Chapter 871: The real battle

Chapter 871: The real battle

“Ugh, what the hell is that smell?!”

“It’s like something died, came back, and died again!”

“My nose is gonna rot off!”

“Make it stop!”

The Heartland zombies were in total disarray, groaning and gagging as the stench overwhelmed them. Their minds clouded, their senses scrambled.

The toxic blood of the Black-Skin Zombies was just as lethal as ever.

Before they could recover, the monsters were already on them.

The Black-Skin Zombies tore into the Heartland ranks like a plague of demons. Mindless, fearless, and driven by pure instinct, they didn’t hesitate. To them, the Heartland undead were nothing more than fresh meat.

They pounced, biting and ripping with savage hunger.

The battlefield descended into chaos.

Zombies shrieked. Black-Skin monsters roared. Blood—both foul and black—splattered across the ground. Limbs flew. Corpses piled up. The air was thick with rot and rage.

“How’s that for a Westmarch specialty?” Meteorfall grinned, baring yellowed teeth.

He’d tested this tactic before—back when he fought Ravager. Turn the Black-Skin Zombies loose on Heartland elites, and let nature take its course. The results? Devastating.

“You shameless bastard!” Hydrissa snarled, fangs clenched tight as she hacked through the oncoming swarm.

But her psychic powers were nearly useless here. The Black-Skin Zombies didn’t have minds to control. They were walking instincts—no thoughts, no fear, no soul to manipulate.

Endless and the other Deathless Sovereigns had no choice but to step in again.

Endless unleashed his Absolute Domain, and time itself began to rot the Black-Skins. Wherever his power touched, the monsters withered into dry husks, then crumbled into dust.

But there were too many.

Kill one wave, and another surged forward. They didn’t care about death. They didn’t care about pain. They just kept coming—like moths to a flame, throwing themselves into the slaughter.

“Disgusting things,” Nightwraith muttered, his face twisted in revulsion.

No one liked fighting these things. Killing them brought no gain—just wasted energy and mounting exhaustion.

Then his eyes flicked toward the back of the battlefield.

Ethan.

Still standing there. Still not moving. Still watching.

Charging up for something.

“Wiping out these freaks is pointless,” Nightwraith growled. “We need to take him out.”

His expression darkened. He couldn’t stand the sight of Ethan just standing there, untouched, unbothered.

With a burst of speed, Nightwraith launched himself into the air, tearing through the Westmarch ranks like paper. No zombie could get close—his psychic aura was too strong, too overwhelming.

“Nightwraith…” Endless called out, his voice low and sharp.

He didn’t like this. Charging in alone? That was reckless. Even for a Deathless Sovereign.

Ethan had been quietly observing the battlefield, noting how effective the Black-Skin Zombies were. They were the perfect cannon fodder—ugly, mindless, and deadly.

Westmarch might be a dump, but damn if it didn’t have its uses.

Doesn’t matter how ugly the weapon is, as long as it kills.

But then he felt it—a surge of power, a familiar presence.

Nightwraith.

Persistent little bastard.

“Never learns,” Ethan muttered, eyes narrowing.

With a flick of thought, the Domain of the Dead erupted around him. The air warped. The ground cracked. Space itself seemed to buckle under the pressure.

Nightwraith was ready.

His psychic energy surged like a tidal wave, then condensed behind him into a towering figure—a phantom giant, massive and menacing.

It stood tall, head brushing the sky, feet planted like mountains.

Each of Nightwraith’s psychic constructs had a different form, a different power. This one? Pure brute force.

The giant raised its fist and brought it down like a meteor, aiming straight for Ethan.

BOOM!

The impact shook the battlefield. Nightwraith’s psychic force collided with Ethan’s Domain of the Dead, and the clash sent shockwaves ripping through the air.

Nightwraith gritted his teeth, pouring more power into the attack. His mind burned, but he held firm.

Ethan didn’t flinch.

Blood-red energy flared around him like fire. He stepped forward, and with that step, his domain surged ahead—crushing, suffocating, unstoppable.

Nightwraith’s brow furrowed deeper. His head throbbed. His vision blurred.

He was struggling.

For the first time since becoming a Deathless Sovereign… he was being pushed back.

This guy’s no joke, Nightwraith thought grimly, sweat beading on his brow.

At first, Nightwraith thought Ethan had already hit his limit. That the pressure, the blood aura, the sheer force of his Domain of the Dead—this was as far as he could go.

But then Ethan took another step forward.

And another.

With each stride, the blood energy around him surged higher, thicker, more intense—like a wildfire feeding on oxygen. The air around him crackled with power, and the pressure grew unbearable.

Nightwraith’s head throbbed harder. The Domain of the Dead wasn’t just pushing back—it was compressing his psychic field, squeezing it tighter and tighter until sharp pain began to stab through his skull.

“A psychic-type Zombie King… and you’ve got the balls to come at me head-on?” Ethan’s voice was low, but it burned with fury. The blood aura around him roared to life, flames of crimson licking at the sky.

His power peaked.

Then he launched himself into the air—like a predator diving from the heavens.

He came down on Nightwraith like a comet, wrapped in the crushing force of the Domain of the Dead. The ground beneath them cracked and split, stones lifting into the air before disintegrating into dust under the sheer friction of their clashing energies.

Nightwraith’s eyes widened as the pain in his head spiked. His towering psychic construct—the giant he’d summoned—flickered violently, then shattered into nothing under the weight of Ethan’s assault.

And then Ethan was right in front of him.

The blood aura surged forward, and Ethan’s fist came with it—aimed straight at Nightwraith’s skull.

It was the same move he’d used to crush Nightbane of San Diego.

Nightwraith’s instincts screamed. He didn’t think—he just moved, throwing himself backward with everything he had.

BOOM!

The punch missed by inches, but the shockwave hit like a bomb. Nightwraith was blasted backward, tumbling through the air like a ragdoll. He hit the ground hard, skidding across the dirt, his body rattled to the core.

He staggered to his feet, dazed, heart pounding.

For a split second—just one—he’d smelled death.

That punch… if it had landed clean, he’d be gone.

This Zombie King was stronger than he’d ever imagined.

Ethan moved to follow up, ready to finish the job.

But then—time itself shifted.

A wave of temporal energy swept across the battlefield, and Ethan stopped cold. His Domain of the Dead surged outward to meet it, resisting the encroaching force.

Endless had arrived.

A figure in flowing black robes stepped forward from the rear, his presence like a blade of ice through the air.

His expression, usually calm and unreadable, now carried a sharp edge.

“The real fight,” Endless said coolly, “starts now.”

Ethan didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. He knew exactly what Endless meant.

Because from the Heartland side of the battlefield, a new sound was rising.

A chorus of zombie howls—deep, guttural, and endless. It wasn’t just noise. It was a signal.

A warning.

What Hydrissa had brought earlier? That was just a fraction of Gorthas’s forces. A scouting party. A warm-up.

Now, the real army was coming.

Behind Endless, the towering silhouette of The Origin Mountain loomed like a god watching over the battlefield. And from the horizon, they came.

Zombies.

Thousands. Tens of thousands. No—millions.

They poured over the land like a living tide, sprinting, shoving, trampling over one another in their frenzy. The ground shook beneath their feet. Dust clouds rose into the sky. The earth itself seemed to groan under the weight of their numbers.

And they weren’t just mindless husks.

These were evolved. Refined. Elite.

Zombie Kings of every kind ran among them—each one a monster in its own right.

The sheer scale of the horde was staggering. The entire landscape was swallowed by the flood of undead.

Meteorfall’s jaw dropped.

His eyes went wide as saucers.

“Holy shit…”

He’d never seen anything like it. Not even close.

There was no way he could fight this. No trick, no scheme, no clever tactic could stop what was coming.

Because when the difference in power was this massive, strategy didn’t matter.

The Black-Skin Zombies? They’d be torn apart.

Westmarch’s forces? Obliterated.

Everything would be crushed under the weight of this army.

As the battlefield spiraled into chaos, and more and more factions entered the fray, one thing became clear:

This wasn’t just a skirmish anymore.

This was war.

And the real battle—

Was just beginning.

…

Here’s a redemption code for everyone: