Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 457: Of Kings And Monsters

Bishop studied the two men in front of him, vowing their everlasting loyalty. The only problem was that he had been burned too many times. Their words sounded nice, but it was their actions that he would judge them on.

"If you follow me," announced Bishop, smiling brightly at the two men, "then I will protect you to my dying breath."

The carrot and the stick. It was the easiest way to get the mindless humans to follow him. First, he showed them the stick, the promise of death and destruction if they didn’t do as he said. Then, when everyone was terrified, he would reward them. A kind word here, a nice gesture there.

Soon enough, they would be eating out of his hand.

Nodding his head, he smiled brightly as he lifted his hand up to the sky. The once bright afternoon sun turned to a dark and stormy night within seconds. The clouds, completely black with the promise of rain and lightning, covered the sky, leaving the majority of people blind.

Occasional bursts of lightning streaked through the darkness, adding a mysterious glow to the world. Beneath the flickering heavens, Bishop stood at the frontlines, his feet apart as his eyes glowed a beautiful black color.

While the humans might have a hard time seeing what was happening, he, as a demon, had no problem at all. With the harsh sun no longer impeding the bugs, hundreds, if not thousands, of centipedes crawled out of the cracks and crevices around Bishop and his men.

Seemingly merging into one, the centipedes came like a living tide, crawling over the slower bodies to get to the group of people that much faster. Their mutated bodies glistened with heat-resistant carapaces, their hundreds of legs twitching, vibrating with unrelenting speed. The largest of them, twelve feet long and built like an armored tank, screeched with intelligent rage, its mandibles snapping through steel as easily as bone. It was clearly the leader, the King, and the one that they had to deal with if they had any hope of victory.

And still, the humans behind Bishop didn’t run.

Because he didn’t.

"NOW!" he bellowed, making a fist of the hand that was held up to the sky, and the battlefield exploded. Lightning poured down like rain, each strike instantly killing one of the smaller centipedes.

With a roar of their own, Walt and Caspian raced into battle, brushing past Bishop as they advanced on the enemy. Walt raised both hands, his fireballs roaring into a wall of searing flame that carved through the first wave of centipedes, leaving them as nothing more than blackened pieces.

Caspian stayed at his side, neither following nor leading, like the perfect counterpart for Walk. Pushing his hands forward, he created ice so cold it cracked the air, turning the ground beneath the bugs into frozen shards that impaled them from below.

Nodding his head again in approval, Bishop dove headfirst into the chaos, his body a blur as he hurled bolts of lightning that split the earth. One massive creature tried to leap at his face, but Bishop’s power surged from his fingertips and lanced through its skull. The beast crumpled mid-air and landed at his feet in a steaming heap.

"Protect the left flank!" he shouted. "They’re circling behind the wounded!"

"I’ve got it!" screamed a young woman from the crowd. Her skin shimmered with obsidian scales and glowing black eyes as she let go of her fear and gave in to the whispers in her head. Twisting her wrist, fanged beasts made of lightning emerged from the ground, their mouths open as they devoured the insects with a relentless hunger.

Demons.

One by one, the dormant demon seeds among the survivors merged with their human hosts, creating a being so much stronger than what they would have ever been on their own.

Walt’s flames turned from orange to blue. Caspian’s ice formed bright blue wings on his back as he took to the air. Others began to rise, their powers erupting in synchronized chaos—stone shields, wind blades, black mist, silver light.

Anyone who fell was quickly treated by the healers who stood at the back before quickly entering the battle once again. No one hesitated, and the more they fought, the stronger they became.

Demons were being born by the minute. And the centipedes didn’t stand a chance. The battle seemed to have taken days, and yet, it probably wasn’t any more than an hour before everything went quiet.

The newly born demons stood in a line, their eyes trained past Bishop, Walt, and Caspian as they waited for the next round of attacks. The first round was almost too easy, and the massive creature that had hidden amongst the smaller centipedes hadn’t been dealt with yet.

"Just waiting for the boss battle," sighed one of the teenagers, his hair a bright blue color as his eyes seemed to drift shut. "Someone wake me up when it comes."

However, no one needed to wake him up. Before anyone could respond, the ground beneath their feet lurched like a tidal wave toward shore.

"Get ready!" shouted Walt as a giant fireball appeared in front of him. The rest of the demons lifted their chin, not to be outdone by the pride demon.

Wings sprouted from backs as the earth split open in a blast of shattered concrete and soil. Taking to the sky, the demons looked down at their prey.

The twelve-foot-long centipede breached out of the ground like a Great White Shark spotting its prey. However, the moment it thought it had something in its cleaver-like mandibles, it closed on nothing but air.

Letting out a pissed off roar, the centipede king looked around, trying to find its meal. It wasn’t until he looked up and saw the group of demons hovering in the air did he realized that he had been tricked.

Letting out another roar, he let his body fall to the ground, right at Bishop’s feet. However, Bishop didn’t so much as flinch as he looked down at the creature in front of him.

Venom dripped from the creature’s mandible and tail as it stared back at him with multiple lidless eyes. Lunging forward, its tail curved over like a scorpion’s, the centipede attacked without a second thought.