The deafening gunfire thundered through the narrow chamber for two full minutes.
The soldiers split into two teams, fanning out in arcs, firing in rotation, their reloads flawlessly timed. They never once stopped, thousands of rounds raining down like a storm.
Spent casings piled into a glittering hill at their feet, the air choked with gunpowder stench.
Yet before their terrified eyes, Zeroy's figure slipped through the storm of bullets like a phantom.
To her, the rounds crawled in slow motion, each trajectory perfectly clear. Her movements were light as wind, weaving left and right, dodging every lethal shot.
Those few she could not evade, she deflected with a flick of her black-red blade, splitting them in two and letting them fall harmlessly.
After two minutes, the gunfire stopped. The soldiers' rifles clicked empty, their stockpiles spent.
Yet, Zeroy still stood there, unharmed.
Breaths faltered. Fear swallowed their minds. They had seen bio-monsters before, but nothing like this. This was the true monster.
"Impossible…"
One soldier's Adam's apple bobbed, hands shaking too much to grip his hot rifle.
Zeroy tilted her head, lips curling into a cold smirk, mocking their futility.
"Bring me your superior. Otherwise, you all die today."
In those two minutes, she hadn't struck back. She was here to find the mastermind, and until she was sure, she held her blade. Being attacked was normal—she had forced her way in, after all.
But her 'visit' was refused.
The walls warped. Alloy gates slid from every direction, sealing Zeroy and the soldiers inside. Compartments opened, spewing fire and poison gas, turning the room into hell.
It was a merciless saturation strike, meant to erase everything within.
The soldiers screamed as flames and toxins devoured them.
Zeroy merely raised a brow, her eyes glinting cold in the firelight. Double blast doors, coupled with this deadly defense system—clearly made to repel something bullets couldn't stop. This was no ordinary security.
Suspicion hardened into certainty.
A few strokes of her blade shredded the reinforced gate, and she strode out of the inferno. Fire and poison could not truly harm her.
She didn't immediately slaughter the personnel her radar marked. Instead, she found a terminal and hacked the system.
Proof was needed before the killing.
Soon, files scrolled before her eyes: human experiments, bioweapons, zombies.
There it was—the culprit behind the world's end.
Alarms shrieked. Defense systems engaged.
Useless.
A red shadow haunted the base. No wall, door, or hiding place could stop it.
People glimpsed only a blur before the world spun—their own headless body the last thing they saw.
In minutes, survivors dwindled at a terrifying pace.
Ten minutes later…
Zeroy stood over a middle-aged man, her blade hovering at his face, radiating death.
He collapsed, drenched in sweat, pupils quaking. All around lay the corpses of his colleagues, heads cleaved clean.
"Where's the cure?"
"In—In Warehouse Three! Sector C, the password is…!"
He nearly screamed it, words tumbling in panic, desperate to keep his head.
She had butchered everyone else. He knew one hesitation meant his end.
Of course, he was wrong.
Zeroy hadn't killed everyone yet. A few still lived, left as insurance—other mouths to question if needed.
"I hope you're not lying."
Relief flickered—until his vision spun. He saw his own body crumple headless, confusion his final thought.
Why? Didn't she say she hoped he wasn't lying? Shouldn't that mean survival, even if only to test his words?
But Zeroy had no need. Even if all stayed silent, she could find the cure in the system herself.
She had always intended to kill them all, every head severed, a price for what they had done. Asking was only to save herself some trouble.
"..."
She flicked blood from her blade, locked onto another target on her radar, and with two slashes carved through the wall.
Her radar didn't map terrain—only life. She couldn't tell above or below, or behind which wall.
Albeit that didn't matter. Her blade would cut through everything.
Time to 'ask' the next one about the cure.
...
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