Apocalypse: King of Zombies - Chapter 134

Chapter 134: Tumor Giant

Sam, ignoring his injuries, unleashed the last of his strength, throwing himself into a desperate fight against the monsters swarming around him.

“This guy’s insane!” muttered the scruffy man, his brows furrowed in tension. His eyes darted around, clearly weighing the idea of making a run for it. But the dense jungle was crawling with monsters, all converging on their location. There was no way out.

The younger man beside him looked even more shaken.

“What do we do?” he asked, his voice trembling.

“There’s no other choice—we fight our way out!” The scruffy man gritted his teeth, pulling out a dagger. With a grim determination, he too charged into the fray, slashing at the creatures.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, Ethan was the undeniable center of attention. Surrounded by countless monsters, he moved like a force of nature, cutting through the mutated fungal creatures as if they were nothing. Each swing of his blade left a trail of destruction.

In a flash, he shifted his focus and charged straight toward the mother organism.

The mother organism’s face twisted with rage. It raised its arms, and a thick cloud of fungal spores erupted from its body, forming a dense, white mist that surged forward like a dragon made of smoke.

Ethan didn’t flinch. With a single thought, his Domain of the Dead expanded outward, its oppressive force scattering the spore cloud instantly. The domain continued to spread, enveloping the mother organism in its suffocating grasp.

A sickening sound echoed through the air—crack, crack, crack! The mother organism’s body began to contort as if an invisible hand were crushing it like a lump of clay. Its once-imposing form started to collapse inward, its shape becoming grotesque and unrecognizable.

“There can be only one!” Ethan muttered under his breath, though he immediately felt like he’d stolen the line from the wrong movie. Still, he shrugged it off. No time to dwell on that now. With his blade igniting in flames, he closed the distance to the mother organism in an instant and swung his fiery tachi in a decisive arc.

The sharp blade sliced cleanly through its body.

“AAAAARGH!” The mother organism let out a piercing, ear-splitting shriek that felt like it could shatter eardrums. But it wasn’t dead yet. Instead, its body began to swell rapidly, grotesquely.

In mere moments, bulbous red tumors started to sprout all over its form, one after another, until its entire body was covered in them. The tumors pulsed and throbbed, growing larger and more numerous until the creature stood over ten feet tall—a towering, grotesque mass of flesh and tumors.

It no longer had a face. Its entire body was a writhing, pulsating nightmare of growths, a horrifying “Tumor Giant.”

Ethan’s gaze swept over the monstrosity, and for a brief moment, he felt a twinge of discomfort—like his latent trypophobia was about to kick in. But he quickly pushed the thought aside. He knew this was the creature’s true form.

The Tumor Giant roared, raising one massive fist and swinging it down toward Ethan with the force of an avalanche. The sheer power behind the blow was enough to crush anything in its path.

“This thing’s got A-rank strength…” Ethan analyzed calmly, his mind racing. “Good thing I caught it early. If it had grown to S-rank, this would’ve been a nightmare.”

As the colossal fist came crashing down, Ethan didn’t hesitate. He sheathed his tachi and clenched his fist, meeting the attack head-on.

BOOOOM!

The impact was cataclysmic. The shockwave from their clash tore through the jungle, sending trees splintering into pieces and causing the ground beneath them to crack and collapse. A wave of air pressure rippled outward, flattening everything in its path.

But Ethan’s physical strength was on a completely different level. The Tumor Giant’s massive arm fractured under the force of the collision, its bones snapping like twigs. Its enormous body was sent hurtling backward, crashing into the ground with a thunderous impact.

“ROOOAAARR!” The Tumor Giant howled in fury, thrashing as it tried to rise. It wasn’t just angry—it was desperate. Physical combat wasn’t its true strength. Its real power lay in its spores and hallucinogenic abilities. But Ethan’s Domain of the Dead was an overwhelming counter, rendering its abilities useless.

On top of that, the gap in their power levels was insurmountable. The mother organism hadn’t yet matured to its full potential, and against Ethan, it didn’t stand a chance.

Its massive, tumor-covered body hit the ground like a sack of broken bones, struggling to move.

Before it could recover, Ethan leapt high into the air, his figure a blur against the smoky backdrop of the battlefield. He came crashing down, driving his boot directly into the creature’s head.

BOOOOM!

The ground shook violently as the impact cratered the earth. The Tumor Giant’s oversized head was obliterated, reduced to a pulpy mess. At the same time, a glowing crystal core shot out from the remains of its body, spinning through the air.

Ethan’s final blow silenced the chaos in the jungle. The smaller monsters, which had been mimicking life moments earlier, collapsed lifelessly to the ground. Their bodies shriveled and decayed rapidly, turning to ash and rot.

The piercing shrieks and roars that had filled the air moments ago were gone. The only sound left was the crackling of flames, their flickering light casting eerie shadows across the battlefield.

“They’re all dead?” In the clearing, only the scruffy man and the other two remained.

They had been on the brink of collapse, but Ethan’s overwhelming strength had turned the tide. The mother organism had been slain in mere moments, leaving the three of them alive—barely.

“He’s so strong!” The younger man stared at Ethan in awe, his eyes wide with disbelief. He had witnessed the entire battle, every swing of Ethan’s blade, every impossible feat.

That horrifying, grotesque monster… taken down so effortlessly.

“Yeah,” the scruffy man muttered, nodding weakly. His legs wobbled beneath him, and he nearly collapsed. Though the mother organism was dead, his body had already been ravaged. The fungal toxins still coursed through his system, wreaking havoc.

Now that the immediate danger was gone, his body began to betray him. The adrenaline faded, and discomfort surged in its place. He felt feverish, like he was burning up—his strength completely drained. And then, an itch. A deep, maddening itch.

Frowning, the scruffy man lifted his shirt to investigate. What he saw made his blood run cold. His eyes widened in horror, and he stumbled backward, landing hard on the ground.

Mushrooms. Mushrooms were growing out of his stomach.

They weren’t the red tumors from the mother organism—those had died with it. No, this was something else. A lingering side effect of being parasitized.

“What… what the hell is this?” Panic overtook him. His breath quickened, and his hands trembled as he touched the fungal growths. He wasn’t free of death’s grip after all. His life was still slipping away, second by second.

And worse, the itching had stopped. Now, it was pain. Sharp, searing pain that spread through his body like wildfire.

Desperate, his gaze turned to Ethan. If anyone could help, it was him. The scruffy man clung to that hope like a drowning man clutching at a piece of driftwood.

“Please! I’m begging you—help me!”

Ethan tilted his head, his expression unreadable as he slowly walked over. His eyes flicked to the mushrooms sprouting from the man’s abdomen, and for a moment, he seemed… intrigued.

“Huh. That’s new,” Ethan said, crouching slightly to get a better look. “What’d you do, eat something bad?”

“Wha—” The scruffy man froze, momentarily thrown off by the absurdity of the comment. But then, after a beat, he realized it wasn’t entirely wrong. “I mean… yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Do you have a way to fix this?” he asked, his voice trembling with hope.

“Sure,” Ethan replied casually.

The scruffy man’s face lit up. Relief washed over him like a wave. He knew Ethan wouldn’t let him down. “Thank God! I knew you’d have a solution!”

Even the younger man, standing nearby, looked hopeful. He had the same symptoms—the same mushrooms growing on his body. If Ethan could save one of them, maybe he could save them both.

But then, in the blink of an eye, Ethan’s blade flashed.

A streak of light cut through the air, and the scruffy man’s head snapped back. Blood sprayed as his body crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

“Done,” Ethan said flatly, sheathing his blade.

The younger man stood frozen, his mind struggling to process what had just happened. He turned slowly, staring at the scruffy man’s corpse. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

And then, before he could even react, another flash of steel. Ethan’s blade moved with precision, and the younger man joined his companion on the ground.

Ethan had “helped” him too.

Not far away, Sam was kneeling on the ground. Mushrooms had begun to sprout from his shoulders and neck, but he didn’t seem to care. His eyes were hollow, empty. He had lost the will to fight, the will to live. Ivy was gone, and with her, so was his reason to keep going.

Ethan approached him slowly, his steps deliberate. Without a word, he raised his blade and, with a single motion, severed the crystal core from Sam’s body. The lifeless shell toppled forward, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

The truth was, all three of them had been doomed the moment they were parasitized. Even if Ethan hadn’t intervened, the fungal infection would have killed them. And it wouldn’t have been quick. The toxins would have eaten away at their bodies, dragging them through an agonizing death.

Ethan had simply spared them the suffering.

He glanced down at the three corpses, his expression as calm as ever. After a moment, he muttered under his breath:

“Mushroom risotto…”

…