Dr. Chen's garden humidity vanished at the doorframe.
Alex stepped into the stairwell. The cold hit like a hammer. Sweat on his neck flash-froze into gritty ice. Minus sixty-eight. The air didn't just smell of frost; it reeked of deep, subterranean rot.
He descended.
Floor 14 was a graveyard. Doors chewed open. Wood splintered into toothpicks. Slime trails—thick, yellow, hard as quartz—coated the floorboards. Alex didn't stop.
Floor 13.
In the old world, developers skipped this number. Bad luck. Riverside Gardens kept it. The hallway proved the superstition right. Walls cracked. Ceiling sagged. Frozen rust water wept from the concrete.
One door stood out.
Unit 1304.
Neighbors had flimsy wood. This was a fortress. The frame was stripped, reinforced with welded steel angle iron. The door was a solid slab of custom-cut industrial steel painted beige. Heavy-duty deadbolts. No peephole.
A "Prepper."
Someone who knew the end was coming.
Alex touched the steel. Cold. Solid.
"Jackpot."
Most survivors panicked. They hoarded toilet paper. Preppers hoarded lead.
He checked the lock. High-security Mul-T-Lock. Picking it meant ten minutes of frostbite.
He raised his right fist. The [Inferno Gauntlet] hummed.
"Knock knock."
He triggered the pilot.
HISS.
A jet of blue flame vomited from the knuckles. It turned the steel lock cylinder cherry-red. Then white. Grease inside boiled. Springs melted into slag.
Alex cut the fuel. He kicked.
[Str 3.5 Check: Pass]
CLANG.
The mechanism snapped. The heavy door groaned inward.
Alex swept the room.
Stale air. Gun oil. Old dust. Dried copper. Windows blacked out with welded sheet metal. No light leaked in. No heat leaked out.
A man sat in a heavy leather armchair in the center of the room.
Mummified by the dry cold. Skin pulled tight over bone. Tactical vest over a flannel shirt. A half-empty whiskey bottle on the floor. Spilled sleeping pills.
No struggle. No blood. He checked out early.
"Coward," Alex muttered.
He bypassed the corpse.
Shelves lined the walls. Empty. The prepper ate his supplies before giving up. Geiger counter. Hand-crank radio. Topographic maps. Useless trash.
Alex moved to the bedroom. The bed was pushed aside. Behind it, a cut in the drywall revealed a heavy gun safe bolted to the studs.
The door hung open.
Alex shone his flashlight.
The rack was stripped. A missing rifle left a dust outline. But one weapon remained on the bottom shelf. Too bulky for carry. Too heavy for running.
A beast.
Alex hauled it out. The weight dragged at his arm—nearly seven kilos.
[Item Found: AA-12 "Sledgehammer" (Rare)]
[Type: Fully Automatic Shotgun]
[Caliber: 12 Gauge]
[Capacity: 20-Round Drum Magazine]
[Fire Rate: 300 RPM]
[Condition: Mint]
The AA-12. Atchisson Assault Shotgun. Constant recoil system. It didn't kick; it pushed. Designed to turn hallways into meat grinders.
Alex checked the drum mag. Heavy. He popped a shell.
The casing wasn't standard plastic. It was translucent, angry orange. Inside, packed behind the wad, wasn't buckshot. It was compressed zirconium and magnesium chunks.
[Ammo Found: 12-Gauge "Dragon's Breath"]
[Effect: Incendiary. Ignites targets on impact. Burns at 3000°F.]
[System Note: Biological Counter. Critical Damage vs Insectoids.]
Alex smiled. A cold, sharp expression.
"Perfect."
The Gauntlet for melee. The pistol for backup. This? Crowd control. For when the walls started moving.
He racked the bolt. CLACK-CLACK. The sound echoed in the dead apartment.
He slung the AA-12. The strap dug into his armor. He grabbed three extra drums from the safe. Shoved them into inventory.
He walked past the corpse.
"Rest easy," Alex said. "I'll use it better."
He stepped into the hallway.
Silence. Deeper than before. The wind outside held its breath.
Alex adjusted his grip on the shotgun. He looked at the stairwell.
THUMP.
Vibration rattled his teeth.
Not wind. From below.
THUMP.
Dust drifted from the ceiling cracks. Rebar groaned inside the concrete—a low, tortured shriek of metal bending beyond its yield.
Alex froze. He raised the shotgun barrel.
Something massive moved. Not in the hallway.
Inside the structure.
Alex tightened his grip on the polymer stock. The AA-12 didn't feel like the Gauntlet. The Gauntlet was raw, elemental hate—fire and crushing force.
This was different. This was industrial slaughter.
"Sniper for the roof," Alex whispered. The cold air turned his breath into fog. "Gauntlet for the throat. And this..."
He slapped the drum magazine. Solid. Heavy.
"This is for the hallway."
He thumbed the safety. Click.
CRACK.
The floorboards screamed.
It wasn't a thump anymore. It was the sound of structural failure. Wet canvas tearing. Rebar snapping like dry twigs.
Dust plumed from the linoleum near the elevator shaft. The concrete groaned, tortured by pressure from below.
Alex backed up. He leveled the shotgun barrel at the floor.
"Coming up," he hissed.
He didn't run. Running triggered predator instincts. Standing ground triggered the System.
SCREEE.
A drill sound bored into his skull. High-frequency stridulation. The song of tearing metal.
The floor in front of Unit 1302 bulged. The carpet split. The concrete beneath detonated upward.
Debris sprayed the walls.
A claw emerged.
Not black like the roaches. Not hairy like the spiders.
Pale. Translucent. A scythe of organic glass the size of a surfboard. Serrated edges dripped milky, corrosive slime. The goo hit the linoleum. Hiss.
The claw hooked the edge of the breach.
CRUNCH.
Reinforced concrete crumbled like stale cake. The beast pulled.
The hole widened. A head rose from the dust. Triangular. Pale green. Compound eyes the size of dinner plates rotated independently, locking onto the heat signature of the intruder.
Mandibles clicked. Clack-clack-clack. They didn't sound like bone. They sounded like hydraulic shears.
[System Warning] [BOSS Detected: Frost-Blade Mantis (Queen Guard)] [Level: 5 (Elite)] [Status: Enraged] [Agility: S]
The Mantis hauled its massive thorax through the ruin. Seven feet tall. It hunched to fit in the hallway. Wings buzzed, blurring the air, sending waves of freezing wind down the corridor.
It didn't screech. It chattered. A fast, clicking Morse code of murder.
Alex stood fast.
He stepped forward.
"You're big," Alex said.
He aimed the AA-12 at the creature's translucent face.
The Mantis coiled. Muscles bunched under the chitin.
Alex squeezed the trigger.
"Burn."