Necrophage’s needles shot towards the melting corpse. Blaze hoped to get one of the Blightlord’s abilities. Unfortunately, the walker turned into a smoothie before he could do that.
"It’s fine," Blaze clicked his tongue, consoling the arm. "We’ll get it next time."
Necrophage was an overpowered weapon. The only issue was that it could only absorb traits or abilities of those killed by itself, aka Blaze. As long as a creature was alive, it couldn’t absorb anything from it.
That’s why Blaze used it as soon as the walker died. But to no avail.
"As long as that thing is alive, I’ll take it from it."
He turned to the rest of the grade-3 zombies. While they were strong, they were more useful to Blaze in death. Also, he couldn’t let them fall under the Blightlord’s command.
With one look, the grade-3s sliced their heads off. Those who couldn’t were helped by Saturn and Breaker. Fester ran through the horde, collecting nuclei as Blaze turned back to the spire.
"85% coverage might not be enough."
He remembered thinking the range was excessive after creating the spire. All of a sudden, it wasn’t enough anymore.
The blightlord loved its control over the zone. So Blaze wanted to strip it off. Since killing it was impossible, he could force it to flee. Though that would inevitably lead to more problems down the road.
Blaze turned around when he heard Fester ordering someone around. He turned and saw a strange sight. The rat was sitting on Cheetah’s back, ordering it around, pointing at the nuclei with its tail.
Only in the strange new world could a rat order a cat around.
Blaze smiled, knowing Fester did it to distract him. The little fella was getting smarter day by day.
Next to them, a small pile of nuclei was forming. However, Blaze was interested in something else.
Nearly all of San Diego’s grade-3 zombies were there. Which meant at least one of them had to have a necroseed. Though Fester couldn’t look for it.
"You," Blaze said, gesturing to the sporeform to come closer.
Like an obedient son, the sporeform followed the instructions. Blaze grabbed a bunch of its filaments and spread them around the headless corpses of grade-3 undead.
"Find a seed for me. Don’t consume it, just let me know where it is."
There were dozens of corpses the blightspore had to look through. It would take a while, so Blaze went back to his throne to ease some load off his mind.
"Human and rot... how can someone smell like both?"
Blaze smelled himself, and he smelled delicious, like rot. Just like that, the possibility of conscience playing a role in the smell was debunked.
It meant the blightlord couldn’t be a mere intelligent zombie. It was a more complex being, much like its smell.
Perhaps it was a human class capable of controlling zombies? Then again, why would the walker smell part human if that was the case?
"The description said the blightlord could shift everything to a new body," he mumbled. "Does it include one’s soul? Soul? What even is it? Am I losing brain cells now?"
Blaze shook his head. The thought of a soul was thrown out along with it. He didn’t think souls existed, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have a smell, or else science would have found a soul long ago.
It made more sense if the blightlord were a human. Moreover, given its cringeworthy way of conversing, it could be a child for all he knew.
"Too much work and too little time..."
Memories flashed before him when he closed his eyes. Blaze realized he had too many loose ends to deal with.
First was Neha. But he could forget about her since she was missing. Then, the blightlord and finally the puppeteer, he fought inside the research lab before converting Voss.
Blaze’s eyes snapped open. Back when he saw the zombies rushing towards the spire, he had a feeling like déjà vu. Now he remembered where.
Back then, the walkers and sprinters all rushed towards the source of the pull, just like they ran towards the spire.
"Could it be the puppeteer is the blightlord? No, that might not be the case."
Blaze scratched his chin, remembering that neither Fester nor Breaker was affected by the pull. If it had been the blightlord’s influence, then they would have left his horde long ago.
Then again, even that could be explained.
Much like zombies, the chosen also evolved. It could be that back then, the blightlord wasn’t a blightlord and had a weaker class. Which meant it wasn’t strong enough to control elite undead.
Either that or the blightlord didn’t have the trait to control all zombies. It made sense since back then, the blight zones didn’t exist.
How could a blightlord exist without a blight zone?
"Perhaps what I thought to be a puppeteer was nothing more than a pre-evolution blightlord."
Blaze’s chaotic thoughts eased a little. If the opponent were human, then he had multiple ways to deal with them. After all, humans were full of weaknesses. Their existence itself was a weakness.
"Nah, maybe that was a bit much. That blightlord’s cringe has rubbed off on me. I should kill the darn thing before it gets worse..."
Marrow’s voice brought Blaze out of his stupor. He looked up and saw all the grade-3s were dead, with twenty or so nuclei piled before him.
As for the search for the necroseed, more sporeforms had joined in. Still, it seemed it’d take a while for them to find one.
"Thank you," he said, grabbing a fistful of nuclei. "You’ve done excellent work."
Instead of consuming the nuclei one at a time, Blaze shoved them all in. After all, time was one thing he was running out of.
[Subject J#117’s evolution rate increased to 100%].
[Conditions met. Proceeding with evolution.]
Blaze clenched his jaw as soon as he saw that notification, knowing he was going to be in a world of pain.