"Run for the parking lot! Now!"
Thien Anh roared, suppressing the agonizing spasm in his chest. Thien Lang understood instantly; his four paws dug into the floorboards, and he bolted like an obsidian arrow.
Behind them, the collective shriek of hundreds of Ghouls rose like a thundering storm. They surged from the hospital's main entrance, a black tide of bloodthirsty insects.
Thien Anh pivoted on the wolf's back, the submachine gun in his hands beginning to spit fire.
RAT-TAT-TAT!
These weren't standard rounds—they were explosive-tipped.
The bullets tore into the center of the horde, detonating upon impact. Shredded flesh and bone sprayed in every direction. Ghouls struck by the blast had their bodies rent asunder, limbs flying through the air, yet those behind them simply trampled over the remains of their kin to press the charge.
"Too many!"
Thien Anh gritted his teeth. He swept the muzzle toward the cars scattered across the lot.
"Let's try this!"
BOOM!
A round punched through the fuel tank of a small truck.
KABOOM!
A gargantuan fireball erupted, swallowing dozens of Ghouls in an instant. The shockwave hurled a cluster of monsters into the air like tattered ragdolls.
He didn't stop.
BOOM! BANG!
Thien Anh transformed the parking lot into a searing minefield. Radiant heat and jagged metal fragments became weapons of mass destruction. The enemy numbers dropped significantly, but the horde remained immense.
"Inside! Find high ground to fortify!"
Thien Lang weaved through the charred wrecks and lunged into the inpatient ward.
The stairwell. The ideal bottleneck.
Thien Anh leaped down, rigging a cluster of grenades to the first-floor railing. He yanked the pins and sprinted up to the second floor with Thien Lang.
BOOM!
The detonation shook the entire building. The stairs connecting the first and second floors collapsed into a heap of rubble, leaving a gaping void. Their only path up had been severed.
The Ghouls flooded in, swarming the base of the broken stairs. They tilted their heads back, shrieking at the ceiling, lunging futilely at the gap. They piled atop one another, forming a writhing mountain of flesh.
"Have some candy."
Thien Anh stood at the jagged edge of the second floor, coldly dropping grenades into the pit.
BOOM! CRASH!
Each grenade that fell into that "flesh-well" sent a geyser of gore and bone splattering up to the ceiling.
But the price was heavy.
The concussive force of the blasts combined with the relentless physical strain caused Thien Anh's old injuries to flare up with a vengeance.
"Urgh!"
Thien Anh clutched his chest, collapsing to his knees. A stream of fresh blood erupted from his mouth, soaking his collar. His lungs burned as if filled with liquid fire. His vision began to blur into a hazy smear.
"Master!" Thien Lang rushed to support him, panic in his voice.
"I'm… cough… I'm fine. Just a little more."
The number of Ghouls below had dwindled; only the mangled survivors remained, whimpering in the dark.
"Mutt, go down and finish the cleanup. I need a minute."
"On it!"
Thien Lang roared, leaping directly from the second floor into the sea of corpses below. With his armor and overwhelming power, he became a living meat grinder, pulverizing those who still twitched.
On the second floor.
Thien Anh sat with his back against the wall, gasping for air. But the danger hadn't passed.
Skreee… Scrape…
The sound of talons raking across the floorboards. From the patient rooms lining the second-floor corridor, Ghouls that had been trapped inside began to batter down the doors. Over a hundred of them surged out.
Thien Anh moved to raise his gun, but the agony made his hands tremble.
"Leave it to me!"
A jade blur shot out from Thien Anh's coat. Little Thanh had entered the fray. She wasn't as massive as Thien Lang, but she was faster than the wind itself. Little Thanh glided across the floor, weaving through the forest of the monsters' legs.
Snap! Strike! Snap!
She didn't aim for the throat; she struck the tendons and ankles of the Ghouls. The high-potency neurotoxin took effect instantly. Running Ghouls suddenly convulsed violently, face-planting onto the floor, frothing at the mouth as total paralysis set in.
In minutes, the hallway was carpeted with spasming corpses. Little Thanh slithered back, her jade scales marked with a few shallow scratches from Ghoul talons, but thanks to her Tier-2 hide, she was unharmed.
"All done, brother. Easy as pie." Little Thanh flicked her tongue, her face a mask of self-satisfaction.
Suddenly, she snapped her head up, staring toward the end of the corridor.
"Brother, that room over there… I think there are people inside."
Thien Anh wiped the blood from his lips, struggling to stand. "How can you tell?"
"I see scribbles on the glass. I can't read, but it looks messy—like a human's hand."
Thien Anh nodded. He reloaded his weapon and signaled to Little Thanh:
"Get Thien Lang up here. Better to be cautious."
...
The trio gathered and advanced toward the end of the hallway.
With every step Thien Anh took, his broken ribs grated against his lungs—a pain so sharp it brought out a cold sweat. Yet his muzzle remained steady.
They reached Room 212.
The door was barricaded from within by heavy shelving. On the reinforced glass pane, words had been scrawled in hurried red marker—shaky and desperate:
"HELP US!!! SOMEONE IS INJURED!"
Thien Anh narrowed his eyes. The script was in Vietnamese, and the ink looked fresh. There were survivors inside.
He signaled Thien Lang to stand to one side of the door, while Little Thanh slithered up to the ventilation frame above.
Thien Anh tapped the butt of his gun gently against the glass.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Is anyone in there? Open up."