After leaving Silver Lake Ridge, Ethan and the others summoned Pumpkin back and resumed their journey—lugging that massive iron cage along with them.
The thing was heavy as hell and a pain to carry, but if they wanted to raise a Stage D zombie, they had no choice. Consider it strength training.
Stage D was a major threshold. Just like humans, zombies hitting that level wasn't easy. In all this time, they'd only encountered one Stage D zombie—the one they'd killed. Nothing since.
Most powerful survivors were stuck at Tier 5 peak, unable to break through. That bottleneck worked in Ethan's favor. The longer everyone else stalled, the bigger his lead became.
Stage D Awakened didn't need to stargaze every night to absorb mysterious energy—they could do it passively. That alone was a game-changer.
But it wouldn't last forever. Sooner or later, more Stage D zombies would start showing up.
And killing one? That was no small feat.
