Throughout their movement, Thien Lang never stopped scenting the air, desperately searching for any sign of life. However, his efforts seemed to yield only despair. Within the staff duty rooms, if they didn't find the grotesque remains of Ghouls, they found only withered, frozen corpses.
Before long, the team reached the Security Coordination Center. The heavy doors were sealed tight. Drawing from his previously gathered intel, Thien Anh retrieved a universal decryption card and pressed it against the electronic lock.
As they waited for the system to verify the credentials, Thien Anh and Lam Linh simultaneously raised their weapons, their black muzzles trained on the door, ready for any contingency. Thien Anh kept his voice at a near-whisper, audible only via the comms:
"This door is deadbolted from the inside. It's highly likely survivors are within. When it slides open, do not fire until a target is confirmed."
Lam Linh offered a sharp nod, her finger resting lightly on the trigger guard. Moments later, the electronic door hissed and slid aside. A thick, putrid wave of death rolled out—the unmistakable stench of decomposition that Thien Anh had become all too familiar with in this dying world.
They advanced cautiously. Contrary to the atmosphere of death, the power here remained live; LED lights flickered, and dozens of surveillance monitors blinked, reflecting the shadowed corners of the base.
Thien Anh's gaze swept the room, spotting seven or eight corpses in military uniform scattered about. However, amidst the rotting remains, two shadows suddenly stirred. Instantly, Thien Anh and Lam Linh's muzzles locked onto the movement.
As they drew closer, they were stunned to find a man and a woman, both in uniform, but their bodies had wasted away into living skeletons wrapped in parched skin. Lam Linh gasped in pure shock:
"Minh Hang!"
She hurriedly holstered her weapon and rushed forward to check the status of the gasping girl. Thien Anh cast a brief look before turning to Thien Lang:
"Stay here and support her. I'm going to deal with the rats outside."
Thien Lang let out a low huff of agreement, stepping in to guard Lam Linh. Thien Anh then moved toward the bank of monitors. Through the hidden camera grid, he quickly pinpointed the remaining intruders. One group was scavenging through Sector D, the other in Sector A. Total count: twenty-four.
He looked down at Thien Thanh coiled around his neck and spoke softly: "Thanh, stay here and track their movements. Report any activity to me immediately, understood?"
"Yes, Bé understands!" Thien Thanh replied in her small, childlike voice.
Thien Anh offered a faint smile, patting the spirit beast's head before shouldering his submachine gun and exiting the room. With Thien Thanh's eyes overseeing the entire facility, Thien Anh now moved like a god presiding over the fate of his enemies. Though Thien Thanh didn't understand technical data, her ability to recognize imagery and relay locations was more than enough for Thien Anh to deliver lethal strikes.
Thien Anh had no intention of a head-on confrontation with over twenty gunmen. He chose the path of an apex hunter: an ambush from the shadows. Some might call it cowardly, but to Thien Anh, pragmatism was the ultimate truth of survival. He knew that even with two mutations granting him superior strength and reflexes, a single 'lucky' bullet to the cranium would end everything.
Guided by Thien Thanh, Thien Anh maneuvered ahead of the insurgents' path. He covertly planted five timed charges at strategic points where he predicted they would congregate, then carefully brushed snow over them to erase all traces.
Thien Anh's calculations bore fruit. After a period of fragmented movement, the two enemy squads began to merge, advancing down the corridor toward the kill zone. However, they displayed a modicum of caution, dispersing into smaller fireteams of five to seven men to approach the objective.
Thien Anh's gaze was as cold as the permafrost. He crouched patiently behind a ruined fortification, his breathing rhythmic, waiting for the perfect moment like a leopard in the dark.
When a squad of seven stepped directly into the heart of one of the mines, Thien Anh pressed the detonator without a shred of hesitation.
BOOM!
a sharp, concentrated detonation rocked the sector. The staggering overpressure and shrapnel from the mine escorted all seven insurgents to the next world in an instant.
The massive blast sent the remaining groups into a panic. When they found themselves unable to contact their fallen comrades, they scrambled for cover behind makeshift embrasures outside the building. They feared an ambush but committed a terminal blunder: they were entirely unaware that their chosen cover sat squarely within the crosshairs of a sniper positioned directly opposite them.
Thien Anh calmly mounted his light sniper rifle onto its rest and pressed his eye to the optic.
The real hunt was about to begin.