The Z Gene - Chapter 6：Meeting with the city leader

The guard was followed by Daniel and Silvester inside the inner city as they entered the city they could see giant steam towers working in the city, people dressed in rags could be seen everywhere as they looked fearfully at the guard who was taking the lead and curiously at Daniel and Silvester.

Most of them were skin and bones while also having heavy mutations, some had giant warts on their faces and multiple ugly eyes that impaired their vision instead of helping them like the other mutants outside who were helping with the zombie horde.

Daniel looked around and shook his head while Ropego just chuckled, Daniel wasn’t programmed to help people down on their luck, only protect them from supernatural causes like zombies or Z Gene users thus the situation of the people around didn’t trigger much sympathy from him, of course, his true subconscious would have had a different reaction.

Ropego stretched itself on Daniel’s shoulder then said:

“This is pretty boring, make this guy in front go faster I want to rest in a nice house”

Silvester just kept his head down and followed behind Daniel like a dog, his fate was in Daniel’s hands there was nothing he could do besides follow him around and doing his biddings, if he ever stepped out of line he would become a dead husk his blood being drained away by the technique Daniel used on him.

Ropego observed the city properly then contacted Baidoa mentally using a chip that was inserted in his brain when he became a talking assassin cat:

“Baidoa, if you want to send someone to this city to test the boy I already have the schematics of the city.” While they could see everything outside due to the special tiny drones the bunker people created inside the city’s was a different situation. Of course now with the help of Ropego not even the city’s insides were safe from the observations of the bunker.

Baidoa kept his fingers interlocked as the image of the city appeared on the monitor, he nodded his head then switched the image to a blonde-haired young man who was preaching inside a similar but different city:

“I have the power of God invested in me see this!” He put his hands over a recently dead person’s body and the body immediately started to move as the Z Gene infested him and activated the latent potential hidden within him, he suddenly got up from the ground where he was left and started cheering to himself.

The people who were observing started bowing towards Costil thinking he truly was the apostle of God. Costil chuckled to himself and started to impart the Z Gene to the people of the slums adding to his Church army count, whoever wasn’t compatible would be eaten afterward, however, the city had more talented individuals than the people from the villages, of course, there were still people who had no way to activate the Z Gene due to their physique they were eaten and they bolstered the power of Costil’s newly created army.

Back with Daniel, he was shown to a comfy house in the middle of the inner city, it was the area where people weren’t too rich but weren’t poor as well. The guard immediately took his leave in fear of Silvester and Ropego. The guard took a left then a right then he entered a strange maze that took him to the leader of the city.

The leader’s characteristics weren’t shown as he donned on a mechanical suit of armor, the armor was a deep black color with blue highlights around, it had a futuristic look and it also had holes in his hands and feet that were used for propulsion, it’s helmet had horns and from the eye holes, nothing but darkness could be seen.

The guard entered then bowed his body then fell to his knees saying:

“Gopoda is here to report to supreme leader!” Then he put up his hand to salute him when he got the queue to get up.

A rough and raspy voice came from the suit of armor which asked:

“How’s the situation with the zombies outside?”

The guard stammered:

“Uh .. its.. been resolved but there’s been a problem.”

If you could see his eyes behind the helmet of the armor you could see that he narrowed them at the guard then he asked in a cold tone of voice:

“Problem? I do not like problems that much and you should know that.”

The guard was ready to pee himself in fear but he steeled himself and continued:

“It’s not a grave problem sir, a new person came into the city and killed all of the zombies… it’s just that he is a pretty weird guy.” Then he started to explain how he had a normal looking white cat on his shoulder and how he subdued a fully evolved zombie!

The man nodded his head at the words of the guard then said:

“I would like you to invite him here, I want to see how strong this person is!.”

The guard Gopoda ran off as fast as he could, behind the city the shadows that veiled him disappeared showing body parts and organs of different types being strewn around faces that expressions could only say agony were impaled on pikes behind some glass as the city lord turned back to them and started to observe them closely.

Daniel rested a bit then the guard was already knocking on his door saying that he got invited by the city lord himself!

Daniel saw no reason to not go and see the city lord, Ropego jumped on his shoulder while Silvester followed from behind, the guard had no instructions if Daniel should come by himself thus he let them follow.

The guard took the same route as before and they were met directly with the city lord, the city lord took a better look at Daniel then said:

“I hear you young lad did a great job at exterminating the zombies outside, a great job well done, my names Jackiel, Dr. Jackiel I invited you here for a reason…”

Suddenly a chainsaw grew out of his arm and he launched himself at impressive speeds at Daniel trying to bisect in him two and he said with a burst of crazed laughter:

“I would like to see what made you so strong? what kind of mutations do you have boy?”

Unfortunately for Dr. Jackiel, he didn’t know anything about Daniel’s situation a straight punch coming from Daniel hit him directly in the chest breaking his armor and exposing him directly to the world!

He couldn’t use any of the armor’s functions in front of Daniel’s supreme strength, Silvester was ready to help his master but he shook his head at the sight afterward.

The city lord appearance was seen in full now, he was a short man with spiky blonde hair and a crazed look in his deep black pupilless eyes, he had an everpresent evil grin on his face which spelled a world of pain for whoever he was interested in.

But his face remained in that position as suddenly a hole appeared in his chest and he puked out a mouthful of blood and some chunks of internal organs.

Daniel didn’t hold back in that hit killing the city lord in an instant!

Ropego applauded inwardly then said:

“Well, it was easier to take over the city than I thought, great job kid.”

Daniel shook his head at Ropego’s words then he took a better look at what the city lord was doing behind the glass.

After he found some notes on the city lord research he found out that the city lord was trying to create mutations with only beneficiary effects towards humans, thus he took people with beneficial mutations from the slums or outside the city and killed and experimented on them observing their blood and flesh to see how they were mutated.

There was also a tank of radiation inside a different room that was used in his testing, all of the subjects, however, were dead.

Daniel shook his head at the sight, this man was demented thoroughly, even though he wanted to improve humanity and strengthen it, his methods were way too disturbing for his taste, even though he killed like he didn’t have any emotions it was because he didn’t kill any innocents bar the one woman he killed accidentally.

He was still sad at the poor woman’s death he couldn’t control his strength properly back then and that costed him. Ropego observed Daniel’s reminiscing gaze and smiled inwardly, the brainwashing was still going strong, if there were any changes in his brain waves Ropego would immediately notice it and he would manipulate him with his words to reinforce the brainwashing.

Ropego was there to make sure Daniel wouldn’t stray off his mission, Baidoa made sure Daniel would fulfill the mission he gave him, thus he sent Ropego.

Daniel decided to keep the notes but burn all the experiments and laboratory down, Silvester complied with his master wishes and destroyed everything then made the guard get a gas container and some matches to burn the whole city lord building down to the last bits, however, they didn’t leave any valuables inside searching for everything that was of use then taking it out.

Afterward, with the guard and Silvester shouting everywhere Daniel was coronated as the new city lord, of course, the city population of a few million took the news with agitation and fear, the last city lord was pretty much a tyrant and evil being who would experiment on people publicly, how would the next city lord be?

However, the people were in luck this time, Daniel was an easy-going fellow even though he was brainwashed he wasn’t going to make trouble for anyone, he decided to help those less fortunate people with the city lord funds he found in the city lord building before he burnt it down.

With the help of the city guards who now responded to him, he got a new building that he could govern in. The majority of the guards already saw his strength so they didn’t have any complaints when he took over the city.

Of course, some people didn’t want to see the city lord being changed but they were easily subdued then eaten by Silvester with the agreement from Daniel, He couldn’t let his subordinate weaken itself too much, at least that’s what Ropego told him.

He had to keep Silvester on a tight leash putting on the stick and carrot plan to make him do one hundred percent in every instruction he gave him.

Of course, they weren’t anything major they were created to help the people out of the slums and give them better-living conditions getting them to have a good impression of the new city lord. The last city lord would randomly pick some slum rat and experiment on it whenever he wanted but the new one tried to help them out of poverty!

Of course, the richer people didn’t care at all what happened with the people of the slums, since Daniel was using funds from the former city lord and didn’t take any of their benefits they could care less what he did.

This was also from Ropego’s plans, Daniel needed living people to control the city thus he couldn’t kill everyone, the rich people got where they were with wit and cunning, killing them would hurt the city’s core thus it was something that couldn’t be done randomly.

After Silvester was done with implementing the new rules he came back to the new city lord building and reported everything to Daniel, he also said that some people wanted to subordinate themselves to him grateful that he wanted to better the living conditions of the people of the slums.

Ropego nudged Daniel and Daniel agreed to it saying that Silvester should train them a bit before he met them.

The money flow wasn’t going to stop even though he used quite a bit of it, the city lord took a bit of tax income from all businesses in the city which now came to him, the guards already explained to most of the merchants about Daniel’s strength so they directly gave up on trying to resist him.

There were still exceptions of course, which they were swiftly dealt with by Silvester’s hand.

Dabo was now entering the inner city with a relaxed walk, he didn’t know that Daniel was already the city lord, he wanted to investigate about his whereabouts and kill him in retaliation for what he did to him, unknowingly to him his location was already discovered by someone and reported directly to Daniel’s office!

Daniel was pondering something when the guard known as Gopoda entered his office and reported to him the entrance of a strong mutant with red skin and four arms after his outfit was described Daniel narrowed his eyes.

Wasn’t that Dabo the guy he killed? How did he get revived?

Ropego just snickered to himself as he stood on the desk and licked himself.