"I'm not sure. But if anyone has a good chance of surviving in the capital, it's him."
The dictator of Benintia had absolute power in the country. Under his regime most public institutions were rendered useless. The consequences of this excessive centralisation were catastrophic for the country's development, as no one could do anything without the president's permission. There was not even much room for corruption, unless you were a close friend of the dictator, of course. Tracel had been lucky not to end up in jail, as he was only a small collaborator in the corruption scandal he had been involved in.
"Anyway, I think it's useless to talk about this for now. We haven't even finished with the problems on this estate. By the way Adam, you need a new suit of armor, don't you?" asked Miguel.
Adam had been fighting with various pieces of armor that the zombies had been dropping, but the one he had was already pretty worn out and there was no way to fix it, for now.
"Yeah. I heard it was decided to use the old rubbish room in my building for storage."
Miguel nodded.
"Yes, let's see what you can use it for."
The storage room was in what had been a dumpster many years ago. Adam had never used it, as it had been unusable when he moved in. The space was large and there was a long pipe connecting all the floors of the building, from which rubbish could be dumped. It was now filled with gloves, armor and leather boots, the most common equipment given out by the zombies. There were also all kinds of simple weapons and some backpacks. The most valuable stuff was already being used by the right people, so only the leftovers were left here. Adam had to admit that it was a lot more than he expected.
It didn't take Adam long to get a new suit of armor. It was nothing special by any means, but he felt safer in it. It wouldn't last long, however, as the last armor had been shattered in less than two days.
"Miguel, I think it would be a good idea to distribute armor and weapons among all the survivors. Although it's only for emergency situations, make sure you tell them that. By the way, are you sure that Breeder will attack tomorrow?"
Miguel and Adam were talking as they made their way to the latter's house. The situation seemed stable for now, but both were frustrated with the conundrum that was block 2. What was the strength of the zombies they would have to fight? Was the Breeder even thinking of attacking them? They thought so, but the more important question was when? It might even attack during the night, which made Adam quite nervous.
"I can't be completely sure, but the advance into our territory might be a good sign. Besides, he may be angry at the deaths of so many Windwalkers."
"As much as I want to believe that this will affect his forces, I fear that the number of Windwalkers killed in just a few days indicates that they may be retaking his army right this instant."
"I'm afraid you're right, but it's still important, if the monstrosity hadn't killed so many we'd probably be dealing with twice as many."
Adam simply nodded. By this time they were in his flat, so he opened the door and they both went into the living room.
"Well, we'd better get on with the preparations."
Meanwhile, in Block 2, the Breeder carefully stretched his newly healed wing. At last it was healthy again. Without much thought, he leapt from the roof and soared through the air with unparalleled satisfaction. Above his head rose the majestic moon, beckoning him with its curious glow.
The Breeder tried to approach the crescent in the sky, mesmerized by its beauty, but soon stopped when he remembered that it was useless to try to get closer. His primitive mind was fascinated at the thought of something that looked so big while it was so far away.
He returned to the building and rounded up the few surviving Windwalkers. He didn't expect so many to die, but he didn't worry too much about it. For a moment he thought about producing new Windwalkers, but for that he needed to feed a lot and create annoying golden eggs that he had to spit out one by one. Besides, his instincts were driving him to attack fast with considerable force.
However, if he couldn't count on more Windwalkers, he had to rely on other forces. The Breeder had managed to attract the attention of several powerful zombies in the area. All of them approached on their own. One of them was especially curious, as he always liked to be hidden. He was sure that if he tried to look for it, it would take a few hours to find it.
His Windwalkers had encountered some other powerful zombies in some buildings and most of them had joined his side after a brief fight. The Breeder didn't quite understand why that had happened, but he couldn't complain. However, most of the strong zombies put up a fight and his new troops had to take them on and kill them. Unfortunately, he had lost more zombies in these fights, so his zombie army was weaker than he had expected, but he would have to make do with what he had. He would use a large number of Stalkers in the attack.
Curiously, one of his scouting parties found more humans, but they were all dead before long. The Breeder was still confused as to why some of them were so powerful and others so weak, but he guessed it was something similar to what happened among the zombies. The Stalkers were so stupidly weak, The Breeder didn't understand how he had survived when he was one.
He looked back to the place where most of his Windwalkers had died. He knew that there, in the past, was a creature of his own power level. Even after attacking with all his might, he could not do much damage to it, so he was surprised that the humans had managed to kill it.
He didn't quite understand how he could know such a thing, but he noticed that part of what his Windwalkers observed when they were far away was transmitted to him, which was why he had managed to target that mass of flesh in the square.
The humans had used some sort of trap that sent her into a lake that looked like a dangerous liquid fire. One of the surviving Windwalkers had managed to see it. The Breeder wasn't too afraid of such a trap, as it could fly, but the shelter was not immune to it. It had to attack the humans before they could destroy the building. The Breeder noticed at that moment that his instincts were pushing him in that direction. He tried to resist for a moment, as he was very irritated by the situation, but soon gave up, as his initial plan was to kill the humans anyway.
To do this he started by gathering all his zombies in the car park. He just had to think really hard about them all coming and it just happened, which was certainly very helpful. It took a few hours for everyone to gather, so he got a little impatient.
Soon it would be time to strike, for the Breeder felt that in a few days a big change would happen. One that would be as great as the one that brought him to life, though he only understood this in an abstract way.
He looked out at the car park, at all the assembled zombies, and decided that the attack would be tomorrow night, when the Stalkers could benefit from it. He felt very excited. The time had finally come. Waiting for his wing to heal was the most boring experience he had ever had, so he was eager to jump on his prey and have an entertaining fight, but he knew he had to wait until the Stalkers grew in power or they would be annihilated too quickly.
The Breeder understood all too well that combat would be difficult, especially if the skill that had killed the mass of flesh in the square was used against his army. But he understood that it was only a matter of finding the one responsible and killing him before he could do anything. Satisfied with his simple plan, he walked down to the car park and stood in front of the messy group of zombies.
There was a Berserker nearby, watching him angrily. The Windwalkers had defeated him by simply attacking him from the air, while he could do nothing, so he was still angry. The Breeder ignored him and continued on his way. There were also a pair of Ambushers, a peculiar zombie with a huge bone sword that reminded him of his spear and a pair of Siamese zombies that could employ powerful mental attacks. The latter, fortunately for the Breeder, joined in willingly, as he doubted very much that his Windwalkers could have done anything against him.
The Breeder ignored all these powerful zombies, as he tried to get the elusive zombie that was one of the first to join him the day before. It was tiny, even smaller than a Stalker, but its power was no joke. It was able to merge with any shadow and hide completely. What's more, he himself doubted he could kill it. That's why he was his favourite minion, but unfortunately, he was nowhere to be seen.