SSS-Class Zombie Overlord: My Undead Legion Evolves Infinitely!

Hearing the envoy’s command, the remaining members of the Radiant Stars moved out at once.

Until only a moment ago, they had possessed little to no motivation to even lift a finger, since their dismissal had already been decided and there was very little they could do to change the association’s judgment.

But now? They had suddenly been fired up.

The bunch wasn’t stupid. Although only a short amount of time had passed since their arrival, they too, just like the envoy, had noticed the vast changes taking place before their eyes.

’It’s an opportunity!’ The thought appeared within all of their minds almost simultaneously.

These ants were new mutated monsters, ones that had never been recorded or even seen before. If they contributed enough during this mission, they could associate themselves with their discovery and potentially use it to prove that they were still valuable to the Association.

The chances were slim, but they weren’t nonexistent. More importantly, their confidence in this opportunity stemmed almost entirely from the envoy himself.

Who was the envoy, after all?

He was an officially selected and specially trained employee of the Awakeners Association.

The association only ever sent its official employees outside when the situation had reached a point where ordinary measures were no longer enough, and whenever such an employee was dispatched, they represented the association as a whole.

This was also the reason why, regardless of how powerful an awakener might be, they still had to speak respectfully toward these employees, since authority, after all, wasn’t always determined by strength alone.

Usually, it wouldn’t have been abnormal if the envoy hadn’t invited them to participate in the battle at all.

Theoretically, a true E-rank awakener could easily deal with ten F-rank monsters, and a true D-rank awakener could defeat nearly a hundred F-rank monsters, while a C-rank awakener could potentially deal with nearly a thousand F-rank monsters.

However, this was merely the simplest form of comparison, since in practicality, such calculations could never remain accurate for long, as variables such as teamwork, individual potential, combat sense, skills, terrain, and countless other factors could easily interfere with such a neat comparison.

Even a weak monster could become troublesome if it possessed an ability perfectly suited to counter its opponent.

But the envoy was different.

He was a genuine C-rank awakener who had been trained by the Association from a young age, and his combat experience was something the Radiant Stars couldn’t even hope to compare to.

If he had truly wanted to, he could probably have exterminated the entire blood ant colony all by himself.

Yet he hadn’t. Instead, he had ordered them to kill the ants.

This wasn’t just an order but an invitation—an invitation to contribute and an invitation to prove themselves. His words alone had revealed the stance of the Association, and that alone was enough to give the Radiant Stars a faint glimmer of hope.

Without thinking twice, the awakeners quickly stepped forward, their nox circulating through their bodies as their classes activated one after another.

One of them raised his hand, forming several rough but incredibly sharp spikes of ice before launching them toward the approaching blood ants, the frozen projectiles tearing through the air and piercing straight through several ant bodies, sending jade-green blood splattering across the ground.

Beside him, another member channeled his nox through both arms, allowing a thick layer of hair to rapidly grow around them before hardening into a pair of razor-sharp gauntlets.

He stepped forward and swung his arm, the hardened hair tearing clean through an approaching blood ant and splitting its body apart, while another swing sent a second ant flying straight into the trees.

The remaining members followed soon afterward. Unlike Christine, all of them were genuine D-rank awakeners, and their overall ranks matched the potential of their classes, allowing them to use their abilities to their fullest extent, their attacks quickly tearing through the blood ants one after another.

Clara, however, found herself in a considerably more difficult position. Carrying Christine was easy enough, but she couldn’t freely use her skills—her class allowed her to cover her body in a weak layer of flames, and wherever her body touched, the flames would spread.

Normally, this made her extremely effective against groups of weak monsters, but with Christine unconscious on her back, using her abilities carelessly could easily end up injuring her as well.

Thus, Clara could only partially rely on her flames, and because of this, she quickly began falling behind the others in terms of kills.

Even so, she didn’t retreat, carefully moving between the trees while keeping Christine away from the flames, using only small bursts of her ability whenever an ant strayed too close.

Just like this, the group continued attacking the blood ants. The commotion created by their abilities was enormous, the ground trembling repeatedly as ice spikes crashed into the earth while shockwaves from physical attacks sent loose soil flying through the air.

A layer of dust gradually rose off the ground, forming a nearly translucent cloud that hung over the battlefield. While several small pits had already been carved into the earth, thick jade-green blood was smearing the soil and slowly pooling within the depressions.

The number of blood ants seemed endless. No matter how many they killed, more continued emerging from the underground colony, and their attacks naturally created vibrations that traveled through the earth, passing beneath the surface and through the layers of soil and stone before eventually reaching the deeper parts of the colony.

Far beneath the entrance, Eris suddenly raised her head, her deep green eyes turning toward the ceiling.

Something was happening above them, and her expression grew uneasy almost instantly.

Beside her, the newly evolved zombie blood ant soldier immediately stood on guard, its six legs digging into the ground as its mandibles opened slightly, ready to strike at anything that might emerge from the darkness.

Around Eris, the zombie blood ants had already formed several layers of protection—some surrounding the queen herself, others guarding the entrance leading toward the upper levels, while another group formed a tight encirclement around the newly laid eggs.

Eris slowly clenched her fists. ’For such a thing to happen when you’re away... My lord...’

Her expression only grew more worried by the second, yet there was nothing she could do. She could only hope that Ethan was safe.

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One after another, the group continued killing the exorbitant number of blood ants pouring out of the cavern, gradually inching closer and closer to the entrance itself with every passing exchange.

Their bodies were already covered in sweat and dust, but none of them stopped—they couldn’t. This was their chance.

Every dead ant was another contribution, and every step closer to the colony was another achievement they could report back to the Association.

The more they killed, however, the stranger the surrounding environment became.

A sour stench gradually spread throughout the forest, carrying the metallic tang of rusting blood mixed with the foul smell of something slowly rotting away. Although the members of the Radiant Stars hardly paid any attention to it—after all, there were simply too many dead monsters lying across the ground for such a smell to be particularly surprising.

The envoy, however, suddenly stopped, his eyes shining brightly beneath his veil as his gaze landed on the ground.

There, beneath the feet of the radiant stars, were large chunks of dead blood and corpses, rotting away at an alarmingly fast rate.

Their crimson exoskeletons were already losing their original color while the flesh beneath them slowly softened and collapsed, giving off a foul, musky stench that spread rapidly through the air.

The envoy remained silent as his mind began working furiously. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Suddenly, countless pieces of information began coming together all at once.

How had the blood ants survived? How could they have lived in isolation for nearly a decade, multiplying their numbers to this extent without ever being discovered?

And most importantly, why did they continue attacking so relentlessly, even after seeing hundreds of their own kind die before them?

Until now, the envoy had considered it nothing more than the natural recklessness of monsters, but now, their jade-green eyes, their deep-green blood, their strange mutations, their complete disregard for their own lives, and their rapidly rotting corpses—everything suddenly made sense.

’The zombie virus.’

The envoy’s expression changed at once, genuine seriousness appearing in his eyes for the first time since entering the forest.

The zombie virus had been the first world-recognized calamity unleashed after the apocalypse, and because of this, scientists had always treated it with the utmost priority.

Even now, when the majority of the original virus had disappeared, the remaining traces were constantly being hunted down. The Association remained extremely vigilant—humanity had already suffered once because of it, and they wouldn’t allow the same mistake to happen again.

But there was something peculiar about the zombie virus—it had never truly affected monsters before.

Back then, it had primarily targeted ordinary humans and animals, while awakeners remained largely unaffected and monsters proved even more resistant.

At least, that was what humanity had always believed.

Yet now, right before the envoy’s eyes, stood an entire colony of zombified blood ants, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands.

The envoy’s breathing slowed as he tried getting himself calm. ’What exactly happened here?’

This wasn’t simply a mutated monster discovery anymore. If the association managed to obtain living specimens of these creatures, they could potentially study how the zombie virus had mutated and why it had suddenly become capable of infecting monsters—the implications alone were enormous. The entire colony was practically a treasure vault.

The envoy instinctively raised his hand, about to inform the others, but before he could speak, a loud, sharp screech suddenly shook the entirety of the sparse forest, powerful enough to make the trees themselves tremble. The Radiant Stars froze in place as the envoy immediately looked toward the sky.

From far beyond the trees, a massive silhouette could be seen rapidly approaching, its enormous wings tearing through the air as it flew toward them at an astonishing speed.

Its body had clearly undergone several changes, yet despite those alterations, its characteristics remained unmistakable.

The envoy’s eyes widened beneath his veil; the pressure alone was enough for him to recognize it.

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