Zombie Domination Chapter 194- Ascend

The intercom hissed like a wounded animal, then reports tumbled through, urgent and hard to parse.

"—all remaining monsters acting strangely... the corpses of the bird, the turtle, the lion, the centipede sward by insects!"

A dozen voices followed, breathless, distant. "They’re regrouping. The zombies are more violent. They’re—"

Julian’s knife flashed before he felt the full weight of the warning. He drove his blade into Leo’s side, shallow and focused, ant to pin and punish, not to kill. Leo didn’t scream so much as choke out a laugh, blood bubbling at his lips. "What are you doing, Julian?"

Julian warned him sharply, his voice low but firm. "Don’t do anything reckless."

Leo, still impaled by Julian’s blade, only grinned with a manic gleam in his eyes. "I’m ready to die," he said, his tone wild and unhinged.

For a beat Leo stared at him with eyes that were no longer all human. Then his jaw worked, and sothing grotesque began, his limbs swelled, veins ugly and hard as ropes bulging across skin, muscle fiber knotting into new shapes. The insect-ford carapace around him began to twitch and lt into living chitin, the shard of core in his hand pulsed as if answering him. He laughed again, rising from sowhere hollow and hungry.

"I will kill you all," he snarled, voice split with exultation and pain.

Julian pulled back, reaching for another strike, but Leo’s body ballooned in a horrible, irregular bloom, like a chamber trying to birth a thing that did not belong. The stitches of shadow that held him snapped and strained. Lightning forked from Julian’s fists, he drove it into Leo’s swollen flank. Leo scread, a raw, animal sound, and for a second it looked like the bindings would hold.

Joe slamd into him with molten fists, stamping and bellowing, each blow should have shattered him. But the swelling didn’t stop. Insects, hundreds, maybe thousands riddled the air in a dark, living cloud. They sward the gap between Julian and Leo, nesting into seams of Leo’s ragged coat and the whale-blood on the carcass, their wings a constant, hungry hiss.

Julian hacked through the curtain of chitin and wing, each strike cleaving bodies and scattering hacked insects, but for every few he cut down, more surged. The swarm was a shield and a throng, buying ti, buying the thing in Leo a chance.

Leo wrenched the crimson shard toward his mouth. Julian lunged, knife aid for a killing strike to the heart, he moved with nothing but the intent to end this. But before the blade closed the distance, tens of tiny mandibles, strings of black bodies, and a slick of sothing viscous covered the shard and Leo’s lips. He shoved it past his teeth like a sacrant.

For a heartbeat the world stalled.

Then Leo swallowed.

Power detonated inside him, not just heat but sothing that rewired the air. The aura that bled from his chest was no longer the weak, ragged glow from before, it flared into a hard, devouring light edged with sickly insectile motes. The force pushed outward like the recoil of a cannon.

Julian’s shadow-knife struck, but the blow t resistance like a living shield. A shock of energy slamd into Julian’s chest; the gravity of it threw him backward as if so giant hand had struck him. He skidded across the whale’s slick hide and hit the carcass with a grunt, winded, the knife clattering from his fingers.

Leo rose, not rely a man now but a blistering, writhing mass with a core beating like a bell. He grinned through blood and teeth and sothing dark nesting at the back of his throat. "You should have taken when you could," he rasped. His voice shook the clouds.

Around them the battlefield tilted, insect-swarms reford in concentric rings, zombies surged with renewed, savage purpose, and the red pulse in Leo’s chest hamred like a second sun. Julian spat blood, scrambling to his feet.

The red aura that had erupted from Leo began to twist, folding in on itself like a storm collapsing into its own eye. His breathing turned ragged, desperate, as the raw energy of the core flooded through his veins. Every nerve in his body scread under the pressure. The veins on his neck pulsed violently, light bled from his skin in streaks of burning blue.

Leo staggered, clutching his chest. "Yeahh hahaha... hah.. too much energy..." His voice cracked into a roar that shattered the air.

The world around him convulsed. Blue arcs of power split the air, burning through the rain and blood haze. His muscles tore, then reknit; his skin peeled away like paper, revealing scales underneath, deep ocean-blue, shimring and hard as crystal. Two jagged horns forced their way through his forehead with a crack of bone and thunder. His hair spilled down his back, now glowing faintly with streaks of white like lightning trapped in water.

The transformation ended with an echoing boom, the whale’s corpse beneath him splitting open from the shockwave. When the smoke cleared, Leo stood reborn, a figure both divine and monstrous, light rippling along his scaled skin. His eyes burned gold, not human anymore.

He flexed his fingers, studying the movent, clenching his fists as waves of power rippled outward. "So this... is what it ans," he whispered, voice trembling between awe and madness. "This is what it ans to ascend."

Then, slowly, his lips curled into a grin.

He looked down at the battlefield, at Julian, Joe, and Rafael, still on their knees, struggling to rise after being thrown back by the explosion. His aura pressed down on them like gravity itself, suffocating and heavy. The air trembled.

"I did it," Leo said, his voice echoing unnaturally, layered with sothing ancient. "I’m no longer bound by your rules, your fears, your weakness. I’m no longer human."

He raised his hand, admiring the faint glow of divine energy pulsing beneath his veins.

"I am the god of this broken world."

Julian’s shadow wavered, his jaw tightening as he forced himself up on one knee. Lightning flickered faintly along his arm. Joe was panting beside him, his dragon aura dim, and Rafael’s trembling hands glowed with what little magnet energy he could still gather.

Leo tilted his head, looking at them with detached amusent. "You’re all beneath now. Insects. You were never anything more."

He reached out his hand, and a small insect landed delicately on his palm, its carapace marked with glowing runes. Leo smiled faintly, whispering, "It’s ti to begin."

The insect’s eyes flared crimson. Lucy straightened, her eyes empty for a heartbeat, then filled with reverence. From the tiny insect perched on her shoulder, she heard a voice that resonated inside her skull.

"Begin the plan."

Lucy bowed her head. "As you command, my lord."