"Inferior lifeforms! You have no idea how wondrous evolution truly is!"
Having evolved once more, Hiroshi had completely shed his human appearance...
His entire body was now encased in rapidly proliferating crimson flesh, his sharp tentacle-kagune swelled endlessly like a monstrous octopus unfurling its limbs.
A car weighing over a ton was effortlessly lifted and hurled at the special forces like a toy.
The ruptured fuel tank ignited upon contact with sparks, unleashing a violent shockwave. A deafening explosion erupted as flames surged outward like a tidal wave, turning four or five vehicles into fiery barrels that detonated with thunderous booms.
"Fall back! Fall back!"
Police cars blocking the street were overturned as the special forces scrambled to retreat, fleeing the inferno that had become a death trap.
"Delicious little snacks… Hahaha!" The mad doctor leaned forward, his crimson eyes brimming with savagery.
A blurred afterimage darted through the air, evading the hail of bullets as the six massive tentacles of his mutated body lashed out.
Like grotesque alien limbs, the razor-sharp kagune whipped through the air, and suddenly elongated into straight blades that pierced straight through a large truck obstructing the road, slicing its metal shell apart.
The impossibly long kagune shot through the sea of flames. Several members of the C.C.G., Tokyo's elite task force, were skewered like kebabs. With a brutal yank, their flesh tore apart as easily as cloth.
Having devoured his own kind, Hiroshi laughed maniacally.
The tips of his scaled kagune now sprouted clusters of writhing flesh, acting like living mouths that voraciously sucked the bloody meat dry!
It was clearly that after this evolution, the mad doctor's predatory organs had mutated further, allowing him to feed far more efficiently... He no longer needed to chew and swallow like a human... He wasn't limited to digesting food through his esophagus and stomach.
The six tentacles danced like ravenous demons, unleashing a blood-soaked massacre.
The heavily armed special forces stood no chance against a monster like this Ghoul. They were lambs to the slaughter, shrouded in the shadow of death, their blood and bodies reduced to mere nutrients for the beast's feast.
Suddenly, a helicopter appeared overhead, its rotor blades churning up hurricane-force winds. The rear cabin door slid open, and a sealed metal crate dropped straight down.
An instant before hitting the ground, the crate shattered apart...
*Boom!*
A towering figure landed with a crushing force, flattening a car beneath its weight.
The massive body stood like a mountain, its skin a hardened gray-white, its muscles which were streaked red and white twisted together like coiled steel cables. Bulging veins pulsed across its frame, radiating an indescribable sense of raw power.
This was a Tyrant Zombie, Hydra's secret weapon for exterminating Ghouls.
A bestial roar like thunder echoed through the emptied barricaded streets. The two inhuman monsters locked eyes from a distance, their gazes filled with nothing but violence and slaughter.
This was a second-generation Tyrant Zombie. Its appearance vastly improved from the earlier models.
Gone was the rotting peeling horror-show exterior. Its gray-white face was expressionless, clad in a long black trench coat and military boots. Its arms were over twenty centimeters thick, and its right hand had evolved grotesque claws, each nail longer than a combat knife, as if multiple blades had been fused together.
"A zombie~ Hehehe!" Hiroshi let out a distorted laugh.
As a former Hydra researcher, he was well aware of the bioweapons derived from the Progenitor Virus, all of which were mindless, brutal, and utterly bestial.
"A monster that can't even think... let me devour you!" The mad doctor shrieked, his massive tentacle-kagune whirling as he hurled a bisected truck at the Tyrant.
With a deafening crash, the truck's cargo compartment was smashed open by sheer brute force.
The motionless Tyrant suddenly activated like a cold machine coming to life. Its hollow eyes flickered as its clawed arms slashed outward!
Blood sprayed as severed tentacles dropped to the ground, twitching like dying creatures before being stomped flat under the Tyrant's monstrous strength.
The kagune that was capable of lifting multi-ton objects seemed fragile in the face of such terrifying power.
"Kill you… Kill you… KILL YOU!" Hiroshi's screech was ear-piercing.
He was rapidly transforming into a monster, nearly erasing all traces of his humanity.
The two horrific creatures (both mutated from the Progenitor Virus) clashed in a savage battle on the empty street.
One was a freshly evolved Ghoul, a demon wearing human skin; the other, a Tyrant Zombie, a bioweapon forged by Hydra, devoid of pain or thought.
They tore into each other, the Ghoul's sharp kagune pierced the Tyrant's hardened gray hide. No blood spilled from the wounds. The torn flesh simply rotted away, offering no nutritional value.
The Tyrant swung its bone claws like swords, severing another massive tentacle. Seizing the opening, the Ghoul drove a tentacle into the Tyrant's chest, pulverizing its internal organs into mush.
However, zombies were already dead. Unlike humans, they didn't rely on a beating heart to survive...
The Tyrant retaliated by kicking Hiroshi square in the chest, sending the Ghoul crashing through a storefront in a shower of debris.
...
Watching this barbaric battle from a remote feed, Madame Hydra's enchanting face was alight with pleasure.
She adored this kind of violent and bloody slaughter.
Primal savagery was etched into humanity's DNA. It was an instinct that could never be erased. Even a desk-bound researcher like Hiroshi had learned to tear and kill like a beast after becoming a Ghoul.
The reason for launching this Ghoul-hunting operation was simple: Logan, who had been within their grasp, had vanished without a trace.
This completely derailed Yashida Ichirō's plan of faking his own death.
The old man had intended to use Madame Hydra's specially designed mechanical insects to temporarily suppress Wolverine's healing factor, then exploit the conflict between Shingen and Mariko to lure him into a trap.
But during the funeral at Sensō-ji, Logan had disappeared without a trace. Even Yukio who had been by his side had no idea where he'd gone. Left with no choice, Ichirō had to pin his hopes on Hydra once again.
Madame Hydra assured him that capturing these three Ghouls would allow her to perform a semi-transformation surgery on him. Through the genetic mutations of the Progenitor Virus, he could still achieve his goal of prolonging his life.
Of course, this wasn't without risks. Ichirō might very well end up as a monster like the Ghouls; but being desperate to live, the old man couldn't care less. He just wanted to shed his disease-ridden decaying body and reclaim vitality.
"Kill that Ghoul. Collect its flesh for specimens," Madame Hydra ordered.
For Hydra, Ghouls held immense research value.
If not for S.H.I.E.L.D., she would have turned all of Tokyo into a breeding ground, mass-producing them to gather more data...