The Hive Mind II

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Chapter 21: The Hive Mind II

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"The Hive Mind is real," Silver murmured, a bright flash passing by his eyes as he glanced in a certain direction.

As if his words were an incantation of some sort of sorcery, all the zombies, abominations, and mutated zombies hissed into the air in what seemed to be rage, complimented by another louder scream coming from the source of the radiation.

The scream seemingly awakened something deep in all the zombies as they stumbled their steps toward the group only for the stumbling to turn into a weird light jog. It was as if a human had started learning to run for the first time, still having quite the hard time with it but certainly better than just walking.

The others couldn't exactly see what was going on but they could hear what's akin to a continuous earthquake heading in their direction. Only, it could never reach them, allowing Natalia to take her time in taking samples of the Queen's guard.

In fact, as they moved forward, the earthquake started calming down, only finding swarms of corpses in their way, "Natalia, what do you think we should do with all these corpses?"

"We should burn them, right?" Natalia responded before pointing out, "The area is rich with radiation, so they might be able to resurrect again."

"No, I mean, can we use this place as a research ground? Do some experiments here and there, and more zombies for us to kill," Silver added.

"Why?" Natalia was a bit confused, "We can take samples and do our experiments in a more controlled environment. Wouldn't that be better?"

"Remember the second stage?" Silver said before continuing, "The Game Of Awakening clearly told us that we will be facing other worlds. I think turning a few cities into mutated zombie's breeding nests will do much for us."

"But they will be uncontrollable, no? Unless..." Natalia murmured before eyeing him with understanding, "Unless we create a Zombie Queen of our own?"

Howls and screams reverberated throughout at that exact moment, almost as if they were heard by the horde, but that couldn't possibly be the case, could it?

Well, all Silver had to say was, "As I thought, the Zombie Queen is quite special. She and the guards may be able to see in the fog and even hear us from afar... And they're smarter than regular zombies... Now I really want to create a city-wide breeding nest."

Natalia's mouth couldn't help but twitch at the ridiculousness of his words. He was playing mind games with zombies??

Silver moved forward, his interest in how Zombie Queens work peaking significantly, can they understand his words? Can they talk? Or is it more like instinct when sensing danger?

All of those answers were soon answered as he reached a wasteland of disgusting flesh. Hills of flesh acting as a dome, surrounding the source of the radiation.

"W-Where are the zombies? I keep hearing them coming but they never come?" Sunny wondered with confusion.

"Doesn't matter, just follow," Silver shrugged, "At this point, even walking off one step from Sunny's hollow zone may kill you either in the short or long term, so make sure to keep up."

Far away, Sam and the bunch could've and they did afford to walk off the hollow zone as their endurance can still handle it, especially as they continued to increase it on the way, but that may no longer be the case.

Silver wasn't sure if even Natalia can handle the radiation near the source as while it may not show its effect now, it certainly will long term.

"How does she look like? The Queen?" Natalia asked with curiosity.

"Mostly human but with the abdomen of an ant? Well, it's more like a large clump of flesh that seem like an ant's abdomen, and she appears to be immobile." Silver responded.

Nothing was in their way, yet many things were trying to get in their way at the same time, none succeeded, leaving behind nothing but a path of corpses.

'Too strange...' Silver contemplated in his mind, 'The Silver Effect is just too strange, unlike most other abilities I've seen so far. The mechanisms by which it exists and functions are so foreign and strange that it really shouldn't exist.'

It never once left his mind, the oddity of the Silver Effect as while other abilities require energy to create or manipulate, the Silver Effect instead is capable of seemingly creating energy out of nothing.

Silver adapted quicker than most, but he still couldn't adapt to the absence of the rule of conservation of energy in the Silver Effect.

The creation of energy out of nothing is simply not something he found himself capable of adapting to... That's not something that should be possible even in fantasy as it makes no sense.

No, it's more like it only starts to make sense when speaking of concepts so far out of Silver's reach that even his ridiculous imagination couldn't grasp what could possibly be going on.

And he's mostly certain that the Silver Effect does in fact create energy out of nothing as the focus of his experimentation was mostly on it.

Silver's imagination ran wild for a few seconds as he walked toward the clumps of flesh that's protecting the Queen, but in the end, he realized that he really needs the Silver Effect right now. Its value is literally limitless, and it's the only way that Umbrella can exist as he imagines it to be in the future.

The only solution was to prepare backup plans for the future. Such a ridiculous power must come with an equivalently ridiculous price, one he has yet to discover, yet he found himself having to use it as he sensed the Zombie Queen acting strangely.

As if sensing the inevitable crisis, the Zombie Queen could only make a sacrifice, somehow intelligent enough to do so as it started expanding, looking like it's gonna explode... The Silver Effect was swifter than the Queen could ever hope to be.

The Silver Effect was released, not just one but several, flying toward the Queen like a hurricane, one that surpasses the speed of sound by quite a bit.

So The Queen simply couldn't react before her brain was blown off, or simply erased, another miraculous function of the Silver Effect... The stronger you are, whether by influence or by sheer power, the more you realize how high the road goes.

Silver found himself in such a situation, but truly anything should be better than what would've been his original fate, simply dying of cancer, but who made him such a greedy gentleman?

"We have company," Silver murmured with a frown before instructing, "Natalia, collect some samples, but nothing else, and don't touch anything else that could be contaminated with radiation."

She may not be able to see but she can use her threads as if her limbs, thus he wasn't worried as he walked out of the hollow zone much to everyone's surprise.

The radiation near the source was deadly, very much capable of killing ordinary people in seconds, yet it did nothing to Silver, the effect of his high endurance which seemed to have made his cells extremely stable, capable of enduring a lot.

Silver walked and walked but he would of course never allow his group to leave the radius of his domain. The majority of the Silver Effects were still with them after all, protecting them from the limitless hordes of zombies.

"Huh?" Silver couldn't help but raise a brow on the way as he observe the intruders carefully, kind of an acquaintance although that acquaintance didn't seem to be having a good time, being treated like a slave...