The first wave hit like a tsunami.
Hundreds of regular zombies, mindless and hungry, throwing themselves at my position with no regard for their own destruction.
I didn't move.
CLAIM.
The command rippled outward. Not a surgical strike—a tidal wave of will, crashing into every dead thing within fifty meters.
They stopped.
They knelt.
Mine.
------------------------------
The mutants in the horde were different.
They resisted. Not consciously—they didn't have the intelligence for that—but instinctively. Their enhanced minds pushed back against my claim, creating friction where before there had been smooth acquisition.
It slowed me down. Not by much. Not enough to stop me.
But enough to make me work for each one.
I claimed twelve in the first five seconds. Then twenty. Then forty.
The horde kept coming, but with every step they took, more of their number joined my army.
Hundreds became thousands.
Thousands became mine.
------------------------------
"You... take... what is... ours."
The bear-creature shouldered through its pack, massive form displacing zombies like a boulder through water.
Up close, it was even worse.
Eight feet tall at the shoulder. Fur that had rotted away in patches, revealing muscle and bone beneath. Claws the size of machetes. And eyes—intelligent, calculating, hateful.
"They were never yours," I said. "They're dead. They belong to whoever claims them."
"You... are... dead... too."
It lunged.
------------------------------
The speed was impossible.
Eight feet of rotting bear-flesh, moving faster than any living creature I'd ever seen. One moment it was twenty feet away; the next, its claws were swinging for my head.
I threw myself sideways.
Not fast enough.
Pain exploded across my shoulder as three claws raked through my jacket, through my shirt, through skin and muscle beneath.
Blood, I thought distantly. Still have blood.
The bear-creature landed behind me, already spinning for another attack.
But I wasn't alone anymore.
------------------------------
Forty mutants—my mutants—crashed into it from every direction.
They weren't strong enough to hurt it. They weren't fast enough to overwhelm it. But they were many, and they were willing to sacrifice themselves without hesitation.
The bear-creature roared, swiping at the swarm. Mutant bodies flew. Limbs separated. Skulls cracked.
But for every one it killed, I claimed five more from its horde.
And I sent them right back.
"You... cannot... win... this way..."
"Watch me."
I reached for the bear-creature's mind.
And hit a wall.
------------------------------
Its will was strong.
Not like the Hive King—that had been ancient, alien, a consciousness that operated on levels I couldn't comprehend. This was different. This was raw. Primal. A predator's mind, forged by hunger and violence and the absolute certainty that it was the apex.
I pushed.
It pushed back.
We stood there—me clutching my bleeding shoulder, it surrounded by a sea of mutants it couldn't defeat fast enough—and we fought.
Not with claws. Not with teeth.
With will.
------------------------------
"I... was... something... before."
The bear-creature's voice was in my head now. Not telepathy—just the strange resonance that came with trying to claim a powerful undead.
"A man... or woman... I forget... But I... remember... hunger... Always... hunger..."
"That's all you are now. Hunger and instinct."
"No... I am... evolution... The virus... makes us... more... You... could be... more... too..."
Its resistance weakened. Just slightly.
I seized the opening.
CLAIM.
"NO—"
The scream was physical and mental simultaneously. The bear-creature thrashed, tried to break free, tried to reassert its will—
But I'd been doing this for ten thousand years.
And I was done losing.
------------------------------
The moment of conquest was... strange.
When I claimed regular zombies, it felt like catching fireflies. When I claimed mutants, it felt like grabbing handfuls of fire.
The bear-creature felt like swallowing a sun.
Power poured into me. Not just its strength—its potential. Everything it had been, everything it could have become, all of it becoming mine.
For a long moment, I couldn't see. Couldn't think. Could only feel the overwhelming tide of energy threatening to tear me apart from the inside.
Then it settled.
And I was still Wei.
Still human.
Mostly.
------------------------------
The horde stopped.
Two thousand zombies. Three hundred mutants. One Tier 2 evolved beast.
All of them were looking at me now. All of them were mine.
I could feel them. Every single one. A constellation of dead minds orbiting my consciousness like planets around a star.
Eight thousand, I realized. Between this and my existing army... eight thousand total.
My army had just grown by a third.
And the bear-creature—
I turned to look at it.
It was kneeling now. Massive head bowed. Claws pressed into the concrete.
"Master," it rumbled. The word came easier now, less broken. "I... serve."
"What's your name?"
Silence. Then: "I... was... called... Ursa. Before. The name... still fits."
"Ursa." I looked at the devastation around us—the shattered concrete, the broken bodies, the blood (mine) pooling on the ground. "You're my second Elite now. Vanguard is first. Understand?"
"Ursa... understands. Ursa... obeys."
I nodded.
Then I collapsed.
------------------------------
When I woke, I was back at the compound.
Min-Tong was beside me, her healing glow washing over my shoulder. The pain was already fading—her power had grown since the Hive King battle, refined through practice.
"You're an idiot," she said quietly.
"I won."
"You almost died. Alone. In the middle of a horde."
"I wasn't alone. I had forty mutants."
"That you'd just claimed. That you had no reason to trust."
I opened my mouth to argue.
She kissed me instead.
When she pulled back, her eyes were wet.
"Stop scaring me," she whispered. "I can't lose you twice."
"You won't."
"Promise?"
I thought about the ancient entity in the mountain. The debt it claimed I owed. The war that was coming.
"I promise I'll do everything I can to stay alive," I said instead. "That's the best I can offer."
She nodded slowly.
"That's enough. For now."
------------------------------
The compound was buzzing with activity.
Vanguard had arrived with my warning hours ago. Rachel had organized the defenses. Harold had the generators at full capacity. Max had the survivors ready to evacuate if needed.
But none of that had been necessary.
Because I'd stopped the horde myself.
"Eight thousand zombies," Drake said, looking at me with something like respect. "You just... took them?"
"Yes."
"And the bear-thing?"
"Ursa. He's mine now. Second Elite."
Drake shook his head.
"You're a monster. You know that, right?"
"Takes one to stop one."
He laughed—a sharp, genuine sound.
"Fair enough."
------------------------------
Maya found me on the roof that evening.
Her silver eyes were distant, seeing things none of us could.
"The future is changing again," she said. "Every time you act, the threads shift. I can barely keep up."
"Is that good or bad?"
"Both." She sat beside me. "The entity in the mountain is watching. It felt what you did tonight. Felt you claim the evolved. It's... pleased."
"Pleased?"
"You're getting stronger. Building an army. Becoming something it can use."
Something twisted in my chest. I looked down at my hands—the same hands that had just claimed two thousand corpses without breaking a sweat.
"I'm not building this for it."
"I know. But that doesn't mean it won't try to take it." She turned to look at me. "Be careful, Wei. Every zombie you claim, every power you absorb... it all feeds into the pattern. The debt you owe."
"I didn't agree to any debt."
"You didn't have to." Her voice was sad. "Some bargains are made before you're born. Some prices are set before you can refuse."
She stood.
"Day 10 officially arrives at midnight. More mutations will come. More evolved. More threats." She paused at the roof access door. "And the entity... it's almost ready to wake. When it does..."
"When it does, I'll be ready too."
Maya smiled—a small, fragile thing.
"I hope so. I really do."