Chapter 708: Vengeance

The outer edges of the Inner City had descended into total chaos—a full-blown riot had erupted.

But it didn’t take long before the sky filled with aircraft, swarming like a meteor shower. One after another, they landed, unloading waves of Awakeners and City Guards.

Originally, they’d all been mobilized to deal with Ethan. But now, they had no choice but to focus on quelling the uprising.

Among them, a middle-aged man stepped off one of the aircraft. The moment he took in the scene before him, his face twisted with fury.

A powerful aura radiated from him, so intense it made people instinctively back away. No one dared get close.

Clearly, this man was also an SSS-ranked Awakener. His name was Tharen Virell—one of the top powerholders from a major Inner City family. His clan specialized in off-world operations, plundering resources from other planets. He was distantly related to LORN by blood.

The Virell family was stacked with elite fighters and sat on a mountain of resources. In short, they were filthy rich.

“Howard, what the hell happened here?” Tharen barked.

“It was that Zombie King… He blew open the Skywall. That triggered the riot in the Outer Zone,” Howard replied grimly.

Tharen turned his gaze toward the distance. The once-imposing Skywall was now nothing but rubble. His eye twitched uncontrollably.

“And where is this Zombie King now?”

“No idea. He probably escaped…”

“Escaped? Then why the hell aren’t you chasing him?!” Tharen snapped, his voice sharp with urgency.

“We can’t,” Howard said firmly, shaking his head. “Serah’s seriously injured. Old Luo and I are both drained. If we push any further… something worse could happen.”

Tharen’s face darkened, veins bulging on his forehead. Now he was starting to get the full picture…

The three of them had gone after the Zombie King, and what did they have to show for it? One of them nearly dead, the Skywall in ruins, and the target still at large. It was a complete disaster.

“This kind of catastrophe in the Inner City… Your Hawke family really dropped the ball on security!”

“This all happened so fast. No one saw it coming. And… that Zombie King is seriously powerful,” Howard said, trying to defend himself.

“Hmph.” Tharen scoffed, clearly unimpressed. “That’s only because I wasn’t here. If I had been, that bastard wouldn’t have gotten away.”

“Maybe,” Howard said with a shrug. He didn’t argue. With Tharen in the mix, that would’ve made four SSS-ranked Awakeners. They might’ve actually had a shot at stopping Ethan.

Suddenly, Tharen’s expression shifted. “Wait—where’s my son?”

“They… they should be in the lab,” Howard said, his tone heavy with concern.

No one knew what had happened to Trent and the others.

And the lab… who knew what condition it was in now?

“Let’s go. We need to check it out.” Without wasting another second, Howard and several other family leaders gathered their elite fighters and rushed toward the lab.

The streets along the way were a nightmare.

Bodies were everywhere—some zombies, some City Guards. All of them victims of Ethan’s rampage.

Teams in hazmat suits were already at work, carefully handling the corpses to prevent any lingering zombie virus from spreading.

When they reached the lab entrance, the devastation was even worse. The ground was littered with debris and shattered bodies. The signs of battle were everywhere.

“This is… horrific,” Howard muttered, heart sinking. All of this—every last bit of it—was the Zombie King’s doing.

Tharen’s face was grim too. His brows furrowed tightly. He could already sense it—there were no human life signs inside the lab.

They moved into the long corridor. More corpses. Blood smeared across the floor and walls. Bloody handprints clawed into the surfaces, a haunting reminder of the slaughter that had taken place. The stench of blood and death was suffocating.

The elevator that led down to the lab had been completely destroyed—blown apart by a Crystal Core Firearm.

All that remained was a pitch-black shaft, its walls slick with blood. A cold, fetid wind blew up from the darkness below, carrying with it the faint, eerie wails of the undead.

Howard’s eyelid twitched. Without hesitation, he stepped forward and jumped in.

With his level of power, landing safely was no issue.

Tharen and the other elite family members followed suit, one after another dropping into the shaft.

Moments later, they reached the lab.

Tharen had barely landed when he saw Howard standing there, frozen. The man looked like he’d been hollowed out—eyes wide, face blank, like his soul had just left his body.

It took a lot to shake an SSS-ranked Awakener. But whatever he was seeing… it had done the job.

Tharen followed his gaze—and then he, too, went still.

“What the…”

The lab, once a high-tech fortress packed with cutting-edge equipment, was now completely empty. Not a single machine remained.

All that was left was blood—everywhere. Blood smeared across the floor, blood-soaked handprints clawed into the walls. The kind of marks left behind when people were being torn apart, desperately trying to escape.

It was clear what had happened here.

The researchers hadn’t stood a chance.

“This… this can’t be happening… Where the hell is everything?!” Howard muttered, his voice cracking, eyes wide with disbelief. He looked like he was on the verge of losing it.

He rushed from room to room, frantically searching.

But it was all the same—nothing. Not a single piece of equipment left behind.

Just a knocked-over trash can, still spinning slowly on the floor, like it was mocking him.

He made his way to the Guard Mech storage bay next, hoping—praying—that something had been spared.

But the massive warehouse was just as empty. The thousands of mech components that had once filled the space? Gone. Every last bolt and circuit.

The place was a hollow shell.

But then—movement.

A few figures stood in the center of the room, swaying unsteadily. Their throats let out low, guttural growls—raw, animalistic.

“Trent?” Howard called out, voice trembling.

The figures jerked at the sound, turning toward him.

Their eyes—sickly yellow, glowing with hunger—locked onto the group. The moment they saw living flesh, their bodies tensed, overcome by a primal urge to devour.

“RRAAAHHH—!”

The zombies let out a blood-curdling roar and charged.

“Trent!” Howard shouted again, but this time in horror.

Because he saw it—clear as day. One of them… was his son.

And among the others, Tharen recognized his own child too.

The two men stood frozen, stunned into silence. Titans of power, heads of elite families, men who controlled vast resources and commanded armies—reduced to helpless fathers in a single moment.

Their sons—now monsters—were charging at them, eyes wild with bloodlust.

It felt like their hearts had been ripped out.

“Hold them! Don’t hurt them—just restrain them!” Howard barked, snapping out of his daze.

The elite guards behind them reacted instantly, rushing forward. They didn’t strike. Instead, they tackled the zombies, pinning their arms and holding them down with practiced precision.

Trent thrashed violently, snarling like a wild animal, completely lost to the infection. His body jerked and twisted, trying to break free.

Howard just stood there, staring.

Time seemed to stop.

“Sir, what should we do?” one of the Hawke family’s elite asked urgently.

Howard slowly closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. He forced the grief down, burying it beneath layers of duty and control.

He was still a leader. He had to be.

“Lock them up. We’ll figure out what to do later.”

“Yes, sir!” the man replied, and with the help of the others, began dragging the restrained zombies away.

Tharen stood silently for a long moment, then finally spoke, his voice low and tight.

“That Zombie King… he turned both our sons into zombies. And not just that—he took everything from the lab. Every last piece of tech.”

Howard nodded slowly.

He’d known it was bad. But this? This was worse than anything he could’ve imagined.

He’d spent most of his life protecting the Inner City, dedicating everything to its safety.

And yet… he couldn’t even protect his own son.

The grief hit him like a tidal wave, crashing through his chest.

“What now?” Tharen asked. His tone was calm, but there was something simmering beneath it—rage, sorrow, maybe both.

Howard’s eyes sharpened, his voice cold and steady as steel.

“Vengeance.”

…