First things first, if this book gets 40 reviews by the end of the week, I will upload a bonus chapter. Second, should I reduce the word count I take from the last chapter as it seems like some readers don't like it? But keep in mind it's not like it increases the word count.
*****
"I'm coming for you."
BOOM.
Atlas launched himself off the platform. This time, he didn't just run. He rocketed. He moved so fast the wind pushed away wildly. He hit the tunnel walls, running horizontally, defying gravity, chasing the monster into the dark.
---
The Silent Conductor
The Alexia Express – Main Cabin.
Time: 05:02 AM.
[The Express Train]
Inside the main cabin of the train, the mood was a fragile mix of relief and terror. The rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the wheels on the track was hypnotic.
Rain sat slumped against the wall, her complexion now a waxy, corpse-like grey. Her eyes were rolling back in her head.
Kaplan was in the driver's cabin, monitoring the speed. Matt was watching the rear door.
Alice knelt beside Rain, holding the silver briefcase. She snapped a blue vial into the injector gun.
"I don't want to be like them," Rain whispered, her voice barely audible. "When the time comes... do it, Alice. Put a bullet in me."
"Shut up," Alice said, her hands shaking slightly as she pressed the injector to Rain's neck. "You're going to make it."
Hiss.
She pulled the trigger. The blue Anti-Virus hissed into Rain's bloodstream.
Rain gasped, her body arching in a spasm. Then, she went limp. Her head lolled to the side.
"Rain?" Alice asked, her heart stopping.
Silence.
"Rain!" Alice shook her. "Please... wake up."
No response.
Matt looked away, grief etched on his face. "It was too late. The virus... It moves too fast. And she was bitten more than an hour ago; it's a miracle she has survived up until now."
Alice lowered her head. She slowly reached for the gun on the floor. She couldn't let Rain turn.
She had promised.
She raised the Beretta, aiming it at her temple. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
Suddenly, a hand shot up. Rain grabbed the barrel of the gun, pushing it away.
Her eyes snapped open. They were still bloodshot, but the intelligence was back. She took a deep, ragged breath.
"I'm not dead yet," Rain rasped. "Give me that."
She took the gun from a stunned Alice.
Alice let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. A genuine smile broke through her stoic mask.
"I'd kiss you, bitch," Alice laughed, tears in her eyes. "You scared me."
Rain managed a weak smirk. "Not your type."
SCREEEEEEECH!
The train shuddered violently. Metal tore.
"What was that?" Matt shouted, grabbing the door frame to steady himself.
From the rear of the train, the sound of heavy claws shredding the roof echoed down the cabin.
"It caught up," Alice realized, standing up. "The Licker!"
CRASH!
The roof of the driver's cabin exploded inward.
"Kaplan!" Alice screamed.
Kaplan turned around, his eyes wide. "What—"
A massive, tongue-like tentacle shot through the hole in the roof. It wrapped around Kaplan's torso, lifting him out of his seat.
"NO! HELP!"
Kaplan was yanked upward through the jagged metal hole. His scream was cut short as he was dragged onto the roof of the speeding train.
"Kaplan!" Matt rushed to the door, but it was too late.
The train, now driverless, continued to hurtle down the tracks.
THUD.
The Licker dropped from the roof into the main cabin, landing between Alice and the exit. It hissed, blood dripping from its claws—Kaplan's blood.
"Back!" Alice yelled, shoving Rain behind her.
The creature lunged.
Matt grabbed a heavy steel sliding door, trying to slam it shut to block the beast.
"I've got it!" Matt grunted, slamming the door.
But the Licker didn't care about doors. It slammed its shoulder into the steel.
BAM.
The door flew off its tracks. It hit Matt square in the chest, sending him flying backward.
"Argh!" Matt crashed into the wall, clutching his shoulder. Three deep claw marks tore through his shirt, blood welling up instantly.
"Matt!" Alice raised her gun, firing.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The bullets hit the Licker's exposed brain, but the creature just shook its head, enraged. It swiped the gun out of Alice's hand.
It cornered them. Alice, Matt, and the injured Rain. There was nowhere left to run. The Licker raised its massive talons, preparing to slaughter them all.
Alice grabbed a steel pipe, bracing herself for the end.
But then, she saw movement through the shattered rear window.
A figure was running behind the train.
No. Not behind.
He was catching up.
Atlas was sprinting along the tracks, his legs moving at a speed that defied logic. He looked like the grey streak of a motorbike.
He leaped.
He cleared the gap between the tracks and the moving train, landing on the rear coupling. He vaulted onto the roof.
Inside the cabin, the Licker hissed, about to strike Alice.
CRASH!
The roof above the Licker exploded downward.
Atlas dropped into the cabin like a meteor.
He didn't land on his feet. He landed on his prey.
Time seemed to slow for Alice.
She saw the white skin. The gray silver hair. The glowing eyes.
Atlas crossed his arms in front of his chest in mid-air. The six silver-white-bone claws extended fully, gleaming under the flickering cabin lights.
"Game over," a deep voice boomed.
As he passed the Licker in his descent, Atlas uncrossed his arms in a violent, outward slash.
X-STRIKE.
The sheer force of the blow, combined with his momentum and Strength 19, was catastrophic.
The silver-white claws sheared through the Licker's neck.
Atlas landed in a crouch between Alice and the monster.
Behind him, the Licker stood frozen for a second. Then, slowly, its head slid off its shoulders.
SPLAT.
The body collapsed a second later, spraying blue blood across the walls.
Atlas stood up slowly, shaking the gore off his claws. He turned to face Alice, a charming, albeit blood-stained, smile on his face.
He ignored the system notifications for a moment, looking directly into Alice's stunned blue eyes.
"Ticket inspection," Atlas quipped, his voice smooth, deep, and utterly incongruous with the carnage surrounding him. "I believe that passenger didn't pay."
He gestured vaguely with a blood-stained claw toward the headless corpse of the Licker twitching on the floor.
The joke hung in the air, heavy and dead.
Nobody laughed. There was no chuckle, no sigh of relief, not even a nervous titter. The only sound in the train cabin was the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the wheels on the tracks and the high-pitched whistling of wind rushing through the hole in the roof where Kaplan had been dragged out.
Alice and Matt stood frozen, pressed against the back wall of the cabin. Their chests heaved with exhaustion, but their eyes were wide, locked onto the figure crouching amidst the gore.
To Alice, the scene was a cognitive dissonance that made her head spin.
The creature—no, the man—standing before them was terrifying. He was drenched in blue and red blood. Six curved, silver-white blades extended from his knuckles, shimmering with a sharpness that looked like it could cut through reality itself. His aura was heavy, a suffocating pressure that triggered every survival instinct she had.
And yet... he wasn't ugly.
Contrary to the rotting horrors they had fought in the Hive, this entity possessed a strange, dark beauty. His skin was pale as alabaster, smooth and flawless. His features were sharp, aristocratic, framed by hair that had turned a metallic silver-grey. His eyes were the most striking part—glowing with a dim, grey luminescence that spoke of intelligence, vanity, and power.
He looked less like a zombie and more like a fallen angel who had decided to start eating people.
"Who... who are you?" Matt stammered, clutching his bleeding shoulder. The infection from the Licker's scratch was already burning in his veins, but the fear of Atlas cut through the fever.
Atlas stood up slowly. He retracted his claws halfway, the metal bone sliding back with a soft snakt, but kept them ready. He opened his mouth to speak, to perhaps introduce himself as their savior or their nightmare.
But the T-Virus waits for no one.
Behind Alice and Matt, a low, wet groan gargled through the cabin.
"Uuuugghhh..."
Alice spun around.
Rain Ocampo, the tough-as-nails commando who had fought through hell with a hole in her arm, was standing up.
But Rain was gone.
The Anti-Virus had failed—or perhaps it had arrived seconds too late. Her skin had turned a mottled, bruised purple. Her eyes, once fierce and determined, were now completely white, filmed over by cataracts. Her mouth hung slack, drool mixed with black bile dripping onto her tactical vest.
"Rain?" Alice whispered, heartbreak cracking her voice. She reached out a hand, a reflex of friendship. "Rain, no..."
The zombie that used to be Rain snarled. It wasn't a human sound. It was the sound of pure, mindless hunger. She lunged at Alice, teeth snapping for the jugular.
"Watch ou—" Matt started to yell.
ZIP.
The air in the cabin displaced with a sound like tearing canvas.
Before Alice could scream, before Matt could raise his gun, and before Zombie-Rain could close her jaws, Atlas moved.
He didn't walk. He didn't run. He simply appeared.
One second, he was standing over the Licker. The next, he was standing behind Rain.
Atlas's expression was bored, almost clinical.
His right hand was a blur.
SHING.
A single, horizontal flash of silver.
Rain's snarl was cut short. A thin red line appeared across the bridge of her nose, extending through her cranium. The top half of her head slid slowly backward, defying gravity for a split second, before sliding off entirely.
THUD.
The two halves of the body collapsed to the floor.
Alice gasped, stumbling back until she hit the train door. She looked at her dead friend, then up at Atlas. The efficiency of the kill was terrifying. There was no struggle. No fight. Just execution.
"She was expired," Atlas said simply, flicking Rain's blood off his claws onto the floor. "No refunds."
In that moment, Alice and Matt realized the truth. They weren't saved. They had simply traded a wild animal for a calculated killer. They were trapped in a metal box moving at eighty miles per hour with a god of death.
In that moment, fear settled deep in their bones—they knew that—if he was hostile, their fate was sealed. They were completely fucked.
Atlas ignored their terrified stares. He turned his back to them, seemingly unconcerned that two armed people were behind him.
To them, it looked like arrogance.
To Atlas, it was inventory management.
'Pleione,' he commanded internally, his mind racing at the speed of a supercomputer. 'Show me the loot. Make me feel rich.'
[Affirmative.]
The blue system window cascaded over his vision, invisible to the humans.
[CALCULATING REWARDS]
> Target Eliminated: Subject-009 (The Licker)
> Base Reward: 500 EXP
> Evolution Material: 100 EP
> Soul Harvest: 300 V-Gold
>
> Kill Log (Sewer Horde):
> Experience: +260 EXP
> Evolution Points: +52 EP
> Soul Harvest: +70 V-Gold
[Ding!]
[ QUEST COMPLETE ]
[Quest Name: The First Apex]
Objective: Eliminate the Licker roaming the Building.
Status: COMPLETE (1/1)
Rewards:
> * 1000 EXP
> * 2000 V-Gold]
A surge of warmth flooded Atlas's core—the feeling of the System injecting raw power into his cellular structure. It was better than adrenaline. It was little better than sex but just a little. It was growth.
[ LEVEL UP! ]
He had already leveled up to 5 entirely by killing the zombies during his journey to train.
The massive XP dump from the Licker and the Quest had catapulted him straight to Level 6.
'Show me the status,' Atlas ordered, mentally drooling over the numbers.