She pushes her cultivation, honing telekinesis and time control until she can send silver needles through the air and kill silently, but remains unsatisfied and determined to grow stronger. Meanwhile, you, a zombie, search neighboring buildings using puppets and find a cache of close-combat manuals. You absorb basics and convert the puppets on the sixth floor into sparring partners, drilling striking, clinch work, and grappling. Solo practice improves speed and accuracy, yet you realize theory and drills won't substitute real fights. Progress is clear, but both face the immediate choice to seek true combat to prove it.
While training, you control puppets via shared vision to search Sunshine Complex No. 1. They spot two zombies looting on the third floor when a crimson figure appears with terrifying speed. You send a puppet to track it and finally get a clear look: peeled skin, exposed brain, deformed teeth, clawed limbs—crawling yet explosively fast. The Crimson Zombie instantly kills two puppets. Shaken, you realize the blood moon has driven zombie evolution beyond your current strength; even five puppets would be wiped. You resolve to spar daily to improve. A week later...
You practice taking down three hulking zombies in tight spaces, dodging attacks and developing unique moves. You send puppets to gather supplies and clean up dismantled zombies, and begin hunting evolved zombies. Trial and error shows Hulk and Agile Zombies' cores mostly grow in their brains; Crimson Zombie is beyond your reach. In the bedroom, baby Ivy trains Glazed Breath, boosting telekinesis until she levitates an inch. After sixth-floor training, you're about to go upstairs to feed Nette when a puppet reports a lean Agile Zombie with mutated claws hunting a frail survivor nearby. You must decide whether to intervene.
A human scavenging for food is ambushed and killed by an evolved Agile Zombie. You, boosted by the core, send one puppet to tail it and four armed with fire axes. The puppets mimic shamblers and form a semi-circle, close to thirty feet, then charge. Agile Zombie dodges and counters, slashing one puppet and tearing off another's head when an axe sticks. Two puppets distract the front while two slash its waist. As it rips a third head, three puppets rush in and rain axes, leaving the creature's fate uncertain.
After Agile Zombie falls, your puppets harvest its red-and-white core and you take it to the sixth floor. You swallow the core and gain a surge of power: stronger telekinesis, control of ten zombies, and a two-mile range. You assemble ten strong zombies, arm them with fire axes, and form a Zombie Squad, briefly dreaming of an army. Still, the Crimson Zombie's unknown strength haunts you. You plan to send puppets in a few days. In three days the sixth floor becomes a training zone — a ticking time bomb as you prepare to test the monster.
After training you can handle five shamblers; you clean up puppets, wash blood off, and feed Nette, whose grin makes you smile. You awkwardly entertain Ivy with toys; she looks like a baby but reacts deadpan and accepts the gesture as telekinesis practice. Buoyed, you pick ten large, intact zombies from the horde to challenge Crimson Zombie. Fire-axe arms are impressive but insufficient. Remembering a motorcycle shop, you smash the door and equip each puppet with helmets, targeting the head—the zombies' fatal weakness—to boost lethality. The helmeted squad is sent to confront Crimson Zombie, leaving the fight unresolved.
You're remotely piloting a revamped puppet squad from Building No.5 to clear Building No.1. The puppets sweep four floors, unaware the evolved Licker (Crimson Zombie) hides on the fifth and ambushes the lead unit; a helmet saves it. You order axe strikes and the puppets, ignoring wounds, grab the monster's claws as axes land. The Licker momentarily breaks free, so you refine ax-striking technique and focus hits. Finally three puppets sever the Licker's arm — a severe maiming that halts the attack but leaves the threat unresolved.
A wounded Licker escapes after your low-level puppets fail—it shatters a window, climbs the wall and disappears. It's now on high alert and may target Building No.5; if it finds Nette you'll be defenseless against its attack. You reorganize defenses: three armored puppets patrol Building No.5 while the rest hunt evolved zombies. Though you grew after devouring two cores, the Licker proves you are still small fry. Upstairs, Ivy's telekinesis strengthens—she levitates two dolls and hugs them when she senses you returning. The Licker remains at large, so whether the patrol and Ivy can stop it is unresolved.
You seal the apartment while little Nette plays, hammering planks and nails over windows after promising she'll stay carefree. Ivy watches, confused and calls you a coward for not fleeing, but your actions are to keep Nette safe. After the blood moon, evolved humans now hunt low-level zombies, so you board windows with ventilation gaps to avoid suffocating the child and to buy time if the Licker returns. For three days the Licker hides; you keep patrols and refuse to lower your guard. Then a sudden mental pulse hits your brain, leaving your defenses suddenly in doubt.
A puppet scavenging two streets away meets human survivors who mistake it for a shambler until it turns its head. Bob, a muscular man, charges with an iron rod; you swing a fire ax but Bob's blow sends the ax flying and he crushes the puppet's skull in one brutal strike. The group flatters Bob as they load supplies and he orders them to move quickly, wary of drawing evolved zombies. You're surprised to find survivors a month after the fall and suspect Bob may be an evolved human, leaving you unsettled as they leave.