Apocalypse: King of Zombies Chapter 1628: Easy Pickings

New Atlas...

The battle was already over.

The ground outside the city was a wreck, littered with bodies.

Like the groups before them, these Void Realm creatures had seen a magnificent city guarded by fighters who were only Stage B and assumed it would be easy to take.

They ignored the guards’ warning and attacked New Atlas.

The result was obvious.

The moment Theron and Dahlia appeared, all five Stage SSS fighters were terrified. Their strongest member was only Tier 46, while the others were Tier 43 or Tier 44. Against Theron and Dahlia, they hadn’t even been able to escape.

All five Stage SSS fighters had been killed, along with more than half of their dozens of Stage SS fighters.

Those below Stage SS had been slaughtered in large numbers by the Fallen Star second echelon and the Fallen Star Guard.

Now, soldiers were clearing the battlefield alongside flocks of Flamebirds and groups of white-furred apes.

These were the Outland Beasts’ favorite kind of battle. Once the fighting ended, they had more outsider corpses than they could eat.

Battles like this had happened before, but only occasionally. Lately, however, one group after another had come to New Atlas and gotten themselves killed. The city’s Outland Beasts had been eating until they could barely move.

Stage B fighters did make up the majority of New Atlas, but Miles could easily have assigned stronger guards to the gates if he wanted to.

Yet he had never replaced them.

He kept using Stage B guards, and no one believed he didn’t have ulterior motives.

New Atlas’s senior leadership knew him too well. Miles might look mild and scholarly, but he had a devious side. He just wasn’t as obvious about it as Ethan.

Ethan set his traps in plain sight.

Miles hid his.

"All right, everything here is settled. Let’s head back."

Miles started toward the city, with Maxwell and the others following behind him.

Just then, a dimensional rift opened over New Atlas. Two figures emerged, carrying three enormous Outland Beast carcasses between them.

"Commander!"

Everyone nearby saluted.

"Captain? Why are you back already?" Miles asked in surprise.

"These Stage SSS Beasts wouldn’t fit in my spatial storage ring. Carrying them around was a pain, but leaving them behind would’ve been a waste, so I brought them back first," Ethan explained helplessly.

"Stage SSS Beast meat definitely can’t go to waste. Eating it strengthens the body and helps with cultivation. Three this big should last us quite a while." Miles smiled. "You can put them down. I’ll have someone move them into cold storage."

"Sure."

Ethan and Abyron dropped the carcasses. A group of Fallen Star Corps members immediately came over and dragged all three away.

"Miles, come with me. Everyone else, get back to whatever you were doing."

"All right."

Ethan and Miles returned to the residence, where Ethan handed him the spatial storage ring.

"Take a look at the ritual circle on this ring. Think you can figure it out?"

Miles examined the ring closely for quite some time before answering.

"It’s complicated, but I should be able to understand it if you give me enough time."

"Hah! I knew you could do it." Ethan grinned.

"Captain, are you asking me to study this because you want me to make spatial storage rings?"

Miles was smart enough to guess his intentions immediately.

"Yeah, but making new rings requires some material called Spatial Crystal, and I haven’t seen any yet. There’s no hurry on that. For now, I want you to expand the space inside this ring."

"Expand it? How?"

"You’re probably the only person who can do it," Ethan said. "You need to break open the Spatial Binding Ritual Circle, separate a portion of an alternate space, and merge it into the ring. That should enlarge the storage space inside."

"Oh? You can do that?" Miles’s eyes lit up. "Why didn’t I think of it before?"

"Don’t worry, Captain. Leave it to me."

Miles had always been fascinated by unusual things like this. The moment Ethan explained the idea, he was hooked.

"Good. I know I can count on you."

Ethan paused, then asked, "By the way, how big is your alternate space now?"

"About the size of two football fields."

"Holy crap! It’s that big already?" Ethan’s eyes widened.

"Yeah. It expands exponentially as my strength increases. At Stage S, it was only about the size of one football field. After reaching Stage SS, it doubled."

"Hah! The bigger, the better. That means you can spare plenty for me." Ethan couldn’t hide his excitement.

"I don’t need that much space inside the city. I only use it to store crystal cores and a few important items. You can have most of it."

"Perfect. Once the ring is that big, I can throw in whatever I want."

Ethan didn’t bother being polite. There had been no need for that between them for a long time.

"I think the space I separate should recover," Miles added. "Even if it doesn’t, my alternate space will expand again as I grow stronger."

"Right. We’ll keep an eye out for Spatial Crystal. If we find some, we can make more rings and give them to Chris and the others."

"Sounds good."

"By the way, are they still fighting at Goldcrest City?" Ethan asked.

"I checked after our battle ended. They were still at it. The two sides are evenly matched, so unless one of them backs down, that fight won’t end anytime soon."

"Even better. I can use that time to raise my Tier." Ethan smiled.

He hadn’t known how powerful the Pyrathi were before, so he hadn’t dared return to New Atlas. He didn’t want to bring disaster to the city.

But even with only that brief glance at the battlefield in Goldcrest City, he had gotten a decent sense of their strength.

Overall, they were about as powerful as the Voltari, with only two peak Tier 47 fighters.

That was formidable, but New Atlas could handle it.

That was why Ethan had come straight back after killing the remaining Outland Beasts. He planned to increase his strength before making his next move.

"All right, Captain. Go ahead. I’ll start studying the ring."

"Good. There are still plenty of crystal cores inside it. When Sean and the others come out, give the cores to them and have them reach Stage SSS as soon as possible."

"Understood."

With everything settled, Ethan took the crystal core he needed and went to his room to raise his Tier.

Miles took the spatial storage ring to his own room and began studying it.

New Atlas returned to peace, at least for the moment.

The rest of Earth remained engulfed in chaos.

Battles were raging everywhere—some over territory, others over resources.

Led by powerful Stage SSS Beasts, many Outland Beasts had begun leaving the forests to hunt outsiders. At the same time, many of the Void Realm races were actively searching for Outland Beasts to kill.

Earth had become a true battlefield.

As the fighting continued, one terrifying race after another began making its presence known.

The void passages remained open. Groups of creatures from different worlds continued pouring through them from time to time, driving an already chaotic Earth even deeper into turmoil.