I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl

Behind the expanse of eternal thunderclouds that blanketed the western waters of the Outer Ocean, far above the mortal dimension that physical storms could touch, lay a hidden spatial fissure. Inside that dimensional pocket space stood a giant marble temple whose pillars had cracked with age and miasma erosion.

Upon a throne made of sacred coral and the bones of an ancient Kraken sat an entity whose aura had once forced every ocean on Earth to kneel. He was Poseidon. Yet his current appearance was far from majestic. His blue eyes, which once radiated absolute authority, were now filled with endless shadows of fear and paranoia. His breathing was ragged, creating ripples of waves in the air around him.

Poseidon was not staring at the black iron fleet of Nocture that had just pierced the Death Storm Wall. The god’s gaze was fixed far beyond the continents, piercing through layers of reality, toward an existence whose name he did not even dare speak aloud.

Goddess Persephone.

Since the apocalyptic fusion occurred and the world merged with various dimensions and new cosmic laws, the hierarchy of divinity had been shattered. Poseidon, once one of the Big Three of the Greek Pantheon, found his authority drastically weakened. Yet what most pushed his sanity to the brink of collapse was the awakening of Persephone. That mother-in-law of death was no longer merely the Queen of the Underworld or the Goddess of Spring. Persephone’s power had evolved beyond the limits of mythology, reaching the stage of a Primordial God, a true existence capable of erasing an entire Pantheon with a single wave of her hand.

"Monster... that woman is a monster who transcends the laws of creation," Poseidon muttered, his hands gripping the arms of his throne until the sacred coral cracked.

Poseidon knew full well that Persephone had an adopted daughter she cherished deeply, an anomaly who now called herself the Queen of Death, and that anomaly had just forced her way into his territorial waters.

Poseidon’s instincts screamed at him to run, to hide in the deepest trenches so as not to draw Persephone’s wrath. Yet the remnants of divine arrogance in his blood refused to stay silent. If he could not touch Persephone, then he would destroy her adopted daughter. He would sink that arrogant fleet and erase the Queen of Death’s soul from the cycle of reincarnation. Poseidon assumed that even though Persephone was a Primordial entity, her adopted daughter was merely a mortal being or at most a Demigod who happened to possess large iron toys.

The Sea God closed his eyes and channeled his divine will down into the ocean depths, directly into the mind of the three-eyed Sea King who had swallowed a portion of his authority’s spark.

"Sink them," Poseidon’s voice echoed inside the Sea King’s head. "Mobilize the entire deep-sea army. Do not allow a single scrap of steel from their ships to float. Erase that black-haired girl tear her soul apart in the name of the Ocean!"

The Sea King, sitting upon his chariot, smiled savagely upon receiving that absolute command. He raised his Trident and sent sonar waves that summoned hundreds of thousands of sea mutants to gather, preparing to welcome the Nocture fleet with a storm of fangs and blood.

Poseidon smiled cynically upon his throne. He felt he had made a clever move. Yet he never realized one fatal truth: he had absolutely no idea how terrifying the power hidden within Sylvia’s slender body truly was.

Meanwhile, at a coordinate far to the north, in depths so extreme that even light died under absolute pressure.

Jormungandr, the World Serpent, had just raised its continent-sized head. It had sensed the cold anomaly from Sylvia’s fleet and intended to move south. Yet before it could swing its massive body, the water around it suddenly turned dense green. The temperature dropped drastically not bringing ice, but a poison so concentrated it could melt the concept of time in that region.

An equally massive shadow shot out of the trench’s darkness and slammed into Jormungandr’s neck with force that triggered a magnitude-10 underwater earthquake.

BOOOOOOM!

Volcanic mud at the bottom of the trench exploded upward. Jormungandr released a roar of pain and rage as giant fangs pierced through scales as hard as fallen stars.

The entity attacking it was not a sea god, but a manifestation of pure sin. It was Envy, one of the Seven Deadly Sins that had taken form as a giant Leviathan Sea Serpent. Envy’s body was covered in rotting emerald-green scales, radiating an aura of boundless hatred and jealousy.

For thousands of years, Envy had hated Jormungandr’s existence. It envied the title of "World Serpent" borne by that Nordic mythological creature. Why was Jormungandr the one worshipped and feared? Why was it not itself that became the symbol of oceanic apocalypse? That hatred had rotted Envy’s reason, transforming it into an absolute predator with only one goal: to devour Jormungandr and seize that title.

"Die... hand over your title to me!" Envy’s telepathic voice echoed, filled with boiling hatred.

Jormungandr, whose rage had now peaked from the ambush, retaliated with a death coil. Its miles-long body wrapped around Envy. CRACK! The sound of giant bones grinding against each other created sonic shockwaves.

The battle between the two colossal serpents completely ended the existence of the surrounding ecosystem. Every time they collided, underwater volcanoes erupted, spewing magma into the ocean that was immediately frozen by Envy’s poison. Toxic miasma and absolute ice magic collided, creating a vortex of chaos that would kill any Rank 6 monster daring to approach within a hundred-kilometer radius.

Yet despite how apocalyptic this battle was, its impact did not reach the waters where the Nocture fleet was located at all. The depth of the trench was too extreme, and the distance far too great. To Sylvia and her forces on the surface, the clash of the two giant serpents was merely a faint vibration that felt like an ordinary earthquake already daily fare in this post-apocalyptic world.

Back on the surface of the Outer Ocean.

The calm after piercing the Death Storm Wall lasted only a few minutes. On the main bridge of the Abyssal Sovereign, the magical radar began screaming with repeated high-pitched tones. The red dots on the holographic screen rapidly enlarged, forming a giant encirclement formation from the water depths toward the surface.

"Your Majesty! Enemy contact from twelve o’clock, three o’clock, and nine o’clock!" shouted one of the zombie navigators, his hands moving quickly over the rune panels. "Mana fluctuations detected above average! Thousands of mutated Dragon Sharks, dozens of giant Scylla, and... one entity with Pseudo-Demigod energy levels appearing at the front line!"

The sea surface in front of the fleet boiled. From within giant water vortices emerged the Sea King’s army. Thousands of thirty-meter sharks with armored scales and dragon wings on their backs leaped out of the water. Behind them, giant tentacled Scylla howled, swinging coral pillars as weapons.

And at the center of that army, the three-eyed Sea King stood upon a war chariot drawn by four giant Sea Horses that radiated blue lightning. The King stared at the Black Star Steel fleet with a look of contempt.

"Mortal creatures who dare challenge the authority of the ocean!" the Sea King’s voice thundered, amplified by water magic so it reached every corner of the Nocture fleet. "In the name of Poseidon, the Great Sea God, surrender your lives and let these scrap-iron vessels sink to the bottom..."

Inside the command room of the Abyssal Sovereign, Sylvia did not even bother listening to the arrogant speech until the end.

The Queen of Death stood casually leaning against the main helm console. She tapped her slender index finger against the glass surface, her heterochromia eyes scanning the ranks of sea monsters not searching for threats, but assessing the quality of their meat.

Looking at the army of sea monsters surrounding her, Sylvia felt no threat whatsoever. Her thoughts instead drifted to dinner dishes. She imagined how delicious it would be if among that army there were giant crabs. Yes, steamed crabs served perfectly with shells easy to peel, paired with fresh oysters and the finest cuts of monkfish, slowly simmered in a clear, savory broth. She let out a long sigh; her throat suddenly felt dry, craving a glass of cold, refreshing Radler-scented mocktail of course, a special pure recipe without a single drop of alcohol, exactly to her taste.

"They’re so noisy," Sylvia complained softly, her face radiating absolute boredom. "Stacia, does the radar detect any signs of rock crab or giant monkfish habitats around this pile of trash?"

Stacia, holding her magical tablet, pushed up her glasses and answered in a professional tone. "No crabs within visual range, Your Majesty. Most are mutated Dragon Shark species and high-level tentacle creatures. Their meat is probably too fishy to be used for clear broth."

"What a pity," Sylvia clicked her tongue, clear disappointment on her face. "If there are no ingredients that match my taste, then their existence in front of me is merely visual pollution."

Sylvia straightened her body; her aura changed in a fraction of a second. The boredom that had covered her vanished, replaced by a killing intent so absolute that the reinforced glass in the command room creaked slightly.

"Stacia, Celes," Sylvia called in a tone as cold as the polar ice.

Both of her commanders immediately stood at attention, placing their right hands over their chests in salute. "Ready to receive orders, Your Majesty the Queen."

"Activate all artillery Mana Cannons on the five Main Dreadnought Ships. No one holds back. Erase their front ranks," Sylvia ordered, her eyes glowing blood-red. "After that, Celes, lead the Elite Skeleton Knight troops. Slaughter the rest. I do not want to see a single one of them alive for more than ten minutes from now."

"As you will!"

Within only seconds after the order was given, the hydraulic roofs of the five Eclipse-Class Dreadnoughts opened simultaneously. Hundreds of giant Mana Cannon barrels began to rise, aiming their muzzles precisely at the Sea King’s army. The mana crystal reactors in the engine rooms roared, sucking in massive amounts of energy and compressing it into the cannons’ firing chambers.

Outside, the Sea King, seeing those weapons begin to glow blue-white, snorted cynically. "Ancient artillery weapons? Do you think those light toys can pierce the protective blessing of Poseidon?!"

The Sea King slammed his Trident, creating a water wall tens of meters thick powered by absolute divinity. That water wall formed a defensive fortress stretching to cover his entire army, believed to be immune to every form of mortal magic.

Yet Nocture’s Mana Cannons were not mortal magic. They were pure compression of monster cores channeled through Dwarf metallurgical runes.

"Fire," Sylvia said softly from inside the bridge.

WUSSSHHHH!! BOOOOM! BOOOOM! BOOOOM!

Hundreds of absolute laser energy pillars ten meters in diameter split the air simultaneously. The dark twilight sky of the Outer Ocean instantly blazed as bright as if illuminated by hundreds of artificial suns.

The first wave of shots struck the Sea King’s water wall. There was absolutely no meaningful resistance. The water wall he had been so proud of evaporated within milliseconds, producing an explosion of superheated steam that actually boiled the thousands of Dragon Sharks positioned right behind it.

The mana cannon beams continued shooting without pause, piercing the bodies of the giant Scylla as if they were made of wet paper. The sea monsters that had been roaring fiercely were now shattered into pieces. Red, green, and black blood colored the ocean, mixing with charred flesh floating to the surface.

The Sea King’s eyes widened in horror. His war chariot nearly overturned from the shockwaves of the Mana Cannon explosions around him. Three of his four giant Sea Horses had evaporated without a trace after being grazed by the pure energy beams.

"I-Impossible... What kind of power is this?!" the Sea King screamed, panic now replacing his arrogance.

Before he could recover, the sound of wingbeats was heard from the sky above. Sofia, the eight-winged angel, floated in the air with a sword of sacred light in her hand. Beside her, Celes and Aurellia led thousands of Elite Skeleton Knights and high-class Zombies leaping from the ship decks straight toward the remaining confused enemy forces.

The one-sided slaughter began.

Yet Sylvia did not intend merely to watch from inside the room. There was one thing that had greatly irritated her from the beginning: the name Poseidon.

If that mortal sea god dared to speak the name of her cosmic mother-in-law and provoke without reason, then Sylvia would deliver a reply message that this dimension would never forget.

With a single light step, Sylvia’s body flickered and pierced through space, appearing floating in the air ten meters in front of the trembling Sea King.

Seeing the figure of the black-gowned girl radiating a dense aura of death, the Sea King swung his Trident in desperation, calling down a blue lightning strike toward Sylvia’s chest.

Sylvia did not dodge. She did not even blink. The moment the divinely powered lightning touched a distance of one centimeter from her skin, the energy shattered into particles of light without a sound, swallowed by the absolute law of Death that protected the Demigod’s body.

"Poseidon ordered you to come, didn’t he?" Sylvia’s voice sounded extremely soft, yet every syllable carried a pressure that forced the Sea King to kneel upon his ruined chariot.

"You... what kind of monster are you..." the Sea King whimpered, feeling his soul as if being squeezed by an invisible hand.

"Tell your cowardly master this," Sylvia slowly raised one hand, her eyes radiating the absolute darkness of the Abyss itself. "If he is too afraid of my mother, he should not have awakened her daughter. Hide deeper, because before long his throne will become an exhibit in my castle museum."

With a flick of her fingers, Demigod-level death fluctuations exploded. The three-eyed Sea King did not shatter; his body instantly turned into a statue of gray dust within seconds, and with a single gust of sea wind the statue crumbled, blown away by the waves, permanently erasing his existence from the laws of cause and effect.

Sylvia turned her back on the ocean now filled with the remnants of her army’s slaughter, her thoughts returning to something far more important.

"Stacia! Order the hunter ships to spread out!" Sylvia shouted from above the sky. "This ocean is far too vast not to have a single giant monkfish. I will not go home until my seafood broth is served on the dinner table tonight!"