“Listen, and what you’ll hear may be crazy but it’s the real truth,” I paused before adding, “in few of the tales you said, a mention of using high grade life beings as a sacrifice is needed to make the higher dens, right?”

“That’s what these stories tell,” Loran nodded before he realised something, “but the legends speak about the interference of gods in the process, or else it will fail. Are you telling me we are fighting gods now?”

“No,” I shook my head while I recalled that weird presence, the owner of the two giant hands who crushed my shields first and grabbed the body of that zombie towards the grand portal.

In these stories and legends, Loran said that to make a den grow faster, one needed the help of god and a very strong life force from a living being.

Some stories also spoke about the importance of a catalyst, a medium of a higher form of energy that was needed to turn the high life force energy into the den.

I saw what happened back there. The grand being’s hands worked to grab that zombie like it was an ant. I knew it couldn’t be a god, but he must be someone of the calibre of a sovereign or something close.

As for the medium, the high level energy thing, I couldn’t think of anything better than the grand portal itself. It was something of higher level, something that shouldn’t appear in this low quest of the apocalypse.

Putting aside the tales and legends, I recalled the facts Loran said. He told me that his sovereign failed and died. But right now I was totally sure that he succeeded.

And if he did, then the process didn’t require the presence of a god. Instead, a high end powerhouse like sovereigns could do the trick.

I slowly explained things over to Loran while describing what was prescribed in front of me before when a grand den was formed. His face told me how immense his shock was.

He never expected things to come to this point. But I didn’t care about how he felt. I cared most about what I should do to crack that den, and what changes would happen by this process of speeding up the progress of the den.

“So this is how it’s done then,” Loran took a deep breath, controlling his shock before adding, “It’s a regret we didn’t know such a trick back then. Or else, our race won’t have perished or reached such a low scale.”

I got what he meant. After all, my human race also faced the same unfavourable conditions, ending up facing a similar horrid fate like the zombies.

“We have another problem to think about here,” I knew Loran was reminiscing in the past, but I had to think about the future now, “if this is true, then the base of these high grade dens won’t only be controlled by your sleeping ancestors.”

This was the biggest problem right now, and the most dreadful one. All this time, I was sceptical about the solution provided by Loran. I didn’t know if it was true or not, but something inside me kept praying it would turn out to be true.

And when things went dire like this, and these high grade dens appeared, my belief in the genuinity of Loran’s claims became stronger.

But things took an ugly turn and these higher grade dens weren’t the same dens Loran spoke about before. Even if Loran’s theory became useful, it wasn’t enough to destroy the dens.

The solution was based upon the trick of waking his people up from their deep slumber. Like this, they’d help us control the dens.

But if there was another being inside the core of the dens, then things wouldn’t be as smooth as simply slapping someone on the face to wake them up.

Using Loran’s method was going to turn the dens into a grand battlefield. The alien being inside the core of the den wouldn’t surrender this easily, and a big fight would erupt.

I could tell without much thinking that the identity of these beings was going to be the real grand zombies. And that meant I was back to square one without any progress at all.

In fact, I’d be having more trouble to deal with as the dens would produce many high end zombies.

There were many uncertainties here. Would things be smooth and easy after waking up the sleeping zombies? Would they be able to control the entire den and the zombies coming out of it? Or would they control it half half? Or in the worst case scenario, they’d fail to control anything?

Would the power and strength of the sealed and sleepy zombies be weakened? Or would it be augmented and boosted by the den core?

I couldn’t tell. And I lacked means to kill grand zombies just like the one I met before at the grand portal site.

I thought about testing the water first and went towards the one grand den of that illusion world battlefield and tried cracking it down.

I knew it didn’t have a grand zombie inside to work as a base, but if so then how come the den transformed this fast and became this scary?

After getting little info from the legends and tales Loran said, I knew my earlier conjuncture wasn’t right. There must be a high grade and scary zombie buried in the core of this den.

Trying to mess with any den was going to make things worse for me. So any attempt to see if this theory worked or not was going to turn into a huge disaster.

pan-d a-n0vel.com Instead of doing this, I should think of ways to kill these zombies then. The colossal zombies were hard to deal with just like the colossal monsters they hailed from.

Back then, I had to squeeze every ounce of strength and use endless armies to crush them. The battles were brutal and bloody, and it took me lots of time and effort to crush a single one of these monsters.