The chittering grew louder, a cacophony of sharp, agitated clicks echoing from the oppressive darkness of the subway tunnel. Pinpricks of crimson light resolved into dozens of pairs of glowing red eyes, bobbing and weaving at the edge of Lin Ye's wavering gauntlet beam. They were low to the ground, fast, and utterly without fear, a carpet of nightmare creatures pouring forth from the Stygian depths.
[Noah: Confirmed. Approximately thirty to forty mutated Rattus norvegicus. They are exhibiting extreme aggression, likely driven by starvation and territoriality. Their primary attack vector will be a swarm rush. Recommend finding a defensible position immediately or preparing for close-quarters engagement. Their bite radius is significant, and potential for disease transmission is high.]
"Defensible position?" Lin Ye spat, his back screaming as he shifted his weight, pipe held ready in a two-handed grip. "In a damn shooting gallery like this?" The tunnel was a straight, debris-strewn corridor, offering little cover beyond the scattered detritus of a fallen civilization.
Zero made a small, terrified sound behind him, pressing herself against the cold concrete wall, her eyes wide with horror as the first wave of creatures broke from the darkness. They were larger than any rat Lin Ye had ever seen, some nearly the size of small dogs, their fur patchy and matted, revealing taut, discolored skin stretched over unnaturally prominent ribs. Elongated yellow incisors, stained with something dark, dripped saliva, and their oversized claws scrabbled noisily on the concrete as they charged, a tide of scuttling, red-eyed death.
"Stay behind me, Zero!" Lin Ye yelled, swinging his metal pipe in a wide, desperate arc. The pipe connected with the closest rat with a sickening thud and a wet crunch, sending it flying back into the oncoming swarm with a pained squeal. But more surged forward, undeterred, their numbers seeming endless.
He fought with a grim desperation, the pain in his back a constant, agonizing throb that threatened to buckle his knees with every movement. Each swing was a calculated risk, overextending an invitation for another jolt of agony. He smashed another creature, its skull cracking audibly, then another, the impact jarring up his arms. But for every one he took down, two more seemed to take its place, their tiny, needle-sharp claws tearing at his boots and lower legs, seeking purchase, seeking flesh.
Zero, despite her abject terror, wasn't entirely paralyzed. She fumbled for the sharp piece of rock she carried, her knuckles white. Seeing a particularly large rat dart towards Lin Ye's exposed flank as he dealt with two others directly in front, she let out a choked cry and threw the rock with all her might. It struck the creature squarely on the side of its elongated head, not killing it, but making it stumble and screech, momentarily disoriented. It gave Lin Ye precious seconds to pivot and bring his pipe down with savage force.
"Thanks!" he grunted, a fresh wave of pain making him wince as he twisted. The brief distraction had saved him from a nasty bite.
[Noah: Host, their numbers are not diminishing significantly. They are attempting to encircle you. There is a partially overturned mine cart approximately five meters to your left, near the tunnel wall. It could offer temporary, limited cover for your legs and Zero, forcing them into a narrower attack channel.]
Lin Ye saw it – a rusted, skeletal frame of a cart, once used for track maintenance perhaps, now lying on its side like a forgotten metallic carcass. "Zero, the cart! Get to the cart!"
He laid about him with the pipe, each blow precise and brutal, creating a momentary opening in the tide of mutated rodents. He then shoved Zero towards it. She scrambled, half-crawling, kicking away a snapping rat, and squeezed behind the dubious shelter. Lin Ye backed towards it, his pipe a whirling dervish of dented metal, each impact sending jarring vibrations up his arms. One of the mutated rats, larger and more agile than the others, with vicious-looking tufts of fur around its neck, leaped, its red eyes burning with feral hunger, and sank its teeth deep into his thigh before he could smash it away with a furious yell.
"Aargh!" Lin Ye roared in pain and fury, driving the creature to the ground with a bone-jarring impact and crushing its skull. Blood, warm and slick, began to soak through his trousers, the new pain a fresh hell on top of his aching back.
He finally reached the cart, slumping down beside Zero, his back pressed against the cold, rusted metal, his injured leg throbbing violently. The rats swarmed around the cart, their chittering reaching a frenzied pitch, claws scraping against the metal, some even trying to leap over the top, their red eyes glinting madly in the dim light. Lin Ye and Zero were effectively pinned down, with only the narrow openings at either end of the overturned cart for the rats to attack through.
"Damn it," Lin Ye panted, swatting away a rat that scrabbled at the edge of the cart. "This isn't sustainable." He could feel his strength ebbing, his vision starting to blur at the edges from pain and blood loss.
Zero was huddled beside him, trembling, but her eyes darted back and forth, watching the frenzied creatures. The "song" of the Azure Garden was a distant, horrifying memory now, replaced by the immediate, visceral terror of snapping teeth and rending claws. The sheer, primal horror of it all seemed to push her beyond a certain point of fear.
Suddenly, as a particularly large rat lunged towards her face through a gap in the cart's frame, Zero screamed – a raw, desperate sound. And with the scream, something shifted. The air around her seemed to shimmer for a microsecond, and a faint, almost imperceptible, high-pitched whine, like a dying electrical capacitor, filled the immediate vicinity. The attacking rat, and several others close to it, recoiled as if struck by an invisible force, shaking their heads, their chittering taking on a confused, disoriented tone. The red glow in their eyes flickered.
Lin Ye, despite his pain, noticed it instantly. "Zero? What was that?"
She stared at her hands, then at the momentarily disarrayed rats, her expression one of utter bewilderment and dawning fear of herself. "I... I don't know! I just... I screamed..." The faint blue, circuit-like patterns flickered briefly under the skin of her temples, almost too fast to see, then vanished.
[Noah: Host! Zero just emitted a localized, high-frequency sonic pulse, coupled with a minute electromagnetic distortion! It appears to have temporarily disoriented the mutated rats' sensory organs. This is consistent with the 'resistive high-frequency resonance' I observed earlier, but this time it had an externalized effect. It seems to be an involuntary stress reaction, but it bought us a few seconds!]
A few seconds was all Lin Ye needed. Seeing the rats momentarily confused, he surged up, ignoring the screaming protest from his back and leg. "Now!"
He lunged forward, his pipe a blur, smashing down on the disoriented creatures nearest them. He focused his attacks on the narrow openings, creating a gruesome barricade of twitching bodies. The remaining rats, their pack mentality perhaps disrupted by the strange sonic pulse and the sudden ferocity of Lin Ye's counter-attack, hesitated. Some even began to back away, their red eyes darting nervously.
Lin Ye didn't let up, pressing his advantage, roaring with a mixture of pain and fury, until the last of the mutated rats turned and fled back into the oppressive darkness from whence they came, their chittering fading into a distant, uneasy silence.
He slumped back against the cart, his chest heaving, his body screaming in protest. The adrenaline began to recede, leaving him lightheaded and nauseous. The tunnel was suddenly, unnervingly quiet, save for their ragged breathing and the drip-drip-drip of something – water, or perhaps blood – in the darkness.
Zero was staring at him, then at her own hands, then back at him, her face a mask of confusion, fear, and something else… a dawning awareness of something strange within herself.
"You… you saved us, Zero," Lin Ye managed, forcing a weak, blood-flecked grin. "Whatever that was… it worked."
She just shook her head, her eyes wide. "I didn't… I didn't do anything."
[Noah: Host, your thigh wound requires immediate attention. The bite is deep. And while the immediate threat is gone, this area is clearly a hunting ground. We need to move as soon as you are able, and find a more secure location to treat your injuries and rest. The effectiveness of Zero's involuntary defense is unknown and unreliable.]
Lin Ye knew Noah was right. He looked down at his bleeding leg, then at Zero, who was still staring at her hands as if they belonged to someone else. This journey to Sector Gamma-7 was proving to be even more brutal than he could have imagined. And Zero… she was becoming more of an enigma with every passing hour.