Blaze buried his face in his hands. Zombies couldn’t get tired, so it would be the perfect time to brainstorm, right?
The mental fatigue he was suffering was no joke.
Two months with no success.
At first, Blaze didn’t regret killing both the Headless Devourer and David. He thought the encyclopedia had registered their data, so all he had to do was keep creating undead.
Only after a week of continuous creation did he notice something was off. The encyclopedia’s data was corrupted. It didn’t register them properly, with ??? filling all spots.
Looks like I have to initiate Plan B, but before that, I should review the base upgrades.
Blaze shook his head and got off his throne.
In the months following his victory over the Headless, the base had expanded quite a bit. His vision of the nine circles of hell was finally realized.
The first seven circles remained as they were. Instead, Blaze added two inner areas, one where the hunter ants ruled, and another where special installations were being installed.
Let’s check on their progress.
Dressed in his usual three-piece suit, minus the mask, Blaze walked to the eighth circle. As he walked past the zombies at work, they groaned and tried to bow.
Blaze ignored them and kept moving. Such gestures were worthless and a waste of time, but he knew they wouldn’t stop even if he instructed them to.
Because they were mimicking Marrow.
She treated him like royalty, and the undead followed her example and began doing the same.
It wasn’t strange because the weak often copied the strong. The walkers were following Marrow out of their instinct. There was nothing she or Blaze could do to stop it anymore.
Either way, he finally arrived at the circle. Skeleton soldiers were busy turning Blaze’s vision into reality.
"Master, we’re prepared for the initial tests," Marrow said, jumping out of a skeletal structure.
Blaze hummed, walking around his latest creation.
Technically, it was the system’s creation, though Blaze had improved its design to the point it turned into something else.
It was a turret comprised of bones. The entire structure was supported by three legs that were made of femur bones fused with ant chitin for more sturdiness.
The main body, including the seat for the skeletons, was made entirely of curved rib bones. As for its firing head, or the gun, it was made from David’s dissected forearm.
Thin strips of dried flesh and tendon were wrapped around the joints to rotate the turret gun. Although it was slow and noisy, it was the best Blaze could think of.
Blaze had turned a utility structure to turn it into a defensive one. The system’s installation was used to throw flesh chunks, but he had a better idea.
The turret was powered from the corpse pit. Obviously, he would have to create more of them later, but the turret was in the testing phase, so he used existing pits to power it.
However, there was a problem.
The gas supply wasn’t strong enough to generate enough force to penetrate even a walker. Besides, ammonia wasn’t a highly explosive gas.
It could cause an explosion, but only under the right conditions, and Blaze didn’t have the patience or the technology to achieve that.
That’s why Blaze used a simpler approach.
He gave the turrets a frogkin’s vocal sac. Instead of flowing directly into the turret, the ammonia gas will fill the sac first.
The sac was expandable, so as gas filled it, the pressure inside grew stronger.
The sac will keep expanding, and at the last moment, the valve leading to the gun will be opened. Then, all that pressurized ammonia gas will propel the bone spike like an arrow.
In theory, it would work well.
That’s why only the testing phase remained.
Once the preparations were complete, a skeleton was about to jump in, but Blaze stopped it.
"But, Master, it could be dangerous—"
Marrow’s worries weren’t unfounded. The turret was yet to be used a single time. If there were any issues, at worst, they’d lose a skeleton. However, if something happened to Blaze, then they’d lose everything.
However, one look from Blaze silenced her.
It wasn’t his ego speaking, but his worries.
It took two months to make one turret. If something went wrong because of the turret, they wouldn’t just lose a skeleton soldier, but the turret itself. He didn’t want a manual error to cost him so much.
Besides, he had survived worse things during the fights with the Headless and David. If anything went wrong, his tendrils would save him.
With that, Blaze climbed into the turret. The skeletal frame creaked under his weight, but he paid it no mind. His tendrils coiled loosely around the turret’s main body, ready to react if anything went wrong.
He looked sideways towards the attached sac. It was half-filled with the gas.
It takes too long. I might have to add multiple pits for a single turret.
Blaze made a mental note to improve the turret as things progressed. Soon, the sac began to bulge.
He took aim at the chitin walls. Even bullets couldn’t break them. Still, Blaze stacked five of them one behind the other just in case his calculations were wrong.
As the sac reached its limit, Blaze pulled the valve lever.
The sound of gas gushing out filled the place, but it was nothing compared to the loud bang as the bone spike shot out of the turret. It slammed into the chitin wall, shattering it into pieces as if it were clay.
Not just one, it broke through three walls before getting stuck at the fourth. Blaze was awestruck. Just a one-foot-long spike broke three walls that bullets couldn’t even scratch.
However, the satisfaction didn’t last long as the turret crumbled seconds later. The entire structure got bent to the left side, with its parts falling to the floor.
The frogkin’s vocal sac didn’t survive either. It seemed the membrane was stretched to its limits, and it didn’t return to its original form after firing.
That could have gone better.
Blaze thought, stepping off the turret.
He needed stronger bones for support and something more elastic to replace the sac. Other than those things, the experiment was a success... more or less.
Satisfied, he turned to Marrow.
I’m heading to the research facility. Get this place cleaned and start constructing another turret.
Marrow bowed, and so did the skeletons and the zombies around.
Blaze just rolled his eyes and left.