CHAPTER 680: SO THIS IS HUMAN SOCIETY, HUH?

"I’m heading out to the Terran Reach—the human civilization zone. You guys hold down the fort while I’m gone," Ethan said, giving his final instructions. Now that the food situation was more or less under control, he could finally loosen the reins a bit and focus on his own plans.

Bulldozer gave a goofy nod. "Boss, don’t worry. If any enemies show up, I’ll smash every last one of ’em."

Ethan gave a small nod. "If anything comes up, ask PhD. He’ll know what to do."

He felt pretty confident leaving the corpse nest in PhD’s hands. The guy was reliable.

The other Zombie Kings all nodded in agreement, their expressions full of determination.

They’d come all the way from Earth to Originis—left everything behind. Deep down, they were all holding onto the same fire: one day, they’d conquer this entire planet.

...

With his instructions given, Ethan was ready to head out.

The Zombie Kings lined up to see him off. He stepped onto the aircraft, and with a blast of blue flame from the thrusters, it lifted off the ground and shot into the sky, vanishing into the horizon.

The Zombie Kings stood there, gazing up, full of anticipation. They all believed that when Ethan returned, everything would be different—like the whole world had flipped upside down.

Big Ears thumped his chest. "No need to worry, folks. With me here, we won’t even need PhD to step in. I’ll handle everything."

"Alright, boys! Let’s hit the pig farm and get those hogs fed!"

...

Ethan’s aircraft tore across the desolate expanse of the Exile Zone, a barren wasteland of reddish-brown rock stretching endlessly below.

Jagged mountains and bizarre rock formations jutted out of the ground like broken teeth.

Every now and then, he spotted piles of bones—or packs of Black-Skin Zombies sprinting across the terrain, chasing down prey.

To get into human civilization, Ethan needed a solid cover.

So far, he’d killed a group of students and teachers, and four mercenaries.

After weighing his options, he decided to go with the mercenary disguise. Posing as someone from a school? Way too risky. He didn’t know enough about their culture, and it’d be way too easy to slip up.

So he extended his psychic energy, casting an illusion over himself, reshaping his appearance. To human eyes, he now looked exactly like the mercenary captain he’d taken out.

The aircraft he was flying? Also belonged to that mercenary team.

There were even a few "personal effects" onboard—enough to piece together a backstory. The captain, as it turned out, was an orphan. No family, no ties. The kind of guy who could disappear and no one would notice.

His name? Dane Walker.

There was also some universal currency stashed away. That was a good sign—it meant the human society here was still functioning, not some barter-based survivalist mess.

"Haven’t seen a fully functioning human society in a long time..." Ethan mused, a flicker of curiosity in his eyes.

He was genuinely looking forward to seeing what it looked like now.

His goal was simple: get his hands on some tech—preferably high-end weapons.

The aircraft blazed forward at top speed, but even then, crossing the vast Exile Zone would take over a week.

Ethan didn’t waste the time. He kept sending out signals, scanning for any data he could pick up about human civilization.

Seven days passed in a blur.

The bleak landscape outside began to shift. Mountains of trash started appearing—massive piles stretching as far as the eye could see, some stacked so high they looked like artificial peaks.

"Almost there..."

From what Ethan had gathered, humans had been dumping their garbage along the edge of the Exile Zone for over a century.

But even here, among the trash, there were zombies.

They wandered aimlessly, eyes dull, mouths slack as they groaned and shuffled. Clearly, they hadn’t evolved—just the lowest tier of infected.

These zombies were likely the result of other Zombie Kings’ experiments.

Ethan wasn’t the only one who’d tried to infiltrate human civilization. Others had definitely made attempts—trying to steal tech, gather intel, or just cause chaos.

But none of them understood humans the way Ethan did.

And that was the difference.

It’s not all guns and guts—it’s knowing how to play the game...

As Ethan drew closer to the edge of human civilization, something massive appeared on the horizon—a colossal airship, floating slowly through the sky like a drifting mountain.

It hovered above one of the towering trash heaps, then opened a massive hatch on its underside. In an instant, a torrent of garbage came crashing down, pouring out in a deafening avalanche.

A waste transport ship. Just here to dump the trash.

Far off in the distance, tiny black specks began to appear on the horizon. They were sprinting—racing toward the freshly dumped garbage like a swarm of insects.

At first glance, they looked like zombies, the way they moved—wild, frantic, desperate.

But they weren’t.

They were humans.

People who lived on the fringes of the Exile Zone, barely surviving in the harshest conditions imaginable. Their lives revolved around scavenging—digging through the trash for anything remotely useful.

They fought each other, clawed and shoved, scrambling to grab whatever scraps they could find.

Ethan had picked up plenty of intel through intercepted signals. The wealth gap in human society was massive—worse than anything he’d seen before. A textbook case of the 80/20 rule, except here it was more like 2 versus 98.

That mountain of garbage? All of it came from the top 2%.

The rest? They were left to fight over the leftovers.

Ethan sat in his aircraft, watching the chaos below with detached indifference. These people were so frail, so emaciated, they barely had any meat on their bones. Not even worth eating.

His destination lay just ahead—a place called Mercenary Town.

It was the same outpost the four mercenaries had departed from before heading to Necroterra. Not far from the edge of the Exile Zone, which made it a convenient launch point for missions into the deadlands.

Soon, the aircraft began to slow as a small, dusty town came into view below. The buildings were low and crumbling, slapped together from sand-bricks and warped wooden planks. The whole place looked like it could collapse in a stiff breeze.

Ethan peered down and noticed the town was surprisingly lively. The streets were packed, vendors shouting over one another, hawking their wares. Other aircraft circled lazily overhead, scanning for landing spots.

"So this is human society, huh?"

It had been a long time since Ethan had felt this kind of atmosphere. He guided the aircraft down, heading straight for the town center.

There, the largest building stood—a ramshackle structure that served as the local mercenary hub.

The aircraft touched down smoothly in front of it.

Ethan stepped out, blending in perfectly. No one gave him a second glance—his psychic disguise still held strong, projecting the image of Dane Walker, the mercenary captain.

The building in front of him looked like it should’ve collapsed decades ago. A crooked sign hung over the entrance, barely clinging to its hinges: Mercenary Inn.

This was Dane’s usual haunt.

It wasn’t just a place to sleep. It had food, drinks, and even... other services. Everything a mercenary might need to blow off steam.

The entrance was bustling. People came and went, chatting loudly, swapping stories.

"Hey! How’d your last job go? Any casualties?"

"Lost two guys, but we took down an S-class Zombie King. Worth it, I’d say."

"Yeah? Not bad. At least you got something out of it."

...

Ethan moved with the crowd, stepping through the inn’s front doors.

The human stench hit him immediately—sweat, booze, perfume, smoke. The air was thick with it.

The first thing he saw was the bar.

A few mercs were crowded around a table, slamming back cheap liquor and shouting over each other. The energy was rowdy, almost feral.

Scantily clad women drifted between tables, smiling as they served drinks and leaned in close to their customers.

The whole place reeked of desperation and decay, barely holding itself together.

Ethan scanned the room, taking it all in. society... was in worse shape than he’d expected.

"What a goddamn dump."

...