Rising Tide

"This isn't good," I muttered as we jogged back toward the security room. Along the way, we ran into zombies, which Lei Shu and Lou Qian easily dispatched with their sword and scythe. Any strays were mowed down by the wood conjured by Nian Qing. I didn't get a chance to shoot, but that was fine by me. I was saving my strength for the warrior-category mutant that had shown up in the security room.

I didn't have to be overly concerned about Kill Count points, not when the warrior-class mutant would provide a juicy 50 points at the minimum. Of course, I had to find a way to slay it first. Don't count my chickens before they hatch, don't get complacent. If I hadn't killed it or obtained any points, I shouldn't consider them earned yet.

So I focused on getting to the security room. We caught sight of the security team falling back – what remained of them, anyway. The sergeant didn't leave too many of them behind, and it appeared that all of them survived, along with a handful of cleaning and cooking crew. The latter were making use of whatever weapons they could get their hands on – knives, pipes, cabling or broken pieces of machinery – and smacking the zombies away. A few were using brooms and mops, having snapped the shafts and using the sharp, jagged ends to pierce through the zombies' faces or eyes.

A few of them were dragged down and torn apart, or otherwise turned into zombies from scratches and bites. We did our best to provide cover, especially when I shot at them from a distance, blowing their heads apart and allowing the regular people to scramble to safety.

"Over here!" I waved them over, and they hurried behind us, the security guards uniting with their sergeant and the main bulk of the team and the cleaning and cooking crew being bracketed between them. I was impressed by their courage. Even without proper weapons or abilities, they still stood up and fought against the zombies.

It wasn't lost on me that there wasn't a single researcher who emerged from the security room. They were all killed, or so it seemed. I wasn't sure how to react to that. Didn't it mean we failed our mission?

No, as long as there were other people here to save, it didn't matter. I didn't care what the higher-ups wanted. We were going to save the survivors and bring them back to District 4 safely.

"Back!" I shouted over the din of moaning zombies and shrieking metal. "Get out of here! Nian Qing block the pathway with wood! We're getting the hell out of here!"

"Are there any other survivors?" The sergeant asked his subordinates who had previously remained behind in the security room. "Anybody left back in there?"

"No. We're all that's left. Everyone is dead."

Oh, right. I forgot that regular people didn't have senses as sharp as evolvers'. So they couldn't sense if there was anybody living beyond what they could see. Whereas we could tell that there was nothing but the dead inside.

Nian Qing was polite enough to wait for the subordinate to rely before he conjured a wall of wood to block off the corridor. We made use of the time his technique bought us to run, leaving the zombies behind. Perhaps it was because the sun didn't reach all the way down here, thus the zombies were a lot more active, aggressive and faster than usual.

Fortunately, they didn't have the strength to break through the thick wood that Nian Qing was able to summon.

We hurried through the corridor, sprinting toward the exit. While we did so, I heard an ominous noise, something cracking in the distance. Spinning around, I caught sight of something massive tearing the wood that Nian Qing conjured open.

"That…"

My eyes widened when I caught sight of the mutant that the security team had reported earlier. Not because of how horrifying it looked – though it certainly was a gruesome, nightmarish figure. But because I recognized the two heads that it sported. The distance was too great for normal eyesight to pick out any details, but my glasses had magnified their features and allowed me to see who they were.

The warrior-class mutant that tore the wood apart and stepped into the corridor, the zombies behind it spilling out and flopping about at its feet, was a hideous fusion of two people I was familiar with. Even though the body was swollen slightly, since it was the combined mass of two humans merged into one, it didn't resemble a grotesque or an aberrant. They were forcibly merged together front to back, both heads facing frontward while one was bobbing slightly above the other.

"Mu Rong Shao…and Darla Yoo…" I whispered.

"What?!" Lisa turned to stare at me in disbelief. She squinted into the distance, unable to make out their features until the grotesque creature stomped forward, closing in on us. Then her eyes widened. "They really are Mu Rong Shao and Darla Yoo!"

"What are they doing here?" Lou Qian wondered, her jaw dropping from shock.

"Isn't Mu Rong Shao supposed to be in jail?" Pang Fei demanded incredulously. "How did he end up in this research facility?!"

"I heard that Mu Rong Zhu pulled some strings…and in exchange for avoiding a jail sentence, his son became a 'volunteer' for Bai Zeng research facility." I swallowed. "But how did they…?"

"A volunteer, huh?" The sergeant said bitterly. "That's just code for laboratory specimens. The researchers conduct illegal experiments on these so-called volunteers. Of course, they would only take inmates and death row prisoners for these voluntary services…people who wouldn't be missed if they disappeared or died."

But what sort of experiment was this? Both Mu Rong Shao and Darla Yoo had been fused together, with Darla Yoo at the front and Mu Rong Shao behind. His loins and groin were combined with her behind, his reproductive organ permanently inserted inside hers. That probably explained the half-pleasured expressions they had on their faces every time they moved. Their legs had turned into a centaur-like mass, turning them into a quadrupedal creature with two torsos…though their torsos were slightly stuck together, with Mu Rong Shao's chest and stomach pressed against Darla Yoo's back, linked by strands and strips of gooey flesh. Only their heads and arms were kept separate. But why, I had no idea.

"What kind of experiments are they conducting to produce such…things? What's the point of fusing people like that?" I demanded. The sergeant shrugged.

"How would I know?! You should ask the damned researchers. Maybe they're messed up in their heads or something?"

"I heard it was for bioweapons research," one of the other security guards said.

"Does that look like a bioweapon to you?" his squad mate asked dryly. "It looks more like one of the researchers watched too much porn or something."

"I think the researchers placed the two newest specimens…ahem, volunteers into an isolated cell and tested a new mutated virus on them. The results were…unexpected." Another security guard's voice was a quiver. "I'm not sure what the virus did, but it apparently melded their bodies together like that. I don't think the researchers actually expected such a result either."

"I think they were actually having sex in the cell, not caring about what the virus was doing their bodies, and so they ended up like that."

"More like rape. I think the guy was raping the girl."

That was…too much info. I wasn't sure what the fuck Mu Rong Shao was trying to do to Darla Yoo, but I guess it wasn't out of character for him to do something heinous to her. This was a guy who actually went as far as hiring assassins to kill me…just because I 'stole' the girl he had his eye on or some bullshit like that.

Of course he wouldn't think twice about raping a girl because…I don't know, she looked beautiful. He was practically on death row or life imprisonment anyway, so he wouldn't care about adding another crime to his list.

Unfortunately for Darla Yoo, she turned out to be his final victim. Then again, she and her father were trying to blackmail my family and cause us to be homeless, so I didn't feel much sympathy for her. She didn't deserve it, of course, but…at least it wasn't someone innocent.

"Let's put them out of their misery," I suggested. Conjuring my two gigantic plasma rifles, I took aim and blasted the corridor with superheated streams. The Mu Rong Shao and Darla Yoo hybrid roared as they advanced toward us, only to be disintegrated by the torrents of plasma. The zombies that accompanied them were incinerated, vaporized to nothing. The walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor glowed red-hot, the reinforced metal molten and softened by the extreme heat.

In just a single volley, I had wiped out the zombies and the mutant. I saw my Kill Count counter rise rapidly, giving me almost 100 points in a single go. There must be a lot of zombies stuck in the corridor. I should almost be able to unlock the second level of my Hades Ability soon.

"You…what the hell was that!?"

The security guard gaped at me while I dismissed my floating plasma rifles. I shook my head and pointed at the exit.

"Let's just say it's my evolver ability. For now, let's focus on escaping!"

"Wait, didn't you just kill the mutant that's commanding all these zombies?" Pang Fei asked with a frown. "That means our mission is clear. That should be the most dangerous thing down here, right? Now that we've eliminated it, doesn't that mean we can reclaim the research facility?"

"Who told you that was the most dangerous thing here?" The sergeant scoffed. "There are lots of warrior-class mutants…"

"Don't worry," Lei Shu interrupted. "With Zhi Ming's ability, we should be able to blow all of them away. You just witnessed the amount of firepower he can bring to bear, didn't you?"

"Let me finish," the sergeant snapped irritably. "The warrior ranked mutants aren't the worst we have to worry about. There's one bioweapon the research team has been working on for over a year. We don't know what the hell it is, but it's the equivalent to a commander ranked mutant."

A chill ran down my back. What the hell?! They had a commander category mutant somewhere inside this research facility?!

Then I recalled the incidents that had been occurring recently. They mentioned stuff like an increase in the appearance of warrior-ranked mutants close to the walls of District 4 and the other parts of the fortress city. They mentioned the possibility of there being a commander-ranked mutant, but they were never able to find it.

Don't tell me…was the reason why they couldn't find it because the commander-ranked mutant was right under our noses this entire time? The bioweapon that Bai Zeng research facility was working on had somehow managed to transmit some sort of psychic resonance to communicate with the other undead and mutants and increase their activities? Or perhaps they were simply drawn to the commander ranked mutant, with it inadvertently serving as some sort of beacon?

The repercussions of this were chilling.

"We've to let the authorities know about this," I told the rest of my team. Filling them in quickly about my suspicions, I then hastened my pace toward the exit. "The increased appearances of warrior-ranked mutants and more zombies attacking the wall could be linked to the presence of this commander-ranked mutant bioweapon here in Bai Zeng research facility."

"If it escapes…" Lisa held a hand to her mouth, horrified.

"We can't allow it to escape," Lou Qian said. Then she clenched her fists. "But right now we don't have the strength to destroy it either."

"Let's just get home and tell the principal and the authorities. I'm sure they will do something about this." Nian Qing calmly came up with a feasible proposal.

"I hope the commander ranked mutant stays dormant for now," Pang Fei said with a gulp.

Right after he finished his sentence, tremors wrecked the Bai Zeng research facility, cracking the walls. A thunderous roar echoed throughout the vast confines, reverberating along the corridors and shattering what little glass that remained intact.

Lei Shu gave Pang Fei a wry glare and sighed. "You just had to jinx us, didn't you?"