After a brief ugh, Zack’s expression turned serious. “Alright, let’s move.”

  “Uood, Sir,” Ego responded, and the vehicle accelerated, its engine r like a beast as it tore down the road, smashing anything in its path. “Sir, there’s a small horde of corpses up ahead. Should we take a detour?”

  “A small horde?” Zack asked, already knowing how Ego defined ‘small’—a swarm of at least a thousand undead.

  “How long would a detour take?” he asked.

  “About thirty minutes.”

  “Fet it. Let’s push through!” Zack decided, unwilling to waste time on the long route. As the vehicle tihe horde soon came into view: a sea of walking corpses stretg as far as the eye could see. The engine’s roar seemed to rouse the undead from their stupor, and, as if ohousands of them surged toward the vehicle, shaking the ground with their frantic steps.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The vehicle smmed into the horde with such force that, despite its armored exterior, it started to slow, weighed down by the growing pile of bodies. The steel spikes meant to fend them off became jammed with corpses, their sheer numbers overwhelming the defenses. With more undead piling on, the vehicle’s speed dropped, and it grew heavier by the sed. The eight-der diesel engine roared uhe strain.

  “Ego, activate backup power,” Zaanded calmly.

  The graphetery kicked in, releasing a surge of energy. With the bined force of the diesel ehe vehicle roared back to life, speeding forward once again. The four tires gripped the ground with fiertensity, kig up clouds of dust as the vehicle plowed through the crowd of zombies. As it broke free from the horde, Zack gave another and.

  "Ego, open the side door."

  The door swung open, and Zack grabbed the edge, easily flipping himself up onto the roof. Thanks to the MV-02 suit’s exceptional agility, Zack moved with ease. On top, he began clearing the zombies ging to the vehicle, tossing them off one by one, including those stuck to the spikes. Whe of the undead were removed, the vehicle’s speed picked up, leaving the horde behind.

  But Zack didn’t re-ehe vehicle. He remained seated on the roof for a moment, gazing out at the desote ndscape. The apocalyptic world, bathed in the fading light, had a hauntiy that silently drew his attention. After a while, the grim sery lost its appeal. Zack spotted a distant shape breaking the horizon—the nuclear power pnt. Cheg the time, he saw it was already past four iernoon.

  "Ego, how long have we been on the road?" he asked.

  "Three hours and twelve minutes," Ego replied.

  The journey had taken lohan expected, thanks to a detour to reach the town where Erza and the others were.

  “We’ve got to hurry. I don’t want to go into that hellhole at night,” Zack muttered, his gaze hardening as he saw the growing number of zombies he nuclear pnt. Even from a distance, he could make out a sizable group of mutants among them.

  As they he pnt, the vehicle suddenly slowed to a stop. "What’s wrong, Ego?" Zack asked, sensing trouble.

  “Bad news, Sir,” Ego replied, projeg a live satellite feed onto the holographic dispy in the MV-02 suit. Zack’s face tightened as he saw two of the cooling towers from the pnt in the feed, both blow the top and spewing thick clouds of smoke. But Zaew it wasn’t just smoke—radiation was leaking into the air.

  “A radiation leak?” Zack’s expression darkened. Luckily, he had anticipated this possibility, and the MV-02 suit had been specially reinforced with three yers of anti-radiation coating.

  “Sir, the radiation levels ahead exceed safety limits. The vehicle ’t proceed. You’ll have to go on foot,” Ego informed him.

  “Uood,” Zack replied, jumping down from the roof aing off toward the nuclear pnt. While the MV-02 suit did have a flight system, it ed a lot of power, draini grapheteries in one go. So, Zack opted to run instead, and his speed on foot was impressive. In sed areas, he even outran the vehicle.

  As he ehe high-radiation zone, a sharp, repetitive beep filled his ears—the radiatioor’s arm. The further he went, the faster the beeping became, the radiation levels rising with every step.

  "Ego, silehe arm unless radiation levels reach critical levels," Zastructed.

  “Uood, Sir,” Ego responded, and the sudden quiet was a relief. In the eerie silence, Zack surveyed the ndscape through the MV-02’s visor. Aside from the hazy, inated air around the pnt, there was little visible sign of the radiation danger. But the zombies in the area seemed to be thriving, ued by the lethal enviro.

  Zack couldn’t help but wonder if the nuclear radiation was causing the zombies to mutate, making them even stronger. As he sed the pnt’s grounds, he noticed a rge group of zombies in the heart of the radiation zone. Some of them looked grotesque and deformed, unlike anything he had seen before. Even Ego’s exteabase cked records of these creatures.

  "Ego, record all new zombie types," Zaanded as he charged toward the pnt.

  A sudden, bone-chilling screech cut through the air.

  Zack’s eyes so the sound and spotted a zombie ging to a nearby wall. It resembled the Night Stalker breed—creatures that could scale walls—but this one was different. It had lost all sembo a human. Its limbs were abnormally long, many times the size of a normal body, and looked like a grotesque, fged spider with a human torso. Each limb had six or seven joints, bending unnaturally.

  “New mutant zombie detected,” Ego reported, piling data on the creature. “Temporary name: Hunter. Initial analysis suggests heightened sensory perception, beyond that of ordinary zombies.”

  The Hunter was staring right at Zack, its head twisted nearly 180 degrees, its glowing red eyes fixed on him. It g to the wall, crouched, watg him with unnerving stillness.

  “Does this thing have intelligence?” Zack murmured, feeling an uneasy chill.

  He forced himself to look away from the Hunter as the swarm of zombies surrounding the pnt finally noticed him. The first to approach were the standard undead, but one figure lumbered behind them—a massive, bloated mutant zombie.

  “Another mutant… the Bloat.”

  The rge, hulking figure slowly advanced—a behemoth weighing at least four to five hundred pounds. Beh its thick yers of fat was a nearly imperable defense. Even if someone could break through this fatty barrier, they’d be fag another dahe brute could self-destruct, releasing a cloud of toxic gas stored in his bloated body. It made him a tough oppo for anyone unprepared.

  “You mentiohis guy before, but I didn’t expect we’d actually run into him today!” Zack said, eyeing the swollen mohat was lurking behind a pile of corpses.