Ethan activated his stealth ability and darted toward the commotion.
It didn't take long before he heard the guttural roars of zombies mingling with the furious shouts of humans. On the street outside the shopping mall, a group of ard fighters was locked in a fierce battle with a horde of zombies. They were wielding all sorts of high-tech weapons, their movents sharp and coordinated.
The fight was intense.
The zombies were ferocious, utterly fearless, and charged at the ard group with reckless abandon. The humans, clad in combat suits, retaliated swiftly. Blades flashed as zombie heads were lopped off, blackened blood spraying everywhere as bodies crumpled to the ground.
The team worked seamlessly, covering each other's backs. Despite the chaos, they hadn't suffered any casualties yet.
"Hah! These low-level zombies can't even scratch our combat suits," one young man said smugly, a cocky grin plastered across his face.
Another fighter, more cautious, warned him, "Don't get cocky. Stay sharp. According to intel, there might be a Zombie King inside the mall."
"Oh, really?" The young man's eyes lit up with excitent. "Well, I'd love to see for myself. If I take down a Zombie King, the higher-ups will reward big ti." He gripped his Tachi sword tighter, his strikes becoming more aggressive as he tried to push his way into the mall.
But the zombies kept pouring out, like ants swarming from a disturbed nest. Their rotting faces, twisted with hunger, made them look even more grotesque. Drawn by the scent of human flesh, they lunged forward like starving wolves.
Still, their strength was limited. One by one, they fell under the humans' relentless assault.
To Ethan, watching from a distance, this skirmish was nothing more than child's play. These zombies were barely evolved, with fewer than ten even qualifying as remotely elite. They were weaker than the scattered groups that lingered on the outskirts of his own territory.
Even Big Ears and his ragtag crew could've wiped the floor with these guys.
The zombies in San Bernardino were pitiful—starved, desperate, and poorly evolved. They were in worse shape than the scrappy gang Little Shadow used to lead back in the day.
The ard fighters continued their slaughter, leaving a trail of mangled corpses and pools of foul-slling blood in their wake. In just a few monts, they had already taken out over a hundred zombies.
The cocky young man, eager to prove himself, had already charged into the mall's main hall.
Ethan stayed back, silently observing.
He didn't intervene. These Neurocore-level humans didn't interest him. Besides, there really was a Zombie King inside the building. If humans were calling it a "Zombie King," it had to have so kind of unique ability, right? He was curious to see what it could do.
More ard fighters stord into the mall's interior. The place was a wreck—shattered glass littered the floor, display counters were toppled over, and zombie corpses were sprawled across the debris, their black blood pooling and dripping down in rivulets.
The number of zombies inside the mall was limited, and their numbers were dwindling fast.
"Stay alert," a captain barked, his voice sharp. "There might be a Zombie King in here. Split into teams and search the place."
"Got it!" the others responded, nodding in unison.
So were motivated by the promise of rewards, while others were driven by personal vendettas. Many had lost family or friends to zombies and carried a deep-seated hatred for them. Stay updated through My Virtual Library Empire
But just as they were about to move out, an eerie atmosphere settled over the entire mall. It was as if so kind of psychic energy had spread, blanketing the area.
"Wait… sothing feels off," one of the fighters muttered, his instincts kicking in.
And then, out of nowhere, the sound of a piano began to echo through the mall. The lody was hauntingly beautiful—soft, flowing, and almost otherworldly. It was the kind of music that could stop you in your tracks, but in the context of a zombie-infested apocalypse, it was downright chilling.
The stark contrast between the serene piano music and the grotesque setting sent shivers down the spines of the ard fighters. Their skin prickled, and a cold sweat broke out across their bodies.
"There's definitely a Zombie King here! It's using so kind of freaky ability. Block your ears, now!" soone shouted.
"On it!" The others scrambled to comply, stuffing their ears as quickly as they could.
Even though they didn't fully understand what was happening, the idea of a zombie playing the piano was enough to make their blood run cold. Whatever was coming, it couldn't be good.
But not everyone was quick enough. About a dozen fighters hesitated for just a mont too long. Suddenly, they froze in place, their bodies stiff as boards.
"Hey! What are you doing? Block your ears!" soone yelled at them, trying to snap them out of it.
But then, the onlookers witnessed sothing horrifying.
The frozen fighters began to move—but not of their own volition. Their bodies jerked and twitched unnaturally, as if they were puppets on strings. Slowly, they started to dance, their movents stiff and chanical, completely out of sync with the haunting lody. It was grotesque, like watching marionettes being forced into a macabre performance.
What made it even worse was the look on their faces. Their eyes were wide with panic, their expressions filled with terror. They were fully aware of what was happening but utterly powerless to stop it.
"Help ! I… I can't control myself!" one of them scread, his voice trembling with desperation.
"What? What are you saying?!" another fighter shouted back, but with his ears blocked, he couldn't hear a word.
The controlled fighters grew more frantic, their voices rising in panic, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. All the others could do was watch, helpless and horrified.
The scene descended into chaos.
"ROAR—"
The guttural roar of zombies shattered the eerie lody, cutting through the tension like a knife.
More zombies surged out from the corridors, but these weren't the shambling, mindless kind. These were different.
Their movents were swift, calculated. So dropped to all fours, sprinting like predators, while others clung to the ceiling, crawling upside down with unnerving agility. These were the elites.
"Damn it!" soone shouted, panic spreading like wildfire.
The humans were already at a disadvantage. With several of their team under the Zombie King's control, they couldn't mount an effective defense.
The elite zombies wasted no ti, pouncing on the immobilized fighters, their jaws tearing into flesh with savage ferocity.
"AHHH—!"
Screams echoed through the mall's main hall, blending with the wet, sickening sound of flesh being ripped apart.
Blood sprayed in arcs, painting the snarling faces of the zombies in crimson. The once-proud fighters were reduced to prey, their bodies crumpling under the relentless assault.
The remaining humans scrambled to regroup, but their movents were clumsy, disorganized. With their ears blocked to avoid the Zombie King's influence, their situational awareness was severely impaired.
And now, faced with these elite zombies, their chances of survival plumted.
One by one, they fell. The elites moved with terrifying precision, dragging their victims to the ground and tearing them apart. The air grew thick with the tallic stench of blood, and the hall began to resemble a slaughterhouse.
The floor was slick with gore, the walls sared with handprints of the fallen.
It didn't take long. Within minutes, the entire squad of humans—once so confident, so well-ard—was annihilated. Their bodies lay scattered across the hall, lifeless and broken, as the zombies feasted on what remained.
From his vantage point, Ethan watched it all unfold, his expression unreadable. After a mont, he let out a low whistle of approval. "Not bad… not bad at all," he murmured to himself.
This Zombie King wasn't just powerful—it was clever. A psychic-type, clearly, using sound as a dium for ntal control. But what impressed Ethan the most was its strategy.
First, it had sent out the low-level zombies to lull the humans into a false sense of security, making them overconfident. Then, once they were drawn into the mall's main hall, it unleashed its elites, perfectly tid to coincide with its psychic manipulation. The result? A complete and total massacre.
"Smart," Ethan muttered, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
This Zombie King wasn't just so mindless brute. Its intelligence had clearly evolved alongside its power. It was cunning, resourceful—a predator in every sense of the word.
Now, Ethan was intrigued. He wanted to see this Zombie King for himself.
Still cloaked in his stealth ability, he moved silently through the chaos, his presence undetectable. He passed through the walls like a ghost, slipping into the heart of the mall's central hall.
The space was vast and open, its design once ant to inspire awe in shoppers.
Now, it was a battlefield. In the center of the hall stood a grand piano, its polished surface sohow untouched by the carnage around it. Sitting at the piano was a figure—a girl, or at least what had once been a girl. Her slender fra was hunched over the keys, her fingers dancing across them with an almost hypnotic grace.
Each note she played was crisp, hauntingly beautiful, the sound filling the blood-soaked hall with an eerie serenity. Her movents were fluid, precise, as if she had been born to play. Despite the grotesque reality of her undead form, there was sothing undeniably captivating about her performance.
A single beam of sunlight filtered through a shattered window, cutting through the gloom like a spotlight. It fell directly on her, illuminating her pale, decayed features. The light gave her an almost ethereal quality, as if she were a tragic figure in so dark, twisted fairy tale.
"Elegant…" Ethan whispered, his eyes narrowing as he observed her. For a mont, he simply stood there, taking it all in. The juxtaposition of beauty and horror, of grace and savagery—it was srizing.
The girl—no, the Zombie King—pressed the final key, letting the last note linger in the air.
The lody faded, leaving behind a heavy silence. She didn't move, her clawed hands resting lightly on the black-and-white keys. Her glowing, feral eyes stared down at them, and for a brief mont, sothing flickered in her gaze.
Was it… lancholy?
Regret?
It was hard to tell, but there was a depth there, a spark of sothing more than just mindless hunger.
Her claws gently brushed over the keys, as if reminiscing about sothing long lost. Then, in a voice that was soft yet chilling, she murmured to herself:
"Hello darkness, my old friend…"
Ethan's smirk widened. "Well, this just got interesting."
...
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