Apocalypse: King of Zombies

Ethan flicked his hand, and a crystal core dropped neatly into his palm.

He glanced at the giant bird’s corpse, folded its wings inward, judged the size, then waved again—storing the whole thing into his spatial storage ring.

This bird had looked like it could blot out the sky when it spread its wings, but once folded up it was way smaller than that Stoneplate Behemoth. Barely manageable. Still, it could squeeze into the ring.

After that, Ethan dismissed the Deadlock Dimension.

In the next instant, his body reappeared where he’d originally been.

The moment he was back, he felt it—pure chaos in every direction.

He looked around and immediately understood why. The fighting here had somehow gotten even more brutal than everywhere else.

Didn’t take a genius to guess who was responsible.

Chris and the others.

"Boss, you’re done already?" Big Mike shoved his way over, grinning like an idiot.

"You’re the one who’s fast." Ethan rolled his eyes.

"It was just a Stage SS. How much trouble could it be?"

"No one noticed, right?"

"Nope. It’s a mess out here. Nobody’s got the attention span to watch this spot."

"Good." Ethan nodded, then turned his eyes toward the other Stage SS birds still tearing through the battlefield.

From the moment he entered to the moment he finished and came back out, it hadn’t even been a full minute. The other birds were still in full slaughter mode, completely oblivious to what had just happened here.

Ethan watched for a few seconds, picked another target, and led his people as they slipped through the chaos toward it.

That bird was killing like it had lost its mind. It was farther away from the others, diving into clusters of elites and ripping them apart up close—so locked in it didn’t even bother taking to the sky.

The moment Ethan reached it, he dragged it straight into the Deadlock Dimension.

The various-race powerhouses who’d been getting butchered so badly they could barely fight back just stared, stunned, at the spot where the bird had been.

"What the hell? Where’d it go?"

"No idea..."

"Who cares? It’s gone. We’re not dying anymore!"

It was creepy as hell, but escaping death was enough to make everyone breathe again.

Then, not long after—

The bird suddenly reappeared.

Only this time, it came back as a corpse.

Ethan’s storage ring was already at its limit with one giant bird inside. There was no way it could hold two.

So when he dismissed the Deadlock Dimension, the body just dropped straight out of thin air and slammed down.

The moment the bird appeared again, the survivors who’d just relaxed nearly jumped out of their skin, hearts shooting right back up into their throats.

But when they saw its shattered head, saw it sprawled motionless on the ground...

Their eyes went wide.

"D-Dead...?" Someone’s voice cracked with disbelief.

A few braver ones hurled skills at it to test.

No reaction.

"It’s really... dead!"

A second wave of relief rolled through them—followed immediately by something uglier.

Greed.

They snapped out of it like a switch flipped, and everyone charged straight for the bird’s head.

A Stage SS crystal core was enough to drive every powerhouse present completely insane.

While they were fighting over the "crystal core," Ethan had already taken his group and started moving toward another bird.

But he hadn’t gone far before a Tier 37 giant bird swept in from above. It clearly noticed the commotion and was coming to check things out.

"Heh. Perfect." The corner of Ethan’s mouth lifted.

The instant the bird passed over his head, Ethan yanked it into the Deadlock Dimension.

Around them, the strongest fighters from every major race—and the outlanders too—were all distracted by the Stage SS corpse. They sprinted toward it in a frenzy, so focused they didn’t even realize another Stage SS bird had just vanished from the sky.

A Stage SS going down was a huge deal.

"There’s no crystal core!?"

"Someone already dug it out!"

After forcing their way in, one of the powerhouses finally reached into the wrecked skull—and came back with nothing. His face went dark as he shouted the news.

Others refused to believe it. They shoved their hands in, felt around, and came out just as empty, shaking their heads in frustration.

"Who was it!? Who the hell took the crystal core!?" someone roared.

Only... they’d apparently forgotten what kind of situation they were in.

Because the moment a pack of Outland Beasts saw the Stage SS bird’s corpse, they let out a deafening, earth-rattling roar.

And then, from every direction—

Outland Beasts abandoned their current opponents and surged toward the corpse in a tidal wave.

"!!!"

Faces went pale across the entire area. People tried to run—but there was nowhere to go.

In seconds, they were swallowed by an endless beast horde.

Even Chris and the others were miserable, forced into desperate, near-death dodges as they fought inside the swarm.

Then—

Not long after, another giant bird’s corpse appeared out of nowhere and crashed down onto a cluster of Outland Beasts, crushing several and finally breaking the swarm’s momentum.

The charging beasts slowed, stunned, eyes bulging as they stared at yet another Stage SS bird lying dead on the ground.

The instant Ethan popped back out, a wave of Outland Beasts slammed into him and knocked him flat.

For a split second, he was right there—on the ground, in the middle of a stampede—one breath away from getting trampled into paste.

He didn’t hesitate.

Teleportation.

His figure blinked away, escaping at the last possible moment.

The whole area had turned into a disaster zone. Whether they were elite warriors from the major races or Outland Beasts, everyone was chilled to the bone by the sight of two Stage SS giant birds lying dead on the battlefield.

Stage SS.

What kind of existence could kill two of them back-to-back in such a short time?

And worse—nobody had even seen the attacker move. One moment the birds were alive. The next, they were just... dead.

Right then, the remaining Stage SS birds finally arrived.

They swooped in, took one look at the two bodies on the ground—dead beyond any doubt—and their fury exploded.

And then something hit them.

Besides the two corpses...

They were missing one more.

The flock circled overhead once. Twice.

Still no sign of that bird anywhere.

"SKREEE—!"

The leader—a Tier 38 Goldenwing King—shrieked toward the sky, the sound sharp enough to cut. The rage in it was barely contained.

Then its eyes—cold, razor-bright—began to rake across the warriors below, scanning the crowd of powerhouses from every race.

Seeing that, Ethan made the call immediately and slipped back into the Deadlock Dimension.

In this entire battlefield, he was the only Stage SS on their side. If the Goldenwing King locked onto him, there was no way it wouldn’t raise suspicions.

Chris and the others were only Stage S. There were plenty of fighters at that level here. Nobody would single them out.

Sure, opening the Deadlock Dimension caused a faint distortion in the space where he stood—but the Goldenwing Roc was flying high above. It shouldn’t notice something that subtle.

Especially not when its attention was fixed on sweeping through the crowd, hunting for anything abnormal.

And sure enough...

After several passes, the Goldenwing Roc still hadn’t found anything it considered suspicious. Its expression sank, dark and vicious.

At that point, there was only one explanation.

The enemy had deployed a Stage SSS powerhouse.

Only a Stage SSS could slip past its detection.

And only a Stage SSS could erase multiple Stage SS Outland Beasts so silently—so cleanly—like they’d simply dropped dead for no reason.

The Goldenwing Roc let out another savage cry, practically spitting blood through the sound.

"SKREEE!"

(You dare send a Stage SSS to assassinate my clan’s Stage SS! Prepare to face the Beast Sovereign’s wrath!)

With that, it called the other Stage SS birds to it, and the group shot off into the distance.

If a Stage SSS was truly here, staying would be suicide. The only choice was to rush back to the Central Region and report everything to the Beast Sovereign.

As the Stage SS birds withdrew, the battlefield below froze for a heartbeat—both the various-race powerhouses and the Outland Beasts blinking in stunned confusion.

Then the Outland Beasts started pulling back too.

But the major races weren’t about to let them walk away.

Those beasts had slaughtered far too many. In just a few hours, nearly a dozen races had been wiped out.

Now the enemy’s Stage SS had left.

This was the first real opening they’d had.

And they seized it.

In an instant, the tide turned. The warriors of the major races surged after the retreating Outland Beasts, cutting them down as they ran.