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*****
The Bat swooped, its talons aiming for Atlas's face.
Atlas didn't dodge. He engaged his Enhanced Vision. The world slowed down. He tracked the trajectory of the beast.
BOOM.
The shotgun roared.
The buckshot slammed into the Bat's chest. It shrieked, veering off course and smashing into a pew.
It scrambled up, screeching orders to its minions. The small bats swarmed Atlas, biting and scratching.
Atlas ignored them. His skin was too tough for their small teeth. He pumped the shotgun.
CH-CHK. BOOM.
He hit the big bat again, blowing off a chunk of its wing. The noise produced by the shot alone caused the other bats to become shriek and take flight.
The monster tried to lift him, to carry him into the air and drop him. It grabbed his shoulders with its massive talons.
It flapped its wings, straining.
It couldn't lift him. Atlas weighed nearly 200 pounds of dense bone and muscle. He planted his feet.
"You're not taking me anywhere," Atlas growled.
He grabbed the Bat's leg with his free hand.
He slammed the creature into the ground like a wet towel.
CRUNCH.
He placed the barrel of the Winchester against its head.
"Amen."
BOOM.
The head vanished.
[+420 Experience Points]
"Mmm 20 more points than the centipede."
Atlas dusted off his jacket. He walked out of the room.
Rebecca and Billy were waiting right outside the door, weapons raised, looking terrified.
"We heard shooting!" Rebecca gasped. She scanned him for injuries, her hands hovering as if she wanted to check him herself. "Are you okay? What was in there?"
"Just a bat," Atlas said casually, reloading a shell. "A big one. It's handled."
Rebecca let out a breath she'd been holding. She stepped closer to him, her shoulder brushing his arm.
"You scare me sometimes," she whispered.
"Better me than them," Atlas winked.
They moved through the Chapel courtyard. Atlas found a hidden switch behind a gravestone classic RE logic that restored power to the service elevator.
They squeezed into the cage. The gears groaned as they descended deep underground.
When the doors opened, they weren't in a gothic castle anymore. They were in a modern, sterile corridor.
The Laboratory Sector.
"This must be the reference room," Billy said, pushing open a door marked [ LIBRARY ].
The room was filled with books and servers. In the center, on a desk, lay a leather-bound journal.
Atlas picked it up. Dr. Marcus's Diary.
"September 1978... The Progenitor Virus is promising... combining it with leech DNA..."
"October 1978... Spencer is trying to steal my work..."
"There is only one room here," Billy noted, pacing the perimeter. "And there is no other way out. It's a dead end."
THUNK.
A small piece of plaster fell from the ceiling, hitting Atlas on the shoulder.
He looked up.
There was a maintenance hole in the ceiling, about twelve feet up.
"Not a dead end," Atlas smiled.
He didn't look for a ladder. He simply bent his knees.
WOOSH.
He jumped.
It was a display of raw, superhuman power that made Billy's jaw drop. Atlas soared twelve feet into the air, grabbed the ledge of the hole with one hand, and pulled himself up in a fluid motion.
"Show off," Billy muttered.
"You wait for me down here," Atlas called down. "I'll find the unlock switch or something."
Atlas stood in the upper room.
It was a bio-lab. Glass tanks lined the walls, filled with cloudy fluid and no floating horrors.
He walked to the computer terminal. A map of the facility was displayed on the screen.
[ TARGET: LEECH CAPSULE ]
At the end of the room, inside a pressurized container, was a pristine specimen. A Blue Leech.
"For the collection," Atlas whispered. He grabbed a bio-hazard bag and sealed the specimen inside. This would be invaluable for his own research later.
He found the wall release lever.
CLANK.
The wall below slid open, revealing a hidden passage to Rebecca and Billy.
"Clear!" Atlas shouted down. "Move through!"
Rebecca didn't say anything, she just moved to his side, matching his stride. She had stopped asking how he did the things he did. She just accepted that he was the Titan, and she was safe in his shadow. "Let's go," Atlas said. 'We're getting close to the Queen.'
---
Location: The Laboratory Sector – B2 Corridor / Morgue.
Time: 12:15 AM (Monday).
Atlas watched Rebecca and Billy disappear down the left corridor. He waited a beat, ensuring they were safe, before turning toward the heavy, reinforced door at the end of the right hall.
It was sealed tight. No keyhole. No electronic pad. Just sheer mass.
"Subtlety is overrated," Atlas muttered.
He didn't use a gun. He planted his boot against the steel frame.
THOOM.
The door groaned, the hinges screaming in protest.
THOOM.
With a second kick, the locking mechanism sheared off. The door swung open, hitting the wall with a heavy clang.
Atlas stepped inside.
He was in a specialized research lab. The air smelled of formaldehyde and death. Glass beakers sat on tables, half-filled with dried chemicals.
Lying on the floor were several bodies. They wore white bio-hazard suits with the Umbrella logo on the arm patches.
Scrape.
At the sound of his footsteps, the bodies twitched. They began to crawl toward him, their movements jerky and desperate.
Atlas didn't hesitate. He drew his G19—saving the Magnum rounds for bigger game.
POP. POP. POP. POP.
Headshot after headshots. The bodies slumped back to the floor, permanently still.
He moved deeper into the room. At the back, he found a sealed glass chamber filled with a thick, yellow gas. Through the haze, he could see a body slumped in the corner, clutching something shiny.
"Poison gas," Atlas noted. "Need to ventilate it."
He looked at the locking mechanism on the chamber door. It had a peculiar,
organic-shaped groove.
Atlas reached into his bio-hazard bag and pulled out the Blue Leech Specimen he had collected earlier.
He pressed it into the slot.
CLICK. HISS.
The door unlocked..
Atlas stepped inside, he wasn't even breathing so it didn't matter.
The room was a morgue. A stainless steel operating table sat in the center, stained with old blood. The stench was overpowering—a cocktail of rot and chemical preservatives.
To the right, a cabinet. Atlas opened it and found a canister of Green Chemical.
"Healing herb mixer," he noted, pocketing it.
To the left, another door.
He opened it.
This was the holding area. Cages lined the walls, most of them broken open.
SCREEE!
Two shapes dropped from the ceiling.
Subject: HUNTER ALPHA.
They landed in a crouch, their green scales glistening, their razor claws extended. They hissed, recognizing the intruder not as prey, but as a threat.
They lunged simultaneously.
Atlas didn't dodge. He dropped into a combat stance.
SNIKT.
"Come get some."
The first Hunter swiped at his head. Atlas ducked under the blow, moving with a speed that defied his size. He drove his claws upward into the creature's soft underbelly.
SHING.
The silver-white bone sliced through the Hunter's scales like a hot knife through butter. Green blood sprayed across the room. The Hunter shrieked, clutching its eviscerated stomach.
The second Hunter tried to flank him. Atlas spun, using the momentum of his turn to deliver a backhand slash.
CRUNCH.
His claws caught the Hunter in the neck, severing the jugular and the spine in one motion. The head flopped loosely to the side.
Atlas turned back to the first one, which was trying to crawl away. He walked over and stomped on its skull.
SPLAT.
Silence returned to the morgue.
Atlas stood there, blood dripping from his claws and jacket.
Then, a chime rang in his mind. Clear as a bell.
[Ding! Congratulations, Atlas. You have fulfilled the conditions required to unlock the System Mall. The System Mall is now accessible.]
Atlas's eyes widened. A grin spread across his face, feral and delighted.
Atlas was very happy when he heard this and finally unlocked the mall.
"Finally."
'Pleione,' he commanded mentally. 'Calculate my rewards.'
[ Target Neutralized: Hunter Alpha. +600 XP. +60 EP. +30 VG. ]
[ Target Neutralized: Hunter Alpha. +600 XP. +60 EP. +30 VG. ]
[ SYSTEM ALERT: YOU HAVE LEVELED UP! ]
[ Level 6 ➔ Level 7 ]
"Show me," Atlas whispered.
A blue holographic window appeared in his vision, invisible to the rest of the world.
[Affirmative]
[ STATUS WINDOW ]
Name: Atlas Cruor
Race: Infected Evolved Zombie – Undead Variant (Tier 1)
Level: 7 (1150/6400 EXP)
Evolution Stage: Active Mutation
[Core Attributes]
Strength: 26
Agility: 29
Stamina: ∞
Mind: 30
Status Point: 15
[Derived Stats]
Reaction Speed: 29
Regeneration: Low
Combat Instinct: 4
Mental Stability: Near Perfect
[Condition]
Hunger: None
Infection Stability: Stable.
Sanity: LOCKED
[Skills]
Neural Control (Passive), Retractable Claws (Active), Constant Regeneration (Passive)
[Evolution Traits]
Undead Zombie:
[Resources]
Evolution Points: 522
V-Gold: 8122
\\
He wanted to open the system mall immediately and browse. He wanted to spend hours scrolling through the catalog, min-maxing his build, planning his power.
But he heard footsteps in the hallway.
He closed the window with a reluctant sigh.
"Later," he promised himself. "When I'm not in constant combat."
He scanned the room one last time. Next to a broken cage, he found a red canister.
Algaecide.
"Bingo."
He grabbed the canister and backtracked to the glass chamber. He inserted the Algaecide into the ventilation slot.
HISS…
The yellow gas neutralized, turning clear.
Atlas opened the chamber door. The body in the corner was still clutching something tightly.
A Silver Key.
Atlas raised his magnum.
Bang.
He put a bullet in the head before touching it. The body jerked once, then settled.
"Professional courtesy," Atlas muttered.
He pried the key from the dead fingers.
He left the morgue and returned to the locked door he had bypassed earlier. He inserted the
Silver Key.
It turned smoothly.
He opened the door.
He wasn't in a room. He was in a massive, cavernous underground hangar.
Suspended over a bottomless abyss was a large industrial cable car.
"There's the exit," Atlas breathed.
He grabbed his walkie-talkie.
"Rebecca, Billy. Come in."
"I'm here," Rebecca's voice crackled back instantly, breathless. "I'm with Billy. We found the breeding room. What's your status?"
"I found a cable car," Atlas said. "It looks functional. This is our ticket out. Get to my coordinates."
"We know where that is," Billy's voice chimed in. "We saw it on the map. On our way."
Atlas walked to the control panel on the wall. He threw the master breaker.
KACHUNK... HUMMM.
Floodlights flickered on, illuminating the massive cavern. The cable car hummed to life.
Atlas climbed the ladder to the upper control room. A moment later, the side door burst open.
Rebecca and Billy ran in. They were covered in grime, breathing hard.
When Rebecca saw Atlas standing there, calm and unharmed, her shoulders visibly sagged with relief. Her eyes swept over his body, checking for wounds, for blood that wasn't his.
Atlas caught her stare. He flashed her a thumbs-up and a wink.
"Miss me?"
Rebecca flushed crimson, her eyes darting away to the floor. "I just... wanted to make sure you weren't eaten."
"I'm inedible," Atlas grinned.
The tension in the room shifted. It wasn't just survival anymore; there was a warmth there. A connection.