[Kardian’s point of view]

The game of cat and mouse was a tiring one for me, but the tactics were mostly the same. I ran to one corner of the room, stayed there until the creature ran at me, then I dodge out of the way, gave her a kick and rushed to the other side. For the first minute, I thought that I could keep going like this, but after the fourth round, she got smarter and tried to catch me when I kicked her. So, I had to be more careful.

“Shit! Xerya! This is not easy!” I shouted as I barely dodged the jump attack of the Mutated Cyborg.

Instead of kicking her, I let her slam into the wall behind me. I then ran as fast as I could to the other side where the big mirror was. If this place wasn’t a dance studio, I might have already stumbled on various piece of furniture scattered all over the place. Still, it was exhausting to run like this from one place to another. I wanted to act more aggressively and attack her with everything I had. If instead of running away I was trying to land an attack that could easily injure or debilitate her, then it would have been easier, but in doing so without Xerya letting me, I could jeopardize our plan and if there was even the smudge of a chance that this cyborg’s brain was still functional and undamaged by the nanobots, then all this trouble was all worth it in the end.

“Grrah!” the creature growled at me and reached out with her two long fingers at me.

I was a bit slower this time, and they managed to cut me. My clothes were sliced, and two long cuts appeared across my stomach, but I was lucky that they weren’t deep enough to incapacitate me. Still, I found myself getting startled by the wound and jumped back, smashing with my back against the mirror. I heard a crack, but it didn’t shatter. The creature sensed the blood and immediately lunged at me. I had only a split second to roll to the side and avoid the attack.

Maybe it was because she was faced with the sudden reflection of her grotesque image, but she couldn’t react fast enough to dampen her impact and just smashed right into the mirror. This time, it shattered completely, and the sharp pieces fell all over her body, leaving behind small cuts, with a few of them stabbing deep into some of her exposed flesh.

“Hah! That’s payback for this cut!” I shouted back as I held my stomach.

“Please don’t injure her too much. She might interfere with my acquisition of this host body sample.” Xerya told me in a rather blunt way.

“Yeah, not my fault, but how far long are you with making that tool?” I asked.

“The Conqueror will be completed in 84 seconds.” she replied.

“That’s good and sick name by the way!” I replied as I stepped away from the creature, waiting calmly to see what its next move was going to be.

“Graagh!” she let out a disgusting growl again, but instead of attacking me, she took a moment to pull out the shards that were stuck in her body.

“She’s already healing...” I noticed.

I could see her wounds closing right before my eyes. This could only spell bad news for me. As the battle continued, I was getting tired, while the Nano-Z gave me the impression that they had endless energy. There was also the threat of the other ones lurking around and inside this building, pulled in by the noise of our fight. If not for Xerya’s camouflage, they would have been swarming inside, pounding on the walls and doors, not just pulling their feet around and growling from time to time.

“ETC 45 seconds.” Xerya announced.

“Great.” I replied without taking my eyes off the creature in front of me as she was pulling the shards of glass out of her body.

I was feeling tense because I knew that she was going to attack any moment now. Maybe she knew that this whole building was surrounded. There were Nano-Z outsides, there were Nano-Z inside, and with the clock ticking, it was going to get dark soon.

Xerya warned me several times not to head outside when it was dark and mostly remain inside while focusing on absorbing the cores. When the ‘Rabid’ mode was activated, the Nano-Z turned into fearless monsters that rushed at their targets like enraged wild beasts that just had a taste for blood.

If during the first month since the infection began to spread this ‘Rabid’ mode had yet to appear and everyone just thought of the Nano-Z as just ordinary zombies, then once it began, survival chances went down, and humanity felt more in danger than ever before.

However, what I found strange was that this ‘Rabid’ mode was not mentioned anywhere on the web. There did seem to be a bunch of tags regarding raskal attacks, but those rodents from Planet 3 could be found anywhere these days. They were a pest that mankind was still trying to exterminate or at least cull off their numbers. Personally, I never saw one myself, but I heard they were quite frightening to meet in the dead of night. They had glowing red eyes and were as big as a dog.

Maybe rather than treating them as a pest, the survivors were treating them as a meat source? Their flesh was edible if cooked right, after all.

Unfortunately, my current battle wasn’t with a potential horde of rodents but with flesh-eating nanobot infested humans that had their brains turned to mush, making them act no different than an animal. Then there was the big creature in front of me. This thing didn’t have any red eyes yet, but when it turned dark, she was most likely going to enter that ‘Rabid’ mode, making her attacks more fearsome than ever before.

Well, this, of course, if I continued to play this awkward cat and mouse game in which all I did was dodge and avoid her to no end. If I wanted to go on the offensive, given what I had experienced so far, it didn’t really feel that I would find myself troubled by her attacks, on the contrary, this creature was scary but not overwhelmingly powerful.

To defeat her, all I had to do was just dodge to the side when she rushed at me, then with my retractable blade, I just had to slice off its tendons. Once she was down on her knees, I would plunge the blade into the core and pull it out, leaving her not only incapacitated but also unable to respond. Then, I would either just cut off her head or slice off her arms to make sure that she was unable to do anything. I could always just run upstairs and then toss her off the edge of the building, sending her plunging into the ground. Maybe she would survive, maybe she wouldn’t, but then killing her off or letting the other Nano-Z take care of her was only a matter of choice.

“GRAAAH!” the creature roared at me after she recovered and once again rushed at me.

I dodged to the left just as I had imagined and when she tried to grab my foot, I pulled back my leg. This caused the monster to lose her balance and then stumble down into the wall. While she was getting back up, I rushed over to the other side.

“A change of tactics wouldn’t hurt.” I told myself when I saw the shards of glass on the ground.

I picked up a few of them and then waited until the creature turned her ugly head towards me. Then, with a swipe of the wrist, I sent the shards flying at her. Two of them got stuck in her body and the creature was forced to pull them out before continuing.

“This is indeed quite different from fighting against a living being.” I pointed out.

“Why so?” Xerya asked, intrigued by my comment.

“Well, a normal living being wouldn’t have just stopped to mend for its wounds, but instead tried to take out the attacker first or if it deemed the attacker too powerful, it would have fled as fast as it could. This fact remains the same no matter the planet or the type of predator. Even the herculean Zordeas on Planet 6 fled when the army went after them in the attack flyers.” I explained.

“Self-Preservation Instinct would be the trigger for this behavior, correct?”

“Yeah... But this thing... the nanobots inside the Nano-Z, they have no such thing.”

“That is correct.” she confirmed.

“That’s good and also bad... Good because it means they can be lured into traps that slowly exhaust them and bad because they won’t stop until they literally can’t go on anymore.” I said and then prepared to dodge out of the way.

“By the way, the Conqueror has been completed.” she announced as I was rolling on the ground.

“Awesome!” I said and immediately activated it as I got up.

The Retractable Blade was pulled back and from within my right palm, thousands of black tendrils sprouted out. They wiggled and squirmed around while they entangled with each other to form a black spike. The scene made me think that I had millions of those wiggly black worms inside me, and the very thought of it just grossed me out, however, I had to remind myself that those things were not worms but millions of nanobots that were connected together like cells in a body to form on single macrostructure like a tissue or an organ.

“You need to implant this spike in the back of the target. Two centimeters to the right from the heart, as close to the core as possible.” she explained.

“So, stab it in the core, got it!” I replied with a nod.

“Affirmative.”

“So, the core’s not in the head but near the heart?” I asked as I began to circle the creature, who found it odd that I changed my strategy and was just growling back at me.

“Affirmative. It is highly likely that when the infection began, the nanobot core was unable to infect the brain and formed in a position with easy access to the spine and the rest of the organs.”

“Then, why not in the neck or outside that brain box?” I asked.

“Most likely because it did not match the initial schematics of the Nano-Z and multiple errors occurred because of the cybernetic enhancements of the host’s body. My scans so far indicate that the spine as well as all the bones have been replaced by metallic implants. Multiple base functions are currently offline and previous equipment has either been damaged, rebuilt into something else, or simply rendered inactive by the nanobots.” she explained.

“In other words?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“The current location is one of the few within the body which is in relative proximity to the organic brain and the cyborg’s own cybernetic nervous system.”

“Alright, but if the spine of the cyborg was replaced, then... doesn’t it mean that its nervous system isn’t organic?” I asked.

“This... I am unable to answer. I hold no data on this specific model.” she explained.

“Great, so either it’s some off the grid cyborg or a very special military one.” I said as I was now feeling glad that the Nano-Z wasn’t able to make full use of its original equipment and cyborg capabilities.

If it was a military cyborg that wasn’t currently registered in any database, then it was most likely one from a special squad or even a special prototype of some sort. Either way, the very fact that the brain cage was now being pushed out of its noggin, appearing to be unaffected by the nanobots showed just how impressive its defensive capabilities were.

“Considering the situation, I have an additional suggestion for you.” she said right before I was about to launch my attack on this thing.

“I’m listening.”

“Please try to activate the self-healing mode by causing non-lethal damage to the host’s body. Once it begins self-healing, there should be a moment of opportunity when you can insert the Conqueror. Having the host body in self-healing mode also helps with my own hacking process as most nanobots will be focused on repairing the damage done to the host and not on the invading force.” she explained.

“That actually sounds good, but this won’t kill her, right?” I asked as I looked at the brain cage.

“This is why I specified non-lethal attacks.”

“Oh, yeah... How dumb of me.” I shook my head.

“Affirmative.”

Ignoring Xerya’s remark, I decided to go with her plan, so I deactivated the Conqueror, which caused the spike to vanish from my palm. Seeing all those wiggly black worms as they slipped back into my flesh was terribly unpleasant, by I tried to bravely shudder it off and not think about it too much.

Once this was done, I activated my Retractable Blade and made a run for the Mutated Nano-Z. Seeing me go for the attack, startled her and let out a growl, but she soon noticed that her long arms could not reach me. My blade sliced deep into the creature’s flesh, letting her black blood flow.

Maybe it got to my head that I was more powerful and stronger than her, so I let my guard down without realizing. When the monster saw the opportunity, she reached out grabbed my leg and then tossed me to the other side of the room. I slammed into the ground and rolled on the floor a few times before coming to a stop. It was a good thing I dropped my backpack in the corner of the room ages ago, otherwise, I would have definitely come to regret it.

As I got up, I saw the creature jump at me, but at the same time, I pointed the tip of my blade towards her stomach. We rolled on the ground as she tried to rip me to shreds, I stabbed her again in the stomach and then somehow managed to push myself away from her.

With my hand covered in blood, I hoped that I caused this creature enough damage to force her into self-healing mode, and I was right. Instead of jumping up and running after me, she just stared back, growling, waiting. That was the moment of opportunity Xerya mentioned. I ran at the creature, she tried to grab me, but I jumped over her and then as I did so, I deactivated the Retractable Blade and activated the Conqueror. When I landed, I stabbed it right in the core.

“Beginning Conquering.” Xerya announced and then I felt the nanobots being drained from me.

The sensation was weird, it was as if a part of me was flowing through my hand and into that creature, filling her up. Alongside those nanobots, my own strength felt as though it was being diminished, my speed went down, my healing ability slowed up, and I even felt as though I had lost some weight. It was a nasty sensation.

“Conquering at 1%. 34.567% of Total Zombolik V5.347 in the Host Body have been transferred to the targeted Host Body.”

I didn’t say anything and just stepped back once I felt the Conqueror deactivating. I couldn’t stand on my own two feet, unfortunately, and fell on the cold floor. The creature, however, realized that something was wrong with her body and began to writhe in pain. It was quite dangerous to stay so close to her, so I pulled myself farther from her.

“GRAAAH!” she shouted and then fell forward.

“Conquering at 34%”

The percentage was going up fast, and with it, the movements of the creature were slowing down to the point where only her growl remained.

“Conquering at 51%. Movement Secured. Core Assimilation in progress.”

Seeing how this was going to end soon, I looked down at my own wounds and realized that I wasn’t healing.

“Hey, Xerya? Why aren’t you helping me out with this?” I asked pointing at my blood.

“Your wounds are non-lethal. I am using all available nanobots for spare processing capacity as I battle the nanobots inside the Mutated Nano-Z. There are far more nanobots inside this Host Body than expected. The unnatural evolution of the Nano-Z might have actually severely limited her mutations and evolution, but she is still far from being a Research Nano-Z.” she explained.

“Do you need more nanobots?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Negative. The current quantity is enough. However, please remain in close proximity so that I can easily communicated with the nanobots within the host body.” she explained.

“I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime too soon... I’m beat...” I said with wry smile as I leaned back on my hands.

“Conquering at 74%.”

“After you’re done with this, do help me out, we’ll need to block this room for the time being if you really want to work on that body...” I told her.

“Negative. This place will become a danger room in approximately 2 hours and 34 minutes. Once I am done with conquering this body, please make sure to hunt down and collect the cores of all the Nano-Z within this building. You will have approximately 1 hours and 32 minutes to do so. Once this task is complete, we will have to relocate to the rooftop of this building. There, I will begin the assimilation of the cores you acquired in order to replenish the nanobots lost to the Conquering process.”

“1 hour and 32 minutes? Ugh... that’s going to be tough.” I complained as I scratched the back of my head.

I was already tired, if I were to start hunting down for Nano-Z now, I felt like my arms and legs would just fall off, however, I didn’t have the liberty to complain about the work... this was for the sake of our survival. That was why I didn’t reject the task she gave me even if it sounded daunting and ridiculous. If Xerya said that I could do it, then I could.