Chapter 23: Catastrophe Class
Day 27 - September 12th
We assembled at dawn, nearly two hundred fighters from the coalition and Iron Battalion combined. It was the largest military operation since the apocalypse began.
I stood with the strike team: Lucas, Maya, Marcus, Sarah, Colonel Hayes, and twelve other high-level fighters. We were the ones going into Building A to face the Tier-5.
"Listen up!" Lucas called out to the assembled force. "Today, we're fighting something that could destroy everything we've built. But we're not fighting alone. We've got the best fighters, the best equipment, and the best chance of winning. Stay disciplined, follow orders, and we'll survive this."
Colonel Hayes added: "Iron Battalion has faced impossible odds before. We've fought in deserts, mountains, and jungles. Today, we fight in hell itself. But we fight together, and we don't leave anyone behind. Oorah!"
"OORAH!" The military personnel responded with trained discipline.
The coalition fighters echoed it, less polished but just as determined.
We moved out in convoy, trucks, APCs borrowed from Iron Battalion, even a modified bus carrying support personnel. The drive to the chemical plant took an hour.
The facility loomed ahead, industrial buildings covered in unnatural growth. Mutated vines crawled up walls, pulsing with sickly green light. The air itself tasted wrong, chemical and organic at once.
My Danger Sense was screaming.
"Spread out according to the plan!" Sarah commanded over radio. "Buildings B and C teams, move in! Strike team, hold position until cleared!"
The first phase began. Clearing teams moved into Buildings B and C, engaging the zombie hordes inside. Gunfire echoed across the complex. Screams, human and inhuman, mixed with explosions.
I watched through binoculars as our people fought and died. We lost three in the first ten minutes. Seven more wounded. But they pushed through, clearing rooms systematically.
"Buildings B and C clear," the report came thirty minutes later. "Lost eight KIA, nineteen wounded. Zombie count: two hundred seventeen eliminated."
"Phase 2," Lucas ordered. "Set up perimeter. No zombies get in or out of Building A."
Iron Battalion soldiers created a defensive perimeter using vehicles and sandbags. Heavy weapons teams set up machine guns and explosives.
"Strike team, prepare to enter," Lucas said. "This is it."
We approached Building A's entrance. It had been a chemical processing facility, industrial equipment, massive tanks, pipes running everywhere. Now it was a nightmare. The walls writhed with organic growth. The floor was covered in thick, tar-like substance. And the smell...
"Respirators on," Colonel Hayes ordered. "That air is toxic."
We entered in formation: Lucas at point using his precognition, me and Marcus flanking, others covering rear and sides.
The interior was wrong. Not just damaged, transformed. The System had turned this place into something alien.
And in the center, in what had been the main processing chamber, something massive was growing.
The Tier-5.
It was still forming, partially encased in a cocoon of solidified chemicals and organic matter. But I could see parts of it: limbs the size of tree trunks, armored plates that looked like metal and bone fused together, a head with too many eyes.
I used Inspect from maximum distance:
[TIER-5 CHIMERA ABOMINATION]
[LEVEL: 12]
[STATUS: METAMORPHOSIS - 87% COMPLETE]
[THREAT LEVEL: CATASTROPHIC]
[WARNING: THIS ENEMY CAN REGENERATE. SUSTAINED DAMAGE REQUIRED.]
[SPECIAL ABILITIES: TOXIC BREATH, ARMOR SKIN, ACIDIC BLOOD, ZOMBIE SUMMONING]
Level 12. I was level 7. We were massively outmatched.
"It's not fully formed yet," Lucas said, seeing the same thing. "We attack now, before it completes metamorphosis."
"How do we damage something that regenerates?" Sarah asked.
"Sustained overwhelming force," Hayes said. "And take out the cocoon first, that's probably what's regenerating it."
"Everyone, on my mark," Lucas raised his sword. "We burn through that cocoon and kill what's inside. No holding back. Use everything you've got."
I activated Leadership Aura. Everyone in the strike team got the stat boost.
"MARK!"
We charged.
Immediately, the cocoon began cracking. The Tier-5 inside sensed danger. Tendrils shot out, organic whips that hit with bone-breaking force.
Marcus took a hit and flew backward, his armor dented. Rachel rushed to heal him with her EMT skills enhanced by System abilities.
I dodged a tendril using my Agility and slashed at the cocoon with Stormbreaker. Lightning crackled across the surface, burning through layers. The cocoon screamed, actually screamed, like it was alive.
Maya's Whirlwind Strike carved a huge chunk out of the cocoon's side. Black ichor poured out, hissing where it hit the floor.
"It's acidic blood!" someone shouted. "Don't let it touch you!"
Lucas's precognition let him find weak points. He drove his sword deep into a crack, twisting. The cocoon shuddered.
Then it shattered.
The Tier-5 Chimera Abomination emerged, incomplete but conscious. It was fifteen feet tall, covered in armored plates, with six limbs ending in claws and spikes. Its head had eight red eyes, all focusing on us with malevolent intelligence.
It roared, and the sound alone knocked several people off their feet.
[BOSS BATTLE INITIATED]
[TIER-5 CHIMERA ABOMINATION]
[WARNING: EXTREME DANGER]
"OPEN FIRE!" Hayes commanded.
The heavy weapons team outside unleashed hell. Machine gun fire raked across the Chimera's armor. Explosives detonated around it. RPGs struck its chest.
The Chimera barely noticed.
It charged at us, moving impossibly fast for something so large.
Lucas's precognition saved us, he saw the attack coming and shouted warnings. We scattered just as the Chimera's claw cratered the floor where we'd been standing.
I activated Power Strike and swung Stormbreaker at its leg joint, a gap in the armor I spotted with Combat Awareness.
The blade bit deep. Lightning coursed through the wound. The Chimera howled and kicked, catching me in the chest despite my attempt to dodge.
I flew fifteen feet and slammed into a wall.
[HEALTH: 162/250]
My Fast Healing kicked in immediately, but that one hit had taken a third of my health.
"Ethan!" Maya was suddenly there, helping me up.
"I'm okay," I gasped. "Keep attacking!"
The fight became chaos. The Chimera was too strong, too fast, regenerating wounds faster than we could inflict them.
Lucas fought with desperate precision, his precognition the only thing keeping him alive. Every attack he saw coming, every counter he anticipated. But even he couldn't hurt it significantly.
Colonel Hayes threw grenades. Marcus swung his fire axe with berserker fury. Sarah coordinated ranged attacks from the support team.
Nothing worked. The Chimera was healing faster than we could damage it.
Then it used its special ability.
The Chimera's chest split open, and toxic gas poured out, thick, green, deadly. Anyone who breathed it started choking immediately.
"Fall back!" Lucas ordered. "Everyone out!"
We retreated, dragging wounded, coughing and gasping. The toxic cloud filled half the chamber, and the Chimera stood in the center, victorious.
Outside, we regrouped. Five dead in that exchange. A dozen wounded. And the Tier-5 was barely scratched.
"We can't win," someone said. "It's too strong."
"No," I said, an idea forming. "We can't win with physical attacks. But Dr. Chen said it's using the chemical plant's resources to grow. What if we destroy the plant itself?"
Lucas caught on immediately. "Blow the whole facility. Bury it under rubble."
"The explosives we have won't be enough," Hayes said. "Unless..."
He looked at the chemical tanks scattered around the facility. Industrial chemicals. Volatile. Explosive.
"We rig the tanks," I said. "Create a chain reaction. Bring down the whole complex."
"That'll kill anyone inside," Sarah warned.
"Then we make sure we're not inside when it goes off," Lucas said grimly. "Plant explosives. Set remote detonators. We've got ten minutes before that thing regenerates enough to come after us."
Everyone moved. Iron Battalion soldiers rigged explosives on chemical tanks. Coalition fighters helped set charges on structural supports. It was frantic, desperate work.
I stayed at the entrance to Building A, watching the toxic cloud and the Chimera inside. Occasionally, I saw movement, those eight red eyes, watching us.
It knew what we were doing. And it was waiting.
"Charges set!" Hayes reported. "Everyone to minimum safe distance!"
We ran. All two hundred fighters, sprinting away from the chemical plant, racing against time.
At five hundred meters, Hayes stopped. "This is it. Everyone down! Cover your heads!"
He triggered the detonator.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the world exploded.
The chemical tanks went up in a massive fireball. The chain reaction spread through Buildings A, B, and C. Industrial chemicals ignited, creating an inferno that reached hundreds of feet into the air.
The shockwave knocked us flat even at five hundred meters. Heat washed over us. Debris rained down, twisted metal, concrete chunks, mutated organic matter burning like paper.
When the smoke cleared, the chemical plant was gone. Just a crater and scattered ruins.
And at the bottom of that crater, buried under tons of rubble, the Tier-5 Chimera Abomination.
[BOSS DEFEATED: TIER-5 CHIMERA ABOMINATION]
[MASSIVE POINTS AWARDED TO ALL PARTICIPANTS]
[ETHAN: +1200 POINTS]
[LEVEL UP! LEVEL 7 → LEVEL 8]
I lay on my back, staring at the sky, breathing hard.
We'd won. At terrible cost, final count showed twenty-three dead, forty-seven wounded, but we'd won.
"That," Maya said beside me, "was the worst fight of my life."
"Mine too," I agreed. "And I've had two lives."
Lucas approached, bloodied but alive. "We did it. Killed a Tier-5."
"By dropping a building on it," I pointed out.
"Still counts." He offered his hand. "You thought of the solution. Saved us all. Good work, Officer Chen."
I took his hand and let him pull me up. Around us, survivors were helping wounded, counting casualties, salvaging equipment.
We'd survived the apocalypse's biggest threat yet.
But the General's Army was still out there.
And the war was just beginning.
---
[END CHAPTER 23]
Current Status:
• Ethan's Level: 8
• Ethan's Points: 1,447
• Maya's Level: 5
• Lisa's Level: 3
• Coalition + Iron Battalion: Alliance confirmed
• Casualties: 23 KIA, 47 wounded
• Major Victory: Tier-5 Defeated
• Days Survived: 27
Days Since Apocalypse: 27 (Nearly Four Weeks)
---
*Author's Note: The Tier-5 threat is eliminated! This was the biggest battle yet, nearly 200 fighters, massive casualties, and a creative solution to an "unbeatable" enemy. Ethan hit Level 8 and now has 1,447 points (enough for magic!). But the cost was high, and the General's Army is still looming. Next arc: war preparation, magic acquisition, and large-scale faction conflict. The apocalypse is evolving, and so is our protagonist!*