Ethan and the others headed to Miles’s office.

Miles had just hung up a call. When he saw them, he strode over, eyes widening.

"Captain—you broke through?"

"Yeah." Ethan nodded. "Any luck finding the Zombie King?"

"Not yet." Miles shook his head. "We can pin down the general area, but we still can’t identify which one it is."

He frowned, clearly annoyed. "This Zombie King’s hiding too well. And it doesn’t behave like the ones we’ve seen before."

"How’s it different?" Ethan asked.

"Before, Zombie Kings were always the strongest in their horde," Miles said. "You wouldn’t see zombies at the same Tier as the King inside the same group. If you did, they’d split off—basically form another faction."

"But this time it’s weird. That zombie cluster has dozens of Tier 19 zombies. By common logic, the Zombie King should be Tier 20. Otherwise it wouldn’t be able to control Tier 19s."

He spread his hands. "But our people have been in there for days and haven’t found a single Tier 20 zombie."

"The team I sent are all peak Tier 19, with sensing and scouting abilities. Even Tier 21 or Tier 22 wouldn’t slip past their detection."

"But days have passed. Still nothing above Tier 19."

Miles’s expression tightened. "I even had them focus specifically on the Tier 19 zombies. No leads. And those Tier 19s definitely aren’t the Zombie King."

Ethan rubbed his chin, thinking. "What if the Zombie King isn’t Tier 20 or Tier 19? What if it’s Tier 18... or even lower?"

"I considered that," Miles admitted. "But zombie Tiers are usually rigid. A lower-Tier zombie shouldn’t be able to command higher-Tier ones."

"Nothing’s absolute," Ethan said. "It might have some special ability."

Miles nodded slowly. "That’s possible. But if that’s the case, the target pool gets huge. It’ll be even harder to find."

Ethan shrugged. "It’s fine. I’ll take a trip over there myself. I’ve been sitting around too long anyway."

"Alright." Miles agreed at once.

They chatted a bit more, grabbed lunch, and then Ethan left Fallen Star City with Skinny Pete.

As for everyone else, Ethan ordered them to stay and keep training.

Right now, the Fallen Star Squad were all stuck around peak Tier 23. They needed to push the whole team into Stage A as fast as possible. Only then would they have a real chance against Void Realm creatures.

From what they’d seen, time alone didn’t mean a Void Realm species could climb forever.

Because of mysterious energy concentration limits, many Void Realms had hard caps.

The Infernals they’d run into earlier, for example—Stage B was the ceiling. Past that, they simply couldn’t grow.

So Stage A already counted as "strong."

But some Void Realms were on a whole different level.

The Stoneborn and Winged Clan Realms they’d encountered? Stage A barely even mattered there.

Different Void Realms had wildly different power ceilings.

If you didn’t keep your eyes open, you died.

Rus Federation — Moskva City...

As the capital, Moskva City was the largest city in the Rus Federation—biggest land area, biggest population, and the strongest military presence.

After the apocalypse, the people of Rus Federation proved tough, disciplined, and hard to break. Combined with overwhelming military strength, they reclaimed Moskva City even faster than the Atlas Federation had reclaimed Atlas City.

After that, the Rus Federation’s leadership pushed out massive rescue operations, moving troops fast and wide.

With their quick response—and a country that was huge but sparsely populated—the Rus Federation ended up being one of the highest-survival nations on the planet.

For a while, their president even thought they might become the first country to truly "stabilize" after the apocalypse.

Then Void Realm gates started appearing across the Rus Federation.

At first, people went into those gates and came back with valuable loot, which turned Void Realms into a national obsession. The entire country threw resources into searching for more entrances.

And eventually...

They hit the jackpot twice.

The first was the Void Realm Ethan’s team had encountered—the one with the terrifying glacial beast. Two ferocious monsters came out and wiped several compounds clean off the map.

The second was even worse.

The Winged Clan’s Void Realm.

That entrance opened right inside Winged Clan territory. A human team went in, got spotted, and that was all it took.

The Winged Clan sent a vanguard force into the Rus Federation.

They swept through compound after compound, occupying the major ones and forcing the Rus Federation’s survivors into slavery.

The people of the Rus Federation, of course, weren’t the type to bow their heads.

Unfortunately, in the face of absolute power, their resistance didn’t mean much.

After losing half their population, the survivors finally learned to keep quiet.

Inside the central grand hall of the Moskva City compound, a winged, middle-aged man stood above a group of younger Winged Clan elites and tore into them.

"What the hell are you all doing?" he roared. "It’s been days and you still haven’t found those humans?!"

"L-Lord Aeralon, please calm down," one of them said carefully, voice low. "This world is bigger than we expected. Give us a little more time—we’ll definitely smoke them out."

"Useless trash." Aeralon’s eyes were bloodshot with rage. "It’s been eight days. If anything’s happened to Aerisara, I’ll rip every last one of you apart!"

"L-Lord Aeralon, please—!"

The young elites dropped to their knees all at once, faces drained white.

Eight days. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

How could nothing have happened?

Even if she was still alive, those humans had probably already had their way with her—Aerisara was too beautiful for it not to happen.

Aside from their wings, Winged Clan bodies were almost identical to humans. Just like Winged Clan men liked human women, it wasn’t exactly shocking if humans liked Winged Clan women too.

Which meant... if that was the case, these search teams were dead either way.

One of the kneeling Winged Clan finally forced himself to speak.

"Lord Aeralon... I don’t think those humans are natives of this world. I think they might be outsiders—like us. From another world."

Aeralon’s gaze snapped to him. "Why?"

The young man swallowed and laid it out.

"First, their abilities don’t match the level of this world. Spatial abilities, high-tier thralls, coordinated combat—none of that fits what we’ve seen from the natives."

"Second, they showed no fear when facing us. That kind of confidence doesn’t come from ignorance. It comes from experience."

"Third, they understood our language. That alone proves they’ve had contact with other realms."

He lifted his head. "Put it together... I don’t believe they’re locals."

The others nodded along, tense but agreeing.

Aeralon’s expression twisted. "You’re right. They’re probably outsiders."

Then his voice dropped, colder and worse. "But I don’t care where they crawled out of. They took Aerisara. That means they pay."

"Lord Aeralon," someone said, voice shaking, "what if... what if their strength in this world is even greater than ours?"

"Impossible." Aeralon spat the word. "If they were stronger than the Winged Clan, they wouldn’t be hiding. They’d be hunting."

He stepped forward, wings flaring just enough to make the hall’s air shift.

"Keep searching. You have three more days."

His eyes narrowed to slits.

"If you still can’t find them... don’t bother coming back alive."

"Yes!"

The group could only retreat from the hall, faces tight with dread.

Outside, they immediately began throwing more manpower into the search, fanning out again—desperate, frantic, and running out of time.