[Check Out My P4treon For +30 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!! And get chapters before publishing them here for free on my p4treon][https://p4treon.com/talkfictome]
===
Noah's finger lightly touched the pool of emerald green liquid.
The liquid had a chilling, viscous feel to it.
He felt a strong aura of life—not a vibrant vitality, but a distorted, abnormally massive, and aggressive activity.
This made him instinctively frown, a look of deep thought flashing in his eyes.
This aura was different from any virus sample he had ever encountered.
It was more like something highly concentrated, or perhaps the product of some extreme mutation.
"Noah, what did you find?" Leon asked in a low voice, looking around warily.
He keenly caught the fleeting solemnity on Noah's face.
Noah didn't answer immediately. He withdrew his liquid-stained finger and rubbed it gently; the viscosity felt as if it could penetrate his skin and reach his very marrow.
He looked up at Leon and said in a deep voice, "The things here are even more complicated than we imagined."
Before he could finish his sentence, a new stench, even stronger than before, suddenly surged from deep within the base.
The smell, a mixture of rotting flesh and some indescribable industrial chemical odor, instantly filled the entire plaza, hitting the senses and causing waves of nausea.
"Ugh!" Manuela could no longer hold it back. She leaned against the wall and began to retch.
Her face was deathly pale, and her legs trembled uncontrollably with fear.
"Damn it, what is that smell?" Krauser cursed under his breath, covering his nose and mouth.
A hint of disgust appeared on his usually cold and hard face.
Almost at the same time, a low, hair-raising roar suddenly sounded, approaching from a distance.
The sound, possessing an animalistic wildness mixed with the cracking of distorted human vocal cords, sounded like the wailing of vengeful spirits from the depths of Hell, chilling one to the bone.
Following that, a series of chaotic and heavy footsteps began to echo through the deathly silent base.
"Something's coming!" Leon suddenly pushed Manuela behind him for protection while raising his gun. His body was tense, and his sharp eyes scanned the surroundings.
The desert eagle in Noah's hand was already loaded.
His gaze was fixed on the open door leading into the base, where an unsettling restlessness was constantly spilling out.
A group of swaying figures finally emerged slowly and clumsily from various corners of the base.
Their bodies were tall and distorted, their skin an unnatural grayish-green covered in ruptured pustules and festering wounds. In some places, white bones were even exposed.
Their clothes were torn to shreds, barely recognizable as the former uniforms of Sacred Snake members.
"These... these are all..." Manuela's eyes widened. She recognized the uniforms, her voice turning shrill with extreme fear.
The Infected leading the pack suddenly let out a deafening roar, its cloudy eyes looking exceptionally eerie in the sunlight.
In the next second, its massive body suddenly exploded with a surprising speed that belied its appearance, lunging fiercely toward them.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Leon fired first, his bullets accurately targeting the Zombie's head.
However, the degree of mutation in the t-virus Infected clearly exceeded their expectations.
Although several bullets knocked its head to the side, they failed to bring it down completely.
It merely wobbled before letting out an even angrier roar and continuing its charge.
"Dammit!" Krauser also immediately pulled the trigger.
The Assault Rifle in his hand spat angry tongues of fire, bullets pouring down like rain and sweeping across the Zombie's chest.
Flesh and blood flew, but the monster still didn't fall.
"What on earth did Javier do?!" Leon looked at the monsters whose mutations far exceeded ordinary Zombies, his tone filled with unbelievable rage.
He couldn't imagine that a drug lord could modify humans to such an extent.
Noah didn't waste words; the desert eagle in his hand let out a deafening roar.
The bullet accurately tore through the Zombie's forehead. This time, the specially made bullet, carrying immense kinetic energy, finally blew its head open, splashing green brain matter mixed with bone fragments all over the ground.
However, this was only the beginning.
More roars came from all directions, and the chaotic, heavy footsteps grew closer.
Dozens of figures surged from various entrances like a tide, swaying and twisting, their gazes dull yet filled with aggression as they lunged at them.
These were the former members of the Sacred Snake organization, now completely reduced to victims of Javier's experiments.
"There are too many of these bastards!" Krauser roared while skillfully changing his magazine.
His muzzle never stopped, every bullet accurately striking the Zombies charging at the front.
"Manuela! Is there anywhere here to hide from these things?" Noah asked quickly while shooting.
He knew that in such a confined space, facing a massive tide of Zombies, fighting head-on was definitely not the best strategy.
Terrified by the scene before her, Manuela gripped the corner of Leon's jacket tightly, her voice hoarse with fear: "T-this way...!" Trembling, she pointed toward a building structure enclosed by thick concrete walls on one side of the Headquarters.
It looked like an underground entrance leading into an even deeper darkness.
"We can... we can go in from underground here..." she said with a sob.
"Underground!" Leon's eyes suddenly lit up.
He knew that underground usually meant stronger defenses and more hidden passages.
He looked at Noah and Krauser and shouted, "Let's make a break for it!"
"Copy that!" A bloodthirsty smile appeared on Krauser's face.
The Assault Rifle in his hand spat out fierce fire once again.
Bullets poured down like a storm, forcefully tearing an opening in the Zombie tide.
Every time the desert eagle in Noah's hand fired, it was accompanied by a Zombie falling to the ground.
Centered around Manuela, they formed a small defensive circle, keeping her firmly protected in the middle.
"Bang bang bang! Rat-tat-tat!" Gunshots echoed through the base, mixed with the roars of Zombies and the sharp sounds of metal grinding.
Although the Zombies' movements were clumsy, they were numerous and seemed to have no perception of pain, lunging at them one after another.
"Quick! Almost there!" Leon kicked away a Zombie trying to pounce on him while charging in the direction Manuela indicated.
Noah followed closely, his body moving like a nimble ghost through the crowd of Zombies.
Whenever a Zombie tried to bypass him to attack Manuela, the dagger in his hand would strike like a venomous snake, accurately severing their spines or piercing their skulls.
He didn't hesitate for a second, every strike carrying a cold killing intent.
Serving as the final line of defense, Krauser stood back-to-back with Noah and Leon, his Assault Rifle's fire at full blast, forcefully suppressing the Zombies attempting to pursue them.
His movements were simple and brutal, possessing the efficiency and ruthlessness characteristic of a soldier.
Finally, the three of them successfully reached the concrete structure Manuela had pointed out.
This was an entrance hidden within the wall, with a heavy steel door tightly closed.
On the door's surface was carved a blurry totem resembling an entwined snake.
"Noah! Krauser! Cover fire!" Leon shouted, his hands quickly and precisely operating the control panel next to the door.
However, the control panel seemed to have malfunctioned due to the previous battle; the screen was pitch black and unresponsive.
"Damn it!" Leon struck the control panel hard, a flash of anxiety crossing his face.
The Zombie tide behind them was drawing closer, their stench almost completely overwhelming them.
"Manuela!" Noah's voice came through.
Manuela trembled. She looked up, her blue eyes blurred with tears, looking exceptionally helpless in the sickly green light.
She bit her lower lip, trying hard to remember something.
Her gaze finally landed on the blurry Snake Totem in the center of the door.
"This... this is the mark of the Sacred Snake..." she murmured to herself, reaching out and pressing her trembling fingertip onto the cold Snake Totem.
Rumble!
It was as if a giant beast that had slept for a thousand years had been awakened.
The entire ground began to shake violently. The snake mark actually began to slowly sink inward.
Then, a muffled roar came from inside the steel door, growing louder and louder.
"It's responding!" Leon shouted in surprise.
In the next second.
Accompanied by a piercing sound of metal grinding, the heavy steel door actually slid slowly toward one side of the wall, revealing a deep and dark passage.
"Get in!" Noah practically pushed Manuela as he led the way into the passage.
Leon and Krauser followed closely behind, providing final cover fire against the surging Zombies as they retreated.
Several Zombies at the very front were blown to pieces by them.
Bang!
With a massive boom, the heavy steel door slammed shut after they had all entered the passage, completely sealing off the roars of the Zombies and the suffocating stench outside.
The entire passage instantly fell into silence.
The interior of the passage was not as dark as expected.
Faint, sickly green emergency lights were installed at intervals along both walls, lighting the place up like a... prison.
That's right, it looked like a massive underground prison.
On both sides of the passage were rows of cells cast from thick steel bars.
Each cell held one or several swaying figures.
They also wore the uniforms of Sacred Snake members, yet without exception, their bodies had undergone horrifying mutations.
Some had bulging eyes and swollen tongues; some had festering skin exposing white bones; others had bodies swollen like giant sarcomas, with only a mouth constantly opening and closing to emit meaningless screeches.
All the cells were tightly sealed with heavy chains and steel locks.
The former Sacred Snake members could now only emit low, desperate roars like beasts within their cramped cells. They stared fixedly at the group in the center of the passage with numb gazes, as if they might break free from their restraints at any moment to pounce and tear them to shreds.
"Here... it's all..." Manuela watched the purgatory-like scene before her, her body trembling violently.
She knew these were once the Sacred Snake members who had followed her father.
But now, they had been turned into these monstrous forms that were neither human nor ghost.
She felt her stomach churning, almost vomiting up bile.
"This is Javier's private testing ground," Noah's voice was low and calm, yet it carried an indescribable chill.
He didn't look at the imprisoned monsters, instead scanning the entire space with sharp eyes.
He could feel the thick smell of disinfectant unique to biological laboratories permeating the air, mixed with the stench of decay to form a nauseatingly eerie atmosphere.
"Damn it, that madman!" Leon's face was full of rage.
Looking at the monsters struggling and roaring in their cells, a surge of uncontrollable sorrow rose in his heart.
These people were once living human beings, yet Javier had turned them into this.
"This looks like a dead end," Krauser's voice broke the brief silence.
He walked to the end of the passage and found it completely blocked by a solid rock wall.
There was no door, no crack—it seemed like a naturally formed dead end.
Manuela's body stiffened, and her face turned pale again.
She stepped quickly to the rock wall and touched the cold stone with her hand, her eyes filled with confusion and fear.
She clearly remembered there should be a secret passage leading deeper inside.
"Manuela, think carefully. Is there some kind of mechanism here?" Leon stepped forward, trying to soothe her while asking.
Manuela took a deep breath, trying to calm her inner fear. She closed her eyes, as if reconstructing the space in her mind.
Her fingers slid across the rock wall again, as if searching for some lost memory.
Suddenly, her fingertip stopped on a slightly protruding stone.
The shape of the stone was exactly like the Sacred Snake totem on the previous steel door.
She took a deep breath, a flash of determination in her eyes, and then pressed the stone with force.
Rumble!
An even deeper and more massive roar sounded again.
The entire underground space began to shake violently.
The Zombies imprisoned in the cells also became manic and restless due to the violent vibration, banging on the iron bars and letting out deafening roars.
Amidst the deafening roar, the seemingly indestructible rock wall in front of them slowly slid toward one side!
A pitch-black crack appeared before their eyes.
From that crack, an odor even stronger and more nauseating than before—filled with blood and decay—suddenly rushed toward them!
The smell seemed to be a mixture of all the sin and rot in the world, piercing their nostrils and making them want to vomit.
Hidden there was an even more terrifying, even more bottomless Hell...