Chapter 25: San Diego Zoo

Zoos were perhaps the most visited places for evolutionary biologists as a kid. Alaric was no different. His love for genetics and evolution transcended everything. A love for which Blaze suffered a lot.

Alaric wanted Blaze to be like him. No, it was more apt to say he wanted Blaze to be his clone. It included his love for animals. While Blaze never grew to love them like his father wanted, that knowledge still came in handy… even after death.

The San Diego Zoo.

Blaze read the sign and smiled involuntarily. After joining the University of California, San Diego, Alaric, and Blaze had been constant visitors of the zoo. They visited the place at least once a month, mostly because of some research his father did.

Now, this place would become his first lair.

Forget about the animals, with over fifteen thousand daily visitors, Blaze would have no shortage of corpses to experiment with.

However, taking over the zoo wasn't going to be easy.

Fester had evolved into a strange form, and it was probably the same with the other animals of the zoo.

The evolution had turned a rat into a deadly species. He could only imagine what would happen to the actual predators of the past.

Yeah… it's wise not to fight the entire zoo at once.

Thankfully, the entire zoo was divided into large subsections. There were human recreational zones, special areas for reptiles, avian creatures, and every biome one could think of.

Blaze remembered the layout inside-out, thanks to his photographic memory.

It would be better to hunt humans first.

He looked at his little horde. While they were strong individually, they'd quickly get overwhelmed by the sheer number of undead and unknown creatures inside.

Then there was the possibility of encountering the Chosen humans on top of that. Hence, it was better to fill the remaining four slots first before encountering the animals, or the chosen.

However, there was something else they needed to do before even stepping foot inside the zoo.

Destroy those cars.

Blaze thought, pointing at the cars. Since the cars hadn't been abandoned for long, they still worked. It meant people would soon come there to scavenge what they could, and Blaze didn't want any visitors to disturb him.

Destroying the vehicles would also make the humans think twice about entering the zoo. After all, a horde of mindless zombies wouldn't go as far as destroying the cars. They'd assume it was a high-level zombie's doing and stay back, at least in the beginning.

It would give me enough time to prepare the lair's defenses.

On command, Breaker and Crawler charged towards the vehicles. Breaker slammed into the nearest blue car, turning it over, before jumping on top of it. The car couldn't hold against his bone mass for long and got smashed like a sandwich.

He then leaped on the other car, its hood collapsed under his weight. The glass shattered in all directions before doing the same with the next and the one after that.

Unlike Breaker, Crawler didn't have the strength to flip cars over, nor the weight to stomp them. Instead, it used its claws to tear into the metal like cardboard. Sparks flew as its claws ripped through the metal, destroying anything it got its hands on.

Blaze looked around the parking lot. There were at least a hundred vehicles there. Even with the two working as fast as possible, they'd be busy for a while.

So, he walked inside with Fester. As their leader, he couldn't just sit idly, could he?

Come inside when you're done.

Blaze departed after instructing them.

Let's go tame some undead.

***

Sometime later, inside the zoo.

The place was thrashed. It gave off the delicious smell of blood and rot. Stuffed toys covered in blood were scattered around the souvenir shop. Almost all the shops had turned upside down.

But Blaze didn't care about the destruction, he was more enthralled by the scene before him.

It's more crowded than I expected.

Blaze was hiding behind a massive hoarding pole, observing the creatures around. He expected to find some headless monster inside, but so far, he only spotted regular undead… or so he thought.

Soon, the encyclopedia activated and Blaze realized that not only the place was teeming with the undead, but it also had decent variety.

[Entry #7: Sprinter-class has been added to the encyclopedia.]

[Entry #8: Mauler-class has been added to the encyclopedia.]

Blaze knew about sprinters, since he was one, partially. However, it was the first time he encountered the maulers.

Just from a glance, one would know they weren't ordinary undead. They had the appearance of a walker, but their arms were too big. It was like an undead had a child with a silverback gorilla.

No, it's more like Breaker had children with the walkers. Interesting…

Before entering the zoo, Blaze assumed he would have to kill some walkers and assemble them. But that didn't seem necessary any longer.

Blaze stepped out of his hiding place, intending to tame a mauler and test its might. However, before he could do that, something strange happened.

A walker was doing its thing, i.e. walking, when it bumped against a mauler. He had seen the scene countless times. The undead didn't care about such trivial things and moved on.

Blaze expected the mauler to do the same.

Instead, the mauler slammed its fists on the ground, launching upwards. The walker kept walking, unaware of its imminent death as the mauler slammed into the creature.

The impact made the walker's ribs burst out of its skin. But the mauler wasn't done. It ripped the walker's chest open and began devouring it inside out. The walker thrashed around, clawing at the mauler, but the latter tore off its arms and kept feeding.

All that for bumping into it?

Blaze's lips curled. The maulers weren't like other basic-tier zombies. Not only were they territorial, but also needlessly aggressive.

They were the perfect foot soldiers.

Unable to hold himself back, Blaze charged at it. Eager to learn more about it.