All the reanimated Ash Spiders rushed towards Alonzo’s group. The two Bone Lords and three reanimated Ash Spider Lords went around the battlefield to gather the destroyed corpses of other Ash Spider Lords.

Faced with the incoming reanimated Ash Spiders, the civilians that were still at the east city entrance slowly backed off to leave the fighting to the soldiers.

Alonzo ignored the actions of the civilians and kept his gaze on Kaius. If looks could kill, Alonzo would have killed Kaius ten times over.

“Open fire!” Alonzo shouted with bloodshot eyes.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Two hundred soldiers opened fire on the incoming reanimated Ash Spiders. In under a minute, over half of the reanimated Ash Spiders had already been annihilated.

“So weak…” Kaius sighed. Even though he still had five rank 1 zombies under his command, these rank 1s were too weak to tank the bullets from the automatic rifle. Hence, he had to think of another strategy.

A pile of incomplete Ash Spider Lord corpses formed in front of Kaius.

“Make sure to aim properly,” Kaius commanded the rank 1 zombies.

Two of the reanimated Ash Spider Lords shot out massive amounts of spider silk and grabbed hold of one end each.

The other reanimated Ash Spider Lord and the two Bone Lords loaded an Ash Spider Lord corpse onto the spider silk. The three rank 1 zombies mustered all their strength and pulled back on the spider silk as though it was a slingshot.

Whoosh!

The Ash Spider Lord corpse was launched high up into the air and soared towards the east city entrance.

Seeing the rank 1 corpse fly over, Alonzo couldn’t help but get a bad feeling.

“Shoot it down!”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The airborne Ash Spider Lord’s corpse was soon riddled with bullet holes. The force of the bullets managed to push back the corpse a bit, causing it to drop right outside the defense line.

Corpse Explosion!

Boom!

A fiery explosion erupted from the Ash Spider Lord’s corpse.

“Ahhhh!”

Several soldiers that were too close to the corpse got caught in the explosion radius and let out painful screams.

“Shoot those rank 1 zombies!” Alonzo reacted quickly to the threat of the exploding corpses.

Most of the soldiers switched their aims and concentrated their firepower on the rank 1 zombies that were launching the corpses.

“You should have aimed for these guys from the start. But it’s too late now!” Kaius chuckled.

Kaius and the five rank 1 zombies hid themselves behind the pile of eight Ash Spider Lord corpses.

Since most of the soldiers had switched their targets, the reanimated Ash Spiders that were still alive started to execute their new command. They sprayed spider silk onto the surrounding Ash Spider corpses and flung them towards the defense line.

Corpse Explosion!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Dozens of Ash Spider corpses rained down on the soldiers and exploded in their midst.

“Ahhhh!”

“My leg!”

Dozens of soldiers cried out in great pain as they received severe injuries from the explosions. Some of them got their face blown off, while others lost a limb or two.

“Spread out and kill those spiders!” Alonzo shouted furiously.

The soldiers tried to spread out and take aim at the Ash Spiders, but with Ash Spider corpses continuously exploding behind the defense line, the soldiers had to spend most of their time dodging the explosions.

As the pressure on the rank 1 zombies reduced, they began to launch the Ash Spider Lord corpses once more.

Boom! Boom!

Even larger explosions erupted in the defense line. Every time an Ash Spider Lord’s corpse exploded, Alonzo’s forces would suffer more than a dozen casualties.

Over a hundred Ash Spider corpses had exploded as well, killing off over a hundred soldiers.

Alonzo stared at the nightmarish scene in front of him. Most of his soldiers had been killed; their blood, guts, and body parts littered all over the defense line. His only consolation was that all the reanimated Ash Spiders had died, and all the Ash Spider Lord’s corpses had been used up.

“Retreat!” Alonzo gritted his teeth and gave an unwilling command to his soldiers. He wanted nothing more than the tear Kaius apart, but with his mana running low from fighting the zombie horde earlier, his forces were not a match for Kaius right now.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Kaius’ leisurely voice sounded from right outside the defense line.

Hearing Kaius’ voice, Alonzo stopped hard in his tracks. His expression became twisted as he turned around and faced Kaius.

“You bastard!” Alonzo stared daggers at Kaius. “Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with? You’re a dead man for messing with the Valentino family.”

“Your brother said the same thing to me earlier, but he ended up becoming zombie chow for my rank 1 zombies. Your Valorant family doesn’t seem that great to me,” Kaius taunted blatantly.

“It’s Valentin- Enough of this! Shoot him!” Alonzo shouted furiously.

The handful of soldiers that were still alive took aim with their automatic rifles and fired at Kaius. Since both groups were now less than 100 meters away from each other, guns became a lot more effective.

Shield Wall!

A translucent barrier appeared inches in front of the soldiers right as they started firing.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The bullets ricocheted off the translucent barrier and hit the soldiers instead.

“Ack!”

All the remaining soldiers got hit by their own bullets and dropped to the ground.

“Shit!” Alonzo jumped back in alarm at the sudden appearance of the Shield Wall.

“Consider this payback for last time,” a cold voice spoke out from inside the nearest house. The doors to the house opened and Lieutenant Bennet slowly walked out.

“It’s you!” Alonzo’s eyes widened in surprise.

Over to the side, Kaius completely ignored those two and only focused on the soldiers.

“Don’t die on me yet,” Kaius quickly gave a command to the reanimated Ash Spider Lords.

The three reanimated Ash Spider Lords sprayed out spider silk to tie up the injured soldiers and dragged them to Kaius.

“Most of my undead army got wiped out. You guys can help me to replenish it,” Kaius had a friendly smile on his face as his sinister hand descended upon the soldiers.

Bone Confiscation!

AHHHH!!!!

The seven soldiers that were tied up by spider silk screamed and spasmed violently. Within seconds, their flesh, blood, and organs quickly melted away as seven sturdy looking Skeleton Soldiers appeared.

“Wha– What did you do to my men?!” Alonzo took his eyes off of Kaius for a few moments due to the appearance of Lieutenant Bennet, only to look back and see his soldiers get turned into skeleton monsters.

“Excuse me, these are my soldiers now,” Kaius kindly corrected.

Icicle Rain!

Alonzo stopped wasting his breath on Kaius and cast his spell using what little mana he had left.

Shield Wall!

Lieutenant Bennet materialized his tower shield and cast his own skill in response.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Thirteen ice pillars crashed into the translucent barrier that was enhanced by the tower shield. However, unlike before, the translucent barrier held firm this time as it endured the crushing force of the ice pillars.

“How did you get so much stronger in just a few days?” Alonzo couldn’t believe his eyes. When he attacked the lieutenant last time, he easily destroyed the Shield Wall with the first few ice pillars. But now, he couldn’t even make a dent in it with thirteen ice pillars.

“You sure talk a lot for someone that’s about to die,” Lieutenant Bennet coldly snorted.

“Hm? When did you become so bloodthirsty?” Kaius looked over at the kind Lieutenant Bennet in surprise and thought inwardly. “Must be due to my positive influence.”

“If you kill me, the Valentino family won’t let you off!” Alonzo threatened.

“Valentino family? Is your family supposed to be some sort of big shot?” Lieutenant Bennet scoffed.

“That’s right. My family secretly controls many of the strongest forces in the North American continent,” Alonzo puffed out his chest and became more confident as he spoke about his family. “If you’re willing to repent for your mistakes and swear absolute loyalty to the Valentino family, we can consider letting you live and allow you to use the rest of your lives to serve my family.”

“Ooooo, how generous of you… how could we possibly turn down such an enticing offer…” Kaius responded in a mocking tone. Then, he spoke with a deadpan expression on his face, “Go shut him up.”

All five rank 1 zombies launched themselves at Alonzo.

“You! Stop! You’re going to regret this!” Alonzo jumped back in fright and tried to run away. He thought his family name would be enough to scare Kaius and the lieutenant but was quickly brought back to reality.

Icicle Rain!

Thirteen ice pillars shot towards the incoming rank 1 zombies.

Shield Wall!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The ice pillars rammed into the translucent barrier but couldn’t break through it this time either. Lieutenant Bennet’s skill protected the rank 1 zombies, allowing them to safely rush forward.

“Shit!” Alonzo looked back and saw the rank 1 zombies were closing in on him.

Freezing Field!

Alonzo used up the last bits of his mana to slow down the rank 1 zombies’ speed. Even though he was a mage, he still had 51 points in Dexterity. Combined with the 10% Dexterity debuff from his Freezing Field, he was able to widen the gap between himself and every rank 1 zombie except for Bone Lord Elroy.

Once the rank 1 zombies were caught in the Freezing Field, two of the reanimated Ash Spider Lords slowed down to spray out a few strands of spider silk. However, their targets were unexpectedly the two Bone Lords.

The two reanimated Ash Spider Lords spung their bodies with all their strength and flung the two Bone Lords forward.

Whoosh!

The two Bone Lords soared through the air and shot towards Alonzo like two deadly meteors. Within seconds, they closed the gap and descended upon Alonzo.

Slash!

“Ack!” Alonzo dodged one attack, but the other one sent him tumbling to the ground. A long, bloody wound could be seen on his back.

“You bastards, I’ll take you down with me!” Alonzo stared at the approaching Bone Lords with bloodshot eyes. A vial of purple liquid had appeared in his hands.

Just as Alonzo was about to pop open the cork and drink the liquid, a strand of spider silk suddenly struck the vial and snatched it out of his hands. It was the handiwork of the third reanimated Ash Spider Lord.

“No!” Alonzo watched with horror-stricken eyes as his last strand of hope was seized away from him.

Puchi!

Bone Lord Elroy appeared stealthily from behind and stabbed his dagger into Alonzo’s right side.

“Ahhhh!” Great pain assaulted Alonzo as he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Bone Lord Elroy didn’t stop there and continued to drag his embedded dagger across the front of Alonzo’s body.

“AAHHHHHHH!!!” Alonzo let out a blood-curdling scream as he watched his belly get cut open. He tried to stop Bone Lord Elroy’s bony hand, but his paltry strength rendered all his attempts futile.

Bone Lord Elroy reached into Alonzo’s body and mercilessly ripped out his stomach. Blood and guts splattered all over the ground. Then, Bone Lord Elroy stuffed the stomach into Alonzo’s mouth to shut him up.

“FUC-” Alonzo’s agonizing scream was cut short as his mouth was stuffed full of his own stomach.

Kaius watched in a stupor as his rank 1 zombies dutifully carried out his previous command in a creative manner.

“Uh, that’s not exactly what I meant when I said to shut him up. Quickly bring him to me before he dies.”

One of the reanimated Ash Spider Lords entangled some spider silk around Alonzo and swiftly flung him towards Kaius.

Moving at the same time, Kaius leapt towards the airborne Alonzo and reached his hand out.

Bone Confiscation!

Muffled screams came out of Alonzo. Since he was on the verge of death, he could do nothing but watch in horror as his flesh, blood and organs slowly melted away.

A short moment later, a brand-new Bone Lord stood obediently in front of Kaius.

“Nice, finally got a mage class. Looking forward to collecting all the other classes,” Kaius looked at his new Bone Lord in excitement. Then, he turned his attention to the vial of purple liquid that was just handed to him by one of the reanimated Ash Spider Lords.

“Let’s see what this thing does.”

Name

Corrupt Mana Potion

Category

Consumable Item

Use Restriction

None

Description

Upon use, fully restores user’s mana pool and increases mana regeneration rate by 500%. User loses 1 Vitality point every minute. If user’s Vitality falls below 20 while under the potion’s effect, user will suffer mana overload and their body will combust in a glorious fashion.

Duration: 120 minutes.

“That crazy bastard!” Kaius thought back to how Alonzo was actually going to drink this potion. Since Alonzo’s Vitality was only 32, that meant he would have had only 13 minutes left to live once he drank this potion.

Kaius stored the Corrupt Mana Potion inside his inventory as he had no use for it at the moment. He surveyed his surroundings and noticed that all the civilians had ran away a long time ago.

“What’s our next step?” Lieutenant Bennet walked over and asked.

“We need to head towards the west entrance right now,” Kaius replied. “Since Alonzo pulled his forces away from there, I fear the zombie horde must have breached the defense line by now.”

“Hm, let’s hurry,” Lieutenant Bennet nodded with a grim expression.

Kaius and Lieutenant Bennet managed to find a military vehicle nearby and started their drive west. Along the way, they heard the panicked screams of numerous civilians. The closer they got to the west entrance, the more screams they heard. Hundreds of civilians were fleeing in all directions.

When the duo finally arrived at the west entrance, a hellish scene unfolded in front of them.

Zombies were tearing apart and devouring fresh corpses everywhere. There were no more screams left, as everyone in the area had either fled or died. The unusual thing about these zombies was that they were all residents of Milton that had just been infected. None of these zombies were from the original zombie horde.

Control Undead!

Kaius quickly went around the area and controlled all the zombies.

“Shouldn’t the zombie horde have overrun this place by now? Where did they go?” Lieutenant Bennet wondered.

“It might have something to do with the beast tide,” Kaius made an educated guess. He summoned a Starpho and sent it to scout out the area west of the city.

…

Roughly 15km west of Milton is a small town called Nassagaweya Township. This small town had been cleared of all zombies by Antonio’s forces a few days ago. But now, 241 rank 1 zombies and 3759 regular zombies had gathered around it. In the center of this zombie horde was Bob, and beside him on the ground was his bio-based contraption.

An equally massive beast tide was approaching the small town two kilometers away from the east.

“Kill!” Bob commanded the 2000 zombies under his control.

All 2000 zombies marched forward in an orderly fashion. The other 2000 zombies saw the incoming beast tide and went forward as well, but of their own volition.

The two forces crossed the two-kilometer distance rapidly and clashed against each other in a frenzied slaughter.

An Ash Spider crawled towards the zombie nearest to it but did not engage in a frontal assault; it sprayed out spider silk from a short distance away. The zombie’s feet became entangled by the spider silk and fell over. The Ash Spider quickly crawled on top of the zombie’s head. It raised its front leg high up and stabbed it deep into the zombie’s eye socket and pierced the brain. The Ash Spider Queen had commanded the Ash Spiders to aim for the head this time.

One more zombie fell over due to the same trick by another Ash Spider. However, when the Ash Spider tried to stab its leg through the zombie’s eye socket, the zombie held up its own arm to shield its eyes.

Puchi!

The Ash Spider’s leg stabbed into the zombie’s arm instead. The zombie seized this opportunity and grabbed hold of the Ash Spider’s head. Without hesitation, the zombie sunk its teeth into the Ash Spider’s face and ripped off a huge chunk of flesh.

Skree!

The Ash Spider screeched in great pain for a few seconds before it curled up its legs and died.

Under the effects of Bob’s contraption, after the zombie devoured the Ash Spider, it instantly grew slightly stronger. It got up and went after the next Ash Spider.

The regular zombies and Ash Spiders engaged each other in a messy slugfest. For every zombie that got taken down by an Ash Spider, another zombie would in turn devour an Ash Spider and grow stronger. Their battlefield soon became a meatgrinder, with corpses piling up everywhere.

All the rank 1 zombies except for one Flicker received a command to go after the 300 Ash Spider Lords exclusively. The 60 Devourers entered into their rolling form and became the vanguard force; 70 Bruisers followed closely behind them; 70 Flickers circled around from the sides to prepare for pincer attacks; the remaining 40 Bloaters all activated their innate abilities right away and dove underground.

Skree!

The 300 Ash Spider Lords let out frenzied screeches and crawled towards the incoming rank 1 zombies. Surprisingly, the Ash Spider Lords were moving in a somewhat orderly fashion when compared to last time. Using their numerical and range advantage, half of the Ash Spider Lords shot out their spider silk in a specific pattern at the 60 Devourers only.

In a matter of seconds, a huge spider web had been created and shot up into the air. The spider web descended upon the 60 Devourers and covered them completely.

The Devourer’s fierce rolling momentum started to stall as they became more and more entangled by the spider web. In less than a minute, all 60 Devourers got completely wrapped up by the spider web and could no longer move.

The 70 Bruiser that were running behind quickly came up to the Devourers to try and rip apart the spider web. However, just as they started to rip up the spider web, another huge spider web descended upon them.

Raaah!

The 70 Bruisers roared with rage and tried to free themselves from the spider web. Seeing the unfavorable situation, Bob commanded the Flickers to free the Bruisers as quickly as possible.

Dozens of figures flashed towards the Bruisers.

Rip! Rip! Rip!

The 70 Flickers swung their razor-sharp claws and freed one Bruiser after another.

However, while the Bruisers and Flickers were distracted, the other 150 Ash Spider Lords shot out spider silk once again. This time, they aimed at the individual Devourers. Numerous strands of spider silk got stuck to each Devourer. The 150 Ash Spider Lords pulled the Devourers towards themselves with all their strength.

As the Devourers were being pulled, a strand of reinforced spider silk slithered towards them and began to whip them fiercely.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

Chunks of flesh were being sliced off by the reinforced spider silk from the Devourers’ bodies. In a short period of time, ten Devourers had already been killed. Unlike last time, the Ash Spider Queen had joined the battle right away.

WEEEEEE!

The helpless Devourers wheezed in pain. Underneath the layers of entangled spider web, the Devourers existed their rolling form and opened wide the mouth in the middle of their body.

Splash! Splash!

Deadly green acid melted the spider web from the inside and continued their trajectory outwards.

Skree!

Several Ash Spider Lords got hit by the unexpected green acid and got parts of their body melted off.

Splash! Splash!

Green acid continued to shoot out from more and more Devourers, causing all the Ash Spiders Lords to retreat in different directions.

Thump! Thump!

The Flickers had freed all the Bruisers and activated their innate abilities right away. Their figures became a blur and went after the scattered Ash Spider Lords.

Two blurry figures suddenly appeared beside one of the Ash Spider Lords.

Slash! Slash!

The two Flickers swiped with their claws and bisected the poor Ash Spider Lord in half.

Skree!

The Ash Spider Lord let out an agonizing screech before slumping lifelessly onto the ground.

Curiously, one of the Flickers grabbed onto half of the Ash Spider Lord’s corpse and retreated back to Bob’s location.

Skree! Skree!

Elsewhere, several other Ash Spider Lords also fell victim to the Flickers that moved in pairs.

SKREE!

The Ash Spider Queen screeched loudly. All Ash Spider Lords quickly gathered once more to prevent themselves from getting picked off by the Flickers.

However, just when the Ash Spider Lords grouped up, massive amounts of deadly green acid started to rain down upon them.

Skree! Skree! Skree!

Dozens of Ash Spider Lords screeched in great pain as they got hit by the first wave of green acid. Some of the unfortunate ones got splashed by the green acid in the head and died instantly.

The 70 Bruisers finally caught up with the Ash Spider Lords and started to engage them in melee combat.

Bam! Bam!

The Bruisers landed powerful punches directly on the Ash Spider Lords’ bodies.

Skree!

The Ash Spider Lords screeched out in pain as they got sent flying.

SKREE!

The Ash Spider Queen let out a furious screech as she watched her rank 1s get killed one after the other.

Poison Bog!

Massive amounts of dark green gas were breathed out from the Ash Spider Queen’s mouth and spread over the Bruisers rapidly. The Bruisers slowly started to rot and decompose.

Bam! Bam!

Seeing their impending death, the Bruisers fought even harder as Bob had instilled a single thought inside their minds.

FOR THE HORDE!

The Bruisers rampaged wilding amidst the Ash Spider Lords. They threw out one punch after another, pummeling several Ash Spider Lords into meat paste. In the process, their own rotted flesh started to drip onto the ground.

On the other side, the Ash Spider Lords changed tactics and tried to keep away from the Bruisers. They knew that they just had to stall for some time and these brainless brutes would eventually decompose into harmless piles of meat.

Without a way to retreat and not being fast enough to catch up to the Ash Spider Lords, half of the Bruisers ran towards the nearby Ash Spider Lords’ corpses and threw them out of the Poison Bog’s radius. The other half charged towards the Ash Spider Queen.

On the outer edges of the Poison Bog, a few dozen Flickers grabbed onto the Ash Spider Lord corpses that got thrown out and brought them back to Bob’s location.

Inside the small town, a pile of Ash Spider Lords’ corpses piled up in front of Bob. A single Flicker stood beside him as his guard. It was the same Flicker that helped him escape Milton previously.

Nom. Nom. Nom.

Bob took a huge bite out of an Ash Spider Lord’s corpse and then moved onto the next one. A trail of green blood flowed down the corner of his mouth.

A hint of excitement could be seen in his eyes.

“Next evolution… soon…”