Apocalypse: King of Zombies Chapter 1597: It Was Safer Inside the Whale

Ethan frowned. The sky had been perfectly clear moments ago. How had it suddenly gone dark?

Then he noticed the highly corrosive mucus surrounding him.

He activated True Sight, scanned his surroundings, and felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

Everywhere he looked, fleshy walls writhed around him. There was only one likely explanation.

He was inside some enormous creature's stomach.

"Holy shit! I got eaten!?"

Ethan stared in disbelief.

He had deactivated the Deadlock Dimension only to reappear inside something's stomach. What kind of ridiculous luck was that?

Worse, the creature had somehow swallowed the spatial node itself. Did that mean it also possessed spatial powers?

The mucus was steadily eating through his flesh, and Ethan's expression grew serious.

Whatever had swallowed him was no ordinary creature.

He waved his hand, opening a dimensional rift. Before he could enter it, however, the rift shattered.

Frowning, Ethan tried to Teleport out instead.

He went nowhere and slammed headfirst into the fleshy wall.

"...!"

"So it really does possess spatial powers—or at least an ability that restricts spatial-type abilities."

Ethan pulled out his poleaxe and brought it down hard against the wall.

Thump!

The entire wall shook, but the poleaxe merely sank into the soft flesh.

"..."

"Damn it. There's nothing solid to hit!"

He quickly yanked the weapon free.

His attack seemed to alert the creature that its meal was still alive. The fleshy walls began contracting, trying to crush Ethan between them.

As the space around him rapidly narrowed, even Ethan began to panic.

He had never expected to find himself this helpless. This creature's abilities seemed to counter his perfectly.

Still, he wasn't about to sit around and wait to be digested. If he couldn't break through the stomach wall, he would find another way out.

Anyone else would have been completely lost in the pitch-black interior, but Ethan had True Sight.

He soon discovered a passage leading elsewhere. If his guess was right, it was the creature's esophagus, which meant he was currently inside its stomach.

Ethan hurried into the passage.

By now, the mucus had eaten away so much of his flesh that his entire body was a bloody mess. Bone was visible in several places.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he crawled forward through the esophagus.

"Going by basic biology, this should eventually lead me to its mouth. But if it doesn't open up, I still won't be able to get out."

He considered his situation.

"This thing is probably stronger than I am. Even if I escape, I might not be able to beat it from the outside."

"Getting swallowed gave me a chance to attack it from within. Killing it from in here should be easier."

"Screw it. I'll kill it first and worry about the rest later."

Ethan felt the surrounding flesh. The esophageal wall was clearly much thinner than the stomach lining.

"Let's try this."

He took out his poleaxe and poured half of his mental energy into an Annihilation Strike, thrusting the weapon straight into the wall.

Squelch!

This time, the poleaxe punched clean through.

Ethan's eyes lit up. He tore the opening wider and climbed through.

The first thing that struck him was the sheer size of everything.

Every organ within sight was absurdly huge.

This creature was a true colossus, probably much larger than even the Beast Sovereign and the other Outland Beasts.

Could this thing be a whale?

Ethan began moving through its body, searching for something.

After a long while, he finally found a beating heart nestled among several enormous bones.

The heart was nearly the size of a house. Just looking at it made his scalp prickle.

Definitely a whale.

Ethan snorted.

"No matter how strong you are, this is still your weak point!"

He raised his poleaxe and unleashed a full-power Annihilation Strike against the heart.

Boom!

The heart ruptured, releasing a torrent of blood.

Far outside, in the depths of the ocean, the colossal whale let out an agonized cry and began thrashing wildly.

The sudden movement sent Ethan tumbling through its body. He managed to grab hold of a bone and stabilize himself.

Your heart's destroyed. Let's see how long you can keep this up.

Sure enough, the whale's struggles soon weakened. Before long, it stopped moving entirely.

Blood continued pouring from its ruined heart as its life force steadily faded.

Ethan waited a while longer. Once he was sure the whale had gone still, he followed the passage above its heart and continued upward.

Outside, countless sea creatures began gathering as the whale's life faded.

They were waiting for it to die so they could swarm the carcass and devour it.

Using his limited understanding of anatomy, Ethan felt his way through the whale's body until he finally reached its head. He then began attacking its skull from the inside.

The whale's body still twitched occasionally, but the movements were too weak to interfere.

Under Ethan's relentless attacks, the skull was gradually broken open from within. Soon, a gray crystal core appeared before him.

"A Tier 44 crystal core!? This thing was only Tier 44!?"

Ethan's eyes widened.

He had thought the whale was absurdly powerful, yet it was only Tier 44.

Then again, a creature this enormous, especially one with such an unusual talent, was probably much stronger than others at the same Tier.

By Ethan's estimate, the whale could likely fight a Tier 46 opponent head-on.

"Good thing it swallowed me whole. If I'd had to fight it from the outside, I really wouldn't have stood a chance."

He quickly stored the crystal core and began considering how to escape.

Outside, the whale's life force finally vanished. Countless sea creatures surged forward and tore ravenously into its carcass.

Ethan felt the whale's body shaking again and jumped, thinking it was somehow still alive.

He soon realized that something outside was eating the corpse.

If that was the case, he might not need to cut his own way out. He could simply wait for the sea creatures to open an exit for him.

Sure enough, he didn't have to wait long. The creatures outside tore through the whale's flesh, and seawater came flooding in.

Ethan staggered and nearly lost his footing beneath the sudden current.

"Damn it! We're at the bottom of the ocean!?"

Then he saw the densely packed sea creatures surrounding him, and his scalp went numb.

They noticed him at the same time.

The entire swarm lunged.

Ethan tried to flee, only to find that moving through the water had reduced his speed to almost nothing.

With the sea creatures nearly on top of him, he hurriedly used Teleportation to evade them, then began Teleporting upward as fast as he could.

Countless creatures pursued him from behind, while more joined the chase from every direction.

Ethan's heart was in his throat.

There weren't just Stage SS creatures among the swarm. He had even spotted Stage SSS ones.

Worst of all, several enormous sharks were closing in from the distance—and every last one of them was Stage SSS.

Cold sweat poured from Ethan's body. He didn't dare slow down for even a moment, frantically Teleporting toward the surface.

In his current condition, he couldn't defeat those sharks even on land, much less underwater.