"Hurry, we need backup at front 13. Our formation is collapsing. Is anyone listening, I repeat, is anyone listening. Over", the soldier's desperate voice crackled through the radio. The soldier turns back and joins his fellow soldier and starts firing at the enormous horde of zombies that are climbing up the rubbles of the broken bridge. The undead struggled to ascend the large, jagged pieces of concrete.

Avyan shook in horror as he saw the buildings wobble, "Their numbers are exponentially larger than what we faced at the campus."

"Not only that. It seems they are even faster than before", says Anirudh, his face pale with dread

Their car's door opens up. Soham bends and peeks in, "Don't get out of here. We have this in control"

Avyan pleaded, "Come on, at least give us a gun to protect ourselves. You know you can trust us."

"I want to, but I can't," Soham replied, turning away as he saw the disappointment in Avyan's eyes. Just then, something seemed to change his mind. "Oh, come on, who am I kidding? Take this one for now." He tossed a Desert Eagle over to Avyan.

Avyan nodded gratefully as Soham hurried back to join the ground forces. "Hey Anirudh," he said.

"Yeah," Anirudh replied, still pale with dread.

"Lo-look over there-", Avyan points out from the window. Anirudh bends to take a closer look and is shocked to see a large horde of zombies completely surrounding the front of the battalion.

Anirudh sighs and says, "They look as disgusting as always"

"But they seem to be more agitated and furious. these are different than those we saw at the campus."

In front of them, a bright shine appears. This shine emerges out of the shadowy depths of two long, broad and curved swords that are rising from behind the monster himself, Lector Gonzalez. The sheaths are attached to his waist on the back in an X-pattern. He unsheathes the swords and leaped directly into the horde. Anirudh and Avyan watched in shock as he cleared his landing by slicing the heads off zombies below him with precision.. As soon as he landed on his feet, his sword did not take a second of delay as it started beheading the undead without any mercy. Each blow decimated dozens of rushing zombies. Soon the bright sword turned red, not the usual red but something more darker, more creepier, more sinister. Both the swords moved in such coordination that it looked like a forgotten piece of art, the skill was unparalleled.

Avyan said, "He looks even more dangerous and blood-thirsty than before"

Elsewhere, enormous hordes of zombies attack from all the sides thus forcing each and every soldier to use all their might to fight back. Machine guns set up on ground, automatic guns in hand, grenades everything coming in use at once fighting off this wave of these mindless creatures. The snipers have set up their equipment on top of some cars. They finish the zombie in one hit by aiming directly at the brain. However the horde is taking the upper hand as they climb on top of each other to all-over avoid the debris. The weather seems to be clearing up, therefore they have to hold off the horde for a few more minutes only.

In an exhausting voice, while panting, "This is front 13 contacting again, is any—" A creaking sound among the loud gunshots caught the soldier's attention. He turned to see a zombie standing behind him. The highway had been invaded; the formation had collapsed. "AAAhhh, help," he screamed, closing his eyes in fear.

Nothing happened. "Am I dead?" The soldier opened his eyes to see blood splattering everywhere, the zombie in front of him now missing its head. "Wha... Who?" He looked around and saw Lector slaughtering the infiltrated zombies.

"He was at the front just now. Did he cover such a distance in a couple of seconds? I had heard rumours, but this is truly horrifying. Lector is NOT a human," the soldier thought, watching in awe as Lector continued his relentless assault. He jumps down the bridge in between the zombies all alone as the surrounding soldiers shout in horror. He gets overwhelmed by the zombies which look like they out strengthen him. However, to their surprise, the he starts to clear up the horde by swinging his swords in an X-pattern around him. He is a lone tank, enough for all of them alone. He starts mercilessly killing each one of the zombie approaching him.

However, due to the collapse in formation, several zombies had entered the parameter and infiltrated the inner zone. Deep down the lane, Avyan and Anirudh were observing the large scale defence in awe from a the same window.

(crk..)

Among the gunfires and grenade explosions, this eerie sound emerged not from the battlefield but from over Avyan's shoulder. Avyan turns and sees a zombie getting in from the open window by his side, his skin covered with dried up blood as if he hadn't eaten since ages. Anirudh quickly opened the other door, got out and looks over the gun which had fallen off Avyan's hand. The zombie takes a hold of Avyan due to which Avyan slips on the backseat.

Avyan shouts, "Fire the goddamn thing already". He takes a look at Anirudh standing aback,

"Come on Anirudh, pick up the gun". Anirudh gets out of his zone, looks over at the gun in a poker face and then over to the zombie. He turns pale and cold. He isn't able to move a muscle. Avyan kicks the zombie hard due to which it falls out of the window. Avyan rolls back, gets out of the car and pick up the gun himself, "What's gotten into you? Are you okay?". Anirudh just stands there, staring into silence. Avyan's attention is grabbed by the creaking sound of the zombie from around the car. He slowly steps towards the other side of the car with the gun in his hand as he unlocks it's safety.

"Shit", Avyan sees the zombie feeding on the brain of a skinny soldier. This skinny soldier was their driver who appears to have been hiding under the car.

(bang)

"This thing has a hell lot of recoil and blowback"

Soham joins in walking through the debris, watching each step, "We're done here. The weather is clearing, the sun is out, the zombies are running back to their hideouts"

"He-he died", Avyan points to the driver

"Yeah, yeah; we've had some casualties but we're still strong"

"But what about people who die here? What about their families? Their wives, sons waiting for them?"

"Look Avyan, these people are here by their own wish. They have chosen to be a soldier. Life and death is a part of the game, we have to move past these setbacks. Everyday we train and devise plans and formations that will give us the slightest of advantage against these creatures of hell, but we cannot ignore the fact that people will die. Everyone knows that some deaths are inevitable. However, not for long."

Avyan has a look of sadness and confusion over him when Soham moves over to Anirudh, "Where is he?", He looks around and finds Anirudh sitting in the backseat of the car in complete silence, staring at blank space, "Hey"

"Anirudh?"

"Anirudh, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Anirudh turns his head to Soham but doesn't utter a word.

Soham sighs and looks around. He throws his gun in the back. He walks back to Avyan while lighting up a cigarette.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Back at those again"

"Times have been tough. If I can die any day, why not live every day to the fullest."

"Quit it. Stop giving excuses, you've been a chain-smoker since I know you."

"Yeah"

Soham drops the cigarette and crushes it under his foot, "Come on, everything's wrapped up. Time to move"

Avyan and Soham turn back and start moving towards the car, "How come you do not have to help in collecting the armoury?"

"I outrank all the soldiers here, except Lector of course"

Meanwhile Anirudh thinks by himself, "What just happened back there? I was just standing there. Avyan could've died just now, but why was I unable to move? Was it due to the fear of losing? I lost to Lector or was it Pratyush?"

Avyan and Soham get in the car and the army resumes it's course under sunlight. Avyan observes the new driver who is now tall and muscular. Avyan asks curiously, "What were those rankings you were talking about?"

"Yeah. The highest post is the Monarch itself. Our monarch is the Frost Monarch. He is the highest authority and single-handedly hold the power to make any and all decisions.

Then comes the Grand Marshalls- Lector Gonzalez, Vanya and Pulkit Rohilla. They are people of extraordinary calibre. People who some consider no human; no less than a God. Each of them have extraordinary sense, reflexes, strength, agility and stamina. Besides, each of them have a single unique ability that no one else can replicate. An ability that cannot be reproduced by anyone else. These abilities are kept hidden and it is said that the abilities are seen by only those whose death have been written in the near future. These abilities are what we call 'Eldritch'."

Anirudh interrupts in between, "Wait, what kind of abilities?"

"According to what legends say, Lector's Eldritch is somehow related to Fire. I don't know much about the other two Marshalls. (Anirudh folds his hands and goes in a deep thought)

Moving further, each Marshall has his own army which is commanded by a General. I happen to be the General of Lector's army. Then after that below me there are a couple of knights and multiple elites."

Avyan smirks, "So you're pretty high up"

"I suppose, yes"

"So tell me what's happening? What do the monarchs have to do with us?"

Soham thinks and hesitates. Avyan pats on Soham's back, "Come on, the boys have to be together. You are a part of us."

Soham clicks his finger and the driver wears a pair of earphones and slides a band from his head to his ears.

"I may get in trouble for this, but does it look like I care.", Soham starts laughing hysterically joined by Avyan.

"Listen to me then, where do I even start? The fourth monarch, the monarch of the monarchs, the strongest monarch. He was the pinnacle of power in this new world. All the monarchs were under his control due to the sheer strength of his region and his overall influence. He was unparalleled, in power, in resources and in kindness. His empire was the happiest, all the people had adequate resources and their drives had a very high success rate and very low death rate. It seemed like, under his reign everything was back to normal.

Even after fulfilling all the needs, their was a surplus of resources. This is when he decided to move his interest elsewhere; into research, into finding a cure, into finding what these things are, into why these things exist and where did they come from? What can they do? Can they go any further?

After a couple of years of research, the scientists of his team had found out many things. This outbreak happened due to a fungal disease. It spreads throughout the body immediately. The fungus reaches the cells and corrupts them. The infected cells start to multiply, creating an immediate cancer in each body, the new cells produced are different from the original natural cells, these cells are mutated. You can imagine our original cells as red and these mutated cells as black for better representation. Only after a couple of minutes of being infected, these black cells kill all the red cells and then stop multiplying, most of the brain stops to function during this process. Somehow in technical terms that I don't know of, they devised that the brain turns futile. They turn into feral monsters who attack anyone in their range not to eat them, but just to kill them. They are rewired into a creature that knows nothing but just have their natural instinct of killing.

This fungus also develops fungal resistance rather too quickly for all the known anti-fungal chemicals and it is very very contagious. Therefore due to the risk of spreading of more powerful, resistant fungus in this world, the research on how to kill this fungus was stopped.

However, this was not the interesting part of the research. The two things that the research achieved were -

1) This fungus can be controlled in a way and modified using certain genomics that allow us to inject into humans and convert them into people that are more than humans. The next evolution of humans. A drug was thus produced which would be injected in the sample being at intervals of 5-8 days for about a 100 days during which they would be kept in a tarnishing environment. An environment that would in a way torture them, cold showers, ice baths, oxygen depletion, area burns and more such activities were carried on the samples to encourage their genes, their cells to start to mutate. A project was devised which found suitable, reliable and strong humans who would undergo this very painful surgery to convert into something beautiful. This project was called project Z. This new fungus gave extraordinary abilities to some people. However, it was very dangerous because the odds of it working vs killing you were 1 in a lakh. Also a few crates of these samples got into the hands of people who were not good morally. The monarch banished them and seized the samples, however it is now known that they still had some samples left with them. The project killed most of the subjects, therefore the monarch banned Project Z and the fungus' use, research and production. However, he did this only after Lector, Maya and Pulkit became the first three survivors of the project.

2) The research was extensively also done on zombie subjects, majorly in genomics. Their DNA was altered multiple times to revert back the black cells into red cells since it was well-established that this fungus cannot be killed in any way possible and even killing it won't do anything good since it has already mutated the cells. A lot of research was done on the brain and DNA using several techniques, electro-therapy, chemical-therapy and what not. Finally, what it lead to was nothing short of magical. One zombie subject developed critical thinking, like-like monkeys, but this did not stop here, it evolved further, developed speech, talked to us, he wasn't less than a human, but was inherently a zombie. He was named Raezi. Raezi was not only smart, he learnt anything and not only learnt but researched, discovered and invented things around his learning. In a short amount of time, he started outsmarting the scientists. Now he didn't look like a regular zombie now. He was tall, muscular, pale, his skin was completely dry, had scales on them and his eyes were all black and had no hair. Now, I don't know how but somehow it was devised that these zombies are now a separate species in itself and they will evolve just like all the other species, we just sped-up that evolution with Raezi. This was revolutionary. He was not only smart but even physically stronger than everyone around him until then. He was continuously experimented upon with new theories and surgeries. He was kept in cages specially designed for him but he kept creating plans to break out. Note it, successful plans but he never executed them, just said them out loud. He said this was not the right time. The scientists themselves started fearing him. So they decided to kill him off. Poisoned air? Injection? Fire? Acid? Nothing killed him. He regenerated from all of these after a few days in coma. The scientists tried cutting his neck off while he was in coma, but his skin was too tight to be pierced by any known blade. A special blade was called upon from far away to carry out the work, but it took it's time. He worked on his own theory of humans. After working on it for a couple of weeks, he decided he is right being on the opposite side. He said the natural way of living was correct and he is the enemy.

One dark night, war was around the corner, a war that the Great Monarch was not ready for. Now this war is something which I will tell you about someday later. Security left the lab, the scientists and doctors were also very low in number. The lab got attacked by the army of the invaders. During the rush, the zombie subjects escaped involving Raezi. The next day when the people visited the lab, it was a blood-bath, all the invaders inside the lab were dead, all their guns lying around. Their heads were squished, squished by hands, by hands of Raezi. All of them dead and Raezi was nowhere to be found.

The Monarch of the Monarchs lost and vanished after that day. Nobody knows his exact location. His region is now in control by one of the other monarch, Rain Monarch. However, the empire never came back to it's former glory. Now let me tell you one more thing which I did not tell you, the Monarchs are also successful subjects of the project Z.

The empire that was stable for years is now in a huge problem. Raezi has returned after all this time and he is not alone. It was last seen in the deserts of Dry Monarch's empire. The fact is we thought we found him, but as it turns out, HE FOUND US. He sent a letter addressed to all the Monarchs, I do not know about the letter but the Monarch's have lost their minds after this. The whole empires are in shock and danger. Raezi is someone who can take on thousands of humans by himself, imagine him with a plan. The monarchs are doing everything in their power to best set up a defence capable of stopping Raezi.

I know only this much of history and context. Lector might explain a little nicely and with better details. The details about the research might be a little off, so don't blindly trust them, I used to dose off in training."

Avyan lays back, "I still do not understand. Where do we come in?"

"That is the neat part. You don't. As far as I know. Therefore, I have no clue why you are being called, Lector doesn't tell me anything about this."

"Are you and Lector on good terms?"

"Yeah! He is the best"

"Well, he killed Pratyush"