Apocalypse: King of Zombies

After the crystal cores were broken down, Ethan accepted Maxwell’s enthusiastic invitation and headed to a high-end restaurant.

Maxwell had already arranged a full spread—good alcohol, great food—and Chris and the others were there too.

They sat, ate, and talked. Nothing heavy at first. Just normal stuff, the kind of small talk you used to smooth things over and make people feel like they were on the same side.

Once the casual chatter finally tapered off, Maxwell set his glass down and got to the point.

”Ethan—how do you see the situation right now?”

”This is humanity’s breathing room,” Ethan said bluntly. ”So the only thing that matters is buying time and using it to raise strength as fast as possible.”

Maxwell nodded, then asked the question hanging over everyone’s head.

”Do you think those Void Realm passages will open again?”

”They will.”

The answer didn’t come from Ethan.

It came from Skinny Pete—and the certainty in his voice made the room go quiet.

Everyone turned toward him. ”How can you be that sure?”

”I can foresee certain things,” Skinny Pete said, serious. ”And I can also feel it. When the Void Realm passages open next time, Earth is going to fall into total chaos.”

The atmosphere dropped like a stone.

”Skinny Pete,” Ethan said, looking straight at him, ”can you sense how long we’ve got?”

He’d never actually sat down and dug into this with Pete before.

Pete frowned, thinking. ”I can’t pin down a time. But it feels like there’s still a little while.”

Ethan nodded once. ”Alright.”

”If your feeling’s right,” Ethan said slowly, ”then the next time the passages open, it won’t be a small crack. It’ll be a full opening. And when that happens… there’ll probably be an endless flood of Void Realm creatures pouring into Earth. That’s why everything goes to hell.”

Maxwell’s face went tight. ”If it really comes to that… does humanity even have a chance?”

They’d all seen how terrifying Void Realm creatures could be. It was hard to imagine surviving a scenario where countless of them showed up.

Ethan let out a long breath. ”Do what we can. Then we’ll see what fate decides.”

He wasn’t any less worried than Maxwell. But worrying didn’t change reality. Right now, there was only one thing they could do—keep climbing.

”Yeah…” Maxwell rubbed his face and sighed.

Then he looked up again. ”Ethan, what are you planning to do next?”

”I’m going to travel around,” Ethan said. ”Check the strength of different countries, see what they’ve got. And I want to find out whether other nations have high-tier Void Realm creatures.”

He tapped the table lightly. ”If we want to level fast, Void Realm creatures are the quickest shortcut.”

Their growth had proven that already.

”So you’ll be spending most of your time overseas?” Maxwell asked.

”Pretty much.”

Maxwell’s expression stayed serious. ”Then be careful. Especially if you run into Void Realm creatures—don’t do anything reckless.”

”Don’t worry.” Ethan nodded. ”I know where my line is.”

He paused, then casually lifted a hand.

With a flick of his wrist, the tabletop suddenly filled—piled high with gleaming, high-tier crystal cores.

”I told you before,” Ethan said. ”If you guys could push the breakdown tech higher, I’d send you a batch of cores so your strength could jump.”

He nodded at the stack. ”Here. Ten thousand Tier 19 crystal cores. Enough to boost your compound’s power by a few levels.”

”Tier 19…?! That many?!”

Maxwell and the others shot to their feet, staring at the mountain of cores like it might be a hallucination.

They’d always known Ethan was generous.

They hadn’t realized he was this insane.

Tier 19 cores.

Ten thousand—dropped on the table like he was paying for dinner.

”Ethan…” Maxwell swallowed hard, still not quite believing it. ”This… you’re really giving these to us?”

”Yeah.” Ethan’s tone stayed easy. ”If you get stronger, then when the real disaster hits, we face it together.”

Maxwell’s voice turned rough. ”Thank you.”

Charles and the others echoed it immediately—no fake politeness, no politics. Just genuine gratitude.

Ten thousand Tier 19 crystal cores was an absurd amount of wealth for an entire compound.

They all knew exactly what Ethan was doing—he was propping them up.

Sure, some leaders might’ve clung to the old idea that anything powerful should be ”handed over to the nation.” But that mindset had died a long time ago.

The apocalypse had dragged on for too long. At this point, no compound truly represented a country anymore. Every compound was independent. Every compound existed for one reason: surviving the end of the world.

Any compound could be wiped out—including Atlas City, even as the so-called capital of the Atlas Federation.

And if Atlas City fell, that didn’t mean the Atlas Federation was gone. As long as even one compound survived, the Atlas Federation still existed.

Those ten thousand Tier 19 cores could raise Atlas City’s overall strength by several levels, massively boosting their odds of living through what was coming. Of course they were grateful.

If anything, people were starting to realize just how far-sighted Maxwell had been—getting on Ethan’s good side early. Without that, how would Atlas City ever be living this comfortably?

It also made Maxwell’s position inside the Atlas Federation rock-solid.

”Alright,” Ethan said. ”Hurry up and level.”

Once everything that needed saying was said, Ethan took his people and left Atlas City.

He still needed to swing back to Fallen Star City and hand over the crystal cores in his storage ring—plus some of the Infernal corpses.

They didn’t need those cores anymore, but in Miles’s hands? They could rebuild another terrifyingly strong force in no time.

As for the bodies, those were for feeding the mutant beasts inside Fallen Star City.

The Flamebirds didn’t need anyone worrying about them. With how much they’d been fighting and hunting these last few days, they’d probably eaten themselves stupid.

Back in Fallen Star City, Ethan met with Miles, delivered everything, and got a quick update on how things had been going. Then he left again.

He’d also set aside a special batch of cores for Miles—enough to push him straight to peak Tier 22.

Now that the Fallen Star Guard was twenty thousand strong and basically all Tier 22, their Deputy Commander couldn’t afford to lag behind.

After leaving Fallen Star City, Ethan led the Fallen Star Guard toward the next country on his list.

The Seorin Republic.

They’d been arrogant even before the apocalypse. Ethan had never liked them much then, and now he was curious what they looked like when the world was ending.

A massive formation of riders took to the air, each mounted on their own Flamebird, and headed toward Seorin airspace.

After the apocalypse, the Seorin Republic had formed plenty of compounds too.

But as of now, only one remained standing: Seor City.

Its population had dropped to a little over two million. The losses were brutal.

On the bright side—if you could call it that—the Seorin Republic hadn’t had a massive population to begin with. That meant fewer zombies overall. In the early days, when guns and artillery still mattered, they’d wiped out a lot. Over the following year, they’d ground down plenty more.

At this point, the Seorin Republic had only around twenty million zombies left, and they were spread out. That, more than anything, was why Seor City had managed to hold on.

Then Earth’s mysterious energy surged, wiping out the zombies’ remaining intelligence. The hordes stopped coordinating, stopped throwing themselves at compounds in organized assaults.

The Seorin Republic finally got to breathe.

With the pressure off, maybe they could slowly chew through the zombie numbers over time.

But the world never lets you relax for long.

A few days ago, someone spotted a group of strange creatures outside the compound—things they’d never seen before.

They tried to capture them for research…

…but they seriously underestimated what they were dealing with.

Those ugly, green-skinned monsters were ridiculously strong. They killed the people who went after them, then—furious—charged straight into the compound.

And that was when the slaughter began.

It went on for more than an hour.

And just when it looked like Seor City was about to be drowned in blood…

Something changed.