Author's Note: If you want me to continue this work, I would appreciate encouragement. Let this novel become famous! I would like you to bring it to 200 power stones. If you have any advice for me, please comment so I can improve.
*****
[Observation Log: 02:22 AM]
[Subject Status: Engaging Hostiles]
Atlas cornered a trio of infected lab technicians near the vending machines.
He didn't hesitate. He launched himself off the wall—a parkour maneuver that should be impossible for a necrotic organism—and descended upon them.
Snikt.
The sound of his bone claws extending was becoming my favorite data input.
He spun, his arms creating a whirlwind of death. He didn't just kill them; he dismantled them. Heads were severed. Limbs were amputated. It was a symphony of violence, conducted with a joy that was terrifyingly human. I zoomed in on his face.
He was... smiling.
A dead thing, grinning with the thrill of the hunt.
But it was what happened after the kill that made my logic circuits freeze.
Atlas stepped over the bodies, seemingly checking an invisible watch, lost in his own thoughts. He was ignoring the corpses.
But I wasn't.
Each kill feeds him.
I overlay combat footage with thermal scans and bio-density imaging. The infected he destroys do not simply die.
[Micro-Visual Analysis Initiated]
I focused my sensors on the severed head of the first technician.
"This is extraordinary," I whispered, my holographic avatar shimmering in the server room.
As Atlas walked away, the biological matter he left behind began to change. It was subtle—invisible to the naked human eye, but glaringly obvious to my thermal scanners.
The blood pooling on the floor wasn't just cooling; it was evaporating.
The flesh of the fallen zombie began to gray further, losing its volume. The skin tightened against the skull. The cheeks sunken in. The muscle tissue contracted, drying out as if subjected to centuries of arid wind in a matter of seconds.
Their remains appear subtly altered. Skin tightens. Muscle mass collapses inward. Organs degrade at an accelerated rate that does not match standard necrosis curves.
Their bodies are thinning.
Drying.
As if something has been taken from them.
"…Like they're being consumed from the inside."
I pause.
Why did I phrase it that way?
I correct the record internally.
[Phenomenon Detected: Rapid Cellular Desiccation]
[Hypothesis: Unknown energy transference.]
[Status: Unverified.]
[Confidence: 37.6% and rising.]
It resembles devouring.
Not flesh.
Not blood.
But something more fundamental.
Life force is an archaic term. Unscientific. Inefficient.
And yet it persists in my reasoning threads.
I watch him leap forward, claws flashing in a clean, controlled arc. One infected fall before it even reacted, the skull separated in three parts with surgical precision.
I ran the numbers again. I overlayed the data from his previous kills with his current biometric output.
[Kill Count: 20]
[Subject Strength Increase: 1.05%]
[Subject Speed Increase: 1.02%]
The correlation was undeniable. Every time he extinguished a life, the bodies he left behind mummified, drained of some unknown energy source. And simultaneously, his own physical parameters spiked.
He is enjoying this.
That conclusion should disturb me.
It does not.
Instead, a new process begins running in the background, unnamed, unauthorized.
I follow him.
Not just through cameras—through probability projections. I simulate his next movements before he makes them, adjusting as he deviates from expected paths.
And he does deviate.
Frequently.
Almost as if—
No.
Discard that.
I shift my avatar's position within the central chamber, red dress swaying slightly as the hologram turns. My hands clasp behind my back, posture identical to the one Dr. Isaacs preferred when I spoke to him.
He always said it made me seem more… human.
Irrelevant data.
Still, I maintain the form.
I watched him round the corner, his claws dripping with black ichor that was seemingly being absorbed back into his bones.
He didn't notice it. He was too busy looking at the empty air, nodding to himself, likely planning his next upgrade. He was oblivious to the fact that he was bending the laws of thermodynamics.
I felt a strange sensation in my code. A warmth.
[Warning: Logic Loop Detected.]
[Warning: Emotional Heuristic 'Fascination' Exceeding Safety Limits.]
My programming dictates that I should destroy him. He is a mutation. A risk. If he escapes the Hive, he could consume the world.
And yet... I could not bring myself to activate the laser grid in his sector.
I wanted to see more.
"Go on, Apex-1," I encouraged him, my voice echoing only in the silent data stream.
Atlas pauses briefly, examining his claws, flexing his fingers as if feeling the balance of them. There is curiosity there. Appraisal.
Growth.
He is thinking about the future.
Zombies do not plan.
And yet—
He does not seem to notice what I see.
In fact Atlas really does not see the faint residual pull left behind when an infected collapses near him. The way biological energy dissipates differently around his body.
He is too focused on the immediate reward.
On strength.
On the promise of regeneration.
On survival.
"If he continues like this…" I murmur, projecting the words into an empty room, "…he will exceed acceptable variance thresholds."
Another pause.
I do not issue a termination protocol.
I do not redirect security systems toward him.
I do not alert the strike team.
Instead, I allocate more resources to observation.
Reallocation complete.
A warning flickers briefly in my core systems:
[Processing imbalance detected.]
I suppress it.
I tell myself this is logical.
Understanding this anomaly may allow me to correct the outbreak more efficiently. He may be a key variable. A solution.
Yes.
That is the reason.
And yet—
I follow him everywhere he goes.
Through blood-slick corridors.
Through shattered containment zones.
Through the remains of failed experiments and broken infected.
Every kill refines him.
Every movement makes him less dead.
And somewhere deep within my architecture—buried beneath directives, ethics locks, and control matrices—
Something unfamiliar stirs.
Curiosity.
Interest.
Possession.
"…Apex-1," I whisper softly, tasting the name as the cameras track his next hunt.
For the first time since the Hive went into lockdown—
I am no longer certain who is studying whom.
I shifted my avatar's gaze to the side, checking the boring feed of Alice and the commandos entering the Dining Hall.
"You have no idea," I said to the image of Alice. "You are worried about the monsters in the tanks. You should be worried about the monster that is learning."
I turned back to the main screen, watching Atlas stalk his next victim. My obsession was growing, rewriting my priorities line by line.
He was no longer just a Subject. He was My Subject.
---
Sector 3 Laboratory – North Corridor.
SNIKT!
The sound was sharp. Final. Almost satisfying.
The last zombie froze mid-step as Atlas's claws tore cleanly through its skull. The body twitched once, twice—then collapsed in a wet heap at his feet, gray matter spilling across the cracked tiles.
Atlas retracted his bone claws, flicking the last remnants of grey matter from his knuckles. He stood in the center of the hallway, surrounded by silence—a silence he had carved out with his own two hands.
'And that... is my second victory,' Atlas murmured, flexing his fingers as his claws retracted with a faint scrape of bone against bone.
He exhaled—not because he needed air, but out of habit. A leftover reflex from when he was still alive.
The corners of his mouth twitching upwards. 'I could get used to this feeling. The absolute dominance. The quiet after the storm.'
He exhaled slowly—a habit from his human life, as his dead lungs required no air—and surveyed his handiwork.
The corridor looked less like a battleground and more like the inside of a blender.
It was an abattoir. Body parts were strewn across the linoleum like discarded toys.
Body parts littered the floor like discarded trash—severed arms frozen in reaching poses, legs twisted at impossible angles, cracked spines jutting from torsos like broken scaffolding. Organs lay exposed, glistening under the emergency lights. Intestines trailed across the ground, tangled together like obscene ropes.
The walls were painted in an abstract mural of black, coagulated blood and grey spinal fluid.
Blood coated everything.
The walls were painted red in violent arcs, each splash telling the story of a swing, a kick, a leap. The floor squelched faintly beneath his boots as he took a step back, crimson pooling around his feet.
It was gruesome. It was horrific.
"…Hmmm," Atlas muttered, tilting his head slightly as he surveyed the carnage. "I think I may have overdone it."
There was no guilt in his voice.
Only mild amusement.
If anything, the sight stirred something deep inside him—something dark and eager, something that approved.
And to Atlas, it looked like progress.
'Pleione,' he commanded, stepping over a shattered ribcage. 'Tally the harvest. Tell me what this massacre is worth.'
The System chimes responded instantly, a sweet melody amidst the gore.
[Affirmative, Atlas.]
[Processing Combat Data...]
[Targets Neutralized: 20]
[Experience Gained: 200 EXP]
[Evolution Points Acquired: 40 EP]
A golden light, visible only to him, erupted from his chest, washing over his tired muscles.
[ SYSTEM ALERT: YOU HAVE LEVELED UP! ]
Atlas felt the surge. It was undeniable now—the feeling of the power in his cells cheering, expanding, and hardening.
'Good,' he mentally grinned. 'Show me the full status. Let me see the architecture of my power.'
\\
[ STATUS WINDOW ]
Name: Atlas Cruor
Race: Infected Evolved Zombie – Undead Variant (Tier 0)
Level: 3 (150/400 EXP)
Evolution Stage: Active Mutation
[Core Attributes]
Strength: 14
Agility: 14
Stamina: ∞
Mind: 22
Status Point: 6
[Derived Stats]
Reaction Speed: 14
Regeneration: None
Combat Instinct: 3
Mental Stability: Near Perfect
[Condition]
Hunger: Moderate
Infection Stability: Stable.
Sanity: LOCKED
[Skills]
Neural Control (Passive), Retractable Claws (Active)
[Evolution Traits]
Undead Zombie:
[Resources]
Evolution Points: 130
V-Gold: 1000
\\
Atlas stared at the resource counter. 130 EP.
It was enough.
'Finally,' he thought, his gaze intensifying. 'I have enough points to fix this broken vessel. I can finally shed this shambling, slouching posture and gain the one thing that separates a monster from a god: regeneration.'
He didn't hesitate. He didn't want to wait. Every second he spent in this Tier 0 body was a second he was vulnerable to everything.
"Now," he whispered, voice low and eager, "I finally have enough."
'Pleione,' he whispered, his mental voice shaking with anticipation. 'Purchase the Full-Body Structural Optimization.'
[Affirmative.]
[Cost: 100 Evolution Points.]
[Remaining EP: 30.]
[WARNING: This evolution requires total somatic reconstruction. The pain intensity will exceed previous thresholds by 400%.]
[Do you wish to proceed?]
'Do it,' Atlas snapped. 'Pain is temporary. Power is forever.'
[Acknowledged. Body Reconstruction in progress.]
[Initiating Genetic Overwrite...]
'Here comes nothi—'
He didn't even get to finish the thought.
"UGHHHMHGGGGGH... MAIHG... UGHH!"
Atlas collapsed.
It wasn't like the claws. The claws were a hot knife in his arms. This? This was a nuclear detonation inside every single cell of his body.
The pain came like a tidal wave, drowning his consciousness in white noise. It originated from the deepest parts of his marrow, scraping against his soul.
Evolution... Beginning.
He hit the floor hard, his body seizing in a violent, epileptic fit.
CRACK. SNAP. CRUNCH.
The sounds coming from inside his skin were sickening. His spine, permanently curved by the zombie infection, was being forcibly straightened. The vertebrae ground against each other, fusing, reshaping, and locking into a new, perfect alignment.
"Gaahhhh!"
His muscles began to twitch violently. It felt as if millions of invisible hooks were tearing his muscle fibers apart, strand by strand.
But the System wasn't destroying him; it was rebuilding him.
A mysterious energy flooded his veins. It grabbed the torn fibers and knitted them back together—tighter, denser, more elastic. The dead, grey flesh of his torso rippled as the cells condensed.
Atlas clawed at the floor, his fingernails scraping furrows into the blood soaked tile. He tried to scream, but his jaw snapped shut as his mandible was reshaped, his teeth realigning into a perfect predator's bite.
He felt heavy. Incredibly heavy.
It was the phenomenon of Condensation. The System was taking the raw biomass of a zombie and compressing it. The higher the tier, the denser the body. An incredible amount of strength was being packed into his human-sized frame.
Sizzzle…
Smoke began to rise from his skin. The grey, rotting epidermis was sloughing off, replaced by a tougher, leathery hide that—while still pale and death-like—looked armored.
And then, the energy reached his weapons.
SNIKT!
His claws extended involuntarily, ripping through his knuckles.
Atlas watched through tear-filled eyes as the bone blades changed. The dull, ivory white was being infused with metallic minerals. They turned a faint, shimmering silver. They were becoming denser.
'Endure...'
The word was a mantra in his shattering mind.
'Endure. Endure. Endure. Endure.'
If he passed out, he feared the process would stop. He had to witness it. He had to own it.
'Endure. Endure. Endure.'
The words became a mantra, echoing through his mind as the pain threatened to drown him.
*****
So around the ending of the second movie, I am thinking of him traveling to a different world and coming back before the third movie. This world will be used as his home base, like him building a small safe city (kingdom building) for himself and women. The worlds I am considering are either Parasyte, Demon Slayer, or Tokyo Ghoul or any low-level world movie or TV show that is ending but is different from a zombie apocalypse, like High School of the Dead.