This uniform... You’re the superior, I guess.
Blaze thought as he bit into Hailey’s hand.
[Subject J#117’s evolution rate increased to 9.72%]
[Greed wasn’t triggered.]
[No abilities/traits/mutations unlocked.]
Blaze wasn’t surprised that Greed didn’t trigger. Besides, he was more interested in Hailey’s memories than anything else.
A second later, he found himself watching the world through Hailey’s eyes. It didn’t feel weird like the first time, as if his mind had already adjusted to the skill.
Okay, seems like there was an outbreak at the naval base.
Screams and gunshots merged together, but Blaze didn’t see the panic he had expected. With their weapons, the soldiers easily dealt with two of the three headless.
They were exact copies of the ones that slaughtered the college. Only they seemed weaker.
No, they weren’t weak. The navy was better equipped than we were.
However, the headless with the tendril managed to escape. The losses were minimal. Still, hundreds of soldiers died, who rose again to attack the unsuspecting crowd.
This time, there were no casualties, and all the undead were hunted.
Then the memory shifted. It was a meeting room, but Blaze couldn’t hear much. It seemed Hailey was distracted by something and didn’t focus on what was being said.
Hence, Blaze couldn’t hear what was being said either. It was to be expected since it was a memory reading skill.
What kind of superior are you?
Blaze would have rebuked him more, but the scene changed, and he saw someone he didn’t expect.
Blaze had almost forgotten about her after everything. However, seeing her brought back a lot of emotions... emotions that he shouldn’t feel as he was a zombie.
Then, everything was calm again. It was strange that he cooled down so easily.
But more than anything, he was surprised she survived the attack and made it to the naval base. Then again, she was quite the peculiar one, so there was that.
Peculiar as in she knew all about Hailey, his family, and things even his family didn’t know about him.
"How do you know all this?" he asked her.
"I got my talents," she replied, only to continue as Hailey wasn’t pleased with her answer. "I... have foresight."
Hailey still didn’t believe her. The world had changed and people were awakening strange abilities. However, that opened up the world to a new possibility.
Those without powers could concoct lies about powers that don’t exist. Hailey expected Neha’s case to be one of those. She had foresight, but there was no way to confirm that.
That’s why he was about to throw her out when she said something that immediately got his attention.
"I know of a way to cure you," Neha said with a smirk.
Before Neha could continue, Hailey yelled at everyone to leave. Then turned towards her.
"You want an answer without giving me anything in exchange?" Neha scoffed, crossing her arms. "What? You thought I didn’t know that you were planning to kick me out? I got foresight, remember?"
Much to Blaze’s annoyance, the memory turned hazy from that point onwards. The next thing he saw was another conversation between them, this time involving a creature of sorts.
It was a generic name for an evolved monster, one that had gone beyond the limits. While Blaze was blocked from evolving past the elite stage, according to Neha, the zombie king had already evolved twice.
Her words reeked of crap. The system, or the collective in this case, were many things, but Blaze knew they held them all on an equal stage.
They wouldn’t let a creature evolve multiple times while restricting others. It would ruin the balance of their game. Even if the zombie had evolved twice, they would ensure to keep it sealed off.
Still, it was an important discovery.
Blaze returned to being his undead self.
A zombie king. It appears humans know they can evolve faster by consuming nuclei.
He looked at Hailey’s corpse. The poor man got manipulated by Neha without knowing how to handle the consequences and got betrayed.
Blaze felt related to him as they played around Neha and got played back in return.
That makes us comrades, doesn’t it? Like hell it does.
Blaze kicked the corpse into the vault and moved on to the rest. However, none of the other corpses had anything significant to show.
[Subject J#117’s evolution rate increased to 10.23%]
After putting them all in the vault, Blaze sat on his throne. His mind kept revolving around the zombie king. If it were real, then it could be the one to solve all the mysteries and problems he had.
He could evolve by taking the zombie king’s nucleus for himself, and he could capture it to find the truth about the necroseed.
The latter takes priority over the former. It’s a good thing I can have it all from one source.
The only issue was, the navy was preparing for the same.
Blaze looked around the lair. No matter how strong they were individually, the navy would obliterate them in an all-out war. He was more sure of it after peeking through Hailey’s memories.
Now he saw two paths before him.
He could either slowly chip away at their strength by setting skirmishes to delay their preparations. Or he could expand his forces to some extent and look for more undead and monsters like Saturn and Marrow.
Since they can control their own minions, he could assemble an army with their help and attack the armed forces that way.
Seriously, this limit on the horde is pissing me off. How am I supposed to fend off and hunt humans with this meagre force?
Frustrated, he opened all system tabs to look for something useful. Then he saw something that he hadn’t seen before. An installation built to solve his issue.
Installation name: Spawner
Requires: Lair level 2
Description: A womb-like structure grown from the nuclei of three elite monsters. When provided with enough biomass, it creates either rabid, but loyal undead called dribblers or the normal walkers. It can create higher forms of undead at higher levels.
Construction materials:
• Three elite monster nuclei.
• Active womb of an Elite monster.
• 50 lbs of flesh chunks.
• 21 lbs of bone fragments.
Blaze closed the tab as quickly as he had opened it.
He was in a zoo, so finding the construction material was easy. The problem was the unlock condition.
The damn thing requires a level 2 lair!