Chapter 61: The Zombie That Burns

The heavy iron door groaned on its hinges as the creature stepped through the billowing smoke, its heavy tread echoing against the steel floor.

Raviah felt her pupils contract as the reanimated corpse came into clear view several meters away. Its clothes had burned into ash, revealing blackened, charred flesh beneath. Bright cracks of crimson light pulsed beneath its skin, weaving through its body like veins of liquid fire.

None of those gruesome details terrified her, however. Her gaze locked entirely onto the dancing crimson flames gathering around its right hand. The fire twisted between its fingers, glowing brighter with every passing second as the temperature inside the laboratory spiked violently.

Raviah backed up a step, her hand instinctively pressing against the cold metal counter behind her. The air grew stifling, heavy with the stench of ozone and scorched ozone.

Rhyder stood directly between her and the threat, his heavy sidearm already raised and locked on target. He did not break his stance as he asked, "What is it?"

"That shouldn’t be possible," Raviah whispered, her voice barely carrying over the crackle of the flames. She gripped the edge of her spatial dimension’s intake button hidden within her coat, ready to pull supplies if needed.

The corpse lifted its arm without warning. A violent stream of fire exploded across the laboratory, lighting up the dim room in terrifying crimson hues.

Rhyder reacted instantly, his military instincts overriding any hesitation. He grabbed Raviah around the waist and hauled her sideways toward the reinforced structural pillars.

The blast tore through the space where they had stood a second earlier, slamming into the containment wall behind them with a deafening boom. Glass rained down in jagged, glittering shards as the entire foundation trembled from the impact.

Raviah stared at the molten wall, her pulse hammering in her ears as she tried to process the sheer absurdity of the sight. "Zombies aren’t supposed to awaken Elemental abilities this early."

Rhyder kept his eyes fixed on the smoke clearing near the doorway. "You’re certain?"

"I’ve seen the evolutionary stages of the apocalypse," she urged, her mind racing back through her memories of her past life. "This level of control shouldn’t manifest for months."

Another wave of crimson fire erupted through the haze, forcing them deeper into cover. Rhyder raised his off-hand, activating his portable energy shield with a high-pitched hum.

The flames slammed against the transparent barrier, violently showering the corridor with sparks. The energy gauge on his wrist flashed yellow as the shield flickered under the extreme temperature.

Raviah’s expression hardened as she read the energy output on his wrist display. "It has elemental energy comparable to an awakened human."

The zombie let out a horrifying screech, a sound completely stripped of any human resonance. It surged forward, its blackened feet leaving charred prints on the floorboards.

Rhyder stepped out from behind the pillar, his movements smooth and practiced under pressure. He waited for the precise moment the creature closed the distance before pulling the trigger.

Two heavy rounds tore into the creature’s chest, staggering its forward momentum. The zombie snarled, raising its blazing hand to unleash another torrent.

Rhyder ducked beneath the sweep of fire, driving his heavily armored shoulder directly into the creature’s exposed ribs. The impact threw the zombie backward, slamming it violently against the lab wall.

Before it could recover its footing, Rhyder drew his energy blade, activating the blue plasma edge in a fluid motion. He swung with calculated precision, severing the creature’s burning arm at the elbow.

The severed arm hit the floor and dissolved into a pool of sparks, but the creature barely reacted to the loss. Crimson light surged across its remaining arm, immediately igniting a fresh blaze around its left hand.

Raviah’s eyes widened as she watched the embers spread across its chest. "Rhyder! Its Root is still active!"

"I noticed," Rhyder replied coldly, stepping around a wild swipe of the flames.

The creature lunged with its remaining hand outstretched, aiming directly for his throat. Rhyder pivoted on his heel, stepping smoothly out of its path while plunging his plasma blade straight through its chest cavity.

The zombie froze in place, its mouth gaping open in a silent scream. The crimson light pulsing beneath its skin flared violently, threatening to burst outward in a final explosion.

Rhyder didn’t give it the chance, releasing the full energy store embedded within the weapon’s hilt. A concentrated shockwave tore through the corpse’s interior, shattering its thoracic cavity from within.

The creature collapsed onto the concrete floor like a puppet with cut strings. The flames died out instantly, leaving behind only thin wisps of bitter black smoke.

Silence settled over the laboratory once again, heavy and suffocating. Neither of them moved for several long seconds, listening for any sign of movement beyond the ruined doorway.

Rhyder slowly lowered his blade, the plasma energy fading back into the hilt with a faint hiss. He took a steadying breath and wiped a smudge of ash from his cheek.

Raviah walked over to the corpse, her gaze fixated on the smoking remains. Her mind churned as she struggled to align her past knowledge with the reality lying at her feet.

A zombie had manipulated an Elemental Root in the very first stage of the outbreak. It defied everything she knew about the initial timeline.

"This shouldn’t have happened," she whispered softly, kneeling beside the charred torso.

Rhyder stood behind her, his hand resting casually on his sidearm holster. "Yet it did."

Raviah reached toward the corpse, but Rhyder’s hand caught her wrist with gentle firmness. "Don’t touch it."

"I wasn’t planning to," she replied, offering him a faint, reassuring nod.

She pulled a portable biological scanner from her pocket and activated the sensor beam. A grid of blue light swept over the charred remains, analyzing the tissue structure.

A loud, jarring beep echoed from the handheld device, making them both tense up. The display flashed bright red as it pinpointed a heavy energy concentration inside the chest.

"That’s impossible," Raviah muttered, adjusting the scanner’s sensitivity settings.

Rhyder shifted his weight, his eyes scanning the room’s perimeters. "What is it?"

"Move back a bit," she instructed, focusing the scanner entirely on the creature’s chest cavity.

The device projected a holographic three-dimensional breakdown of the internal organs. Deep within the burnt ribcage, a tiny object radiated a concentrated energy field.

A small crystalline structure sat embedded near the dead heart, pulsing softly with dark crimson light. Faint veins of elemental energy moved across its multifaceted surface like living threads.

Raviah stared at the hologram in stunned silence. "I’ve seen this before."

Rhyder stepped closer, staring at the projected image. "From the beast?"

"The mutated wolf from the lower perimeter," Raviah confirmed, her voice tight. She had secretly stored that crystalline fragment inside her private spatial storage for further research.

Back then, she had assumed the crystal was a unique biological byproduct exclusive to mutated animals. She believed it was a rare result of rapid viral adaptation in wild beasts. Yet here was a human corpse, mutated by the exact same pathogen, holding the exact same energy structure.

Raviah carefully pulled a pair of sterile forceps and a biohazard capsule from her equipment kit. Working with precise movements, she extracted the tiny crystal from the chest and sealed it inside the capsule.

The scanner immediately ran an automated diagnostic on the sealed container. A bold line of text blinked across the interface screen:

[CRYSTALLINE ENERGY CORE DETECTED].

"Cores aren’t limited to beasts," Raviah said, holding the capsule up to the dim overhead light.

Rhyder studied the faint glow reflecting off the glass container. "So humans can produce them too."

"Not ordinary humans," Raviah corrected, shaking her head as she analyzed the reading. "Something about the pathogen, the rising atmospheric energy, and the elemental awakening triggered this."

She turned the capsule slowly, watching the crimson veins shift inside the crystal structure. "The energy system isn’t isolated. It’s spreading across every form of life on the planet."

Beasts, humans, zombies, none of them were exempt from the transformation. The implications were staggering, pointing toward an evolutionary leap far more aggressive than her previous life had shown.

"If this continues," Raviah murmured, her expression darkening, "every organism exposed to the atmosphere could potentially develop its own evolutionary mechanism."

Rhyder remained silent, his sharp mind weighing the strategic nightmare such a reality presented. The apocalypse wasn’t just a breakdown of human civilization. It was a total restructuring of global biology.

Before she could place the container into her spatial space, the handheld scanner erupted into a series of sharp, alarming chirps.

Raviah’s head snapped back toward the digital display as the warning indicators flashed yellow and orange. The Core inside the glass container remained stable, but the device was reading a separate energy source.

The signal wasn’t coming from the capsule in her hand. It was emanating from deeper within the corpse’s secondary chest cavity.

"That’s not the Core," Raviah said, her voice losing its previous calm composure.

Rhyder immediately raised his weapon, his posture locking back into a combat-ready stance. "What is it?"

"I don’t know," Raviah admitted, her fingers moving rapidly across the scanner’s recalibration panel.

The sensors struggled to read the conflicting signals, the digital numbers fluctuating wildly across the screen.

[SECONDARY ENERGY STRUCTURE DETECTED]

[ANOMALOUS CORE FORMATION IN PROGRESS]

[COMPOSITION: UNKNOWN]

Raviah stared at the rapid stream of error codes filling the display. The original crystalline Core was already fully formed and detached.

Yet something else was rapidly coalescing beside the ruined sternum, something darker, denser, and far more volatile. It possessed an unstable frequency unlike any beast Core she had cataloged before.

The overhead fluorescent light fixture flickered violently as the ambient energy in the laboratory warped. A harsh final alert sounded from the scanner in her trembling grip.

[WARNING: UNKNOWN CORE TYPE DETECTED]

Raviah took a slow step backward, her eyes fixed on the black pulse throbbing within the corpse’s shadow. For the first time since the world had begun to fall apart, genuine dread pooled in her chest.

"What are you becoming?" she whispered into the darkening room.