to take a while—at minimum, they’d have to clear out the red-skinned monsters inside Nova City’s territory before they could leave.

There wasn’t a choice. Across the entire Atlas Federation, only they could handle those things.

The one upside was that Fallen Star City’s internal mess didn’t need them. Whether the Squad was there or not didn’t change much.

Nova City compound…

Rowan was still on the phone, voice tight with panic. ”They’re… they’re still coming this way?”

”Yeah.” The reply was urgent, clipped. ”They’re still closing in. A few more miles and we’ll probably be able to see the compound from where they are.”

Nova City compound had been built far from the landing area where those red-skinned monsters first appeared. And because of Ethan’s presence earlier, the monsters hadn’t dared wander too freely—so up until now, none of them had actually discovered the compound.

But Ethan and his people had been gone for several days.

The pressure disappeared.

So the red-skinned monsters started creeping out again, hunting.

This morning, the scouts spotted a handful of them walking in Nova City’s direction. Close enough that the soldiers nearly pissed themselves. They’d reported it to Rowan immediately.

Rowan, hearing that, had called Ethan for help without wasting even a minute.

The problem was… even if Ethan could fly, six hundred-plus miles still took time.

Hearing the report on the other end of the line, Rowan’s chest tightened with panic.

At this pace, the red-skinned monsters would spot the compound before the Fallen Star Squad arrived. And if that happened, Nova City was done.

Five didn’t sound like a lot—until you’d seen what they could do.

Their flames covered a huge area, and the damage was monstrous. If those things charged into the compound and started spraying fire while running through the streets…

It wouldn’t be a battle. It would be a massacre.

Rowan’s voice dropped, steady and grim. ”Then we have to lure them away.”

He was the decisive type. He did the math in his head—distance, speed, response time—and immediately understood one thing:

They couldn’t wait.

”Send a few teams,” Rowan ordered at once. ”Loop around behind them and draw them away from the compound.”

”Yes, sir!”

The people below hurried off to make arrangements.

Everyone understood what this really meant.

It was another suicide assignment.

But there wasn’t a cleaner option. In this kind of situation, you saved the majority by sacrificing a minority.

In the apocalypse, ”selfless” was rare—rarer than ammo, rarer than medicine.

Among civilians, anyway.

In the military, it still existed.

Soon, several squads were sprinting toward the red-skinned monsters.

They were going to use their lives to pull the monsters in the opposite direction.

The problem was, their speed couldn’t compare.

The moment they showed themselves, the monsters would catch them almost instantly—tear them apart, then swallow what was left.

It was horrifying to watch even from a distance.

But the soldiers didn’t hesitate.

One after another, they stepped into the monsters’ line of sight, shouting, firing, waving—anything to grab attention—nudging them farther and farther away, mile by mile, paid for in blood.

Finally, after more than a dozen soldiers died, the red-skinned monsters had been dragged about seven miles farther from the compound.

For a second, it looked like it might work.

Then the monsters paused—heads tilting, bodies still—like something in them had clicked.

After a brief moment of ”thinking,” they simply ignored the baiting soldiers and turned back the way they’d come.

The soldiers who were still alive felt their stomachs drop.

A few of them rushed out again, yelling even louder, trying to provoke them back.

It didn’t help.

The red-skinned monsters weren’t stupid. They’d figured it out: if these humans were trying this hard to pull them away, then the other direction probably had something worth finding.

The harder the soldiers tried, the more certain the monsters seemed.

They actually sped up.

In the distance, the recon team watching all of it went grim. They reported up immediately.

Rowan listened, face tightening. Then he made the call.

”Highest alert. Now.” His voice cut like a knife. ”Roll out all heavy weapons. Get every high-tier Enhanced to assemble. Prepare for combat.”

”Yes!”

Within minutes, alarms wailed across Nova City compound. The entire place snapped into motion—checkpoints locking down, units moving, weapons being dragged into position.

Five red-skinned monsters might not mean much to Ethan and his people.

To everyone else?

It was a doomsday scenario.

Even for a major compound like Nova City.

The red-skinned monsters returned to where they’d been, pushed forward another few miles…

…and then, over the terrain ahead, a massive compound came into view.

The moment they saw it, all five of them seemed to brighten—eyes sharpening, posture changing.

Like they’d just found dinner.