Chapter 16

"Huff...Huff...Huff..."

Amiss the chaos and gunshot sounds, soft panting sounds could be heard. The sounds originated from the ragged breathing of a running ,young, fair skinned lady with black hair. It was Layla, the chef from earlier.

"Boom"

A loud boom was heard, causing the paved grounds to tremble slightly. The slight tremors caused Layla to almost stumble, but it didn't matter. It was like she had reached her destination.

In front of her was a run down apartment building. In fact, if one zoomed out a little, they would realize the neighborhood she was in clearly wasn't high class and spotted apartment buildings and houses of a similar nature, all dilapidated and run down.

Layla continued to pant as strands of her black hair clung to her sweaty face. Her hair was disheveled probably because she was running. In fact, one could consider her lucky for making it to this place with the current situation of things.

Layla slowly stopped panting as she looked at the building with a worried expression. The building was 6 stories high and she had her eyes on the top floor.

Soon she entered the building, worry coating her every step.

The ground floor of the building was relatively simple and remarkably clean. It looked like the ground floor of a typical apartment building, so it wasn't anything to take note of. She walked a little, then took a left turn, entering a hallway. At the end of the hallway was an elevator.

Layla made her way towards the elevator, her steps already resembling a light jog. Upon reaching the elevator, her hand reached out to touch the key pads before stopping.

Was the elevator really the best idea in such a situation...?

She probably didn't think so as she slowly withdrew her hand.

Her head turned to the right and her eyes met a door way. There was a sign on top of the door that showed the image of stairs . She walked towards it and entered, revealing a flight of stairs that presumably ended at the top floor.

With hurried steps, she started her climb.

The stairs were structured such that there would be a climb, then flat surface for entry into a floor, then more steps and so on.

After her first flight of stairs, Layla landed in the flat side leading to the first floor.

This side wasn't empty though as a light of familiarity flashed by her eyes.

A man was standing in front of the door to the first floor. He was facing it, so his face couldn't be seen by Layla. He wore a dark blue long sleeve shirt and black trousers, he was Caucasian.

However, judging by the light of familiarity that flashed by Layla's eyes, it seemed she recognized the man.

"James...?" She called out

And as if reacting to the name, the figure slowly turned around.

Seeing James's face, Layla immediately took a step back.

Why? Well because James literally had a hole in his face. The scene was hard to describe as the hole really wasn't a hole, but it kinda looked like the skin on the left side of his face had been scraped off. What replaced it was a silvery metallic exterior. A good picture would be how the termination looked in the movies.

James's mouth opened and some extremely cool robotic Scifi like voice came out, "Ah, Layla." He said before taking a brief pause and showing a weird expression then he opened his mouth again and said, "Ignore my voice, it seems like my voice modulator withstood extensive shock, it should be back in no time."

Meanwhile, Layla was now undergoing mild shock. Normally, people would be more shocked than this if they saw a Terminator, but their reality just went to hell. What's not to happen?

Layla opened her mouth and asked "James...? "

Her question received a light chuckle from the Terminator like figure as his left hand rose and he touched his face, if one looked closely they would notice the skin on his face slowly encroaching on the metallic parts, as if trying to cover them.

"I'll explain later, but..." He trailed of as his head looked upward and his eyes gave off a faint glow, "Let's go get your kid."

His statement seemed to bring clarity to Layla as she rushed past him and started heading for the second flight of stairs.

However, before she could go too far, James swiftly reached out and pulled her back.

"That's not the best idea." He said as he shook his head.

Layla was about to say something, but he swiftly opened the door to the first floor and said, "Trust me."

Layla ultimately gave in and they both walked inside. The first thing that approached them was a fat screaming man. His arms were flapping around in the air as he rushed towards them in an almost mindless fashion.

Before Layla could react though, James appeared a few steps behind the fat man, his left hand now a bloodied silvery blade.

The forward momentum of the man propelled him forward a little, before his body split apart in 3 different places. Separating his head from his shoulders, and his upper body from his lower body.

All this happened in front of Layla, causing her to almost vomit, but before she could, James appeared next to her and touched her neck.

She felt something like a needle entering her neck as her disgust immediately ceased.

"It's an undead, what humans would call a zombie." James said in a light tone that suited his pleasant robotic Scifi like voice while using his blade arm to point at the still screaming head.

No longer feeling any sense or revulsion, Layla looked at the screaming head , then at James's left hand that was now a blade before asking, "What did you put in me?"

James showed an apologetic expression, before saying, "Sorry, it was an anti-disgust solution."

Layla looked like she had something to say, but she was interrupted by a notification.

[Congratulations to Yin Baihu for being the first person to accept a Daoshou's Challenge][Watch?]

After the notification, both people looked at each other, then a loud

Bang

Was heard, followed by the body of a person flying out a door amongst broken wood.

The person's body hit the opposing wall and his body slid down to the ground, leaving blood trails on the wall.

Soon, another thing rushed out of the room and stopped. It gazed at the duo before releasing a loud screech. As if on queue, multiple bangs rang out and more things came out. All of them bloodied to various degrees. Some even had body parts in their arms or mouths. There were about 10 of them.

James looked and Layla and calmly said, "Give me a minute."

Then his figure vanished and blood soon painted the hallway.

Chapter 16 -- Juxtaposed Adaptive Military-grade Exploration Sentinel (James).

A/N : Well, chapter 16, how was it? And how's my writing style? Was this chapter predictable? What do you think of James? How about Layla? I need feedback to grow🥺. Also, I can't post regularly cause writing just one chapter is a lot of work (and I'm already busy). I actually respect WN authors a lot more now.