The familiar assembly screen appeared before Blaze once again. Having learned from his past mistake, he didn’t dissect the mauler and sprinter parts.
As absurd as it sounded, Blaze treated the zombies as if they were alive and he was operating on them. Thankfully, the system made everything too easy for him.
With a click, he made clean cuts to the mauler’s side, making a path to its spinal cord. Next, he separated the skin of the two sprinters’ limbs and attached them to the mauler’s side.
The system did the rest by connecting the residual nerves and creating new ones from the discarded limbs to attach the limbs to the mauler’s side.
The bodies rejected each other at first, which was expected, but then tissues burst from the Mauler’s spine. Blaze raised an eyebrow as the tendril-like tissues wrapped around the sprinter’s arms.
[Organ compatibility: 89%]
[Overriding natural resistance.]
[Stabilization... successful.]
The mauler’s body shook before his eyes, but the next moment it calmed down. Not wanting to lose the momentum, Blaze kept at it, replacing the Mauler’s bulky legs with sprinter’s and fed them a bit of extra tendons and muscles.
It was far more difficult than attaching arms. A single misplaced muscle tissue, or dislocated tendon, could ruin the entire project beyond recognition.
Blaze’s movements, even on the screen, were clumsy at best. So much so that the system had to step in often to stabilize the undead.
After the legs came the bulky upper body. The sprinter’s legs wouldn’t function at their optimal level with such massive arms. As much as Blaze didn’t want to touch the mauler’s durability, some sacrifices had to be made for his vision to come true.
That’s why he decided to decrease the mass held in the mauler’s arms and torso so the legs could support it without losing its agility.
[Reanimation threshold reached!]
[Any more augmentation will increase the chance of failure by 99%]
[Still proceed with further changes?]
Blaze finalized his design and awaited the final verdict.
[Integration progress report: Success.]
[Entry #9: Ravager-class has been added to the encyclopedia.]
Subject: ??? (Subject Code: ZX#021)
Race: Combined Undead
Sub-Classification: Stalker (I)
— Durability: Moderate
— Intelligence: Low-Moderate (Can follow a decent level of commands in quick succession)
[Evolution Potential: Detected (11%)]
[Regeneration Rate:] Moderate
— Quad-Limbed: Ravager possesses four arms, two from its mauler lineage and the two shorter arms from the sprinters that emerge from its sides. The compact body allows for it to jump further, defend from multiple angles, and grants the ability to climb walls and anchor or charge direction mid-charge.
— Hyper-charge: Similar to a Mauler, enters a burst-state, enhancing its agility and strength for 10 seconds and charges ahead. During this time, all attacks deal critical damage. The move causes an immense strain on the body and increases hunger afterward.
— Reinforced Muscles: Ligaments and tendons are covered with calcium strands to give extreme explosive movement capability to the Ravager while maintaining its newfound flexibility.
An abomination created by a strange undead form, with a mauler as its base. It has lost its aggressive nature to some extent, but is still territorial to those weaker than itself. The Ravager is a hungry powerhouse that needs to be full at all times. If not actively fighting or hunting, it enters a short hibernation state to conserve energy.
No aura trait yet again.
Blaze clicked his tongue. First, it was the merged crawler, and now the ravager. It seemed the combined undead did not have an aura trait, or as he called them, support buffs.
Fester and Breaker both had a wide area effect trait, and both of them had turned into undead naturally. The observation let Blaze form a plan in mind. He could use low-rarity undead for corpse unification, while converting the chosen or stronger undead to get a buff from them.
But other than the lack of support buffs, the ravager was truly a beast. It had little to no weaknesses of its past form, only the strengths remained. Though Blaze could have made it much better if it wasn’t for the threshold.
It doesn’t mean I’m not happy with the result.
The ravager stood in place while Blaze walked around it, looking for imperfections as well as admiring his work.
Climb that wall as fast as you can.
Blaze pointed at the wall behind him, and Ravager leaped onto it. Its massive arms burst through the wall for the smaller ones to grab on. But even that seemed unnecessary, as its legs were enough for it to run across the wall.
Ravager wasn’t following the instructions anymore. It was showing off, especially after landing on its feet after doing a backflip.
Blaze nodded to himself. He was content with the ravager’s performance. So much so, he even gave it a name.
A lazy name, but at least he wasn’t calling it by its class like he did with the Crawler. It showed he had more hopes from Raven than from Crawler. After all, Raven was his own creation, unlike Crawler.
He turned to his own stats page, his eyes fixed on a certain spot.
Fester, Breaker, Crawler, and Raven.
The four horsemen of the apocalypse were ready to expand his influence.
It was time to lay the foundation of his lair.
With that thought, Blaze turned to the zoo’s map. The hoarding was covered in blood, but he could see his target without any issue.
But before that, he had three slots left to fill. Just then, Breaker and Crawler also returned after smashing all the cars outside.
Good. Now kill every zombie in sight. Other than ourselves.
The three big zombies pumped their chests before charging into the crowd of undead. Fester was about to join, but Blaze had a more important task for it.
Go collect all the nuclei they drop.
Fester screeched before running away with joy. It had become an expert in nucleus digging and thoroughly enjoyed the job.
As his minions got to work, Blaze stretched his stiff muscles before charging towards the nearest undead. He wanted to evolve again as soon as possible, so he could evolve his horde and add more members to it.
Even as he fought, he kept thinking about all the new kinds of undead he wanted to create. It was as if the success with Raven had opened his eyes to a whole new world that Blaze couldn’t wait to explore.