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*****
Its mass condensed, trading reach for density and speed.
It lunged.
This time, it was fast. Terrifyingly fast.
It unleashed a chaotic storm of tentacles and razor-sharp teeth, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
Atlas's eyes narrowed. The monster had accelerated. It was no longer a stationary target; it was a siege engine moving at highway speeds. But Atlas was still faster—by a razor-thin margin.
"Better," Atlas grunted. "But still too slow."
The clash was titanic.
CLANG!
Atlas blocked a sweeping claw strike with his own blades. The impact created a small airwave that blew steam across the room. The Queen Leech pushed, its immense strength straining against Atlas's frame. Atlas slid back a few inches, sparks flying from his boots, before he deflected the blow upward.
He dove under the creature's guard.
SLASH.
His claws raked across the monster's ribs. The hardened carapace sparked, resisting for a microsecond before the bone claws sheared through it.
The Queen Leech retaliated instantly, a second tentacle whipping around to catch Atlas in the ribs.
Atlas twisted his body mid-stride, the tentacle missing him by inches. The wind of the attack ruffled his hair.
He was dancing on the edge of a razor. He wasn't teleporting; he was outmaneuvering. Every dodge was calculated.
To Rebecca, it looked like a high-speed ballet of gore.
SLASH.
Atlas severed a leg at the knee joint.
The Queen Leech didn't fall; it grew a new limb instantly, stabbing at Atlas with the regenerating spur.
Atlas pivoted, catching the spur between his claws and snapping it.
SNAP.
SLASH.
He carved the jaw off the face.
The monster gurgled, spraying acid. Atlas raised his arm, his leather trench coat taking the burn as he spun into a roundhouse kick.
THUD.
The kick connected with the monster's chest, staggering the colony beast.
"It's opening up like a tin can!" Billy shouted, realizing the armor was useless against the bone claws.
The Queen Leech couldn't regenerate and replace fast enough. Atlas was destroying the biomass faster than the leeches could fill the gaps. He was chopping the Queen Leech faster than it could heal, overwhelmed by the relentless aggression speed and strength.
The creature's screams shifted from rage to fear. It flailed blindly, smashing walls and pipes, desperate to hit the thing that was dissecting it. A massive haymaker swung through the air, capable of crushing metal.
Atlas ducked under it. He slid between its legs, slicing the hamstrings as he passed. He vaulted over its head, leaving deep gouges in its back. Every movement ended with a spray of gore.
Billy watched, his mouth slightly open. He had seen combat. He had seen men kill men. But this... this was art. Violent, bloody, terrifying art.
"He's not fighting it," Billy whispered to
Rebecca, who was watching with a mix of fascination, fear and something else she wasn't sure. "He's butchering it."
Atlas landed in front of the creature, right in the center of its mass. The Queen Leech reared back, exposing its core, preparing for one final, desperate strike.
Atlas saw the opening.
"Checkmate."
He unleashed his full speed giving his all with a flurry of strikes so fast his arms became invisible to the naked eye.
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.
The sound was like a heavy machine gun, but wet—the sound of meat being separated from bone at sub-sonic speeds.
In the span of a few seconds, Atlas delivered over hundreds slashes to the Queen Leech's entire body, working from the head down to the chest, turning the monster's core into a grid of severed nerves.
He stopped abruptly, turning his back on the monster. He slicked his hair back with a gloved hand, shaking the thick, green slime off his claws.
Snakt!
The claws retracted.
For a heartbeat, the Queen Leech stood there, frozen in its attack pose.
Then, gravity took over.
The monster didn't fall over. It fell apart.
It collapsed into hundreds of wet, glistening chunks. The cubes of flesh slid off one another, hitting the floor with a wet, rhythmic slapping sound. They tried to merge again but failed twitching and moving slightly before collapsing again. The regeneration factor failed completely, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of trauma.
The pile of meat quivered once, hissed as the internal heat escaped, and then dissolved into a puddle of dead leeches and viral slurry.
Seeing the Leech Queen die—reduced to nothing more than organic waste—the three of them breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Even after everything, Atlas still checked the system to make sure it was dead.
[Target Neutralized: Queen Leech]
[+4000 EXP]
[+400 EP]
[+2000 VG]
Atlas towered over the carnage, drenched in queen leech slime and fresh blood that oozed from his hair and ruined jacket, each heavy drop striking the ground like an echo of the bloodstorm he had so recently released.
He turned to his team.
"Cleanup complete," he said casually.
Seeing the Leech Queen die—reduced to diced sushi in less than a few minutes—the two of them breathed a sigh of relief.
Rebecca lowered her grenade launcher, her legs trembling. She looked at the pile of goo that used to be a biological god, then at Atlas.
"Atlas," she breathed, her voice shaking. "What are you?"
Atlas gave a violent shake, sloughing off as much of the clinging queen leech slime and warm blood as he could. Then, with heavy steps, he crossed the killing ground, boots crunching over a still-twitching fragment of tentacle.
"I told you," he grinned, the adrenaline making his grey eyes shine in the dark. "I'm the pest control."
---
Location: The Umbrella Training Facility – Boiler Room / Cliffside.
Time: 04:15 AM (Monday).
The silence that followed the Queen Leech's death was deafening.
The monster—a biological god that had screamed of vengeance and fire moments ago—was now nothing more than a wet, disorganized heap of organic slush on the metal grating.
Billy Coen lowered his gun, the barrel smoking.
He stared at the mess, his eyes wide, struggling to reconcile what he had just witnessed with reality. He looked from the pile of slime to the man standing next to it.
Atlas stood tall, his trench coat socked by the carnage, his hands now devoid of the terrifying bone claws. He looked less like a soldier and more like a force of nature that had briefly assumed human form.
The atmosphere was thick, heavy with the smell of ozone, burnt gunpowder, and the copper tang of slaughtered leeches. The fear in the room hadn't vanished; it had simply been stunned into silence.
Atlas sensed the tension. He saw Billy's white-knuckled grip on his gun. He saw Rebecca staring at him, her chest heaving, her eyes darting between his hands and his face, trying to process the lethal efficiency she had just witnessed.
He knew he needed to break the spell before they started fearing him.
Atlas cleared his throat, the sound echoing awkwardly in the boiler room. He looked down at his boots, which were coated in black ichor.
"Yeah," Atlas drawled, his voice breaking the stillness with a casual, dry humor. "I'm gonna need a shower. Preferably one with industrial bleach, a pressure washer, and a priest on standby just in case some of this soul is still stuck under my fingernails."
The absurdity of the comment cut through the horror like a knife.
Billy let out a sharp, surprised bark of laughter. He shook his head, slumping slightly as the adrenaline crashed. "I think you might need an exorcist, too, big guy."
Rebecca looked at Atlas. The terror in her eyes melted away, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming wave of relief. He wasn't a monster. He was Atlas. He was the guy who made bad jokes in the face of death.
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and then she giggled—a sound of pure, hysterical release.
"That was amazing, Atlas," she breathed, her voice filled with genuine awe. She stepped closer to him, her fear forgotten. "It was beyond any action movie I have ever seen. If you weren't covered in... that... I would give you a hug right now."
She threw her hands up in a gesture of helplessness, her eyes shining. It was a joke, but beneath it lay a profound gratitude. She wanted to touch him, to anchor herself to the one thing that felt indestructible in this nightmare.
Atlas grinned, flashing her a wink. "I'll take a rain check on that hug, Rookie. But first, let's get out of here. This place smells like a grave."
"Agreed," Billy said, pushing off the wall. "Let's take the elevator. I've had enough of underground labs for one lifetime."
They turned their backs on the remains of Dr. Marcus and headed for the heavy steel door at the back of the room.
[The Elevator Shaft]
They crowded into the freight elevator. Atlas hit the button for the surface.
The gears groaned, and the platform began to rise.
HUMMM... CLANK.
For a moment, there was peace. Just the rhythmic clanking of the chain drive.