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The middle-aged man's face had gone bone-white. He stared at the monsters floating in their formaldehyde tanks, then snatched the camera right out of Clancy's hands.
"What the hell is wrong with you?! This is a classified military installation, not one of your damn haunted-house adventures!"
"Even if you got footage that would blow up the internet, you really think you'd be allowed to release it?"
Andrei unloaded on Clancy, spit flying.
He spun toward Soren. "Look, maybe we should head back. We've got more than enough material. This place is way above our pay grade. If the feds catch us down here, we're all dead."
Soren, seeing nothing else was coming, glanced back at him. "I'm not stopping you. You can stay right here or climb back up those stairs on your own."
He paused. "But if you run into any stray monsters on the way… well, good luck with that."
Another beat. "Oh, and the logs mentioned some kind of bug that likes to crawl onto people's heads and take over their nervous system."
Andrei's brain instantly painted the picture. He shuddered hard and shut his mouth.
Once they finished searching the hall and found nothing else useful, Soren powered down the terminal and kept moving deeper.
He kicked open the fire door to sub-level three. This looked like the very bottom of the facility.
A dimly lit corridor stretched ahead, lights flickering overhead.
Blood was smeared across both walls. Several bodies in blood-soaked lab coats lay on the floor.
What really freaked Andrei and the others out were the fleshy parasites latched onto every corpse's head.
"What the actual fuck were they doing down here?" the old lady muttered. She poked one of the bodies with her rifle barrel, confirmed it was dead, then cursed under her breath.
Still, they carefully stepped around the corpses and stayed tight behind Soren.
When they pushed through the next bulkhead door, the sight that greeted them actually made everyone suck in a sharp breath.
The place was a cavernous underground chamber so massive it seemed to go on forever. The military had apparently hollowed out the entire mountain.
Hundreds—maybe thousands—of alien monster corpses were piled in heaps, forming a gruesome carpet of blood and flesh.
Then a strange spatial ripple washed over them like a tide.
Andrei and the rest suddenly felt like an invisible weight was crushing their chests. Breathing became a struggle.
"Goddamn it!" Andrei clutched his ribs, face twisted in pain.
A few seconds later the wave passed and they could breathe again.
Soren didn't feel a thing.
He looked up.
Thick cables hung everywhere like veins, snaking in from every direction and converging on a single machine in the distance.
The rear of the device was a mess of coils and machinery. The front end blazed with blinding white light.
It was aimed straight at the far wall, pumping out steady pulses of energy.
In the wall opposite the machine was a crack several meters long. With every pulse, the rift widened, stretching outward like something was prying it open from the other side.
Soren's eyes narrowed.
This had to be the device the dying guy mentioned. Smash it and the whole disaster would end.
"Soren! There's a control console over there!" Amanda called, pointing to a raised platform on the right side with several computer terminals.
Before Soren could answer, his expression changed. He thrust out his right hand and Alastor materialized in a crackle of lightning.
"Get back! Now!"
A massive black shadow dropped from the ceiling like a falling meteor.
Splat!
The impact crushed the pile of corpses beneath it, sending blood and shredded limbs exploding outward in a red rain.
When the gore finally settled, the nightmare creature stood revealed.
It was a towering abomination the size of a three- or four-story building.
The lower half was a giant spider with segmented legs. Green venom dripped steadily from its bulging abdomen.
The upper half was a lobster-like monster encased in stone-gray armor, two enormous claws snapping in front.
Hiss!
The creature let out a piercing screech. Its massive claws opened wide and slammed down toward the group.
"Every man for himself!" Soren growled.
Instead of retreating, he charged straight in. His legs exploded with power, turning him into a red-and-black blur.
BOOM!
One giant claw cratered the floor exactly where he'd been standing a split second earlier.
Soren used the impact as cover, sprinting up one of the spider legs like it was a staircase. Halfway up the monster's body he launched himself skyward, Alastor raised high, aiming to sever the claw at the joint.
But the creature was faster than its size suggested.
The second claw came whipping in from the side like a freight train.
Seeing his path blocked, Soren kicked off the air with a burst of demonic energy, flipping backward and gaining distance.
Before he could land, the monster's maw split open with a wet gurgling sound.
"You've gotta be kidding me… are you seriously about to spray ink?!"
The memory of getting absolutely wrecked by similar attacks in his last life flashed through Soren's mind.
Sure enough, a high-pressure jet of foul-smelling black liquid shot out like a fire hose.
With nowhere to dodge mid-air, Soren threw up a demonic shield just before impact.
Hum—
The shield flared purple.
The corrosive ink slammed into it—and instantly bounced straight back with even greater force.
SCREECH!
The monster shrieked as its own poison splashed across its shell, eating deep, smoking craters into the armor.
The agony made it rear back. The ink still spraying from its mouth went wild, arcing upward.
Zzzzt—
Several thick cables feeding the main device were sliced clean through. Sparks flew. The machine's blinding glow dimmed noticeably.
"You guys shut that thing down!" Soren shouted as he landed, glancing toward Andrei's group huddled behind cover.
He raised Alastor again and dove straight back into the fight, tangling with the thrashing monster.
In the corner, Clancy's legs were shaking but his camera stayed rock-steady, capturing every second of the Hollywood-level battle with pure glee.
The white-haired old lady stayed ice-cold.
She dropped into a perfect shooter's crouch behind cover, shouldered the assault rifle, and started picking her shots—trying to draw some of the heat off Soren.
Soren didn't try to trade blows head-on. He used his superior speed, weaving between the creature's eight spider legs like a ghost.
Every time he passed one, Alastor flashed and a leg hit the floor.
Lightning trails lit up the dark chamber with each swing.
In under a minute the monster's entire lower half was reduced to bleeding stumps.
And the beast seemed to have zero resistance to lightning. Every strike left it momentarily paralyzed and twitching.