I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl

Earth had seemingly transformed into a giant smelting furnace. Beneath the enormous energy dome created by the Earth’s Avatar, the remnants of the mortal city’s ruins were now submerged in a sea of fire, black blood, and the dust of death. The sky that had once been dense gray now reflected the blazing red glow of flames licking the air, creating a scene no different from the lowest floor of hell.

The battle that had raged for days showed no signs of abating. On the contrary, its intensity only continued to rise. The Earth’s Avatar was clearly not playing around with the agreement. The cosmic entity that guarded this planet had two primary goals: first, to forge Sofia, Celes, and Aurellia until they broke through the limits of their potential; and second, to use the three of them as cleansing tools to sweep away every last wild zombie pest remaining from the Zombie Apocalypse that still polluted the surface of its world. The number they had already killed was no longer countable. Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Those numbers had lost all meaning amid the flood of living corpses that kept surging forward as if they had no end.

Yet in the middle of that despairing ocean of death, a beautiful yet lethal dance of annihilation was being performed.

"Die and become ash, you rotten insects!" Aurellia cried. Her red hair fluttered wildly in the air, glowing like strands of red-hot wire. Her eyes radiated a fierce golden light.

Aurellia raised her magic staff high. A three-layered formation of giant magic circles stacked in the air right above the zombie horde. "Crimson Lotus: Sea of Annihilation!"

Booooooom!

A rain of giant fireballs slammed into the ground like meteors. When the fireballs exploded, thermal shockwaves swept away everything within a radius of hundreds of meters. The air temperature leaped to an extreme point that melted metal in a matter of seconds. Hundreds of low-level zombies (Rank 1 to Rank 3) did not even have time to let out a groan before their bodies evaporated into black ash that was carried away by the wind.

Aurellia’s role in this prolonged battle was absolutely crucial. Both Celes and Sofia possessed large-scale (Area of Effect) magic. However, the elements they commanded Space and Sacred Light were high-level cosmic laws. Using spells such as Celes’s Spatial Collapse or Sofia’s Holy Nova could indeed destroy thousands of zombies at once, but it would completely drain their mana reserves in a short time. Space magic forced the user to bend the physical laws of reality, while Sacred Magic required channeling energy from a higher dimension. Both were extremely inefficient for continuous mass annihilation.

In contrast, the fire element controlled by Aurellia operated under natural thermodynamic laws. Aurellia only needed to expend mana to create a magical spark and determine the direction of its explosion. Once the fire was created, it would continue to live and spread on its own, using oxygen and the rotting flesh of millions of zombies as its fuel. The zombies were essentially walking firewood for Aurellia. Because of this, Aurellia took full control of annihilating hundreds to thousands of lower-level zombies at once, keeping the battlefield under control with absolute mana efficiency.

"Great work, Aurellia! Keep holding the front line, don’t let those fodder troops interrupt our focus!" Celes shouted while floating in the air, her sapphire-blue eyes radiating high-level concentration. Her sword emitted spatial distortions that made the air around it ripple.

Below, Sofia had just landed after destroying the head of a Rank 4 giant mutant with a strike from her light spear. She wiped the sweat from her forehead; her breathing was slightly labored, yet her eyes remained sharp. "If these were the undead troops of Nocture," Sofia thought while severing the neck of a sickle-armed mutant that tried to ambush her, "the three of us would have died on the first day."

Sofia was fully aware of one important fact that had allowed them to survive until this very moment: these zombies were merely wild creatures.

Fortunately, the zombies flooding them right now were nothing more than products of a brainless viral mutation. They fought solely driven by the primal instinct of a virus starving for flesh and life energy. They knew no formations, cared nothing for comrades who fell burning beside them, and possessed zero concept of self-defense. They charged toward the swords simply to try to bite.

Compare that to the elite undead army belonging to Sylvia in the city of Nocture. Sofia recalled Zark, one of Sylvia’s subordinate shadow generals. Zark had only just touched the threshold of Rank 5 a level that, in theory, their current strength could still handle. Yet the threat posed by a single subordinate entity like Zark was far more lethal, more complicated, and more frustrating than a thousand wild Rank 5 zombies in this place.

Zark possessed perfect self-awareness. As a sentient undead, he inherited the tactical intelligence left from his previous life, capable of reading enemy formation weaknesses, preparing magical traps, using illusion and shadow magic, and commanding hundreds of other undead to move like disciplined Spartan soldiers. Defeating an entity that could think, retreat when pressured, and strike blind spots was a hell of its own. Forget facing Sylvia the Queen of Death facing Zark alone required multi-layered strategies. Therefore, the absence of consciousness in their current enemies was an invaluable blessing. They only needed to focus on destructive output and stamina management.

However, the Earth’s Avatar apparently felt that this trial was still too light for the candidates who would inherit its power.

GRUUUAAAARRRRGH!

The ground trembled violently. Massive cracks appeared in the already scorched asphalt roads. From the north, south, and east, pillars of black smoke were suddenly parted by an extremely massive aura pressure. That pressure pressing against their chests made Aurellia’s breath catch for a moment.

"Warning!" The system inside Sofia’s consciousness rang loudly. "[Detected three extreme biological energy anomalies. Threat Category: Rank 6 Zombie Mutants.]"

"Damn it," Celes cursed, tightening her grip on her sword hilt. "The Earth’s Avatar really wants to drain this land of every last monster. He’s calling Rank 6s!"

From behind the flames, three giant silhouettes emerged. The first Rank 6 mutant resembled a ten-meter-tall giant gorilla, its body not covered by skin but by a thickened bone exoskeleton resulting from extreme viral mutation. Every step it took caused the ground to sink. The second mutant was a smaller entity, yet with four arms whose fingers had been replaced by long toxic bone blades; its body was extremely slender, indicating absurd speed. The third mutant was true biological horror, a mass of flesh composed of dozens of zombie corpses fused together into a form resembling a giant centipede with dozens of human faces screaming in agony across its back.

Although they were Rank 6 beings whose physical power could level mountains and destroy small cities single-handedly, the laws of nature still applied: they had no brains. They did not move as a team to ambush the three girls. Instead, the bone-gorilla monster roared in rage and charged blindly, trampling the lower-ranked zombie hordes in front of it, crushing its own underlings simply to reach Sofia’s position.

"I’ll hold the bone giant!" Sofia shouted. The light wings on her back expanded densely, radiating a sacred aura that made the surrounding zombies hiss in pain as if their skin had been doused with acid.

"I’ll take the four-armed speedster!" Celes replied. "Aurellia, burn that disgusting centipede, don’t let it spread miasma poison!"

"With pleasure!" Aurellia grinned.

High-level combat erupted at once. Sofia shot forward and collided with the giant gorilla head-on. The size difference between them was like an ant against an elephant, yet when the giant bone fist clashed with Sofia’s light shield, the resulting shockwave leveled buildings within a one-kilometer radius. BOOM! The ground beneath Sofia’s feet cracked, but she did not shift even an inch.

"Relying purely on brute strength without technique? Don’t make me laugh!" Sofia spun her spear. "Sacred Magic: Spear of the Dawn!" The spear in her hand elongated to dozens of meters, transforming into a solid pillar of light that immediately pierced the gorilla’s chest. The monster howled in pain. Sacred light was the natural enemy of death and decay elements. The points of contact with the spear instantly melted the Rank 6 exoskeleton bones that were supposedly as hard as titanium steel.

On the other side, Celes was performing an elegant dance of death. The four-armed mutant shot forward at hypersonic speed, leaving afterimages in the air. Its bone-blade slashes reduced already-collapsed skyscrapers to dust. Yet no matter how fast a physical entity ran, it would never defeat an entity that could cut the distance itself.

The mutant’s blade slashed toward Celes’s neck, but the silver-haired girl’s form flickered and vanished like a glitch on a monitor.

Spatial Teleportation.

Celes appeared right above the mutant’s head. "This space... is under my authority," Celes whispered coldly. She swung her sword downward. "Dimensional Severance!"

Instead of a physical slash, Celes cut the space in which the mutant’s right and left arms existed. The space shifted, and automatically both of the mutant’s arms that occupied that area were severed perfectly without a single drop of blood initially spilling from the wounds, because the physical laws of that space had been severed. The fastest mutant lost its balance and tumbled. Before the monster could rise, Celes triggered a small-scale Spatial Collapse precisely at the core of its head, crushing its skull into a formless lump of flesh. Celes reached into the remains of the body and pulled out a darkly glowing Rank 6 Zombie Core, immediately absorbing it to replenish her drained mana.

Meanwhile, Aurellia was enjoying her masterpiece. The giant centipede creature tried to spew a sea of corrosive acid poison. Yet Aurellia did not even bother to dodge.

"You want to play with spit? Let me show you what global warming looks like!"

Aurellia chanted her strongest spell. Above the sky, red clouds gathered, creating a miniature sun. The temperature around Aurellia rose so drastically that the air itself became distorted.

"Purgatory’s Descent!"

A pillar of black-red fire descended from the heavens, trapping the centipede monster inside a tornado of flame that spun at insane speed. The corrosive poison the monster spewed immediately evaporated into harmless gas the moment it touched the temperature of the fire tornado. The faces on the centipede’s back screamed in terror as their bodies melted, charred, and slowly turned to ash. The Rank 6 creature thrashed, trying to break through the wall of the fire tornado, but Aurellia clenched her fist, triggering an implosion from within the tornado.

BLAAAAAARRR!

Only a scorched crater and a crystal core radiating dense energy remained.

The three girls landed simultaneously in the middle of the crater that had been created. Their breathing was labored. Their combat clothes were stained with black blood and dust, yet their eyes blazed with unmatched fighting spirit. Defeating three Rank 6 monsters in succession should have been an epic achievement recorded in history, yet for them right now, it was merely routine.

"Three Rank 6 Cores," Sofia said while tossing the crystal she had just obtained toward her companions. "Absorb these. We need massive energy to regenerate and restore our mana circuits."

"Don’t relax yet," Celes tilted her head, staring toward the horizon beyond the protective dome. Her killing aura had not faded. "Our Host seems not yet satisfied. I can sense a giant-scale spatial distortion at the edge of the city. He’s transferring a larger pack toward us."

Aurellia caught the Rank 6 Core, crushed it into pure energy that immediately flowed into her veins. The fatigue in her muscles lessened slightly, replaced by a new explosion of mana demanding to be released. She grinned widely, raising her staff once more while the flames around her burned even more fiercely in response to her emotions.

"Let them come," Aurellia challenged with a provocative laugh that echoed across the entire ruined city. "Whether Rank 6, Rank 7, or millions of lowly pests as long as they have no brains, they are all just fuel for my fire! Come on, let’s sweep this planet clean until not a single wild zombie remains!"