Zombie Apocalypse System

Chapter 9: The Search for the Legendary Blueprint

... thousands of steel debris floating, forming a protective vortex right in front of our faces!

BOOOOMMMMM!

The giant laser from the sky struck the steel vortex with enough power to evaporate oceans, but strangely, the attack bounced back towards the clouds. Axel laughed wildly as he continued to push his hoverbike through the thick smoke.

"Damn it, Axel! You're really crazy! That was a laser from the Supreme Boss, you idiot! What did you do to that debris to make it reflect a god's attack?!" Abby shrieked hysterically, her hands clutching Axel's waist so tightly that the man could barely breathe.

"Chill, By! I just barely touched the steel pile beneath us with Critical... Thousandfold Reflection! The result's not bad, right? The Boss's eyes must be stinging now!" Axel replied casually, his voice almost lost in the roar of the plasma wind.

"'Not bad,' my ass! You almost turned us into burnt skewers in the air! Put me down now! I'm gonna throw up, seriously!"

"Hold that stomach content in! We're already above your dad's lab coordinates. Look, the door's visible beneath the hill's ruins!" Axel sharply dove his bike downwards.

The hoverbike landed with a hard thud, creating a small crater in front of a giant steel door buried under the earth. The door was incredibly thick, perhaps about a meter of solid steel designed to withstand a nuclear blast.

"This is it. Aegis-7 Underground Laboratory. But Axel, this door is locked with my dad's bio-metric encryption code. If we force it open, the security system will burn all the data inside!" Abby dismounted the bike with trembling legs, her eyes anxiously staring at the rusted door.

"Code? Bio-metrics? Oh, By, you've been living in the age of bureaucracy for too long, haven't you?" Axel walked closer to the steel door, his iron pipe already gleaming golden.

"Don't! Don't destroy it, Axel! I told you the data would be incinerated!"

"Who said I was going to destroy it? I just want to knock on the door so it knows who its new master is. You step back, don't get too close if you don't want to get hit by a thousand-year-old dust."

Axel took a stance. He didn't strike with full force; he merely placed the tip of his shoe into the gaps of the steel door.

"Critical... Thousandfold Heaven's Gate Kick!"

CRASH!

The one-meter-thick steel door didn't shatter into fragments; instead, it was flung flying into the dark corridor like a flicked coin. Its booming sound echoed deep into the earth's belly, creating vibrations that brought down the surrounding cave ceiling.

"See? It's open. No fuss, no password," Axel said casually as he stepped into the darkness.

"You... you're really too much, Axel. That door was worth billions of dollars back in the day, and now you've turned it into trash in a second," Abby mumbled, shaking her head, but she still followed Axel with a tactical flashlight in her left hand and a Starlight Annihilator pistol in her right.

"Billions of dollars mean nothing if it can't be opened, By. Come on, hurry up, I feel the air in here smells of technology that makes me hungry."

They walked down a long, cold concrete corridor. Suddenly, the neon lights on the ceiling flickered on one by one with a blood-red color. A piercing siren broke the silence.

[WARNING: INTRUSION DETECTED. SECURITY PROTOCOL LEVEL 9 ACTIVATED.]

"Damn it! Did you hear that?! Protocol Level 9! That means the space-cutting laser system will activate!" Abby panicked, her eyes busy scanning the corridor ceiling.

"Space-cutting laser? Sounds cool. I want to see how sharp it is," Axel stopped instead and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Idiot! Get down, Axel! The lasers are coming!"

From the corridor walls, thousands of red light points emerged, forming a very dense laser grid. The lasers moved forward at high speed, ready to cut anything in their path into diced meat.

"Abby, don't get down! Stand behind me!" Axel snapped.

"You're crazy! We'll be skewers!"

"I said stand behind me!"

Axel raised his iron pipe vertically right in front of his face. He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing all his attention on the light particles hurtling towards them.

"Critical... Thousandfold Light Refraction!"

Just as the laser grid touched the aura of Axel's iron pipe, the deadly red light suddenly bent. Instead of cutting through their bodies, the lasers curved around Axel and Abby, creating a safe, empty bubble in the midst of the laser storm. The lasers instead struck the walls behind them, creating deep, melting holes.

"Hah... hah... how is that possible?! You bent laser light with an iron pipe?!" Abby gasped, cold sweat drenching her forehead.

"Light is a wave, By. If I apply air pressure that's a thousand times its density around us, the wave's direction will bend on its own. Easy, right?" Axel continued to walk forward as if he had just passed through a light drizzle.

"'Easy,' my foot! That's high-level physics calculation that should require a supercomputer, Axel! You did it by instinct?!" Abby truly felt her knowledge from MIT was useless in front of this man.

"My instincts are indeed sharp, By. Like a freshly sharpened kitchen knife," Axel joked.

They arrived in a vast, circular room. In the center of the room, there was a giant glass tube emitting a beautiful, pure blue light. Inside it, a small metal sphere floated, surrounded by continuously rotating energy rings.

"That's it... the Aegis Fusion Core. The heart of the entire Absolute Fortress blueprint," Abby whispered, her eyes sparkling. "My dad spent ten years creating this. This is limitless energy that can power an entire city!"

"Good. That means our mission is a success," Axel was about to step closer to the tube, but his steps halted.

"Wait, Axel! Look above the tube!" Abby pointed towards a dark shadow on the room's ceiling.

A giant machine with four mechanical arms equipped with plasma saws and energy cannons slowly descended. Its large red sensor eyes stared sharply at them. This was no ordinary robot; this was a Guardian type X-01, the pinnacle of automated defense technology.

ACCESS DENIED. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. PREPARE FOR ELIMINATION.

"Oh no... that's my dad's most brutal Guardian. It has an energy shield that can absorb any attack!" Abby raised her weapon, but her hands trembled.

"By, look at the logo on that robot's shoulder," Axel said flatly.

Abby squinted. On the robot's steel shoulder, the emblem of a technology company she knew very well was engraved, but there was a large scratch over it. Beneath it, there was a nuclear fusion symbol with the name 'Abigail' half-erased.

"That... that was my dad's project for me... but why is it scratched out?!" Abby was utterly shocked.

"It looks like your dad was betrayed by his own business partner, By. Look, there's small writing below its sensor: 'Property of Black Tower Corp'. Your dad's partner must have collaborated with the system to seize this lab," Axel analyzed coldly.

"Black Tower... Uncle Hendra?! Bastard! He's the one who destroyed my family?!" Abby screamed in rage, tears of anger streaming down her cheeks. "He killed my dad just for this thing?!"

"Calm down, By. Save your revenge for later. For now, let me handle this old junk. It dared to use your name for something wrong," Axel stepped forward, challenging the giant robot alone.

ELIMINATION COMMENCING.

The robot fired its plasma cannons repeatedly. Blue explosions struck the floor, creating violent tremors. Axel leaped nimbly, his movements so fast that he only appeared as a silver blur.

"Hey, Old Junk! You're so slow! Did you get your machine from a junk dealer?!" Axel taunted as he landed on one of the robot's mechanical arms.

The robot tried to grab Axel with its other arm, but Axel swiftly touched the robot's joint.

"Critical... Thousandfold Structural Meltdown!"

CRACK!

The supposedly indestructible steel joint suddenly crumbled and disintegrated into metallic dust. The robot's arm detached and fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

"ONE ARM GONE! WANT MORE?!" Axel laughed wildly.

The robot let out a deafening mechanical roar. It activated its high-level self-destruction mode. Its entire body began to glow red-hot, and the room's temperature rose drastically, reaching thousands of degrees.

"Axel! Get out of there! It's going to explode! If it explodes, this entire lab will be obliterated!" Abby shrieked in panic from the corner of the room.

"I'm not leaving until I get that Fusion Core, By! You'd better get ready to transfer the data!" Axel ignored the warning.

He ran swiftly towards the Fusion Core glass tube. His hand, enveloped in a golden aura, struck the glass tube, shattering it into pieces. As soon as his hand touched the metal sphere of the Fusion Core, a system notification exploded before his eyes.

[NOTIFICATION: LEGENDARY BLUEPRINT DETECTED.]

[INTEGRATING FUSION CORE TO ARCHITECT SYSTEM...]

"Gotcha, good stuff!" Axel mumbled, satisfied.

However, at the same time, the Guardian robot had reached its peak heat. A rapid countdown sound emanated from its machine.

SELF-DESTRUCT IN 3... 2... 1...

"AXEL! RUN, YOU IDIOT!" Abby screamed at the top of her lungs.

Axel didn't run. Instead, he held the Fusion Core sphere tightly and pressed his other hand to the laboratory floor.

"Critical... Thousandfold Explosion Energy Absorption!"

BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!

A small-scale nuclear explosion occurred in the room. An intensely bright white light swallowed everything. Abby was thrown against the wall and lost consciousness instantly.

Moments later, the atmosphere became completely silent. White smoke billowed throughout the room, which was now in ruins. However, amidst the wreckage, Axel still stood tall. All his clothes were incinerated, leaving his sturdy, silver-glowing muscles exposed. In his hand, the Fusion Core sphere had now merged with his veins, emitting a powerful blue energy pulse.

"Whew... that was quite a punch. I almost got truly charred," Axel mumbled, coughing slightly.

He walked over to Abby, who lay unconscious. Axel gently patted Abby's cheek. "Hey, By! Wake up! Don't die yet, you haven't seen our harvest!"

Abby slowly opened her eyes, her head throbbing intensely. "Am I... am I in heaven? Why is there blue light everywhere?"

"'Heaven,' my foot! This is still the lab, but it looks like a junkyard now," Axel replied, helping Abby sit up.

"You... you saved me from that explosion? You absorbed all the energy?!" Abby stared at Axel with disbelief. "That was nuclear energy, Axel! Are you really human or a walking reactor?!"

"I already told you, I'm an Architect. Energy is just material to me. Now look, I've got the Fusion Core," Axel showed his palm, which now had a glowing blue circuit-shaped tattoo.

"Crazy... it really worked. But Axel, look at that..." Abby pointed towards a monitor screen still lit amidst the console's ruins.

The screen displayed an emergency warning in rapidly flashing red text.

[SYSTEM BREACH: BLACK TOWER COMMAND OVERRIDE.]

[INITIATING TOTAL LAB COLLAPSE IN 60 SECONDS.]

"What?! Hendra set a final trap?! He wants to bury us alive here?!" Abby immediately stood up in a panic.

"Calm down, By. We have sixty seconds. That's a long time for someone like me," Axel took a deep breath.

"'A long time,' how?! We have to run hundreds of meters upwards!"

"Who said we're going to run?" Axel held Abby's shoulder. "I want to try my new cheat evolution. By, do you believe I can make us teleport instantly?"

"You want to teleport?! That requires energy that... oh, wait, you just absorbed the Fusion Core!" Abby realized something.

"Smart. Now hold on tight. I'm going to 'critically' compress the distance between this lab and the hill outside," Axel closed his eyes.

Blue and silver aura exploded from Axel's body, filling the entire collapsing room. Thousands of tons of concrete ceiling began to fall towards them.

"Critical... Thousandfold Space Compression... MOVE!"

WHOOSH!

The world around them suddenly folded. In the blink of an eye, Axel and Abby were standing on the hilltop, looking down at the laboratory below them, which exploded violently and sank into the ground.

"Hah... hah... are we... are we safe?" Abby collapsed onto the dry grass, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

"Of course we are. Did you think I'd let my beloved assistant die buried under concrete?" Axel grinned, looking at his hand, which was still trembling from the immense energy.

"Crazy... you really teleported. You've truly broken all laws of nature, Axel," Abby let out a hollow laugh, still disbelieving what she had just experienced.

"Now we have the Fusion Core, By. It's time for us to build our Mega-Project. Are you ready to write new laws in this world?" Axel asked with an ambitious gaze.

Abby stood up and looked towards the ruined city of Jakarta below. "I'm ready. With this Core, I can create a defense system that will make the Supreme Boss weep blood."

"Good. First strategy: Build a Nuclear Fusion Fortress in three days. Can you do it?"

"Three days?! Axel, that's city-scale construction!"

"I don't want to hear the word 'impossible.' You have the blueprints, I have the power. Let's start right now!" Axel touched the hill's ground with his palm.

"Critical... Thousandfold Fortress Material Mass Production!"

Suddenly, giant black metal blocks began to emerge from within the ground, automatically arranging themselves according to Axel's mental instructions. A loud mechanical hum filled the air.

"Crazy... you're starting construction right now?!" Abby gaped as the giant foundation began to form in seconds.

"Don't just gape! Set the reactor coordinates! We don't have much time before the other Global Lords come looking for trouble!" Axel commanded.

Abby immediately got busy with her tablet, inputting the fusion data she had just acquired. "Okay! Reactor coordinates at zero point! Install the plasma cooling system on the north side!"

Construction proceeded at an absurd speed. Thousands of combat drones, instantly created by Axel, began to fly in the hill's sky, guarding the area from incoming monsters.

"Axel! We have a problem! My sensors detect an aerial armada approaching from the city center!" Abby shouted, pointing towards the horizon.

Axel looked up. There, dozens of combat aircraft carriers bearing the emblems of 'Black Garuda' and 'Black Tower Corp' were visible. It seemed they weren't pleased Axel had stolen their treasure.

"Oh, Uncle Hendra's forces, huh? They arrived quickly," Axel smirked coldly.

"They're carrying Anti-Matter Cannons, Axel! Those weapons can destroy an island in one shot!" Abby panicked, seeing the muzzles of the aircraft carrier cannons begin to glow.

"Anti-matter? Sounds expensive. By, you continue the construction. Let me give a welcome to these arrogant guests," Axel walked to the edge of the cliff.

"You're going to fight them all alone?!"

"Alone? No way. I'm going to 'discuss' the price of their lives with them," Axel raised his hand towards the sky.

He focused the Fusion Core energy within his body to his fingertips. A small blue energy sphere formed, but its pressure was so immense that the surrounding space began to crack.

"Critical... Thousandfold Plasma Meteor Shower... DIE, ALL OF YOU!"

Axel snapped his fingers, and suddenly thousands of blue fireballs appeared from the sky, raining down on the aircraft carrier armada. A deafening series of explosions erupted, and one by one, the giant aircraft carriers fell, burning like flies sprayed with insecticide.

"Crazy... you destroyed an entire armada with just one flick of your finger?!" Abby stood frozen, watching the hellish scene in the sky.

"I'm not in the mood for small talk, By. Focus on the reactor construction!"

Fortress construction continued amidst the rain of fire and explosions. Walls hundreds of meters high began to stand tall, emitting a blue aura that intimidated anyone who saw it.

After several hours of hard work, a magnificent structure resembling a futuristic palace from another galaxy stood on the hilltop. The light from the nuclear fusion reactor in its center illuminated the entire dark Jakarta sky.

"Finished... Nuclear Fusion Fortress Stage One is active," Abby whispered with immense pride.

"Good. Now we have a proper home," Axel leaned his back against the cold fortress gate wall.

"But Axel, you have to see this..." Abby showed him her tablet screen, which was flashing red.

"Now what?"

"A message from the Global Lords. They've all just sent a simultaneous ultimatum to our coordinates," Abby's voice sounded very serious.

Axel took the tablet and read the message. A faint smile appeared on his face. "It says: 'Surrender the Fortress and the Fusion Core, or the entire world will unite to erase you from the face of the earth.'"

"So, Boss? What's our next move?" Abby asked, looking at Axel.

Axel chuckled softly, then looked into the distance where thousands of lights from the Global Lords' forces were beginning to surround their hill.

"Our plan? It's very simple, By," Axel twirled his iron pipe, which had now transformed into a golden command staff. "We're going to give them a choice: Bow down before my fortress gate now, or I'll 'critically' erase their entire existence until..."