Something was flying toward them.
Every flashlight snapped toward the same direction at the same time. In the harsh, pale beams converging into a single line, a swarm of filthy gray-brown shapes came into view.
"Vampire bats!"
No one knew who shouted it first, but the crowd instantly erupted in panic. "And there's a whole swarm!"
Countless vampire bats swept through the tunnel like a migrating locust plague, layering over one another as they filled the air—an entire mass of dense, churning darkness plunging toward them at alarming speed.
Their wings, spanning nearly two meters, flapped with loud, cracking snaps, stirring a torrent of violent air.
Even in the darkness, hundreds of eerie, glowing red eyes gleamed like ghostly fire, sending chills down everyone's spine.
"Everyone, fall back!"
Even though Hayes had prepared for the dangers inside the bunker, the sheer number of creatures rushing them still made a flicker of shock cross his face.
Too many.
The swarm stretched so far down the tunnel it was impossible to see where it ended.
Fifty? A hundred? Even more?
"Prepare to fire!"
There was no time to think. Hayes yanked the handgun from his hip and fired several shots at the approaching swarm, now only a dozen meters away.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
His aim was impeccable—even in motion, every shot hit.
Two or three bats dropped instantly, rolling several meters down the slanted floor.
But one of the bats at the front stumbled, recovered midair just before hitting the ground, and with an enraged screech, broke from the swarm—hurtling straight at Hayes.
A second later, it was right in front of the young man!
Just as the bat's foul, saliva-slick jaws came within thirty centimeters of Hayes's face—
Bang! Bang!
Two bullets tore through its open mouth and into its skull, spraying red-yellow gore.
The grotesque, hulking gray body crashed to the ground. Hayes lowered his gun with a cold, unreadable expression—the barrel still smoking.
He grabbed Albert's wrist and shoved him backward. "Don't just stand there—move."
The tunnel was too narrow, too enclosed for them to shift into beast form. With this many bats, their only option was to suppress them with bullets—for now.
Everyone surged backward, retreating in chaos. Only Hayes's unit stayed at the rear. His soldiers backed up while reloading, raising their guns and firing into the swarm overhead.
In a storm of bullets, bat corpses began to rain down like thunder, splattering across the sloped floor with heavy, wet smacks—becoming piles of crushed flesh.
Their submachine guns were light, portable, and powerful—fully automatic, deadly—but they chewed through ammunition fast.
They wouldn't last long.
Hayes watched for a few seconds. The swarm above them was still impossibly dense. The moment one bat fell, another immediately swooped in to fill the gap. He knew then—this wasn't a threat they could fight off with bullets.
His expression shifted. He dragged Albert toward the middle of the group, his tone uncharacteristically urgent.
"Listen. There are too many of them. We don't have nearly enough ammo. We can hold for maybe thirty seconds—at most. Stay here. If anything happens, go to Norton. He'll protect you."
He raised his voice. "Norton! Keep an eye on him!"
A young man not far away answered immediately.
Norton—Hayes's adjutant.
Albert froze for half a second, then grabbed Hayes in return.
"What are you doing? …Why can't you take me with you?"
Hayes didn't answer. He only turned to glance behind them.
Farther back, Jameson's group was watching with cold, detached eyes.
The moment the swarm appeared, Jameson had retreated to the rear with his elite men, calmly observing while Hayes's team burned through their ammunition.
Hayes had expected nothing more. He never counted on Jameson to help sincerely, so it didn't surprise him. But that also meant…
He had no time to think—no time to respond to Albert's question.
In the handful of seconds they'd spent talking, the massive swarm had already closed in like a tidal wave of darkness.
Hayes's men emptied the last rounds in their magazines and retreated rapidly. One of them was just a step too slow—instantly overtaken by the bats.
At the last possible moment, the soldier shifted into his beast form. His thick fur barely resisted the force of the bat's bite, but the razor teeth still sank in, making him cry out in pain. He rolled hard across the ground, flinging the bat off.
Shadowy figures swept into the crowd in the blink of an eye.
Rrrrip!
With a sharp tearing sound of fabric shredding, a massive snow leopard appeared beside Albert.
Hayes pushed off with his hind legs, leaping high. Midair, he snapped his jaws shut around a bat's belly—precise, brutal, lethal.
His powerful tail swung behind him, striking another bat that was about to ambush Albert, sending it crashing away.
Chaos erupted instantly.
Mutants across the team shifted into their beast forms, clashing with the incoming swarm.
The tunnel entrance shouldn't have been narrow, but once they all turned into animals, maneuvering became nearly impossible—
Hayes's unit had it slightly better, since they could spread out toward the deeper end of the tunnel. But the group clustered behind Jameson was in far worse shape.
They'd walked only five or six hundred meters from the entrance. The bats swept over their heads, impossibly fast—catching up to the very last person in the line in seconds, cutting off all hope of escape.
Many didn't even have the time or space to transform. They were tackled to the ground by the rushing swarm, left with nowhere to run.
Hayes's side wasn't having an easy time either.
The bats that shot up from the depths of the tunnel swarmed toward the massive beasts they saw first, engulfing them until each creature was wrapped into a writhing sphere of wings and screeches.
Those vampire bats that failed to secure a spot at the front had no choice but to veer toward the back.
Hayes's body was far too large to shake off all the bats at once. Just as he twisted around and snapped his jaws around a bat clinging to his shoulder, a sharp burst of pain stabbed into his waist.
The fangs of the evolved vampire bats were as long as a human hand, with roots as thick as a bottle cap.
The foreign object sinking deep into his flesh instantly enraged the snow leopard. Hayes let out a roar, thrashing wildly, but the bat latched onto him might as well have been nailed in place—it didn't budge an inch.
A glint flashed through the snow leopard's eyes. He suddenly bolted sideways, using momentum to ram the side where the bat was clinging straight into the wall.
Boom!
The bat was crushed into pulp on impact.
The tunnel had devolved into complete chaos. Hayes was tightly encircled by a massive swarm of vampire bats, and even freeing himself would take considerable effort. He was gradually losing the ability to pay attention to Albert beside him.
As for Norton—
Albert glanced several meters away at the Arctic wolf whose thigh was gushing blood. The poor thing clearly had its own problems to deal with.
In the split second he was distracted, a sharp-eyed bat spotted the isolated Albert and dove at him like a specter.
Its outspread wings blotted out all incoming light, leaving Albert staring at nothing but a pair of eerie crimson eyes inches from his face.
Albert raised the firearm on instinct and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The bat dropped dead, and Albert exhaled in relief.
The handgun had been handed to him by Hayes before they entered the shelter.
Even though Albert had repeatedly insisted that he didn't know how to use a gun—that giving one to him was a waste—Hayes remained firm.
"Keep it on you for protection. Who knows? It might buy you a few extra seconds."
Albert had to admit… the man wasn't entirely wrong.
Just as the memory surfaced, a vampire bat even larger than the previous one skimmed along the wall and slammed into him, flipping him violently onto the ground.
The handgun flew from his grasp under the immense impact and vanished somewhere out of sight.
Albert: "…"
So the gun really had only bought him a few extra seconds.
But he didn't give up hope immediately.
As a non-beastified human, Albert had no chance of overpowering a bat larger than a grown man. If a beastified mutant got bitten, it might be no worse than being stung by a dozen mosquitoes.
But if he was bitten by a vampire bat…
One bite, and half his life would be gone.
Albert struggled against the creature pinning him to the ground. He used all his strength to grab the bat's jaws, keeping its face from getting too close.
That hideous face—something between dog and bear, pig and rat—was magnified a hundredfold before his eyes, dripping saliva onto him. The sight alone was enough to make anyone retch.
Albert couldn't suppress it; he gagged twice.
So ugly.
He honestly wasn't sure which was worse: "being killed by a bat" or "being killed by something that hideous."
"…You said you wouldn't let me die, remember?" Albert finally spoke in his mind, realizing no amount of screaming would bring help.
"Get out here and say something."
Silence.
[Hey, hey? You're underground now, right? What were you saying? Repeat that, the signal's bad over here.]
Albert: "…"
[Alright, no more jokes.]
The voice shifted tone.
[Honestly, I'm disappointed. I gave you such a powerful skill, and you don't even know how to use it. Fine. Let the almighty god teach you your first lesson. First class—]
[There is nothing that we cannot devour.]
"What?" Albert didn't understand at first.
But soon, his expression changed.
His left palm was warming.
—The "mouth" embedded in his palm had awakened.
Even Albert himself couldn't fully recall what happened in the next ten seconds.
He felt his left hand come alive.
No—more precisely, the mouth that didn't belong to him had come alive. He sensed vaguely that he had no right to command it.
A wave of ravenous hunger surged into his mind. When Albert snapped back to awareness, he realized in horror that the vampire bat's face was melting.
Starting from where his left hand touched it, every inch of its skin, every piece of flesh was being devoured and churned apart at terrifying speed—
And that power came from Albert's own hand.
That mouth…
…was eating.
Feeding on its own, without Albert's permission.
The bat's eyeball slipped from its socket. Half of its face had already been eaten away. Albert's hand plunged uncontrollably into its skull, greedily consuming the mush within.
[Mm. The taste of energy is far richer than ants. Delicious.]The familiar-yet-unfamiliar voice murmured in satisfaction.
[I have already tasted victory ahead of time.And you?]