"Unit One, left sector clear. Only carbonized residue," Unit Three reported, his voice low. "No intact life signs detected."
"Continue advance. Unit Two, check the blast door wreckage on the right. Move. The people upstairs could come down at any moment." Unit One's command was cold, brittle as iron.
To maximize their search grid, the three had spread out. Unit Three rounded a load-bearing column that had been warped and melted by extreme heat, stepping into a blind spot completely swallowed by shadow.
Suddenly, a faint, dark red glimmer flickered in the gloom.
Unit Three halted instantly, his thermal blade held steady and aimed at the corner. Under its harsh glare, a fist-sized clot of flesh clung to the wall in the dead angle. It seemed to have survived the purification beam's vaporization, and was now squirming with a sickening, sluggish rhythm.
"Residual tissue located." Unit Three's tone was utterly flat. As a Sanctum Cleaner, he had seen far too much of this blasphemous filth.
Hiss— The blade mercilessly pierced the meat. The stench of burning rot instantly flooded the air. The tissue convulsed violently under the extreme heat before dissolving into a pile of foul black ash.
"Cleared," Unit Three reported coldly. He turned to leave the blind spot and rejoin his squad.
The exact moment he turned.
Plop.
An incredibly faint sound of dripping, viscous liquid landed squarely on his heavy pauldron.
Unit Three's muscles locked. He didn't look up. Driven by drilled combat reflexes, he violently rolled forward, simultaneously reversing his blade to strike upward—
Splat. Another drop. This time, whatever it was landed directly on the floor where he had just been standing.
Unit Three half-knelt, his gaze dead-locked on the fallen object.
It was a chunk of meat. But it was absolutely not ordinary abyssal flesh. Amidst the squirming, putrid dark-red tissue grew several immaculate, white-gold crystals, radiating a faint, undeniable holy light!
Beneath his deep hood, Unit Three's perpetually cold eyes widened in sheer shock. Holy crystals and heretical flesh fused together? This violated the very physical laws of the Sanctum!
Drip. Sssshh— A third drop of slime landed on his raised blade, emitting a harsh, screeching hiss of energy corrosion.
A cold draft, carrying the coppery stench of blood mixed with a sickeningly eerie sweetness, breathed slowly down from directly above him.
Stiffly, inch by agonizing inch, Unit Three looked up. The beam of his tactical light pierced the thick darkness, illuminating the shattered ceiling of the Deep Dive chamber.
"Unit One! Enem—"
Unit Three's warning never cleared his throat. That monstrous crystalline claw, radiating blinding holy light and abyssal rot, came crashing down with apocalyptic force!
CRACK—SHLUCK!!!
Unit Three was violently pinned to the ash-covered steel floor by the malformed appendage. Amidst the sickening crunch of his own shattering ribs, he realized with absolute horror that his life energy was draining away like a breached dam, sucked directly into the claw impaling his chest!
"Ghh…" Unit Three coughed up a massive mouthful of black blood and pulverized organ fragments. Gritting his bloodstained teeth, he raised his blade with the last dregs of his strength, desperate to sever the monster's arm.
But with a pathetic, dying flicker, the thermal blade in his hand shorted out, its energy source—the wielder himself—instantly sucked dry.
From the root of the giant claw came a dull, greedy thrumming, like a starving beast gorging itself. He could feel his flesh, his energy, his very soul, being rapidly hollowed out.
"Kill… just kill me…" At that moment, the elite cleaner's dignity was completely pulverized by raw, primal terror.
"Unit Three!!!"
The instant the thermal blade died, two powerful beams of light swept out from the nearby darkness!
"Open fire!!!" Unit One's furious roar detonated in the empty chamber.
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM—!!!
A relentless hail of searing light bolts rained down, instantly locking down the entire area around the giant claw.
Yet, facing the lethal net of crossfire, the feeding right arm made a chilling response.
It didn't release its prey to flee.
CRACK! The malformed claw hooked viciously into Unit Three's sternum and yanked backward with terrifying force!
BAM! With a heavy thud, the boy's convulsing body was whipped through the air like a weightless, fleshy flail. Swung violently by the berserk right arm, Erika traced a pathetic arc through the air, crashing hard behind a load-bearing column two meters away, narrowly evading the lethal volley of fire.
"Ghh…" Erika let out a distorted, breathless whimper from the impact. He collapsed like a sack of broken bones in the column's shadow, entirely at the mercy of his fully extended, mutated right arm holding him tethered.
The deadly end of that arm remained firmly embedded in Unit Three's chest, literally using the cleaner's large frame as a grotesque meat shield!
"AAAAHHHHH—!!!"
Searing light bolts mercilessly tore through Unit Three's shoulder and thigh, flash-frying his flesh. But he couldn't even feel the agonizing heat of those wounds.
Because he could clearly feel the white-gold claw inside him. After piercing his organs, it was taking root in his chest like a living, parasitic plant!
Those malformed roots—a horrific hybrid of the abyss's freezing dampness and the Sanctum's extreme heat—acted like greedy vipers. They aggressively coiled around his spine, his lungs, and his still-beating heart.
"End this, fast!"
"Fuck… What the hell is that thing?!" Unit One stared at the monstrous claw tethering the half-dead boy to his comrade. Cold sweat instantly soaked through his uniform.
Behind the flesh shield, Unit Three's screams were fading fast into wet, bubbling gasps.
"Kill… kill… me."
He stared helplessly at his teammates advancing with thermal blades drawn, completely paralyzed, unable to even raise a hand to beg for a mercy killing.
His faith, his holy strength, his very soul—all were being actively degraded and chewed up into the filthiest of nutrients.
This was a defilement ten thousand times worse than death.
Darkness rapidly consumed his vision.
In his final second of consciousness, just before he was entirely hollowed out, he didn't hear his teammates' shouts. Instead, he heard the parasitic monster lodged in his chest let out an extremely satisfied, belch-like, wet gurgle.