Chapter 21: Empire

It's done...

The battle is finally over. The remains of Labak are nothing more but a pile of dark goo...well...most of him anyway. His one single arm was miraculously intact. I must have missed it. I took the arm and took a bite out of it to confirm something...

...

I felt nothing. Looks like this issue will remain until then. I ran towards the pile of debris from the broken mansion. I looked on in every part of the scattered debris trying to find Whity. It took a while but I finally found him. Turns out he safely got out before the explosion. My battle drone is not so fortunate though. When I found it, most of its parts are completely vaporized. It's a shame but I didn't let it get to me. I can still make more of it and I can make it more deadly too.

I stare ahead and concluded that the entire town is officially conquered. All those remaining undead that survived are immediately hunted down.

Operation Pest Control: Success.

Now I have a lot of work to do. I called on my transmitter and the barn on the way home exploded with thousands upon thousands of drones. This drones are about the size of a human fist and is equipped with various construction tools. I made this drones mainly for construction and rebuilding. They had no weapons and are a liability in combat so I didn't bring them with me when I raid this place.

They swarmed uphigh like a pack of bees and started cleaning up the town. Each and everyone of them had been installed with a certain project of mine.I call it, Operation Empire

I will make a stronghold. Knowing the dangers of this planet, I need a place that I can turn back to. A place where I can be protected and provide myself some support, a place where I can further improve myself, get stronger, smarter, and build my own army.

I need an empire.

Labak's earlier monologue had given me insights about the top dogs of this planet. This so called sentients are zombies that have been evolved and gained a strength that defied comprehension. And baking my experience from Labak, there may be those that have enough power to level a city to the ground. I don't know about the hannis but I figured that since some of them have survive for this long, they must have found a way to adapt. I just need to investigate this matter later. My main focus for now is to be prepared.

From what Labak told me, the sentients operates like a combination of a hive mind and a wolf pack. They gather other undead to make them their servants and take a specific territory of their liking. They call their territory a 'nest' and will gather more servants to strengthen their army. I could theorized their reason for performing such a thing is to establish themselves as a strong group. Kinda like forming a nation. With this development, the sentients are able to establish a rule, a law, an order. With order, comes unity and through unity, their nest will be a force to be reckoned with.

By now, the entire town has changed dramatically. There are no more houses and broken buildings insight. What replaced them are numerous unfinished buildings of my own. There are some that are almost finished like my newly made training facility. My drones sure do work fast.

Back to the matter at hand, I am a sentient myself coming from Labak. And as one, I know that I need to have a nest of my own however, mine will be unique.

I will an army that are more deadly, more vicious, stronger, and has more intellect. They will be robots. Yeah, not original but whatever. I'll create them from the inspiration I got from the previous world...but better and that's not all. Being a sentient myself will give me the ability to control the undead that are lower to me. I don't know how but I can't wait to find out.

"Arf! Arf!." The bark snapped me back to reality as I saw Whity staring at me. Ok, what now?

"Arf!" Whity barks as he pointed at his stomach. Ah...alright.

"Okay, big boy. Time for you to eat", I told him with a smile and he barks at me I adoration. I made my drones to get a couple of Undead carcass and send it towards Whity. He just munched his meal while wiggling his tail. Never would have thought to see a giant dog eating a pile of corpses to be cute. I must be slowly loosing my mind.

I have nothing else to do now so I decided to retire for the day. I went to the nearby tree and sat myself before going to the world of dreams.

...

...

I woke up and saw the sun just slowly rising on the horizon. Wow, how long have I slept? I stood and noticed that the reconstruction of the town is almost finished. I can see new buildings and facilities I made on the streets. The once broken town now looks like a futuristic military base.

I smiled at the ongoing progress. I made my way around the place and saw a lot of my facilities are already starting to operate. There are many cyborgs that walk all around the base. Each of them have already been programmed to their designated roles. There are some who are monitoring their station, some are put as guards, some are helping for the construction of other facilities and so on. Despite their different roles, each and everyone of them are armed with deadly weapons. I also gave them an encode of every fighting ability known to mankind so when they encounter one of those flesh-eaters, victory is already assured.

I continued to walk on until I saw my newly made house. Calling it a house is a bit of an understatement as it was build like a giant castle except it has all the elements of the futuristic designs. It stood at least a 100 feet tall and 75 feet in width. It's at least comprised of 10 stories with each room serving with different purpose. Once I'm inside, I saw the wide array of room around me. It feels like I'm inside a semi-sized stadium. There are cyborgs all around the place carrying their duty as usual. As I walk, every cyborg that I came across would kneel as a show of absolute respect and loyalty. I went to the elevator and turn directed it to the highest floor of the castle.

Haah. All the months of hard work have finally paid off. From working inside a big barn to owning an entire base. I already planned for the output once I gained my victory but it still surprises me that the first step of my plan had just begun.

Originally, I didn't plan for this. At the start, all I wanted was to rid the town of those rotten zombies and eat their flesh to further boosts my strength. But then, life sometimes bring you a twist you didn't expect. A simple infested town turned out to be a nest to one of the sentients. The battle took a huge toll on both Whity and I but fortunately we won. I also manage to uncover a part of the story on my biology and the state of this planet.

Labak is a fearsome opponent but he is a terrible leader. When we raid this place, I didn't saw him leading his minions to protect his nest. He just sat in a couch inside his mansion and waited for the commotion to happen. By the time, I made my way to him, all of his so called slaves are dead. However, despite this, he still has a cocky aura around himself. He overestimated himself severely. His hubris led him to his end and now, I own everything.

The elevator stopped and I walked inside the 10th floor of the building. The room is empty for now except a big chair at the center.

It feels like a throne and I walk to my chair with a big smile on my face. I sat down and stared at the unfinished window. I saw my drones working 24/7 and is progressing at a high rate.

Once this base is over, I will expand this place to further improve its stronghold. This place will be an empire. MY EMPIRE.

And there are still too much to do for the next few days...

...

"Master, I bring news", a zombie dressed in dark robes bowed towards a hulking figure sitting in the giant throne.

"Speak", the voice is as deep as the sound of the abyss and it echoed through the room with pure power. Around the room, there are several hannis that are kept inside a giant cage. Each of them had a look of fear towards the one sitting on the throne.

"Labak has fallen."

"Oh? Interesting..." The figure says with a smile that showed its razor sharp teeth.