Global Evolution: I Became A Zombie!

Back when Neha hugged Min, she told him about her plan. The intimacy and the farewell were all part of an act. She did it, thinking Blaze was watching them.

It was to have him cure the disease before throwing him off and escaping once again. As for the survivors, they were on their own. The cure was the last bit of help they'd receive from her.

"Tsk," Blaze clicked his tongue. "You two are always fucking around."

"Min! Let's go!" Neha urged.

Since Blaze couldn't dodge Min's punch, she knew they could escape. Meanwhile, Min stared at Blaze, clenching and unclenching his fists.

He wanted to rip Blaze's head off and end the farce once and for all. But Neha's safety was his priority.

"Alright, let's go," he said, turning around.

Min ran a couple of steps before stopping.

"What the...?"

He hit his legs and tried running again, but couldn't. It was as if his legs refused to use his super speed.

"What are you doing?" Neha yelled. "We have to get out of here!"

"I-I can't run?!"

Blaze's laughter tore through the winds. The corpses around them swayed, as if cackling at their foolishness.

"You know what comes after fucking around?" Blaze asked. "Finding out."

Neha turned to Blaze with absolute shock. Their entire plan was built around Min's speed. Now that he couldn't run, they were like sitting ducks there.

But that wasn't all.

Black spots appeared on Dexter's corpse. It wasn't just him, something black spurted from the healed scabs of all of them. Their fingers twitched as they came back to life.

Neha instinctively stepped back.

She didn't recognize these strange zombies. Nothing like them existed in her past life.

"You… created a new lifeform?" she mumbled.

"It's not the first or the last," Blaze said, puffing his chest as his child made its appearance. "The blightspore, eager to consume life since 2025."

"Min, get away—"

"Argh!"

A shout erupted from behind them. Neha turned around and saw the survivors rushing out of the shelter towards the armory. She thought they were there to help them, but that wasn't the case.

They were running away for their own survival.

Zombies…?

Neha thought and squinted her eyes to see Zera chasing after them.

The cannibals were attacking them!

The shelter had been set ablaze by them, forcing the survivors to run straight into the cannibals who were waiting for them.

Alongside the cannibals were the cultists, capturing the survivors. Undoubtedly, they would re-educate them and turn them into fanatics within their ranks.

It was a multi-frontal assault.

Zombies in front, cannibals behind, and the cultists jumping in the middle. The situation had long since gone out of hand, and Blaze was at the center of it all.

"Do you remember what I wrote in the letter?" Blaze asked, pulling Min's hair to look at him. "There will be no escape. Not with your speed, nor with her knowledge."

Min glared at him, something that Blaze did not approve of.

"Looks like the peeping Tom grew some balls," he laughed, turning to Neha. "Is this your doing? First Hailey, then Michael, and now him. Perhaps I should have used you, too. Just to see what it'd do to my confidence."

"Don't you dare touch her!" Min roared.

Blaze nodded and let Min go before the sporeforms grabbed onto him.

"Touch? Why would I touch her of all the people?" he said, pretending to get icky at the mere thought of it. "I have bigger plans than that."

"Blaze, you have me. Let the others go—" Neha interrupted, trying to draw the attention off Min.

She hoped that with time, Min would recover his speed and they'd escape. Not like that would ever happen on Marrow's watch.

"Let them go? I would have done that if you hadn't pulled this stunt," Blaze cut her off, walking around her. "I gave you the choice, and you wasted it. Whatever happens now is not on me."

He continued, "Not that I didn't expect it. For a regressor, you sure are an open book. You see her?"

He yanked Neha's head back, so she could look at marrow drifting in the air.

"She's my trump card. The one solution to all my problems."

"What do you—?"

"Shh… I can't tell you that! You should know better, Neha."

Neha didn't struggle against Blaze's grip. She knew he was stronger than most chosen on the planet. She was more interested in knowing his motives.

"Then why do all this? To teach me a lesson? If that's the case, then don't bother!"

"Teaching a lesson? Did you confuse me with Alaric?" Blaze scoffed. "Please, your brain is important to me, not your feelings. As for why I'm doing this… maybe because it's the only pastime I have?"

She turned her around, forcing her to look at her precious people being hunted down one after another.

"You're responsible for this, all of it," he whispered in her ears.

Neha tried to look away, but Blaze's tendrils held her in place, even forced her eyes to remain open.

Her precious students were either dying or getting captured by the cult. Cannibals were feasting right before her eyes. The settlement she helped build was crashing down, not because of zombies, but humans themselves.

At the moment, the zombies seemed to be more human than the humans themselves.

"The day you fed me to zombies brought this moment," he said. "The day you ran from San Diego was the day you doomed them."

"You did this!"

"Did I? But what did I do? Humans are killing humans. Not the zombies. How is it my fault?"

"You brought them here—"

"I didn't create the cannibals or the cult. The humans did. Still, you blame me?"

"I-I… No! You're doing something to me!"

"We're merely having a conversation," Blaze replied, taking his mask off. "See? Just like the old times. We used to debate a lot in the class, didn't we?"

"…we did."

"Then this isn't any different from that time, is it? It's just a debate. If you want to prove me wrong, do it with words, with logic."

"Logic… yes…"

"So, is there any flaw in what I said?"

"…no. Humans are the cause of all problems."

Blaze smiled as he kept twisting Neha's mind, sculpting her according to his desires, and Neha had no idea.

That was the true horror of Blaze's abilities.

He didn't need to turn someone into a zombie to control them.

A mere conversation was enough.