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Your lives… they are meaningless except to serve as fertiliser for us…

—-Karlston

Life had, and always would be, complicated. In a person’s entire life, who could guarantee that they had never erred, not even once…

Sometimes, that once was enough to cause a catastrophe.

It was so for the city of Southern Plains as well. Had the officials of this city known earlier that the serum would cause such an apocalyptic result, they would have never allowed for the sale of the serum, no matter how corrupt they were.

Naturally, this was so for the board of directors of Life Unbound Biotech Private Limited.

Unfortunately, there was no turning back the hands of time.

Gaia was a technologically advanced planet. Its police officers were all equipped with mechanical exosuits, while their soldiers would all undergo superhuman training during their basic training. Those who performed the best would ultimately be selected to become superhumans.

The exosuits used by the police wouldn’t be as strong as the military, but their job was mostly to catch ordinary criminals anyway. Military-grade ones were meant for war, thus equipped more heavily.

However, in the hands of a skilled pilot, who would win was still up for grabs.

Police exosuits, in general, were colored white to represent their mostly peacekeeping role. In contrast, the military ones were colored black to represent their more forceful use.

The first level of a zombie could be described as brutishly strong, but that was all it had going for it. A slightly stronger human being could still vanquish it with a decent weapon, let alone military men armed with exosuits.

For the most part, every other city hadn’t reached a crisis point yet. The scattered zombie outbreaks were quickly snuffed out, resulting in General Rodenas devoting all his attention to Southern Plains.

However, he still had no way of knowing what else was in stall for him, nor what these forces in the dark represented…

“Pass on this message to Naran in Southern Plains: I want a name list of all those who had taken that serum… Now, if only those damned researchers could get a testing kit rolled out quicker…” Rodenas grumbled to no one in particular before turning to his second-in-command. “Actually, send him a second message: even if a name list isn’t possible, I don’t want anyone stepping out of Southern Plains… Before that testing kit gets sent over, kill anyone who tries to escape… Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture because of the now… the last thing we all want is for Southern Plains to be forever wiped off the map…”

From that statement alone, the general’s determination couldn’t be any clearer: at all costs.

——-Karlston——-

Dressed in black robes, but still in his human form, Karlston was currently at the lowest level of the company, enacting a gruesome ritual.

Life Unbound Biotech had over a thousand employees, all of them pickling in a giant pool of blood that Karlston had dug out beforehand. Of those pickles, there were also board members who could be said to be his savior of sorts.

Almost everyone were brutally murdered by Karlston, only a scant few employees managed to escape the massacre. Naturally, these escapees weren’t even on his mind at all. The only reason the other employees had to die was because he needed sacrifices, and they so happened to be the most readily available.

This ritual was crafted to restore some of his power. The more sacrifices he could gather, the better the result would be.

The blood pool was circular in shape and at least fifty meters in diameter. Its bloody surface bubbled with the countless screams of the souls trapped within. These weren’t metaphorical souls either. They were actually chained to the ritual site by translucent chains. Twisted with pain and despair from their futile struggling, they had long since lost any semblance of their former appearance.

In the center of this blood pool was an altar with a candelabra formed of human bones, its candle formed out of some grotesque amalgamation of human fluids.

The human candle burned like any candle would, yet in its center was a wraithlike face that screamed soundlessly in agony.

A nearby skeleton, summoned by necromantic magics, worked tirelessly to drag more corpses from the outside world to toss into the blood pool, in the process stirring up a sickly splash of red blood and gore.

Peering at the soon to be full pool, a human-looking Karlston couldn’t help but reveal a chilling smile. Voice hollow and deep, not at all like a human’s, he muttered to himself. “Soon… Soon I will be born again… But… what is my purpose for being here… “

Due to the damage to his soul when he travelled to Gaia, he could only remember snippets of his mission, nothing more.

He gave the matter some thought, but came up with nothing in the end. He decided not to dwell on that for the time being and proceeded to enter the pool, and a whole new life.

Yet before he could take that last step, a grey bat flew up to Karlston’s ear, as if passing on a message.

“Verni… I will leave command of the army to you… before I return, the Undead are yours to command…” Karlston said to no one in particular then stepped into the pool. “I will return soon…”

In a dark corner of the basement, a wraith dressed in a typical office lady’s white uniform stared blankly at Karlston entering the pool. Having received some sort of command, she respectfully but expressionlessly bowed. “Understood, master…”

——-Southern Plains——-

As of right now, Southern Plains was a bonafide hell-on-earth thanks to the aggressive sales tactics of Life Unbound – fifty percent off; local citizens get priority; whatever you could think of, they employed it.

Because the serum was so unbelievably effective, and their marketing efforts were so spirited, over thirty percent of the city’s population had bought the serum in just over a week’s time. A feat that was helped by the serum’s shockingly low price.

In order to ensure that the plan would work properly, Karlston had even tinkered with the serum so that different batches of the drug would take effect quicker. That way, the infected would all appear at roughly the same time. This bit of foresight was what caused the entire city’s administration to be paralyzed.

Over a thousand elite police forces, equipped in their signature white exosuits, stood tall against an almost endless wave of zombies.

The zombies were all created from ordinary humans, so they weren’t all that strong to begin with. However, when they gathered in such numbers, even the well-armed police would feel a sense of pressure.

For the most part however, each individual zombie did not pose a threat to the armored policemen.

Shameless Self-promotion

Announcement: I’ve re-opened my Patreon in case anyone wants to sponsor more chapters. Every end of the month, those chapters in early access will be released for free for all to read. If you sponsored a chapter, you will gain permanent early access to these chapters. Essentially, everyone gets more chapters to read, but those who donated get to read earlier. More chapters will then be translated at the start of the month. Explanation on the Patreon itself.

LINK HERE