Location: Sublevel B – Ghost Laundry Escape Path – 7:09 AM
They ran.
Steel grated beneath their feet as emergency lights blinked in furious red patterns along the corridor. The elevator behind them had collapsed into fire—Keisuke's base was falling apart by design, programmed to self-destruct if breached.
"We're boxed in!" Miura shouted, pulse rifle raised.
"No," Keisuke growled through his earpiece from a sealed chamber above. "You're in Sublevel B. That place was a kill grid long before I moved in. I'm unlocking an old escape shaft through the east wing. But be warned—it was built for Division Zero field tests. Expect friends."
"Define 'friends'!" Ryoji snapped, slamming his shoulder into a sealed bulkhead door.
The wall peeled open with a hiss.
Inside: darkness. Long corridors. Exposed pipework. Bloodstains.
Aiko stepped forward, her chest still thrumming from the pulse of the Seal. Something about this place—it didn't feel abandoned.
It felt alive.
She whispered, "This place remembers."
Keisuke's voice crackled. "They ran experiments on psionic feedback loops here. Live soldiers. Sensory deprivation tanks. One survivor said he saw his own death playing on the walls."
Ryoji grunted. "Let's not wait for the rerun."
They moved.
The hallway forked. They split in a triangle formation—Ryoji forward, Miura flanking left, Aiko close behind with Keisuke guiding her through a comm bead.
The lights flickered—
And then everything went black.
Total, perfect dark.
Ryoji paused. "Night optics—now."
Click.
The room came alive in green outlines.
Figures.
Too many.
Hanging from the ceiling.
Miura cursed. "Bodies."
No. Not bodies.
Units.
Division Zero had left something behind—Experimental Operators. Cybernetic husks, hanging idle, their chests marked with the nine-headed serpent emblem.
Keisuke's voice was tight. "Oh hell. Those are Void Sentries. I thought they scrapped the program."
One of the corpses twitched.
Then another.
Then twenty.
They dropped, all at once, and charged.
"MOVE!" Ryoji barked.
Aiko ducked as a shrieking blade swept over her head. Miura fired off a triple burst, but the bullets pinged uselessly off composite skulls.
Ryoji engaged—blades slicing, limbs flying—but for each one he dropped, two more surged forward.
"These aren't normal combatants!" he shouted. "They're feeding off her Seal—drawn to it!"
Keisuke screamed over the comm: "Rerouting power—go left! Now! Left corridor is clear!"
They bolted.
The air screamed around them, walls pulsing with static and distant whispers.
Aiko stumbled—her hand brushed a wall—and images exploded into her head.
Kenji on an operating table, screaming. A metal mask forced over his face. The Director watching coldly. A girl—herself—standing beyond the glass, forgotten.
She cried out. "He remembers…"
Behind them, the floor exploded.
A figure stepped through the smoke.
White eyes. Metallic limbs. Drenched in ash and code.
Helix-0.
Ryoji spun. "Go. Now."
Miura hesitated.
"I SAID GO!"
Aiko hesitated—but then ran.
Ryoji faced him alone.
"I know what you are," he said, knives drawn.
Helix-0 stepped forward. Twitching. Glitching.
"You're the ghost," the machine said.
"You're her brother," Ryoji replied.
Silence.
Then:
"You are in my way."
Ryoji smiled grimly. "Story of my life."
They collided.
Steel on steel. Sparks flying. Helix-0's strikes were inhumanly fast, forcing Ryoji into a brutal rhythm—dodge, parry, strike, vanish.
But it wasn't enough.
A single blow caught Ryoji in the ribs—sent him flying through a pipe, blood misting the air.
Helix-0 advanced—
Until Aiko screamed.
"KENJI!"
He froze.
One hand clenched. The other trembled.
Her voice cut through the noise. "You promised. You promised you'd protect me."
His voice fractured. Glitched.
"I… remember… the garden…"
Ryoji struggled to his feet, blood dripping.
"Now, Keisuke!" he roared.
Above, a surge of static—
Keisuke rerouted every last bit of energy from the base into one final fail-safe.
The floor beneath Helix-0 opened like a mechanical trapdoor.
He fell.
Down into the abyss.
Gone.
The hallway sealed shut.
Silence.
Only Aiko's breath remained—shaking, haunted.
They moved again—limping, bleeding, alive.
Keisuke's voice returned.
"Tunnel's ahead. Two kilometers underground. It leads to Seoul's undergrid. I'll meet you there."
Ryoji looked back once.
No sign of Helix-0.
But he knew this was only a pause. Not an end.
Because something else had awakened in that dark.
And war was coming.
To be continued in Chapter 75.....