"ARGH!"

"ACK!"

"ACK!"

The closer He Yuan got to the locked zombies, the louder the growling sounds became. He passed by a lab where three completely unfamiliar scientists were huddled around a bleeding human.

What was left were fleshy pieces of what was once a live human so He Yuan turned away and continued on his mission.

When he arrived at the end of the corridor, He Yuan ran into two fully armed men guarding a door. He quickly infused his energy in their brains before they could react and watched as they fell to the ground.

After grabbing the bunch of keys from their belts, he opened the door. There were rows of cells with snarling zombies behind them. He Yuan smiled.

Compulsion was quite easy to him and as a zombie, it was even easier so in no time He Yuan had a horde of over forty zombies with abilities and an extra ten without abilities out of the cells and ready to pounce.

By the end of the day, He Yuan had torn through the entire research facility with the zombie horde behind him, leaving behind a trail of scientists who were all reduced to bloody body parts.

The captured humans had escaped much earlier with the middle aged man so there was nothing to worry about.

Once He Yuan stepped out of the destroyed facility, his shoulders sagged. He'd been in confinement for three months so he had almost no time to worry about his task but now that he was free, things were different.

His worry for 888 came back with full force and the unknown whereabouts of Du Ling's soul thread was another thing that disturbed him.

"Ack, Ack, Ack."

"Ack, Ack, Ack."

He Yuan sighed. The zombies had been following after him since they left the facility -their numbers increasing as the stray zombies they ran into joined them- even when he compelled them to stop, they did before resuming their stalking as if nothing happened.

He decided to look for a place to settle down first and ended up choosing an abandoned city. Of course, the zombie horde behind him ended up flooding into the city.

He Yuan randomly chose a building and then settled down to cultivate after swallowing some more hunger relieving pills.

He spent all night in the same position and on the next day, he decided to pay attention to his large group of stalkers. The smell of rot hung thick in the air and being a zombie did not acclimatize him to the horrible smell.

"Ack."

"Ack."

"Ack.'

The zombies all began clamouring the minute He Yuan came into view. A lot of them were rotting with their flesh falling off in chunks and some others seemed to be fine, their skin no longer rotting although they were older zombies.

Instead, it was now brown with a texture like almost decayed tree bark. The horrible smell was not any different though.

He Yuan selected a few rotting zombies and some other zombies that had stopped rotting. Their mouths all hung open as they trudged towards He Yuan.

Next, he ran his qi through them. Their cores were reddish brown in colour. His brows furrowed in contemplation. The reason he did not enter the rotting phase was due to his cultivation. If the zombies also practised his methods, what would be the results?

For the next few weeks, He Yuan imbued the method of absorbing qi into the minds of the zombies and watched as they diligently followed his instructions through compulsions.

Another thing he did was divide the zombies into various groups with similar abilities. The kind of abilities the zombies developed were exactly the same as normal humans. The only difference was how they used it.

After that, He Yuan sent out groups of zombies to gather seeds from abandoned cities and then instructed the zombies with plant based abilities to grow them in their own base.

The zombies with earth based abilities were instructed to repair the buildings and build a wall around the abandoned city whilst the ones with water based abilities were instructed with providing water.

The more time He Yuan spent compelling the zombies, the stronger his abilities became and months of collective efforts later, the first ever zombie base was created.

The zombies had a herd mentality so soon enough, more and more zombies gravitated towards the zombie base.

He Yuan's theory about the zombies eating humans was also confirmed.

They did not eat humans out of craving but due to the fact that humans beings were the only other species available apart from them -the toxin had killed off all animals- so the zombies naturally saw the humans as food.

He Yuan's core soon went from the light brown to a milky white colour and he noticed that he was able to retract his claws and canines at will. His skin also went from gray to a white ash colour.historical

His twisted tongue retracted to normal and he was finally able to speak once more. He was most delighted by the last discovery.

Some more months passed and a couple of other zombies were also able to cultivate their cores to a light brown colour. Out of the thousands of zombies that were now occupying the base, a couple hundreds had psychic abilities so they made He Yuan's job easier.

He only needed to pass off his instructions to them and have them pass his words on to the other zombies.

On a bright and sunny day, the door to He Yuan's office opened and a zombie walked in. It was an eight year old child. The exact same child He Yuan had kicked away from himself over two years ago when he was still human and in the countryside.

She had joined the base months ago. However she made it all the way to these parts, he had no idea but he was a bit glad that she was alive. The girl came over to perch herself on the chair and blink steadfastly at He Yuan. It was something she did at regular times everyday so He Yuan just let her be.

Next, his head was filled with projections of chocolate. The girl had awakened a psychic ability and just like others, He Yuan had taught her how to project her thoughts. He always used pictures when communicating with the zombies as that was the most effective way.

He Yuan was about to sigh at the numerous projections of chocolate in his head when the girl did something that shocked him to his core.