The highway overpass became a temporary throne room overlooking a damned world. The survivors moved like automata, refueling vehicles with conjured gasoline, eating tasteless but nutritious rations, their eyes avoiding the spot where the Carrion Golem had dissolved. The event in Atlanta had not been a battle; it had been a demonstration. A physics lesson taught with monsters.
Ainz stood apart, the data crystal rotating slowly between his skeletal fingers. His consciousness was divided.
[Primary Process: Analyzing Primal Frequency Data.]
The crystal's information streamed into his mind. Charts of resonance, spectral analyses of the "Wildfire" tuning effect, Jenner's despairing notes on energy requirements. The math was clear: to overwrite the world's base frequency would require an energy signature of equal magnitude but opposite resonance. A magical equivalent of screaming louder than the planet's own dead hum.
[Secondary Process: Monitoring Asset Stability.]
The group's psychological metrics were deteriorating. Rick Grimes: Leadership confidence eroded, replaced by pragmatic subservience laced with deep-seated rage (contained). Carol Peletier: Submissive behavior pattern intensifying, but observational acuity increased by 300%. A potential candidate for elevated responsibilities. Daryl Dixon: Aggression channeled into protective efficiency; loyalty shifting from "group" to "self-preservation within the group." Acceptable.
[Tertiary Process: Scanning for Anomalous Signatures.]
His passive detection spells, cast over a ten-mile radius, pinged back a constant, low-level return. The walkers were a dull, grey background noise. But there were… brighter spots. Tiny, flickering embers of something else. Not magic. Not the frequency. Something akin to… will. Concentrated survival instinct honed to a sharp, predatory point. He had noted them before, dismissing them as statistical outliers. Now, with the crystal's data providing a cleaner baseline, he re-categorized them.
Pseudo-Players.
They moved with purpose, not shambling. They avoided large herds, used tools, engaged in complex pack tactics. They were the apex predators of this new ecosystem, operating on a tier above the common walker and the common survivor. Interesting. The crisis has produced a gradient of existence. These may serve as a higher-fidelity test group for frequency manipulation.
His thoughts were interrupted by the faintest tremor in the air—a subsonic thrum that resonated for a millisecond with the crystal in his hand. It came from the north-east. A directed pulse. Not natural. Someone, or something, was broadcasting on a related harmonic.
Ainz's ocular lights sharpened. A response to my Super-Tier summoning? Or to the data extraction? The possibility of native, intelligent opposition—or worse, a rival entity from Yggdrasil—could not be ignored. It was a variable of the highest priority.
He turned from the railing. "We depart in five minutes. New destination: coordinates 34.5 by -84.5. A mountainous region to the north-east."
Rick looked up from a map, exhaustion etched into his face. "What's there?"
"An anomaly. A potential source of interference."
"Interference with what?" Daryl asked, not looking up from sharpening a knife.
"With the silence," Ainz replied cryptically. "Prepare to move."
The journey north was a study in oppressive quiet. The enchanted weapons now felt like shackles. Every paralysis arrow Daryl fired, every searing blast from Glenn's mana-rifle, was a reminder of their dependency. Carol watched Ainz constantly, her eyes recording everything: how he never slept, how he would sometimes stand perfectly still for hours, how Stitch-Wire's electrical arcs seemed to pulse in rhythm with the faint, unseen thrumming Ainz was now tracking.
They made camp one night in a defensible valley. Ainz, in a rare moment of direct intervention, used [Create Fortified Wall] to raise a semi-circle of magically hardened earth around the vehicles. It was an act of supreme utility that also felt like being penned in.
That night, the pseudo-players struck.
They came silently, clad in scavenged military gear and furs, faces painted with mud and ash. They did not attack the wall. They targeted the perimeter. Stitch-Wire, patrolling the outer darkness, was ambushed. Two figures with insulated polearms drove ceramic-tipped spears into its back, grounding its electrical field into the earth with crude lightning rods. A third hurled a net of weighted chains over it. The abomination sparked and thrashed, its hum turning into a screech of feedback.
Simultaneously, a separate team used a makeshift catapult to launch rotting, walker-infested offal over the wall into the camp. The putrid missiles splattered among the vehicles, not to cause damage, but to spread panic and scent.
Ainz observed from the center of the camp, unmoving. Assessment: Coordinated attack. Goal is not annihilation, but testing. They seek to probe defenses, isolate assets, and gauge response. They are studying me as I study them.
He let them have their test.
The camp erupted. Walkers, drawn by the scent and the noise of Stitch-Wire's distress, began pressing against the outer wall. Survivors scrambled, firing into the dark. Rick shouted orders that were lost in the chaos.
Ainz moved only when a trio of pseudo-players, using grapnels, scaled the earthen wall. They moved with a feral, disciplined grace, heading not for the people, but for Ainz's tent—where his non-existent personal effects were. Information raid.
He met them in the open. He did not cast a spell. He simply activated [Body of Effulgent Beryl], causing his skeletal form to gleam with an actinic, harmless light. In the sudden, blinding glare, the night vision the attackers relied on was scorched away. They recoiled, clutching their eyes.
"You show initiative," Ainz's voice boomed, calm amidst the bedlam. "But your methodology is primitive."
He pointed at the leader, a tall woman with fierce eyes now squinted in pain. [Dominate Person]. The spell, designed to override free will in the weak-minded, slammed into her mental defenses. He felt them—not the robust mental fortitude of a Yggdrasil warrior, but a knotted, hardened shell of pure survival instinct, trauma, and feral intelligence. It was like trying to grasp smoke with metal gauntlets. The spell partially failed, but not without effect. She froze, a war raging behind her eyes between her own will and the foreign, commanding presence.
Her two companions acted, throwing sharpened shovels and axes. The projectiles shattered harmlessly against Ainz's passive [Physical Immunity].
"Your will is commendable," Ainz noted, a flicker of analytical interest in his tone. He then cast a different spell. [Panic]. A wave of sheer, mindless terror washed over the three. This, their hardened minds were not prepared for. The dominated leader broke free, only to join her comrades in screaming, clawing retreat back over the wall and into the night.
Ainz let them go. He had his data. They were resistant to direct mental control but vulnerable to area-effect emotional manipulation. Their tactics were clever, their goal was intelligence, not mere slaughter. They were, in their own way, efficient.
He walked to the wall where Stitch-Wire was still entangled. With a gesture, [Dispel Magic] shattered the crude lightning rods. The abomination sizzled back to its feet, its hum shaky but returning. The walker attack was petering out, repelled again by the combined auras.
In the aftermath, as the survivors tended to minor wounds and cleaned off walker filth, a new tension gripped them. The world wasn't just dead. It was watching. And it had claws.
Rick approached Ainz, his face grim. "They were after you."
"They were after data. As was I. The exchange was profitable."
"Profitable? They could have killed us!"
"Their probability of causing critical casualty was below 7%. The risk was acceptable for the intelligence gained."
Rick stared at him, the last vestiges of the old-world sheriff crumbling. "And what did you gain?"
"Confirmation of a hierarchical threat. And a sample of their cognitive resilience." Ainz's gaze turned to the north-east, towards the source of the subsonic pulse. "Their coordination suggests a node. A central intelligence. That is our target."
He looked back at Rick, the red lights boring into him. "Your group's combat efficiency against human-like adversaries is higher than against the undead. Your utility profile has been updated. You will be instrumental in the next phase."
It was not a reassurance. It was a deployment order. They were no longer just survivors under protection. They were infantry being mustered for a war they didn't understand, against an enemy they had just met, on behalf of a commander who saw them as instruments with newly calibrated use.
As they broke camp under a cold, grey dawn, the mountains ahead seemed less like a refuge and more like the jaws of a trap. Ainz led the way, the data crystal now stored within his ribcage, pulsing softly against the ancient, silent frequency of the world. The song was about to get louder.