"Oh, please," Ethan said with a casual wave of his hand, his tone just the right mix of dismissive and confident. "There's no slaughter coming anytime soon. The higher-ups are just trying to keep you guys on edge so you don't slack off. Necroterra's massive—those other four regions aren't gonna just show up overnight."

The elite zombies exchanged glances, nodding slowly.

"Yeah… makes sense," one of them muttered. "I mean, Necroterra's huge. Who knows if those other hordes even have the guts to come here?"

"No kidding," another chimed in. "Back when our Zombie Horde marched out of Heartland, we had them pissing themselves. They ran straight into Xenorift with their tails between their legs. Now they wanna come back for revenge? Please."

"Who knows what they're thinking. Anyway, let's head back. Didn't you say you had something important to report?"

"..."

The group turned and started heading into the forest.

Ethan followed right behind them, blending in perfectly with his illusion. No one gave him a second glance.

As they stepped into the woods, he officially crossed into the territory of Heartland's zombie nests.

The forest was crawling with undead. Some low-tier zombies crouched at the base of trees, gnawing on the carcasses of small animals, their jaws soaked in blood and fur. The sight was grotesque—feral, primal.

One of them looked up as Ethan passed, its bloodshot eyes locking onto him for a moment. Then, instinctively, it pulled its meal behind its back, like a child hiding stolen candy.

This part of the forest was the outer edge of the nest—less organized, fewer elite zombies, and most of them barely sentient.

After a short walk, the trees thinned out, revealing a clearing where the zombie population thickened dramatically—hundreds, maybe thousands, packed into the space.

This had to be one of the command points for the outer perimeter.

"Hey! Make way! We've got something to report!" one of the elite zombies barked.

The crowd responded like puppets on strings, swaying and stumbling aside to open a path.

Ethan scanned the area. At the center of the clearing stood a shack—if you could even call it that. It was slapped together from broken logs and debris, crude and barely standing.

But the aura coming from it was unmistakable—strong, aggressive. The zombie inside was likely S-rank.

The elite zombies led Ethan toward the shack.

"Boss! We're back!" one of them called out.

A moment later, a figure stepped out of the shack. His skin was a sickly yellow, cracked and dry like old parchment. One eye was huge and bulging, the other squinted and sunken—he looked like a walking mutation.

This was Peanut—Pickle's partner-in-crime. Together, they were known as The Fringe Duo.

"I told you idiots to patrol the perimeter! What the hell are you doing back already? What if Lord Gorthas finds out?" Peanut snapped, glaring at them.

"Oh… so it's just 'cause you're scared of Gorthas," one of the zombies muttered under his breath.

The others nodded, and Ethan could see it in their eyes—they were buying his story even more now. Peanut's overreaction just made it seem like he was blindly following orders from above, no matter how exaggerated.

"Boss, we brought back a zombie from the outer perimeter," one of them said. "Says he's got something important to report."

"Important, huh?" Peanut's mismatched eyes locked onto Ethan. He sniffed the air, sizing him up. The aura checked out—definitely an elite from Heartland. But the face? Completely unfamiliar. "Alright, what's so important?"

"This info's too sensitive," Ethan said calmly. "Not something random zombies should be hearing. We should talk somewhere private."

Inwardly, he was already grinning.

Of all the zombie nests he could've stumbled into, he just happened to land in Gorthas's territory.

Fate had a funny way of lining things up.

Looks like Gorthas's days were numbered.

Peanut hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Fine. Come inside."

He turned and walked back into the shack.

A few of the elite zombies lingered outside, exchanging glances. They were Peanut's trusted crew, the core muscle of the fringe zone. Surely they didn't count as "random," right?

Curiosity got the better of them.

One by one, they followed Ethan and Peanut into the shack.

Damn curiosity.

As the door creaked shut behind them, sealing off the view from the outside, the shack suddenly felt less like a meeting room…

…and more like a tomb.

The inside of the shack was dim and musty—just the way zombies liked it. The air was thick with the scent of dried blood and rot. Strips of jerky hung from the walls, made from all kinds of wild beasts.

Even out here on the fringe, the resources were impressive. Heartland really was the promised land for the undead. If a low-tier leader like this could eat this well, it was no wonder so many zombies dreamed of making it here.

Ethan glanced around, taking it all in.

"What the hell are you staring at?" Peanut snapped, catching Ethan's gaze lingering on the meat. "Spit it out already!"

Ethan's voice was calm, almost casual. "It's nothing, really. Just that… some zombies are about to die."

"Huh??" Peanut's eyes narrowed, suspicion flashing across his face. "Who are you talking about? Pickle? If that's what this is about, I already know. He got taken out by the Zombie Kings in Southvale. Ain't coming back. But don't worry—I'll avenge him."

Ethan didn't know who Pickle was, but the name made sense now. Peanut and Pickle. Cute. For zombies.

The elite zombies standing nearby didn't seem impressed.

"That's it? That's the big news?"

"Everyone already knows Pickle's dead."

"Man, I thought this was gonna be something juicy…"

"Lame."

Their disappointment was obvious. The gossip buzz died instantly.

But it didn't stay dead for long.

Ethan smiled faintly. "Sounds like you two were close. In that case… why don't you go join him?"

"...What?"

Peanut's eyes went wide. Even with his limited brainpower, he knew something was seriously wrong. "You bastard! He's not one of us! Take him down—now!"

Silence.

No one moved.

The elite zombies just stood there, frozen in place.

"What the hell are you all waiting for?!" Peanut barked, frustration rising. But then he noticed something strange.

The others were trembling—barely able to stand. Their faces twisted in pain, like something was crushing them from the inside out.

They weren't ignoring him.

They couldn't move.

They were being crushed by something they couldn't see.

All eyes turned to Ethan, now radiating a pressure so intense it felt like the air itself was collapsing.

Only now did they realize the truth.

He wasn't from Heartland.

He wasn't some grunt.

He was a Zombie King—from one of the other four regions of Necroterra.

And the slaughter they'd joked about?

It was already here.

Peanut stared, stunned, as the realization hit him like a freight train. Then the pressure hit him too—an invisible weight that made his knees buckle.

Ethan had only released a sliver of his Domain of the Dead, just enough to suppress an S-rank like Peanut without alerting the zombies outside.

"P-please… don't kill me!" Peanut stammered, all his earlier bravado gone. He dropped to his knees, trembling, eyes wide with terror.

Ethan didn't even blink.

With a flick of his wrist, a pitch-black katana materialized in his hand—sleek, silent, and deadly.

He stepped forward and swung.

Shhhk—

Peanut's head flew clean off, smacking the ceiling before bouncing to the floor with a dull thud. His body collapsed a second later, twitching once before going still.

The other elite zombies didn't even have time to scream. Their bones cracked and popped under the pressure, and one by one, they crumpled to the ground like broken puppets.

In seconds, the shack was a slaughterhouse.

Ethan stood alone in the center, surrounded by corpses.

He raised his hand, and with a thought, all the bodies vanished—sucked into his spatial storage ring. Not a drop of blood left behind.

No evidence. No witnesses.

He turned toward the door.

Outside, several elite zombies were still stationed nearby, keeping watch. They'd heard something—maybe a thud, maybe the sound of bones snapping—but now it was quiet again.

Too quiet.

"What was that noise just now?"

"Think something happened to the boss?"

"Should we check it out?"

"Pfft, what could've happened? He's probably just gnawing on a femur or something."

"Exactly why we should check. What if he's hogging all the good meat again?"

"Hmm… you've got a point."

...

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