Chapter 672: Wrong answer

“Zombie King…”

“He’s a freaking Zombie King!”

All four of them realized it at the same time.

And not just any Zombie King—his aura was overwhelming, suffocating. This guy wasn’t low-tier. Not even close.

The woman stood frozen, her face blank with shock.

Her earlier words echoed in her mind—she’d called a Zombie King soft-hearted.

Now she understood. That kind of “kindness”? She couldn’t even begin to handle it.

Behind them, the grotesque tree shuddered.

Sensing the threat, it let out a piercing shriek from deep within its trunk. The ground trembled violently, and suddenly, every tree in the area seemed to come alive.

Trunks twisted, branches writhed, and once again, a storm of limbs surged toward Ethan.

Looking up, the sky vanished behind a wall of dark green. The canopy closed in like a collapsing dome, blotting out the light.

But Ethan’s eyes stayed calm, reflecting the endless dark green chaos around him.

The power of the Domain of the Dead surged outward, forming a protective vacuum around him. The writhing branches couldn’t even get close.

With a flick of his wrist, a black katana appeared in his hand.

Forged by Mia herself from meteorite steel—this was the Fire Stick.

As he channeled energy into it, the blade ignited, heat rippling through the air. Flames burst to life, roaring along the edge.

Ethan stepped forward and swung.

A sweeping arc of fire exploded outward in a fan-shaped wave, like a dragon made of pure flame tearing through the forest.

The wall of branches in front of him split wide open, scorched and burning.

“RAAARGH—!”

The massive tree let out a guttural, agonized scream.

This thing wasn’t just some overgrown plant. It had wiped out an entire zombie nest. It had intelligence. And now, it was feeling pain.

Pain—an advanced trait. In the world of the undead, that meant evolution. High-level threat.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. “Let’s see what you really are.”

He stepped forward—and vanished in a blur.

In the blink of an eye, he was at the tree’s base, katana blazing like a sun.

The power of the Domain of the Dead wrapped around him, thick and oppressive, radiating pure destruction. Nothing could stop him now.

SHHHK—!

The katana sliced clean through the trunk.

A geyser of black, putrid blood sprayed out as the blade sank deep.

The tree’s scream turned into a shrill, earsplitting wail.

Then—CRACK!

The massive trunk split at the base and toppled backward with a thunderous crash. The corpses hanging from its branches rained down like grotesque fruit, thudding against the forest floor.

The stump left behind oozed dark blood, pulsing like it was still alive. The whole thing was straight out of a nightmare.

But the forest had gone still.

It was over.

“Is… is it dead?” one of the mercenaries whispered, eyes wide.

They all stared, stunned. That monstrous tree—something they thought was unstoppable—had been taken down in a single strike.

That’s how powerful he was.

Ethan gave his katana a casual flick. The flames snuffed out instantly. Smooth. Effortless. Cool as hell.

Then he turned to face them.

Four pairs of knees nearly buckled.

They couldn’t breathe. It felt like Death itself was staring them down.

They’d tried to lure in a human to feed to the tree—and instead, they’d brought in something far worse.

No wonder this continent was off-limits to humans.

Every inch of it was a death trap.

“Don’t—don’t kill me! We can bring you fresh meat!” one of the young men stammered, desperation thick in his voice.

It was the same line he’d used on the twisted tree earlier. Now, with death staring him in the face, he tried the same trick again.

Ethan didn’t even blink.

“That’s not gonna work,” he said flatly. “Can you imagine how hopeless the people you lured here must’ve felt?”

Without hesitation, he raised his katana and, in one clean motion, sliced upward—from the man’s chin straight through the top of his skull. The blade gleamed as it carved through bone, and with a flick, Ethan popped the crystal core from the corpse like it was nothing.

Warm blood sprayed across the girl’s face beside him.

She stood frozen, eyes wide, drenched in red. Terror consumed her.

Now she understood what Ethan’s “kindness” really meant.

“Please… don’t kill me!” she begged, her voice cracking, her mind already unraveling.

Ethan glanced at the black katana in his hand, then looked up at the remaining three.

“Do any of you know how to restore a zombie’s human memories?”

“W-what?” one of them stammered, caught off guard.

They all hesitated, then shook their heads.

“In theory, zombies are already dead,” one muttered. “How could they ever get their memories back?”

“I don’t know!”

“It’s impossible! Zombies can’t become human again!”

“…”

“I see.” Ethan nodded slowly.

Wrong answer.

With a flick of his wrist, he cut them down where they stood. No hesitation. No mercy. Their bodies vanished into his spatial storage ring in a blink.

“Looks like the human civilization on this planet—Originis—still isn’t advanced enough to help Mia recover her memories,” Ethan thought to himself.

It was a problem no one had solved, no matter the world.

If such a method existed—one that could restore memory to every zombie—it would flip the entire planet’s power structure. There’d be no difference between humans and the undead anymore.

He shelved the thought for now. There were more pressing matters.

Ethan turned his gaze back to the fallen tree. Corpses were scattered everywhere like rotten fruit, and the forest had gone eerily still.

“Playing dead, huh?”

He scanned the area. The trees were still lush, their roots intertwined beneath the soil.

This entire forest… it was one single organism.

The tree he’d just cut down? That was just a finger.

And if he was right, killing the core of this mutated plant would drop a Coreseed—exactly what he was after.

He’d done this before.

Katana in hand, Ethan walked toward another tree.

The surrounding forest stayed still, pretending to be normal, hoping to fool him.

Shhk!

He drove the blade straight into the trunk.

Sure enough, thick, black blood oozed out like pus.

He channeled energy into the katana. The red crystal core embedded in the hilt pulsed, and the flames reignited—roaring to life.

The fire spread fast, engulfing the tree in seconds.

CRACKLE!

“AAARGH—!”

A shriek tore through the forest as the tree burned. The once-silent woods came alive again, branches shaking violently.

“You bastard! You burned me!”

The ground trembled. Roots burst from the soil like serpents, writhing and slithering in every direction.

Ethan had poked the hornet’s nest—and then set it on fire.

The entire forest erupted in fury. Branches and roots lunged at him from all sides.

But Ethan didn’t flinch.

He unleashed the Domain of the Dead again, the shockwave blasting apart everything that came near. His katana, wreathed in flame, slashed through trunks like paper.

He moved through the forest like a storm, cutting down tree after tree. Each strike sent splinters flying, each flame left a trail of ash.

He was a one-man lumber mill.

And with every tree he felled, more black blood spilled, more screams echoed through the woods.

But then… something changed.

Ethan paused, eyes narrowing.

The roots were moving.

Not just writhing—but shifting. The entire forest was… walking.

The trees were pulling themselves forward, dragging their trunks across the ground. The earth shook beneath them, deep trenches carved into the soil as they moved.

“…It’s running away?”

Ethan blinked.

The forest was trying to escape.

…