The estate gates groaned shut behind them, the sound a final, metallic farewell to relative safety. The world outside the walls was a different entity—a landscape of skeletal buildings and a silence so profound it felt predatory.
The six-member team moved with a hushed urgency, their footsteps muffled on the cracked asphalt. Hyejun led the way, his senses stretched to their limit, painting a mental map of the desolation. Every shadow seemed to hold a lurking menace, every rustle of wind-swept debris a potential herald of the Strikers.
They navigated through a graveyard of abandoned vehicles; the APC they'd commandeered for the first leg of the journey was left hidden a kilometer back. On foot, they were less conspicuous but infinitely more vulnerable.
Takashi walked with a stiff-jawed tension, his injured arm bound tightly. Every glance he stole at Rei, who walked with a new, grim purpose beside Kohta, seemed to fuel a fresh wave of silent resentment. The group's dynamic was a fragile thing, a collection of sharp edges held together by Hyejun's unwavering command and the shared need to survive.
Saya, clutching a handheld digital compass and her annotated maps, pointed towards a looming industrial silhouette against the pre-dawn gloom.
"The Saito facility. Two clicks northeast. The main access road is likely choked, but there's a maintenance tunnel here," she indicated a point on the map, "that should bring us out near the primary control room."
"A tunnel," Kohta murmured, his face pale. "Dark. Enclosed."
"Preferable to fighting through an open complex crawling with those things," Saeko stated, her hand resting on the hilt of her katana. Her calm was a bedrock for the others, her earlier pact with Hyejun a quiet strength between them.
Hyejun gave a curt nod. "The tunnel it is. Single file. Absolute silence."
The entrance was a yawning, rusted maw set into a hillside, half-concealed by overgrown weeds. The air that wafted from it was cold and carried the damp, fungal smell of decay.
Flashlights pierced the absolute blackness within, revealing a concrete tube littered with debris and stagnant puddles. The only sounds were the drip of water and the frantic rhythm of their own hearts.
They had ventured a hundred meters when Hyejun froze, raising a clenched fist. Everyone halted, breath held. His enhanced hearing had picked it up first—a faint, almost subsonic thrum that vibrated through the soles of their boots.
It was the hum Saya had theorized about, now a tangible, oppressive presence in the confined space. It was the sound of the hive.
"We're close," he whispered.
A new sound joined the hum—a skittering, clicking noise from ahead, echoing off the tunnel walls. Multiple sources. Moving fast.
"Contact!" Hyejun barked, his pole staff snapping into a ready position.
Their flashlight beams danced, catching the reflections of countless black-marble eyes. A pack of Strikers, smaller than those at the wall but no less lethal, surged around a bend in the tunnel, their scythe-claws scraping furrows in the concrete as they charged.
"Don't let them flank!" Takashi roared, his fear transforming into rage. He swung his pipe in a wide, brutal arc, smashing the lead creature into the wall with a sickening crunch.
The tunnel became a charnel house. Saeko was an artist of death, her katana a silver blur that left dismembered limbs in its wake. Rei fought with desperate grace, using her spear's length to keep the creatures at bay, impaling them with sharp, precise thrusts. Kohta, though terrified, provided support, using a crowbar to bash any that got past the frontline fighters.
Hyejun was the epicenter of the defense. He moved with an economy of motion that was beautiful and terrifying. His staff was an extension of his will, a whirlwind of precise, killing strikes. He didn't just block attacks; he redirected them, using the Strikers' own momentum to send them crashing into each other or the tunnel walls. He was a wall, and the swarm broke against him.
As the last creature twitched and fell still, the tunnel fell silent once more, save for their ragged panting. The air was thick with the coppery scent of blood and the Strikers' foul odor.
"Everyone intact?" "Hyejun?" he asked, his voice low.
A series of grim nods answered him. They were bruised and bloodied but alive. The tunnel ahead was clear.
"The hum is stronger," Saya noted, her voice trembling slightly. "We're right under it."
They pressed on, the vibration growing more intense with every step. The tunnel ended at a heavy metal door, slightly ajar. Hyejun pushed it open, revealing a cavernous space—the heart of the Saito Chemical Plant.
It was a cathedral of industry, dominated by massive, silent vats and a labyrinth of catwalks. And it was not silent. The low-frequency hum was a physical force here, a drone that made their teeth ache. But that wasn't the only sound.
Scattered throughout the vast room, dozens of the larger Strikers—the ones from the estate attack—were motionless, clustered around the base of a colossal ventilation unit, the apparent source of the hum. They weren't active; they were… dormant. Listening. Charging.
And in the center of the room, standing on a gantry overlooking the dormant horde, was a figure.
It was humanoid, but terribly wrong. Its skin was pulled taut over an emaciated frame, grey and glistening. Its head was elongated, with no visible mouth, only a cluster of fleshy, pulsating apertures where its face should be. From these apertures, the subsonic hum emanated. One of its arms ended not in a hand, but a long, bony stinger that dripped with a black, viscous fluid.
It was a Screamer. A conductor for this horrific orchestra.
Its faceless head turned slowly towards them. The hum shifted in pitch, becoming sharper and more urgent.
Below, the dormant Strikers began to stir. Black-marble eyes snapped open, fixing on the intruders. One by one, they rose, a waking nightmare of clicking claws and gnashing teeth.
They were surrounded. The hive had found them.