Global Evolution: I Became A Zombie!

The next day…

Blaze sat on a platform he had created on the spire. The wind ruffled his hair since he wasn't wearing the mask, which restricted the range of his vision.

It wasn't to look cool or enjoy the breeze, but to birdwatch. Which meant he had to squint while looking at the sky like a normal person. The only issue was that birds didn't fly in rot-infested rain.

Not like Blaze cared about that when something else was going on in his mind.

Why didn't I convert some of them earlier? Oh, wait, I tried, but those pesky creatures died midway.

In the two months following his clash with the Headless, Blaze had experimented on many creatures. Unfortunately, all the birds he experimented on turned into a mushy, rubbery ball of flesh.

At least Fester had fun playing fetch with those.

They didn't have enough mass to exist on their own as undead creatures. Blaze tried creating one himself, but then their wings became too burdened to fly.

Enraged, he gave up on the birds and let them leave, thinking he could catch them again once they had undergone some mutations.

Unfortunately, he never got around to that.

Now, he only had a week to find, capture, and create undead birds.

"Find avian creatures, as if that were so easy," Blaze grumbled, dangling his legs.

He had employed everyone under him to look for a nest or some place where the birds nested. A day passed, yet there was no news regarding the birds.

It wasn't surprising, considering that none of the people who were looking for birds ever had a use for them.

The zombies never traveled outside San Diego until Blaze controlled the cult. And the cult always used teleportation circles for transportation.

However, to use their teleportation circle, it should be created on both ends. That's why Blaze couldn't use it to jump on the Collective's ship and take control.

The [Recall] skill was useless for the same reason. He had to have seen the place where he teleports. Even then, he would just be offering himself to them because of the godforsaken restrictions.

It would have been too easy if that were the case.

Then there was the second issue.

"How am I supposed to capture them?"

There was this thing with birds, they fly. Zombies don't. Even if he were to find birds, their mutated selves could just fly away, and other than Marrow, there wasn't any zombie who flew.

Marrow is great at killing things, not capturing them alive.

Blaze had to figure out a way to capture the birds.

Only the conversion part was easy for him. He had multiple ways of doing it. He could bring them to the spire, or use mind plague, or even better, use sporeforms.

"Wait… I'm an idiot!" Blaze exclaimed. "Marrow get me down!"

"At once, my lord!"

Marrow had been waiting for the call as she swooped in, carrying Blaze in her arms in a princess carry. Usually, Blaze would get annoyed by it, but right now he couldn't care less about it.

As for Marrow, she was happy, that was until Blaze jumped and ran towards Neha's room-prison.

"Reh-reh!"

Chimera laughed, saying she brought the master down only for him to run to Marrow's competition.

"Get lost before I turn your legs into jelly!"

"EEK!"

Chimera ran away as he knew better than to mess with an angry Marrow.

***

Meanwhile, inside the room…

"Do you know any places with nests—?"

Blaze burst through the door, only to see Neha pointing at the chair across from her.

"You knew I'd come?" Blaze asked.

"Had a hunch when I saw the notification," Neha shrugged. "Just in case you're going to ask me about this shutdown, let me tell you. I have no idea what it's about."

He wasn't interested in talking about the shutdown. Still, he was curious about it since she had brought it up.

"What kind of regressor are you when you don't even know these things?"

"A bad one, but it's also your fault."

"My fault?" Blaze asked, rolling his eyes. "You killed me and changed the timeline."

"Yes, that and also because you had me killed in the past before any of this happened," Neha retorted.

She saw the confusion on his face and told him everything that had happened between them in the past. How he turned into a super-evolver and doomed the settlement, which led to her death.

"And you killed me… for that?"

"What?"

Out of all reactions she expected Blaze to have, annoyance wasn't on her list. There was no apology, nothing. Not like she expected a zombie to apologize for something he did in a life he had no recollection of.

"You never saw what happened in the laboratory or whatever it was," Blaze said, running his hand through his hair. "You have no proof that I did any of that!"

"It's… not that! Dozens of people wouldn't lie—"

"I took you for many things, but an idiot wasn't one of them. I killed my father? I didn't do it even when I became a zombie!"

"Don't pull that shit on me," Neha yelled as she stood up, kicking the chair back. "You killed Professor Alaric even in this life! I saw his severed head back at the crater!"

Blaze couldn't feel a headache, but rubbing his forehead had become a habit, and being around Neha wasn't helping it.

"He's alive," he whispered. "No matter how big a maniac I am, I can't bring myself to kill my father."

"I don't—"

Before she could even refute it, Blaze rushed out of the room. Fifteen minutes later, he was back, but he wasn't alone. A man in a protective suit walked behind him.

The person had a face ripped straight out of a C-grade horror movie. It was full of patches and stitches, but even so, Neha recognized his eyes.

"Professor?" Neha said, stumbling backwards.

But instead of reacting to her, Alaric immediately crossed his arms, glaring at his son.

"Blaze, what is the meaning of this? You already have a fiance and hundreds of children, why do you want me to meet another girl? Are you creating a harem like one of those stories I caught you reading—hmph! Hmph! Hmph!"

Blaze slapped his hand on his father's mouth before his deluded mind could do more damage to his reputation.