A few hours earlier, early in the morning, in the superblock of block 2, the Breeder was preparing the ritual that would allow him to strengthen his spear to a new level. All around him, a group of Windwalkers were flying restlessly about, impatient to help their progenitor.
However, the Breeder no longer needed their help, for he had finally collected a sufficient number of corpses during the night. He felt quite satisfied, but the fact that he still couldn't fly kept him from feeling better. The zombie didn't like that it took so long for such a vital part of his body to heal, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The ritual was going to be a little more complicated than last time. He already had all the bones he needed and all his progeny had feasted on the leftover flesh. He accumulated all the skulls in a circle and then placed the rest of the bones inside, arranging them from largest to smallest. This had taken him several hours, but he had finally finished.
Impatient, the zombie placed his spear in the center of the circle and channeled almost all the energy contained in his body. Joyful, he watched as a bright green light manifested itself and covered his entire sight. As the seconds passed he could feel it, his new weapon was going to be amazing.
The ritual lasted a few minutes and the result was a pure white bone spear that seemed to possess tiny holes in its structure. It was decorated with strange abstract figures in a bright green color. The Breeder held the weapon and decided to test it, so he went to the tip of the roof and tried to find a valid target.
It didn't take him long to focus his sights on a decrepit tree on the steep slope just behind the superblock. He adjusted his stance and, without waiting any longer, threw the spear, boosting the shot with his wind magic.
It all happened so fast that the zombie could barely realize what was happening. His magic behaved slightly differently, for instead of directly propelling the weapon, it went into its hollow structure and then propelled the spear with a jet of pressurized air. In addition, the tip of the spear was coated with a layer of energy that significantly decreased the air resistance.
The result was that the spear went through the tree trunk, stuck into the ground, reached about three meters deep and then released some of the energy still inside it to release a powerful explosion that left a hole in the ground.
The spear returned to the zombie's hand a few moments later. He was quite satisfied with the results, but he immediately noticed something negative: the full power attack had used too much energy, he would not be able to use it very often.
Somewhat angrily, he began to repeatedly throw the spear towards different trees until he had a precise control of the energy used on each one of them. Unfortunately for the trees on the slope, the zombie was not completely satisfied until he found the ideal balance between energy and power, so he repeated the throw again and again for hundreds of times.
Finally, he returned to his favorite spot on the roof of the building, right over the water tank. Jumping onto it was a bit awkward due to his injured wing, but it didn't take him long to make it. His progeny continued to hover in the air. The zombie looked at them and decided he should start conquering the neighboring buildings.
It used a little energy to communicate this decision to all of its progeny, a useful little trick it had learned when it brought the first generation of its offspring to life.
The Windwalkers dispersed into small groups and directed the attack towards the nearest buildings. Some with success, others with dismal failure, for due to the varied nature of the different zombies, the Windwalkers had an overwhelming advantage against some enemies, while they were at a total disadvantage against others. The breeder felt a little anger with every death he could feel, but with time it became insensible to it.
However, it wasn't long before he ran into a major problem. A large group of his Windwalkers suddenly died. The Breeder looked in the direction in which the event had occurred and decided it was best to avoid that area for now, so he issued an alert to all Windwalkers and continued his wait. He was beginning to get irritated that his wing was taking so long to heal.
Miguel, meanwhile, after seeing the green light over the horizon, ran to the top floor of the superblock trying to get a better view. Unfortunately, it didn't do much good. Filled with tense anticipation, he watched nervously until the light disappeared.
Just when he thought all would be quiet again, a powerful explosion sounded in the distance. This time, the explosion caught the attention of all the survivors in the shelter. Some of them came out of their houses, with worried looks on their faces.
Miguel could not shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen. At that moment, he received a call. The old military man answered the phone and heard Terry's tense voice.
"Miguel, there's trouble, I think we need to wake Adam up, there are changes in the plaza."
Miguel suppressed a shudder.
"Is it something to do with the green light?"
"No, the green light seems to be completely different bad news, I think it came from the superblock in block 2, but with all those spears I don't dare go near it. Also, there seem to be groups of Windwalkers attacking other buildings, and this is what has me worried."
"So what the hell happened?"
"The flesh monstrosity was attacked by a group of Windwalkers and it reacted..." Terry paused for a moment, Miguel waited for the answer with growing tension. "I don't know how to explain it. When the spears of almost 10 zombies pierced its skin, the whole mass shuddered and then hundreds of eyes opened in unison. Moments later all the windwalkers dropped dead. The camera used by Rony ended up destroyed after a few seconds, even part of his software was affected, as if part of him had disappeared. I managed to rescue him, but I don't think I'll be able to fix it soon."
Miguel felt a shiver run through his body, what kind of attack could wipe out a group of zombies instantly.
"How powerful do you think it is?"
"A lot, I don't know what the hell happened in that square to bring such a thing to life, but I'm sure we need to do something about it right now."
Miguel was silent, this time Terry seemed affected, had he been affected by the attack somehow, even through the camera?
"The attack didn't affect you, did it?"
Terry was silent for a moment before answering.
"Yes, and still can't process what happened, it's like... like... I don't know! It's so frustrating! It was like something was trying to drag me somewhere, but in the end it failed, or so I think."
Miguel swallowed. He tried to say something, but he didn't know what.
"You'd better rest, work on Rony or get distracted, I'll go wake Adam up."
"Yeah, that's what I was going to do anyway."
Terry hung up the phone and Miguel watched him for a few seconds. They needed to do something, killing that thing had become an absolute priority. Finally and without wasting any more time, he started down the stairs. He could have called Adam, but he didn't think he was going to wake him up and it was a better idea to talk face to face about these things.
As had always been the case during his time in the army, the worst came before the storm. During those moments, Miguel had always felt hesitant and cowardly. But when the action started, he was able to ignore all those problems and focus on what was important. It was this that had kept him alive during the war despite not standing out much among his comrades.
Invaded by this same strength, he found himself sooner than he could have imagined in front of Adam's apartment. However, no matter how hard he banged on the door, Adam didn't seem to wake up.
It was then that Miguel managed to calm down, he realized that what he was doing was partly stupid. The situation was serious, but what was he going to do by running to Adam like that? He was sure that many survivors of the superblock had seen him running and he would be surprised if many of them weren't panicking now.
For a moment he thought about convincing Adam that they should run straight towards that monstrosity and kill it right now, but wasn't this the same mistake that led to the death of part of his group, at the beginning of all this disaster? Now the important thing was to calm down and try to think of a plan that would make sense when Adam woke up.
"Is there a problem?"
Miguel was startled to hear Tracel's voice, who had heard the old military man making a fuss outside Adam's apartment.
A few steps behind Tracel was Tarin, who still looked exhausted.