News of the battle at Silverlake City reached Atlas City almost immediately.

Maxwell and the others had expected it... but they were still shaken.

Especially when they heard that Ethan—and some other person—had casually blown apart three powerhouses from the Void Realm. The looks on everyone’s faces were... complicated, to say the least.

"...Are we sure we didn’t misjudge it?" Arthur asked quietly. "Maybe those three weren’t actually that strong?"

Maxwell shot him a look. "A single slap wiped dozens of Tier 9 and Tier 10 Enhanced into paste, and you’re telling me they ’weren’t that strong’?"

He snorted. "We should let them slap you once and see how ’not that strong’ feels."

"Uh..." Arthur coughed, instantly backing down. "I was just saying."

Gabriel’s expression stayed serious. "I never imagined Ethan’s strength had reached this level. If we keep relations smooth with them, it’ll be a blessing for The Atlas Federation."

"Agreed."

Charles frowned. "But who was the other one? There’s nothing in our files. Not a single trace."

"No idea," someone said. "He’s like... he appeared out of nowhere. Then after he killed two of them, he vanished. We don’t even know how he left."

"But one thing’s certain," another added, voice low. "That person is even more terrifying than Ethan."

Everyone nodded, grim—and a little helpless.

It kept happening. Every time they thought they’d finally figured out Fallen Star’s ceiling, reality came along and slapped them in the face.

Maxwell exhaled slowly. "Either way, we stay friendly. As long as we don’t clash with them, the stronger they are, the better it is for The Atlas Federation."

"Right." Heads nodded around the table.

Meanwhile, in Silverlake City—now the new Fallen Star City...

Miles was already running things with clean, efficient order.

The compound was several times larger than before, but for him it didn’t seem especially difficult. And honestly, the people inside were cooperating like their lives depended on it.

Which they did.

When two hundred thousand corpses were still fresh in your memory, you didn’t get cute with the new management.

Ethan and the Fallen Star Guard didn’t stay.

They still had a bigger job: escort everyone over to Silverlake City—the original Fallen Star City survivors, plus the people from Stonebridge City compound, Deepwater City compound, and Grace’s compound.

It was a massive undertaking.

All together, it was about 1.3 million people.

A migration on that scale was hell to organize, even with a clear destination.

Thankfully, the distance wasn’t too far. And with Fallen Star Guard’s strength, the relocation moved in an orderly way... just slow.

A dense sea of people flowed forward like a tide, the line stretching so long you couldn’t see the end.

Enhanced above Tier 6 formed the outer edges as a moving shield wall. Anyone below Tier 6 stayed in the middle. Every segment of the column had Fallen Star Guard mixed in, keeping things from unraveling.

Behind them, semi-trucks packed with supplies rumbled along, bumper to bumper.

Those trucks were priceless now—rare, hard to replace, and something every compound had scraped together piece by piece.

Up in the sky, the Fallen Star Squad rode their flying mounts in wide circles, watching the horizon.

A migration that big was basically a dinner bell.

It drew in zombies and mutant beasts nonstop.

Even with their strength, they couldn’t intimidate everything. Ambushes kept happening—zombies slipping in, mutant beasts diving out of nowhere—costing them people here and there.

And that was with Ethan escorting them.

It wasn’t hard to imagine what a normal compound would lose trying to pull off the same thing.

These days, zombies were almost all Tier 6 and above. Tier 7 and Tier 8 were everywhere, and Tier 9 weren’t rare either.

When the convoy reached the border between two states, the sheer mass of humanity finally attracted something far worse—

A terrifying zombie swarm, rushing in from who-knew-where.

At least a million of them.

They came from multiple directions, sprinting like a living flood toward the moving crowd.

The moment people saw that wall of bodies, panic ripped through the column.

"Close ranks!" Ethan’s voice rang out from above, sharp enough to cut straight through the fear. "All Enhanced Tier 6 and up—battle positions! Fallen Star Guard, squads of ten. Each squad covers one section of the line!"

The panic didn’t vanish, but it stopped spreading. People clung to the sound of his voice like a rope.

Sean’s eyes narrowed as he watched the swarm. "Ethan, with numbers like this... that’s a Tier 11 zombie, right?"

"Yeah." Ethan’s gaze swept the horde, cold and focused. "Has to be. I’ve already spotted three Tier 10 zombies in there. That only happens when a Tier 11 is controlling them."

Big Mike cracked his neck, practically vibrating. "Ha! With this many? We can finally kill to our hearts’ content."

The others looked just as eager, hands itching.

Ethan’s tone stayed clipped. "You guys go. Kill fast—keep the casualties down."

His eyes lifted, searching beyond the sea of undead. "I’ll find that Tier 11 Zombie King."

"Got it!"

The squad launched forward, charging straight into the oncoming tide...

After reaching Stage C (Tier 12), none of them felt the slightest fear toward a zombie swarm like this anymore.

With the skills they each had, the speed they could mow zombies down at was on a completely different level compared to before. Give them enough time and they could wipe out a million-zombie tide, start to finish.

Once they were over the swarm, nobody hesitated. They jumped straight in.

Almost immediately, meteors began to fall.

Rain of Flames poured down in sheets.

Wide sections of the horde vanished in bursts of fire and pulverized flesh, whole clusters erased at a time.

A massive tornado rose out of the middle of the swarm, chewing through bodies. Zombies got yanked into the air, spun up, and shredded into scraps that rained back down.

Vines burst from the ground, snapping around zombie after zombie. They tightened and tried to drain them dry—

—and got basically nothing.

These things didn’t have real blood to speak of. "Lifesteal" might as well have been a joke on the undead.

Emily’s face fell. "Seriously?"

She had no choice but to draw her longsword and go in close.

Aside from the few people with true AOE attacks, the fastest killer by far was Sean.

He went full metal, activated [Thornmail], and just bulldozed through the horde like a maniac, ramming and tearing through them, having the time of his life.

As for the rest, a lot of them could only grit their teeth and rely on weapons.

And it wasn’t just the Fallen Star Squad.

Fallen Star’s second echelon was strong too—and the one who stood out the most was Calvin. Wherever he went, lightning lit the battlefield up like a signpost.

His ability was Thunder Strike. After it evolved, he gained Chain Lightning—fire one bolt, paralyze the target, and the effect jumped to others nearby.

In a packed swarm like this, it was disgusting. Sparks and lightning everywhere.

After everything he’d been through, Calvin seemed like he’d fully transformed. He barely talked to anyone in the compound anymore—just trained in the arena every day.

And now even fighting with his left hand holding a blade didn’t slow him down at all. He was vicious up close, like he’d been born for it.

Right behind him in pure impact was Vivian—violent as ever.

Her Strength-type ability boosted her raw power every time she advanced. At Stage C, her strength was already about one and a half times higher than other Awakened at the same tier.

On top of that, she had Energy Armor from reaching Stage D, and the speed boost she gained at Stage C.

Speed, defense, strength—everything cranked up.

She was a straight-up battle addict.

Watching those two fight, you could almost see the old Fallen Star Squad in them.

The others were a bit weaker, but against Tier 7 and Tier 8 zombies, they were still more than enough.

The real problem was the numbers.

The horde was too big. Even with strong lines, zombies still slipped through gaps and broke into the middle, slamming into the migration column and causing casualties.

There was no perfect fix for it. The terrain out here was wide open—flat and exposed—and the zombies were coming from all directions. You couldn’t seal every angle at once.

And outside of Fallen Star City’s people, the other compounds’ Enhanced weren’t that strong. Compared to Fallen Star, they were basically on the zombies’ level—mostly Tier 6 and Tier 7, with very few above Tier 8.

If a higher-tier zombie broke through, they couldn’t hold it.

Thankfully, Fallen Star Guard stayed locked in. The moment anything dangerous punched into the formation, they reacted immediately, putting it down fast and keeping the losses from snowballing.

Up in the air, Ethan searched for a long time with his eyes—and with his sense—until he finally found it.

A Tier 11 zombie hiding inside the swarm.

His poleaxe shot out.

A single clean throw.

It punched straight through the thing like it was paper.

Then Ethan swept the area and took out the Tier 10 zombies he’d spotted too, one after another, not giving them a chance to vanish back into the crowd.

Only then did the horde finally start to lose its shape.

The zombies began to retreat—slowly at first, then more and more, the pressure easing as the sea of undead turned and pulled away.