Hayato sprinted down the dimly lit stone tunnel, the dead weight of an unconscious Shisui balanced over his shoulders.
Ethan kept pace right behind him, his boots clicking rapidly against the damp concrete. "Hey... if that woman was someone you knew, you should have dragged her with us."
Hayato shook his head, his breathing coming out in jagged bursts. "No... she bears the responsibility for what was created here. She wants to be the one to end it."
Ethan frowned. "What the hell does that mean?"
Before Hayato could answer, heavy, echoing footfalls thundered from the darkness behind them.
"There they are!" a guard shouted, a tactical flashlight beam cutting through the dim corridor.
"Don't let them reach the surface!" Leonard's voice barked. "Take them down!"
"Damn it," Hayato hissed under his breath, his eyes darting toward the faint moonlight at the end of the tunnel. We can't afford to stop down here...
"They're closing in," Ethan noted, dropping into a low combat posture as he ran. "Should I turn around and clear them out?"
"No! Keep pushing for the open ground!" Hayato ordered. "Once we're outside, we have space to maneuver. Don't waste energy in a bottleneck!"
Ethan gave a curt nod, accelerating his pace to cover Hayato's rear.
Meanwhile,
The White Reaper stood motionless in the center of the subterranean hall.
A bio-mutant lunged at him, swinging a jagged, calcified arm. Without even shifting his footing, the White Reaper whipped his left leg upward in a single, fluid arc.
BOOM!
The kick detonated against the mutant's skull, pulverizing its head into a crimson spray. The massive, headless corpse collapsed onto the floor grates with a heavy thud.
The surrounding horde of mutants instantly froze, their predatory instincts overridden by raw shock. Even Number 0 stepped back, his eyes widening in subtle horror.
The thirteen Special Mutants stepped forward in unison, their ten-foot frames blocking out the light. Chains rattled as they raised their iron axes and spiked morningstars.
Number 0's sneer returned. It doesn't matter how fast he is. The Special Mutants are biological fortresses. He can't break through thirteen of them at once.
The giant leviathans charged, bringing their weapons down in a executioner's barrage that shattered the surrounding concrete. The White Reaper moved like a phantom—slipping through the crushing blows with micro-adjustments, his white shoes gliding effortlessly across the blood-slicked floor.
Off to the side, Eliza's eyes open.
"Ah, you're awake, Number 3," an executive said, stepping up to her with a syringe drawn.
Eliza slowly pushed herself up from the cold floor, her gaze burning with quiet fury. "Don't... call me that."
"You need to lie down, Number 3. I have strict orders—"
Before the executive could finish, Eliza snapped her right heel upward into the side of his skull. The force sent him crashing sideways, knocking him out cold before his body hit the floor.
"My name... is Eliza," she whispered to the empty air.
She turned and walked calmly toward her private research laboratory. In the distance, the chaotic sound of heavy metal impacts abruptly ceased.
Eliza paused, looking toward the main hall. Scattered across the cratered floor were the severed, massive heads of all thirteen Special Mutants. The White Reaper stood above the final leviathan, his white boot resting on its skull.
With a sickening CRUNCH, he flexed his leg, crushing the diamond-hard bone into dust.
Number 0 lunged from the dust cloud, unleashing an insane, high-speed combination. The White Reaper parried and slipped every strike with casual precision.
Pivoting on his right heel, the White Reaper whipped his left leg toward Number 0's neck. Number 0 ducked at the absolute last picosecond, but the sheer air pressure generated by the kick cut a thin, bleeding gash across his right cheek.
Before Number 0 could process the dodge, the White Reaper reversed his momentum in mid-air, driving the back of his heel directly into the back of Number 0's head!
CRACK!
Number 0 was slammed face-first into the concrete floor, his body bouncing off the shattered grates.
What...? Eliza thought, her breath catching. Number 0... was brought down that easily?!
The White Reaper turned his head, his gaze locking onto Eliza. She felt a instinctive spike of fear, but forced her expression to remain totally composure.
She prepared herself for a fight—but the White Reaper simply walked past her without a word, stepping into her lab.
None of the remaining executives or mutants dared to move a muscle. They stood paralyzed, watching him come out with a stack of classified leather-bound files.
"ATTACK HIM! ALL OF YOU, KILL HIM NOW!" Number 0 roared, pushing himself off the floor with blood pouring down his face.
Driven by suicidal fear of Number 0, the remaining wave of mutants and executives surged forward at once.
The White Reaper stepped back into the doorway and unleashed a single, sweeping rotation of kicks.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A single kick to an executive's chest shattered their entire ribcage, launching them through the reinforced walls. When his strikes landed on the bio-mutants, the kinetic force was so immense that their reinforced bodies literally exploded into fragments upon impact.
In less than sixty seconds, the entire hall was silent. Blood and mechanical debris covered every square inch of the chamber.
Number 0 stood alone amidst the massacre, shaking in genuine horror.
How... how can anyone possess this level of power? Number 0's mind reeled. I couldn't meet him years ago... but I never stood a chance.
Eliza rushed into her control room, locking the door behind her. She reached beneath the primary glass desk and flipped open a safety hatch, slamming her palm down onto a prominent red button.
I am responsible for this..., she thought, closing her eyes as tears welled up. It's time to end it. I will atone for every life we stole.
A mechanized automated voice boomed across the entire facility:
"DEATH-PROTOCOL ACTIVATED."
"TOTAL DATA ERASURE IN PROGRESS."
"SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCING INITIATED. FACILITY ANNIHILATION IMMINENT."
Klieg lights flashed crimson across the ceiling as siren horns wailed.
The White Reaper calmly stepped out of the archive room.
"Eliza... what the hell did you just do?!" Number 0 screamed, his voice cracking in panic.
"Deleting every byte of research so Loop can never recreate these monsters," Eliza said softly, her voice carrying through the intercom. "And ensuring every murderer in this room—including myself—pays for what we did."
"You insane bitch!" Number 0 bellowed, his face twisting in rage. "This is all because of that bastard Hayato! I should have slaughtered him the day he was born!"
"You should worry about yourself," the White Reaper said quietly.
In a blur, the White Reaper launched a straight front kick toward Number 0's midsection. Number 0 raised his thigh to check the blow—but the sheer, ungodly force broke his femur on contact, blowing him backward through a concrete pillar.
The White Reaper walked up to the groaning executive, staring down at him with emotionless eyes. "Do you know why I didn't came after you, years ago? Because you were weak. I thought losing everything would force you to grow stronger. Instead, you wasted decades hiding behind experiments."
Number 0's eyes widened in profound realization. "You... you were the one who wiped out the..."
The White Reaper offered a faint, silent nod.
Driven into a state of total madness, Number 0 ignored his broken leg, pushing past his physical limits to unleash every secret technique in his arsenal.
"DEATH BLADE!" "DEATH FANGS!" "EAGLE STRIKES!"
Fists, elbows, and knee strikes rained down in a blinding, desperate frenzy. The sheer friction of his movements tore his own muscle tissue, breaking the bones in his hands and feet as he poured every ounce of his life force into the onslaught. Blood spurted from his eyes from the internal pressure.
Yet the White Reaper didn't take a single step back. He absorbed the entire barrage head-on, his posture never breaking, his expression completely unchanged.
Number 0's hands hung limp at his sides, completely shattered. "No... impossible..."
The White Reaper drove a short, brutal knee straight into Number 0's solar plexus, folding the executive in half. Following through with a devastating vertical hammer-kick, he slammed Number 0 face-first into the concrete floor, knocking him permanently into darkness.
The facility countdown chimed over the loudspeakers:
"DETONATION IN THREE... TWO..."
The White Reaper turned his head toward the control room window. Eliza stood behind the reinforced glass, tears streaming down her cheeks, a quiet, peaceful smile on her face.
Her lips moved silently through the glass: "Forgive me..."
Eliza looked up, and she smiled.
"...ONE."
BOOM!
A blinding flash of white light consumed the subterranean core. A series of massive, thermonuclear charges detonated simultaneously, collapsing the underground complex into a sea of fire.
The shockwave tore upward through the earth, incinerating the Second Branch, the surface research labs, and the entire snowbound village above—reducing the entire mountain perimeter to nothing but cratered ash and smoke.