The alarms screamed like something alive.
Red lights stuttered through the underground lab, flashing across rows of cracked containment tubes now leaking a pale, milky vapor. The smell was chemical… but also strangely organic, as if the room itself were exhaling.
And the Vitraspawn were waking.
Dozens of them.
Half-formed abominations dragged themselves from shattered glass, their bodies a grotesque mix of skeletal plating, stretched muscle tissue, and pulsing blue bioluminescence. Their eyes flickered like faulty LEDs as they scanned the intruders.
Netoshka raised her rifle.
"Positions! Don't let them box us in!"
The creatures screeched in response — a grating, metallic cry that vibrated the entire chamber. Their limbs bent at wrong angles as they scuttled across the walls and ceiling, converging like spiders sensing blood.
Taran stepped forward with a snarl.
"Try it. Come on."
Genrihk spread his fingers, dark necrotic mist curling from each fingertip.
"These things… they're resisting death itself. Something is forcing them to live."
Surgien fired first, sending a hail of rounds into the leading Vitraspawn. The creature jerked, bones snapping backward — but instead of falling, it simply re-formed, its spine pulling itself straight like elastic.
"What—WHAT—NO, NO, THAT IS UNFAIR!" the doctor shouted.
Twila split into two illusions, both darting forward to confuse the swarm.
Zopi hid behind one of the old terminals, firing with trembling hands.
Rue leaped onto a containment pod, slicing down three creatures before they could reach her.
Zev tore into another with bare hands, ripping off its arm — only for the limb to writhe on the floor like an independent animal.
Netoshka fired controlled bursts, every shot punching through skulls or cores — only to watch blue liquid reconstruct the wounds seconds later.
Taran cursed.
"They're regenerating too fast!"
"They were made for war," Genrihk said darkly.
"New Horizon Corp designed them to replace soldiers. Self-healing. Emotionless. Controllable."
Surgien ducked as a Vitraspawn swung a serrated bone-talon at his head.
"I'm starting to see why they were kept underground."
Circe's visor flickered with static interference.
"The lab is powering up additional containment rows — more of them are waking!"
And then the screen behind them flickered to life.
A face appeared. Pale. Wrinkled. Expressionless.
Projected, not real — a digital ghost.
Doctor Kraustein.
His voice crackled through half-broken speakers:
"Species-Model 77B… designated Vitraspawn.
Prototype failures.
Preserved for research.
Revived for defense."
Netoshka looked up sharply.
"So YOU woke them!"
Kraustein gave a faint, artificial smile.
"Unauthorized entry detected.
Initiating neutralization protocol."
Rue snarled, blood on her cheek.
"Blow this damn screen up—"
Before she could, the Vitraspawns charged again.
The squad was forced back, fighting in desperate, inch-by-inch retreat. For every creature they shredded, two more crawled from the newly opened pods.
Netoshka saw the numbers flickering again — 1…3…4…5…7…3…13 21... — but she forced her breathing to stay steady.
Focus.
Aim.
Fire.
"Taran! With me!" she shouted.
The two pushed forward, carving a path toward a secondary blast door at the far end of the lab. But the Vitraspawn swarmed like a hive defending its queen.
One creature pounced at Netoshka — she sidestepped, grabbed its jaw, and cracked its skull off the pipe railing. Taran impaled another with a steel rod ripped from the floor, swinging it like a greatsword.
But then—
THUD.
The ground trembled.
Genrihk paused mid-cast.
"…what was that?"
Another tremor.
Dust fell from the rafters.
Surgien swallowed hard.
"Something big?"
The tubes in the far back — the largest ones — began to glow blue.
One by one, their clamps disengaged.
Netoshka's pulse spiked.
"No… you've got to be kidding—"
Kraustein's voice warped into a distorted growl.
"Releasing… PRIME SPECIMEN…"
The central tank shattered outward.
And something enormous stepped free.
Eight feet tall.
Hunched.
Dripping with blue gel.
Its body plated like an insect, but its limbs long and rubbery like a deep-sea creature.
A huge maw opened sideways along its chest, revealing rows of barbed teeth.
The Vitraspawn scattered away from it like terrified children.
Taran's eyes widened.
"Okay. That's not one of these mutated monsters, its something else."
Genrihk whispered the name as if dredging it from an ancient void:
"Belfre."
Twila shuddered.
"A what?"
"Belfre… The first generation bio-weapons of New Horizon Corp," he said.
"The ones too unstable to command. Too aggressive to control."
The Belfry turned its glowing eyes on Inferius.
Then it roared — a deafening, wet, subsonic blast of sound that shattered every remaining tube.
Surgien slapped his hands over his ears.
"NOPE! NOPE! ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
Kraustein's cold voice returned:
"Terminate these intruders, my Children.
Harvest their specimens.
Begin surgical extraction."
Netoshka stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
"Taran. Zev. Flank it."
"Hell yes," Zev growled, shifting as his bones cracked into partial lycan form.
"Taran, stay behind its striking angle," she added.
Taran cracked his neck. "Noted."
She turned to the rest:
"Twila, illusions right side. Rue and Zopi — support fire from elevation. Surgien, don't die. Circe—"
Circe's screen flickered.
"Already accessing the blast door system. Buy me time."
Genrihk stepped forward, energy boiling around his hands.
"And I will buy you time."
The Belfre crouched with rage in its eyes.
Netoshka lowered her stance.
The chamber fell into a tense, freezing silence—
Then the monster lunged.
And the real fight had began.