Not long after.
Under the night sky, in Canada's largest city—Toronto.
In the Toronto of the past, nights were always dazzling and bustling. The surface of Lake Ontario reflected the city lights, lake breezes skimmed the soaring glass curtain-wall towers, neon flickered at the street corners, and the city's clamor seemed never to cease.
The well-known CN Tower had been the landmark here, standing tall, overlooking the city's prosperity.
But now, the former splendor had become a purgatory.
The CN Tower still pierced the heavens, but beneath the black sky its fire-lit outline glowed red, like a massive tombstone, coldly witnessing this land's descent.
Multiple districts were swallowed by fire. Flames devoured high-rises, and the evening wind carried scorched smoke raging through the night. Burned plastic and spent rebar mingled in the air, filling it with a choking reek.
In the early 21st century, Toronto's streets had been relatively clean; no one defecated at will on beaches or along the lakeshore. Now, charred corpses and shattered vehicle wreckage lay everywhere, along with filth in plain sight.
Gunfire and artillery boomed from different directions in succession. Explosions tore the sky like roars of wrath, mingling with human screams and infected howls into a brutal symphony of the end times.
On the streets, Blood Cross infected were desecrating and slaughtering in madness.
They weren't mere monsters, but humans thoroughly twisted by the plague, still retaining the skill to wield weapons, yet utterly stripped of humanity.
Blood smeared their mouths and fingertips. Some dragged torn human corpses, raising severed limbs high as if to show off, roaring wildly in the firelight.
Some Blood Cross pinned fallen survivors brutally to the ground and tore open their throats with their teeth. Blood sprayed forth, yet in their eyes it was only the beginning of a "banquet."
Others displayed beastlike "depravity" right on the street. Whether their victims were alive or dead, their frenzy and desecration knew no bottom line, like fiends who found their only pleasure in profaning life.
Those who hadn't died immediately were driven and toyed with like playthings.
Their cries and pleas echoed through the streets, but no one could lend a hand.
Every street in the city was like an execution ground, blood and fire covering its former splendor.
After all, in this massive metropolis of nearly seven million, not everyone had perished. Even in the heart of purgatory, there were still those "clinging to life."
Some survivors huddled in malls, subway stations, or repurposed office buildings, trying to rely on the thick reinforced concrete walls to fend off the Blood Cross.
They built makeshift barriers from planks and metal, piled sandbags at windows and doors, and tried to establish temporary shelters for dozens or even hundreds.
Especially within the city's crisscrossing underground subway system, there were still remnants of military and police holding out.
Well-trained, they used the terrain to craft hidden "underground fortresses."
Heavy iron gates, narrow tunnels, and sealed spaces formed the last barrier against the Blood Cross.
But such a stand was bitter.
As time passed, resources dwindled. Food and drinking water grew scarcer by the day; fuel and medicine were almost exhausted.
In the stations, children curled in their mothers' arms, eyes vacant, as if they no longer knew how to cry, while the adults had to constantly plan the next supply run.
Those who went out seldom returned.
They had to traverse Blood Cross–occupied blocks to reach big-box stores, gas stations, or gun shops and police stations for supplies.
Every mission was a deathward gamble: either bring back a little food and medicine to prolong the shelter's life, or be swarmed by Blood Cross and die with no bones left.
Nor were the Blood Cross fools.
Their sense of smell was keen; they could catch the faintest trace of surviving humans.
Sometimes, the team had barely left the subway exit when lurking infected fixed on them.
In mere minutes, dozens—hundreds—of Blood Cross would swarm, tearing the team apart and violating them to death.
Even if someone lucked back to the shelter, the supplies brought were paltry, far from enough to feed every mouth.
Thus, in this enormous city, survivors were like birds trapped in a cage; they knew "the sky" was right overhead, yet death's shadow sealed it off layer by layer.
On Toronto's firelit streets, SOS flashes flickered now and then. People waved crude flares, glow sticks, even flashlights at the sky, praying to be spotted by aircraft.
Yet what answered them was often only Blood Cross howls and muzzle flashes spitting fire.
In that moment, Toronto was no longer Canada's symbol—it was a convergence of death and madness.
It remained vast, remained majestic, but had become a hell-city sealed by flame and blood.
Down in the cold subway tunnels, damp and rust stung the air.
The dim lighting had long failed. Only the SWAT team's helmet-mounted night vision cast a ghostly green glow, painting the dark tracks and peeling walls ahead.
They kept their footsteps deliberately low, boot soles grinding gravel in the faintest of whispers, as if any sound might rouse the raving things lurking in the dark.
The team numbered only six, but their gear and bearing radiated a cutting resolve.
Every gun was fitted with a suppressor, paired with subsonic rounds to minimize noise and avoid provoking Blood Cross that could mass into a tidal wave at any time.
Their combat uniforms were no longer the neat kit of years past—worn and mottled, threads of mending visible stitch by stitch. Some armor pads were patched together from scavenged plates.
More "eye-catching" still, they had wrapped the bare skin at their necks, wrists, and ankles in layer upon layer of plastic wrap—their last "armor"—
Fragile, but at least able to block spatter of blood and saliva.
They knew that if Blood Cross fluids touched an open wound, the end would be swift and final infection.
The team advanced cautiously along the tunnel and finally reached a platform.
It was empty, heavy silence shrouding everything, with only a broken billboard creaking in the draft, like a low hum in the night.
The SWAT officers fanned out at once to clear potential blind spots, muzzles sweeping with precise, restrained arcs.
They missed no shadow, no crack where a Blood Cross might hide.
After a quick sweep, the team leader slowly raised his hand with a brief tactical gesture.
The others responded at once, drawing the formation back together.
No one spoke. They communicated by hand signs alone, every sound suppressed to the limit, afraid that even a breath too many would invite a calamity they could not bear.
Soon, the six followed the dim stairwell and warily stepped onto the surface.
What hit them was not longed-for fresh air, but the acrid stench of burning and the reek of blood.
Far-off fire painted the night sky a terrifying red, as if the entire firmament was set ablaze by the burning city. From every street and alley came stuttering gunfire, explosions, and screams steeped in pain and despair.
They looked up to see several blocks already a roaring sea of fire, waves of light illuminating collapsed high-rises.
Shattered glass reflected the flames on the ground like countless blood-red shards driven into the city's spine.
"Help… someone help me…"
Not far away, a desperate cry ripped the night apart, like a nail hammered into every heart.
The SWAT officers' breathing spiked; fingers clenched tighter around their grips.
All eyes turned toward the sound, faces riven with unwillingness and restrained agony.
The pleading didn't stop; it grew clearer—the final struggle at the edge of death.
And yet they could only stand where they were, letting the wrenching cries pound their eardrums again and again.
Because they understood their mission tonight wasn't rescue—it was a search.
In the hidden shelter deep in the subway, dozens of survivors waited for their return. Many children burned with high fevers, desperately needing medicine.
If they rushed to aid those crying for help, they might expose their position and draw swarms of Blood Cross. The whole team would be drowned in the flood.
Such a sacrifice would also mean everyone in the shelter losing their final hope.
This was the cruelest choice.
The team leader silently raised a hand, making a firm sign…
Advance. Do not be distracted.
Pain and anger flickered through the team's eyes, but no one objected.
They buried their emotions deep, tightened the formation, and slipped away, fast and silent.
The cries still echoed down the street, but in their ears, they pressed them into needles of noise.
They could only pretend not to hear.
The six figures dwindled amid fire and shadow. What they carried wasn't just heavy gear and worn kit, but the torment of a conscience that would not let go.
Under the night, every step was like treading on steel edges, with the abyss of death yawning at any moment.
In the distance, on streets lit by fire, the Blood Cross howls swelled, as if mocking humanity's last stubbornness and helplessness.
The SWAT team hugged a crumbling wall and edged forward. The dark alley was like a narrow blood vessel, where damp rot pooled, making every breath taste metallic and heavy.
They crept by the cold glow of night vision, every inhale shaved to the smallest trace.
Now and then a lone Blood Cross wandered by, movements stiff from over-rampage and wounds, eyes still scarlet, burning with twisted lust and ravenous hunger.
Whenever one appeared, the SWAT officers coordinated by silent sign.
One would lock on steady, fingertip easing the trigger. A subsonic round, hushed to a minimum, punched neatly through its skull.
Pffft—!
The infected shuddered and dropped, blood welling as the dark swallowed its last spasm.
Everything was silent to the extreme.
No one spoke. No one looked back.
They knew in this city of ruins, any extra hesitation was suicide.
Soon they slipped through the alley and reached a street corner.
Their view opened up. Firelight glared between distant towers, staining everything before them a dark red.
Opposite the corner, an old pharmacy stood in the night.
Its roll-up shutter was still down, layered with thick dust and smoke stains.
The lock was intact. It seemed no one had touched it since Toronto fell.
A faded sign creaked in the wind, as if whispering of long-vanished bustle.
The SWAT officers' eyes brightened a notch.
Medicine—
It was the most urgent target of the run.
Compared with food and fuel, medicine was their scarcest lifeline—especially with feverish children in the shelter whose lives could be snatched away at any moment.
A pharmacy not yet looted meant there might still be a full stock inside.
The team snapped into their tactical split.
After confirming no suspicious movement nearby, the leader waved.
Two officers dashed across the street and slid into the narrow alley beside the pharmacy, shouldering rifles and setting up a hasty crossfire point.
The other four followed, taking positions at the front and around the shop, forming a temporary defensive ring.
Every motion flowed as one, the coordination seamless.
Under their control, the street seemed to regain order for a fleeting moment, as if they could truly carve a safe window for the breach.
But just as two of them reached for tools to pry the shutter, the air was torn by a shriek.
"—Hahaha! Told you this place was a perfect fishing spot!"
The voice was rough and shrill, laced with mind-ripping madness and scorn. It echoed through the ruins like thousands of "wild dogs" howling at once.
In the next heartbeat, the surrounding dark blocks flared to life.
Countless torches kindled among high-rises and broken walls. The glare carved out snarling silhouettes—
Blood Cross.
At some point, they had already lain in ambush in the surrounding shadows. Now they showed themselves, numbers like a tide.
Some crouched on broken windowsills, some clung to collapsed rooftops. Their shapes varied, but all wore the same scarlet eyes and crazed grins.
"Look! Another batch of playthings took the bait!" The bellow crashed again, this time with an even deeper, more chilling sneer.
With that crowing voice, a hulking Blood Cross emerged atop a building.
It loomed like an iron giant, at least seven foot three, muscle bulging in layered slabs like iron plates. Veins strained its skin purple, as if it might burst the next second.
It stood on a broken wall, looking down at the SWAT team trapped below. Drool dripped from its mouth, glittering in the firelight with a terrifying sheen.
"Heh heh…"
Its laughter was low and brutal, beating the air like drums, as if the whole city shuddered at its arrival.
"Awooo\~!"
"Kill! Kill!!"
"Fuck! #%#!!"
The Blood Cross around them howled in unison, their noise surging into a storm that crushed the heart and strangled the breath.
The six members of the SWAT team realized at once they had walked into a total ambush.
______
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