Avyan and Soham get in the car and the army resumes it's course under sunlight. Avyan observes the new driver who is now tall and muscular. Avyan asks curiously, "What were those rankings you were talking about?"

"Yeah. The highest post is the Monarch itself. Our monarch is the Frost Monarch. He is the highest authority and single-handedly hold the power to make any and all decisions. 

Then comes the Grand Marshalls- Lector Gonzalez, Vanya and Pulkit Rohilla. They are people of extraordinary calibre. People who some consider no human; no less than a God. Each of them have extraordinary sense, reflexes, strength, agility and stamina. Besides, each of them have a single unique ability that no one else can replicate. An ability that cannot be reproduced by anyone else. These abilities are kept hidden and it is said that the abilities are seen by only those whose death have been written in the near future. These abilities are what we call 'Eldritch'."

Anirudh interrupts in between, "Wait, what kind of abilities?"

"According to what legends say, Lector's Eldritch is somehow related to Fire. I don't know much about the other two Marshalls. (Anirudh folds his hands and goes in a deep thought) 

Moving further,  each Marshall has his own army which is commanded by a General. I happen to be the General of Lector's army. Then after that below me there are a couple of knights and multiple elites."

Avyan smirks, "So you're pretty high up"

"I suppose, yes"

"So tell me what's happening? What do the monarchs have to do with us?"

Soham thinks and hesitates. Avyan pats on Soham's back, "Come on, the boys have to be together. You are a part of us."

Soham clicks his finger and the driver wears a pair of earphones and slides a band from his head to his ears.

"I may get in trouble for this, but does it look like I care.", Soham starts laughing hysterically joined by Avyan.

"Listen to me then, where do I even start? The fourth monarch, the monarch of the monarchs, the strongest monarch. He was the pinnacle of power in this new world. All the monarchs were under his control due to the sheer strength of his region and his overall influence. He was unparalleled, in power, in resources and in kindness. His empire was the happiest, all the people had adequate resources and their drives had a very high success rate and very low death rate. It seemed like, under his reign everything was back to normal. 

Even after fulfilling all the needs, their was a surplus of resources. This is when he decided to move his interest elsewhere; into research, into finding a cure, into finding what these things are, into why these things exist and where did they come from? What can they do? Can they go any further?

After a couple of years of research, the scientists of his team had found out many things. This outbreak happened due to a fungal disease. It spreads throughout the body immediately. The fungus reaches the cells and corrupts them. The infected cells start to multiply, creating an immediate cancer in each body, the new cells produced are different from the original natural cells, these cells are mutated. You can imagine our original cells as red and these mutated cells as black for better representation. Only after a couple of minutes of being infected, these black cells kill all the red cells and then stop multiplying, most of the brain stops to function during this process. Somehow in technical terms that I don't know of, they devised that the brain turns futile. They turn into feral monsters who attack anyone in their range not to eat them, but just to kill them. They are rewired into a creature that knows nothing but just have their natural instinct of killing. 

This fungus also develops fungal resistance rather too quickly for all the known anti-fungal chemicals and it is very very contagious. Therefore due to the risk of spreading of more powerful, resistant fungus in this world, the research on how to kill this fungus was stopped.

However, this was not the interesting part of the research. The two things that the research achieved were -

1) This fungus can be controlled in a way and modified using certain genomics that allow us to inject into humans and convert them into people that are more than humans. The next evolution of humans. A drug was thus produced which would be injected in the sample being at intervals of 5-8 days for about a 100 days during which they would be kept in a tarnishing environment. An environment that would in a way torture them, cold showers, ice baths, oxygen depletion, area burns and more such activities were carried on the samples to encourage their genes, their cells to start to mutate. A project was devised which found suitable, reliable and strong humans who would undergo this very painful surgery to convert into something beautiful. This project was called project Z. This new fungus gave extraordinary abilities to some people. However, it was very dangerous because the odds of it working vs killing you were 1 in a lakh. Also a few crates of these samples got into the hands of people who were not good morally. The monarch banished them and seized the samples, however it is now known that they still had some samples left with them. The project killed most of the subjects, therefore the monarch banned Project Z and the fungus' use, research and production. However, he did this only after Lector, Maya and Pulkit became the first three survivors of the project.

2) The research was extensively also done on zombie subjects, majorly in genomics. Their DNA was altered multiple times to revert back the black cells into red cells since it was well-established that this fungus cannot be killed in any way possible and even killing it won't do anything good since it has already mutated the cells. A lot of research was done on the brain and DNA using several techniques, electro-therapy, chemical-therapy and what not. Finally, what it lead to was nothing short of magical. One zombie subject developed critical thinking, like-like monkeys, but this did not stop here, it evolved further, developed speech, talked to us, he wasn't less than a human, but was inherently a zombie. He was named Raezi. Raezi was not only smart, he learnt anything and not only learnt but researched, discovered and invented things around his learning. In a short amount of time, he started outsmarting the scientists. Now he didn't look like a regular zombie now. He was tall, muscular, pale, his skin was completely dry, had scales on them and his eyes were all black and had no hair. Now, I don't know how but somehow it was devised that these zombies are now a separate species in itself and they will evolve just like all the other species, we just sped-up that evolution with Raezi. This was revolutionary. He was not only smart but even physically stronger than everyone around him until then. He was continuously experimented upon with new theories and surgeries. He was kept in cages specially designed for him but he kept creating plans to break out. Note it, successful plans but he never executed them, just said them out loud. He said this was not the right time. The scientists themselves started fearing him. So they decided to kill him off. Poisoned air? Injection? Fire? Acid? Nothing killed him. He regenerated from all of these after a few days in coma. The scientists tried cutting his neck off while he was in coma, but his skin was too tight to be pierced by any known blade. A special blade was called upon from far away to carry out the work, but it took it's time. He worked on his own theory of humans. After working on it for a couple of weeks, he decided he is right being on the opposite side. He said the natural way of living was correct and he is the enemy.

 One dark night, war was around the corner, a war that the Great Monarch was not ready for. Now this war is something which I will tell you about someday later. Security left the lab, the scientists and doctors were also very low in number. The lab got attacked by the army of the invaders. During the rush, the zombie subjects escaped involving Raezi. The next day when the people visited the lab, it was a blood-bath, all the invaders inside the lab were dead, all their guns lying around. Their heads were squished, squished by hands, by hands of Raezi. All of them dead and Raezi was nowhere to be found.

The Monarch of the Monarchs lost and vanished after that day. Nobody knows his exact location. His region is now in control by one of the other monarch, Rain Monarch. However, the empire never came back to it's former glory. Now let me tell you one more thing which I did not tell you, the Monarchs are also successful subjects of the project Z. 

The empire that was stable for years is now in a huge problem. Raezi has returned after all this time and he is not alone. It was last seen in the deserts of Dry Monarch's empire. The fact is we thought we found him, but as it turns out, HE FOUND US. He sent a letter addressed to all the Monarchs, I do not know about the letter but the Monarch's have lost their minds after this. The whole empires are in shock and danger. Raezi is someone who can take on thousands of humans by himself, imagine him with a plan. The monarchs are doing everything in their power to best set up a defence capable of stopping Raezi. 

I know only this much of history and context. Lector might explain a little nicely and with better details. The details about the research might be a little off, so don't blindly trust them, I used to dose off in training."

Avyan lays back, "I still do not understand. Where do we come in?"

"That is the neat part. You don't. As far as I know. Therefore, I have no clue why you are being called, Lector doesn't tell me anything about this."

"Are you and Lector on good terms?"

"Yeah! He is the best"

"Well, he killed Pratyush"