In the scorched remains of Area Two, a man crawled forward, his body torn and bloodied.
He had been a soldier in Squad Three—before the intruders attacked. No, not intruders… wanderers, if he'd heard them right. Whatever they were, they had powers. Powers to bend fire. Powers to cut through bone like butter.
By the time the soldiers realized it, Area Three had turned into a slaughterhouse.
Eighteen rounds of ammo were fired across Area Two for over ten minutes, but not a single bullet scratched that red-haired bastard.
Soon, everything was on fire. The soldier had barely survived the wave of flame. His legs had given up when the assassin sliced through them. The bleeding stopped accidentally when the fire burned his flesh shut. The pain had been unbearable—he nearly died from the shock. It took him two hours just to realize he was still alive. By then, the pain had dulled into a heavy numbness.
There wasn't much left for him to do but wait for death. And yet… he wasn't ready to stop fighting.
There was still something he could do—even broken, even dying.
I choose my death. And I'm not going today, he thought, a flash of resolve lighting his bloodshot eyes as he dragged himself toward the elevator section.
"Take me to Sector One," he rasped.
The voice interface on the mechanical lift recognized his authority. The platform started to rise.
Sector One—what the captains called "the hatch"—was the main entrance to the base. It was supposed to be empty now, with the Awakened and the Lieutenant's special squad busy dealing with the monsters below.
Jigar glanced down at his ruined legs. The bleeding had stopped, but they were little more than dead weight. His blood-soaked hands, the fingernails torn and raw, stung with every movement. He had clawed his way here—literally.
Jigar Night was at his limit. He was ready to give up. But something stopped him.
His breathing was uneven. His head burned with fever.
He reached for the locket around his neck.
Inside were two photographs.
The reason he was still fighting.
His wife, Lara.
His daughter, Nancy.
He pressed the locket against his chest. He was still breathing. And for them, he would keep fighting.
They were in a military base in France—MB-56. He hadn't been able to go with them. Duty had kept him here. But now… now he didn't care.
Not after seeing this place fall.
When the fire came raining down, the only thing that filled his thoughts—along with the unbearable pain—was his family.
Death awaited humanity in every corner of the world. If he was going to die either way, he wanted it to be in a fight. Close to them.
When the elevator reached the top, the doors refused to open.
He overrode the system, forcing them to slide apart.
He expected silence. Maybe bodies. Maybe nothing.
What greeted him instead… was horror.
A monster stood right in front of him. One he'd only seen in records.
The worst of the apocalypse.
A Plague.
"Rrrgwww..."
The grotesque growl sent a chill down his spine.
The creature's rotting body was crawling with worms. Its mouth dripped with fresh blood. Poison glistened on its fangs. It wore a half-torn soldier's uniform, but whatever it had once been was long gone.
The corpse it was feeding on twitched. Then, its eyes opened—glowing an unnatural blue.
Crack. Bones shifted. Joints popped.
The half-eaten soldier rose from the ground.
It was no longer human.
It had been turned.
Now it was a Plague—one of the infected minions of the Plaguebeast.
That's how the poison worked. Spread through touch. Turned the dead into scavengers. Even though the Plaguebeast's cannibalistic nature kept its numbers low, it was feared above all others.
Even now, looking at this thing, it was impossible to imagine it had once been a person.
Its back was hunched like a goblin. It stood on thin legs tipped with claws. It growled, drooling, as it sensed blood.
Science never could explain them.
Surely, it was sorcery. One of those damned gods had created this abomination.
"Dear Lord..." Jigar whispered, just as the beast turned its gaze on him.
It sensed prey.
Wounded. Immobile.
He hit the elevator controls in a panic, slamming the switch to close the doors.
Too late.
The Plague leapt forward, grabbing the doors and ripping them apart.
What followed… was two minutes of absolute hell.
---
Dark clouds hung low above the scorched military facility.
Bodies littered the ground outside the main gate. The hatch gaped open like the steel mouth of some buried worm, belching smoke and silence.
The Plaguebeast was feasting outside.
It was a good day for it. Too good. So many prey—if you looked closely, you could almost see a twisted smile hidden among the jagged teeth and grotesque features.
The infestation had begun.
Soon, all the corpses would be its puppets.
The true horror of a Plaguebeast was about to unfold.
Even among the top-tier monsters of the apocalypse, it ranked near the top. Rarely seen—one in a thousand—but always deadly. A disaster-class creature. A walking extinction.
MB-35 was about to witness it firsthand.
---
"Damn bastards!" a scream rang out in Area Four, echoing off the charred walls and bloodstained floors. "This is getting worse by the minute!"
For some reason, the communications had just come back online.
The guys in Area Six must be working their asses off, he thought.
But right after the signal returned, a report came through.
An urgent one.
["Plaguebeast on the loose! I repeat, Plaguebeast on the loose! Requesting command support in Sector One!"]
It came from Jigar—his final breath, now broadcast across the base.
The battle with the wanderers was at a stalemate.
No one could retreat. The civilians were locked in.
And below, Trojan's corpse was starting to twitch, infested by worms too small to see with all the dust.
"We've got a casualty, sir," a soldier reported from the left.
The air was thick. Tense. Even trained men could be forgiven for breaking under pressure like this.
Bucky was at his limit.
Everyone below them… sitting ducks.
Same went for the wanderers.
Crimson relayed the intel he got from the kids: the bombs hidden in the base. The Plaguebeast.
One piece of bad news after another.
"For now, I told the kids to get to the nearest shelter and alert the Handler, but—"
"We're f*cked, aren't we?" Koul cut in.
He knew about Plaguebeasts. But the bomb? That pushed it over the edge.
Normally, Tyrin would've scolded him for interrupting. But not this time. Not now.
Because they were. F*cked.
The silence that followed only made it worse.
"I suppose you have a plan for this, Crimson," a voice broke through—cool, sharp.
Mera. The telepath.
Crimson hated that voice. Hated her smug tone. Hated having her on the team.
But her ability was useful.
"You had something in mind when you told the kids to leave, didn't you?" she pressed.
Damn, I hate her, Crimson thought. Her telepathy meant he couldn't hide a thing from her.
Normally she'd stay quiet out of respect for his hatred. But not today.
Today, even Mera was afraid.
"Yeah," Crimson muttered. "I've got something."
It wasn't much. But it was something.
And then he said the words none of them expected.
"You see… the nukes aren't the only thing I found down there…"
---
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