The towel hit the floor with a soft, muffled thud. Lam Linh stood paralyzed in the warm air, her entire body rigid as if she had been doused in liquid nitrogen.
It took a long, agonizing moment before she could stammer, her finger trembling as she pointed at the two creatures:
"They… they… were talking?"
Thien Lang, who had been lounging across the rug, raised his massive head. He shot her a look of pure, unadulterated condescension.
"What's so strange about talking? Never seen a handsome, articulate wolf before? How provincial."
Azure Sky, coiled atop the sofa armrest, let out a sibilant hiss, her forked tongue flicking with mockery.
"Utterly dim-witted. To be paralyzed by something so trivial—it's a disappointment to the entire human race. And put some clothes on, sister; the sight is an assault on my eyes."
Lam Linh felt the world tilt on its axis. The world had gone mad. Zombies, monsters, surreal blizzards… she had forced herself to accept them. But animals that spoke human tongue—and with such biting sass—was a bridge too far for her neural pathways.
She frantically scrambled into her clothes, her face burning crimson, her head buzzing as if a swarm of hornets had taken up residence inside.
Just as Lam Linh was on the verge of a total cognitive short-circuit, Azure Sky's tone turned suddenly sharp and professional.
"Brother, look at Monitor 4. What on earth are those things?"
Thien Anh pivoted instantly toward the surveillance array.
Against the pristine white backdrop of the snowy street, a magnificent and terrifying sight unfolded.
A pack of mutated crocodiles was on the move. Leading them was a gargantuan beast, as large as a double-decker bus. The scales across its back weren't the usual muddy grey; they were a radiant, molten crimson, cracked like cooling magma. From these fissures, a faint pink light emanated, melting the snow with every lumbering step it took.
"Fire-attribute mutant crocodiles?" Thien Anh narrowed his eyes, assessing the threat. "That alpha must weigh at least twenty tons. Standard rounds won't even tickle that hide."
Trailing behind it were hundreds of smaller crocodiles, each still the size of a hippopotamus. They swarmed through the ruins, scavenging everything in their path: corpses, rotted wood, even blood-stained ice.
"They're adapting fast," Thien Lang marveled. "Only a few days of cold and they've already evolved thermal mechanisms."
Azure Sky observed, "It seems specialized evolution—focusing on a single trait like heat generation—is faster than our holistic approach."
Thien Anh nodded. His team followed the balanced path: Intellect, Strength, Speed. Slower, but far more certain.
Suddenly...
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
The red alert klaxon wailed through the bunker. Warning lights strobed in a frantic rhythm.
[WARNING: MAIN BULKHEAD UNDER ATTACK! DURABILITY AT 95%... 92%...]
"Intruders!"
Thien Anh bolted upright, snatching his shotgun and his Greatblade. Thien Lang and Azure Sky instantly dropped into combat stances. Lam Linh cowered in the corner, paralyzed by fear.
Thien Anh focused on the main entrance camera.
Not humans. Not crocodiles.
Rats.
A swarm of mutated rodents, their fur slick with an oily black sheen. Each was bloated, the size of a wild boar, weighing hundreds of pounds. Their eyes glowed like embers of burning coal. But the most horrifying feature was their incisors—two long, yellowed fangs that looked like industrial metal cutters.
Scrape... Grate... Screech...
The sound of teeth gnashing against the alloy steel door was a high-pitched, agonizing vibration. Shards of metal fell to the floor like gray snow. The heavy bulkhead was being eroded at a terrifying velocity.
"Are their teeth made of diamond?" Thien Anh cursed. "They're chewing through alloy steel like it's a dry biscuit!"
If they breached the interior, the bunker would be overrun in minutes.
"I'll have to use poison. Firearms are too messy for a confined entrance."
Thien Anh lunged into the storage room, grabbing a pressurized garden sprayer. He filled it with water and shouted:
"Thanh! Over here!"
Azure Sky understood, darting to his side.
"Vent your venom into this! The high-potency strain!"
Azure Sky unhinged her jaw, spitting three concentrated streams of deep violet venom into the tank. Thien Anh gave it a violent shake, then sprinted back to the bulkhead.
He slightly cracked open the observation slit—a reinforced pinhole designed specifically for outward discharge.
HIIISSSSSSS—
Thien Anh squeezed the trigger. A fine mist of lethal neurotoxins sprayed out, enveloping the rats as they feverishly gnawed at the steel.
The rats inhaled the toxic vapor, pausing for a brief second of confusion.
Three seconds later.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The seven rats clawing at the door went rigid, convulsed once, and collapsed into the snow. Even diluted, Azure Sky's evolved venom was a weapon of absolute termination.
"Show's over," Thien Anh exhaled, sealing the slit.
"Lam Linh! Get over here and help!"
Lam Linh crept forward, her face ashen.
"Help… help with what?"
"Prep the neutralizing agent. I need to open the hatch to drag the carcasses in, but I don't want us breathing in Thanh's mist."
Lam Linh nodded, reclaiming her focus through her professional training. She quickly analyzed the residual venom samples and prepared an alkaline solution to neutralize the air.
Once safety was confirmed, Thien Anh opened the hatch, donned heavy gloves, and began dragging the seven gargantuan rat carcasses inside.
Gazing at the pig-sized rodents with their bristling fur, Lam Linh shivered.
"How… how can rats grow this large?"
"Genetic mutation, an abundance of nutrition…" Thien Anh said as he gripped a rat by its tail to haul it away. "These things eat anything; it's only natural they grow—wait."
He froze.
As he dragged one of the rats, the pressure on its bloated abdomen caused it to suddenly erupt in a visceral, rhythmic vomit.
Splat… Squelch…
The putrid stench that billowed out was overwhelming. Lam Linh doubled over, retching violently on the spot.
Thien Anh narrowed his eyes, shining his flashlight into the pool of vomit. Mingled with stomach acid and shards of bone was a human head.
The head of a small child, hair still tied in neat braids, eyes staring wide and murky. Half the skin on the face had been eroded by acid, revealing ivory-white milk teeth. Beside it lay a tiny finger, still adorned with a cheap, plastic toy ring.
The air in the bunker turned cold and heavy. Thien Anh stood in a hollow silence, his gaze turning to absolute ice. Seeing the sight, Lam Linh let out a strangled shriek and collapsed, retching until she was heaving nothing but bile. The brutal reality of the world outside had just delivered a shattering blow to her soul.