Chapter Forty-Two: The King Arrives

This zombie’s physique was simply overwhelming—a humanoid beast! Yet the heavy armored vehicle still managed to slow the tank’s advance a little. But before anyone could sigh in relief, another slender figure appeared behind the tank, a strange, twisted smile on her face, terrifying beyond measure, charging this way at lightning speed.

Little Eight had evolved drastically; she now possessed a condensed crystal core and had awakened the ability called Rapid Shadow Concealment. When her movement speed reached a certain threshold, she would become invisible—a power as bizarre as it was deadly, allowing her to approach targets undetected.

One of the armed men was firing ahead. The female zombie rushed toward him, her speed mounting, when suddenly, in the blink of an eye, she vanished.

“Huh? Where did she go?” The armed man lost sight of his target and stood there, dumbfounded, scanning around in panic for that terrifying silhouette.

But in the very next instant, a ghastly grinning face appeared inches from his own, so close their noses nearly touched.

“What—” The man’s face drained of color. Instinctively, he tried to leap away, but Little Eight’s razor-sharp bone claws, slicing through flesh like tofu, slipped effortlessly into his neck.

With a sudden wrench, her talons tore his head from his shoulders and sent it flying.

“Damn it! It’s here!” cried several other armed men in terror. Among them was an Awakened of the Brain Core stage, who reacted the fastest, wielding an alloy blade and slashing straight at Little Eight.

But her form flickered and vanished again. When she reappeared, she was already behind the Awakened. Her claws plunged into his lower back with a sickening sound and tore out his kidney.

“Aaaagh!” The Awakened howled in agony, convulsing and collapsing to the ground.

“This is horrifying!”

“It’s—it's a Specter Zombie!”

“Run! Just run…” The remaining armed men abandoned all thought of resistance and turned to flee.

“Hehehehe…” Little Eight cackled, chasing after them. Every few steps, one more fell.

Her bone claws dripped with blood, eyes growing ever more frenzied, intoxicated by the thrill of the hunt.

Lu Hao and the other core team members noticed the chaos and realized that even Brain Core Awakened were no match for Little Eight.

“We have to stop her! We can’t let her keep slaughtering our people!”

“I’ll do it!” Xu Jian volunteered, believing that with his lightning powers he could match her speed.

Of the five hundred armed personnel they’d brought, only a little more than a hundred remained; two-thirds had already been killed.

Xu Jian’s body crackled with electricity, violent energy surging around him. He was just about to intercept Little Eight when, all of a sudden, an even greater pressure swept through the air—as if a sea of blood was surging down the distant street.

Everyone’s hearts froze in dread; a primal fear gripped them, as if their souls were shuddering under a genetic suppression.

The true king had arrived.

They turned and saw, standing in the street, a tall, slender young man dressed in a spotless white shirt. His expression was indifferent, his eyes hollow, regarding them with a gaze utterly devoid of emotion—like one would look at the dead.

“What…what is that? Is that a zombie?” a female Awakened asked, uncertainty trembling in her voice.

Lu Hao’s brow furrowed deeper with concern. “Yes, I’ve never seen a zombie like this before. I think…he’s the real Corpse King.”

“He seems really dangerous…” As a psychic-type Awakened, Xiao Wen’s intuition was razor-sharp. The consecutive appearance of these Corpse Kings filled their hearts with growing desperation, as though they were stepping ever closer to the abyss.

Xu Jian felt the same urgency. If they didn’t eliminate some of the Corpse Kings soon, their situation would only grow more perilous. He was growing desperate.

“Then I’ll deal with you first!” Xu Jian abandoned his pursuit of Little Eight and charged at Lin Dong instead.

As a lightning Awakened, his speed was astonishing, his body flickering with arcs of electricity—like living lightning.

Lu Hao did not stop him. In terms of offensive power, Xu Jian was the strongest among them, the “blade’s edge” of the Hunter King squad.

But what happened next left them utterly stunned.

The moment Xu Jian closed in on Lin Dong, his speed abruptly plummeted—he seemed to be wading through a quagmire, his movements growing sluggish and heavy.

“Something’s wrong—Xu Jian’s in danger!” Lu Hao realized instantly, searching for a way to assist him.

But Lin Dong’s Corpse King Domain had already enveloped Xu Jian. As his body stiffened and slowed, Lin Dong walked past him, reaching casually into his skull and extracting a glistening crystal core.

It was like taking an apple from the coffee table as he strolled through his own living room—so easy, so natural.

Xu Jian’s eyes widened, pupils dilating, his face frozen in disbelief and terror. Then his body crumpled softly to the ground behind Lin Dong.

A horde of elite zombies swarmed forward instantly and devoured the corpse.

“My god…” Lu Hao and the others were speechless. They hadn’t even seen how it happened—Xu Jian, their strongest attacker, had been killed in an instant.

This zombie was too terrifying.

“A Specter Zombie!” someone gasped.

“That’s a real Specter Zombie!” Lu Hao’s brow knotted into a deep furrow, his mood sinking to rock bottom.

The rest grew ever more uneasy as the realization set in.

“Senior…are we all going to die here?” the female Awakened asked, her voice trembling on the verge of tears.

Lu Hao replied quickly, “No, if we can figure out his abilities, there might still be a chance to survive. We can’t stay here—we need to hide inside a building!”

“Alright!” The others agreed and hurried toward the buildings flanking the street.

The female Awakened used her metal manipulation to bend the rebar in the walls, tearing open a large hole. The three of them slipped inside, trailed by several Brain Core Awakened and a dozen-odd armed men.

There were still a hundred armed personnel fighting outside; it was too late for them to retreat into the building.

“We can’t worry about them!” Lu Hao said grimly, deciding to leave them out there.

The female Awakened didn’t object. She used her power again to seal the breach in the wall.

Lu Hao, still uneasy, reinforced the walls with his earth abilities, piling up layers of sand and soil to thicken the defenses—ten meters thick by the time he finished.

With doors, windows, and walls all sealed tight, the fortress was utterly impregnable, shutting out the chaos of the battlefield. Silence fell around them.

“Whew—” Everyone exhaled, finally feeling a measure of safety. The armed men in particular felt incredibly lucky; only by sticking close to the Awakened had they made it inside. If they’d been left outside, their fate would have been certain death.

Yet as they enjoyed a fleeting peace, outside had become a slaughterhouse.

The remaining armed personnel fought back, but when they realized the Awakened had disappeared, despair overcame their faces.

“We’ve…we’ve been abandoned!” someone cried.

“What do we do now?” Two men looked around in panic.

The next second, several elite zombies pounced on them, tearing them apart, blood spraying everywhere.

The air was filled with howls, wails, and screams—no escape above or below, only the crushing helplessness of doom.

All they could do was await death, lost and desperate in this brutal apocalypse…

…