6 Zombies
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Chapter 6: Zombies
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Most other shops weren't too tightly secured, but this one was because as he sensed, there were people inside, and among them was an awakener.
No one responded for a while, but soon enough, a shaky voice sounded from behind the door, "W-what do you want?"
Silver didn't answer but narrowed his eyes as he could clearly see what was happening behind the door, a lady seeming to be in her early thirties was standing there with her arms raised, manifesting some kind of blue energy that was quickly transforming into ice shards.
And he could also sense several other people inside, although hiding far away. It seems that she's the only Awakener in the group.
Silver, however, would never discriminate against non-awakeners, they may even be more important than awakeners for him.
That and while non-awakeners didn't awaken abilities, they still have the awakening panel, so it's not like they don't have a chance.
So he slipped his hand into his duffel bag and brought out a notebook as well as a pen and wrote down one his numbers before taking off that paper and placing it on the floor, "I left my phone number here. If the signal comes back, you contact me if you wish to join me."
And without doing any convincing whatsoever, he left, driving away in his truck, not wishing to waste his time there any longer.
'The fog should end soon,' Silver was pretty sure of that as with the fading of the fog, the dead would rise, so before that, he had to hurry and go to the hunting grounds.
The night is near, but he still had plenty of time to reach his destination, a cemetery, and just being near it brought him a smile of satisfaction. Indeed, his expectations were met.
He quickly entered the cemetery with his eyes closed, focusing solely on what he sees with his soul domain, beneath the ground was supposed to be the dead, but now what took their place was the living dead.
'So they can't get out?' That brought a smile to his face. They were after all buried in coffins deep beneath the ground, 'And it seems that the body needs to be relatively intact for the transformation to occur?'
The bodies that have already decomposed, leaving behind nothing but a skeleton weren't transformed. Instead, the bodies that are relatively intact were the ones that transformed.
'So only the bodies that died for a few months can transform? That means that the transformation requires flesh or perhaps a relatively intact brain to function... It's likely a virus.'
And that's the best case scenario as while a virus may be difficult to counter, it would still be only a matter of time for there to be a solution.
'Let's, the death rate across the world every year should be in the dozens of millions. Let's say forty million, and let's say that only half to a third of those died recently, meaning an intact body.
Then an even smaller percentage of that would be outside of their coffins, meaning the ability to transfer the virus, including those who died of accidents in the fog, there should be hundreds of thousands to millions of carriers out there, and the number should be increasing quickly.'
The fog was not only responsible for awakening the dead, but it seemed more like a strategic weapon that makes sure the virus spread without obstructions.
'Hospitals and morgues, funeral homes and crematoriums, Cemeteries and burial grounds, and war zones and conflict areas, these will be the main spread zones of the virus,' Silver mused silently.
And now before him was by far the safest of the spread zones, cemeteries, so without further ado, he manipulated the Silver Effect to dive down upon the numerous meals about.
The Silver Effect started orbiting around itself at a ridiculous speed, and it also started compressing to its original size.
While increasing its size can be useful against big targets, it has a downside which is its speed, nowhere near as fast as the original Silver Effect.
And Silver also found out something interesting, the Silver Effect was becoming faster, much faster as he injected his energy into it, although that seems to only be valid if the Silver Effect is in its original form, pea-sized form.
That was enough as the Silver Effect vanished into the ground, neither the wooden coffin nor the zombie's skull were able to stop it for even a second... The first zombie fell.
However, there was no change in his awakening points, still zero, but he wasn't discouraged as in the span of seconds, all the zombies in his soul domain were killed.
[Awakening Points: 4]
'Now, that's interesting,' Silver noted after seeing the result, 'Every 10 zombies or so give an awakening point, so either the awakening points are a reward for the kills or the Awakening system absorbs something from the zombies to strengthen the host.'
Considering how irregular the acquisition of awakening points is, Silver leaned more toward the latter option.
As before, he put all of his points into Endurance, not only because of his brain cancer but also to recover energy quickly. For now, he set a goal of thirty before switching to other stats.
And luckily for him, or as he predicted before coming to the biggest cemetery in New York, there were still plenty of zombies about.
While the majority of individuals were hiding, scared out of their minds, all choosing not to move in fear of the fog, he on the other hand was taking the fog as his playground, touring through New York, specifically, all of its cemeteries.
Aside from that, if he saw a zombie that was not hard to get to, he would give priority to dissecting it a bit while taking vials of their blood, and some specimens from their bodies, mostly their brains.
However, it seems that all good things do eventually come to an end. The fog started fading, slowly but surely. Silver gave it about an hour before the fog fully fades, so he couldn't stay any longer.
He couldn't afford to stay in the biggest city in the USA which has a population of more than 8 million. If we go by the likely accurate statistic that one out of ten people awaken abilities, then we'd have about 800K awakeners.
Now, while Silver believes his ability to be one of the best, he still wasn't assured in facing abilities that are equally strong or perhaps even stronger.
That and he'd like to stay low and observe the situation after the fog before making a decision regarding the future, so he quickly drove back home after picking up the others that are still in the city.
Speaking of which, his house which is a farmhouse is right next to the labs, showing his dedication to avoiding death at all costs, basically living in the labs for the majority of the time.
It was night by the time he came back to the facility, and the fog had just receded. Silver took his things to his personal lab while the remaining things were transferred to the other labs.
"Sam, make sure the doors stay tightly closed, and send someone to keep watch from the roof, you should know what to do, our enemies are zombies," Silver instructed, knowing that Sam has basically taken over the role of the head guard.
That seemed to be the nature of this game, those who awakened abilities, especially strong ones will naturally rule over others.
Silver only hired three guards anyway, and the only reason he did so was because of some not so ethical shit he had done, and it seemed to have worked out in his favor.
Silver then went ahead and changed his hazmat suit into a cleaner one, erasing the other one from existence with the Silver Effect, just in case. He did after all dissect some zombies while wearing it.
Only then did he head to his office where he met up with Natalia who directly asked with curiosity, "Did you figure out something?"
"A lot of things," Silver responded as he relaxed a little bit, taking a seat on his office chair, letting out a breath of satisfaction, "Zombies, they're stranger than I previously thought."
"Oh, how so?" Curiosity was apparent on her face as she sat by his side, right on the desk.
"Their ultimate weakness is their brain. If you destroyed the entire body but the head, they would still be 'alive', their eyes moving and the such, just like destroying some parts of their brains still wouldn't stop them." He didn't only spend his time hunting for awakening points, he also researched the zombies' workings thoroughly.
"As long as the parts of the brain responsible for movement are still active, they would still be able to move regardless of how much damage they took."
Silver narrowed his eyes as he smiled in wonder, "And... They seem to be able to adapt, perhaps even evolve? I'm not sure yet but the virus certainly has a survival instinct, and quite an advanced one as well."
"I... I see why it's called Doomsday," Natalia shuddered thinking about the implications.
