So it didn’t have a nucleus after all.
Blaze shook his head before dusting off his clothes.
He had hoped that the Headless, despite not having a head, would have a nucleus somewhere in its body.
There wasn’t a single ounce of flesh that he didn’t tear apart while looking for it. Yet, he didn’t find anything. He even tried eating the flesh to see if it’d trigger a memory or something.
Apparently, the Headless didn’t have an organ capable of storing memories or knowledge.
Its existence alone made Blaze question the very rules of the living.
Even zombies needed a brain to function. And apart from a few worms and aquatic creatures, he hadn’t heard of a single organism that could survive without one.
I should have dissected it carefully.
Blaze frowned, annoyed by his desperate moves before. He lost his cool and destroyed a research-worthy subject.
If only he had kept the Headless intact, he could have deciphered the secret behind the necroseed, as well as the secret to immortality.
After all, if he could somehow get rid of his brain and still function, killing him would be next to impossible. It wasn’t the brightest idea he had had, but it was still something. Unlike the nucleus which was missing.
Maybe I accidentally absorbed the nucleus while siphoning its body mass.
Well, that was unlikely to happen, considering his evolution counter didn’t go up.
It sucked, but all wasn’t lost.
Blaze looked over his shoulder where David’s cries echoed. The horde was still working on him.
However, instead of being happy, Blaze was disappointed.
It was taking too long for them to kill a simpleton.
Blaze thought about stepping in but decided against it. The horde needed practice, and facing a stronger enemy was the best way for them to learn to fight their own battles.
Instead of helping them, Blaze walked to the spot where the Headless had been meditating.
Now, where is that reward?
As if on cue, a screen appeared before him. It wasn’t like the others he had seen before. It was blue and didn’t look as dead as the other screens.
[Generating a reward based on the subject’s participation.]
[Killed ??? Checked.]
[Killed evolved ??? Checked.]
[Solo Kill. Checked.]
[Reward will be delivered in... 2 seconds.]
Blaze looked around, wondering where the reward would appear from. Just then, a beam of golden light burst through the clouds, hitting the spot where the Headless should’ve been if it hadn’t awakened.
It grew uncomfortably brighter to the point that Blaze had to shield his eyes from the glow. The glow disappeared as fast as it had appeared.
A lightning-fast delivery service from outer space. Courtesy of the Collective.
Blaze opened his eyes and saw something floating before him.
Of all the things he expected to receive, a weapon wasn’t one of them. At least not a medieval weapon like a spear.
At a glance, one could say it wasn’t an ordinary weapon. The spear looked as if it was made of pure fire.
The pole was smooth and golden, with a flaming tip. Two red ribbons dangled from its neck, drifting in the air like streams of blood. But perhaps the thing that worried Blaze the most was the dense aura surrounding the weapon.
Let’s see what you are... Argh!
Blaze jumped back as his fingers burned just from reaching out to it. The thing was... zombies only felt pain from something that was meant to destroy them.
Much like the Headless’s venom, which, to be honest, could destroy anything it infected.
Blaze’s thoughts were confirmed when the weapon’s information appeared before him.
— Severance (Passive): The spear ignores all armor-like growths of a target, striking through skulls, rib cages, and thick exoskeletal mutations as if they were made of wet paper.
— Heaven’s Branding (Active): Targets hit by the spear are marked as long as the wielder’s alive. Not even camouflage or changing bodies can hide the marked zombie from the wielder.
— Soul Killer (Passive): Any target who gets hit by the spear three times within a minute dies inevitably as long as they’re the same or lower grade than the wielder.
— Feast (Passive): Upon killing a target, the spear evolves. The weapon "feeds" on the target’s blood. After absorbing enough blood, it briefly unlocks an empowered form, doubling range and killing speed for 10 seconds.
— The spear only works against undead targets.
— The spear needs to be fed constantly. If not fed for a long duration, it began siphoning vitality from its wielder.
Blaze smacked his forehead after reading the weapon’s description. No wonder he burned his fingers when he tried to hold it.
Great sense of humor you got there, Collective. Giving a zombie-killing weapon to a zombie.
Blaze shook his head in dismay. No wonder Neha was desperate to get her hands on the spear. With it, it was only a matter of evolving fast.
As long as Blaze kept evolving, he would be safe from the Soul Killer passive.
Then, there were strange restrictions placed by the Collective.
If he hadn’t found a loophole to evolve, Neha could have killed him easily.
Blaze didn’t know how the chosen evolved. Maybe they did so simply by killing the zombies. If that were the case, then Neha would have been a higher grade than him after killing the Headless.
He got lucky that it wasn’t the case.
However, that’s where he ran out of luck.
I have to get rid of this cursed weapon.
Blaze could only imagine what would happen if he left the spear unattended. A chosen would most likely find it, and then all hell would break loose.
Let’s just grab it and bury it under the zoo. That way, I can keep an eye on it.
With a plan in mind, Blaze extended a tendril towards the spear. He wasn’t going to touch that thing directly.
To his surprise, the aura pushed the tendril away like a repulsive force. Blaze tried again, but the result remained unchanged.
Looks like I have to do it with my hands. Gosh, this is going to hurt...
He reached for the spear, and like before, the aura burned his fingers. Blaze gritted his teeth and pushed through the pain, and grabbed the shaft.
Blaze expected another burst of pain, but to his surprise, the aura surrounding the spear disappeared the moment he held it.