The metal door loomed over Noah like a silent monolith, towering, cold, and utterly out of place in what used to be a hospital basement. Dust coated the hinges, but the air around it vibrated faintly—almost like the door itself had a heartbeat.
The system's interface flashed sharply:
[FORCED MISSION TRIGGERED]
Task: Enter the Sealed Chamber.
Reward: +400 Vital Points
Penalty: Automatic Vital Drain — 20 VP per minute until mission completion.
Noah's stomach clenched.
Twenty. Per minute.
As if agreeing with his panic, his Vital Points began ticking downward:
712 → 692 → 672
"Okay, okay, fine! I'm going!"
He rushed forward, grabbing the circular steel handle at the door's center. It was stiff—he needed both hands, and even then, the metal wheel resisted like it hadn't been moved in decades. His palms burned as he forced the mechanism counter-clockwise.
Clank… click… groooan…
The lock disengaged with a thunderous snap.
Cold air—heavy and sharp—rushed out through the opening seam, brushing against his face like the exhale of something ancient.
And then the system added another line:
[Warning: Environmental Hazard Detected]
Temperature: 6°C and dropping.
Visibility: Low.
Threat Level: Unknown.
Noah swallowed.
"Great," he muttered. "Exactly what I needed. More 'unknown.'"
He pulled the door open fully.
A narrow stairway spiraled downward, swallowed by pitch-black darkness. The air shimmered faintly like fog or… static? Noah couldn't tell.
He switched on the flashlight attached to his belt. The beam flickered, then steadied.
"Here goes nothing."
He stepped inside.
The metal door swung shut behind him—violently.
BAM!
Noah spun around, startled.
[Door Locked]
This area becomes inaccessible once the mission begins.
"…You could've told me that before I stepped in," Noah hissed.
The stairway creaked under his weight as he descended. The walls were concrete but covered in strange markings—triangles, circles, and intersecting lines carved directly into the stone as though by hand. Some were fresh, others almost eroded.
Halfway down, he noticed something else: the faint sound of a pulse.
Ba-dum… ba-dum… ba-dum…
Slow, heavy, rhythmic.
Not his heartbeat.
He aimed the flashlight downward.
Where the steps ended, a long underground hallway spread out—its tiles cracked, ceiling lights broken, and frost creeping over every surface.
"What the hell happened down here…?"
His breath became visible in the cold.
Then the system chimed again:
[Life Signature Detected]
Status: Dormant
Distance: 32 meters
Dormant?
That meant it wasn't dead.
Noah tightened his grip on the metal rod he used as a weapon and moved forward.
The hallway felt wrong. Every sound—his boots, his breathing, the dripping of condensation—echoed five times louder than it should. The strange pulse grew louder the farther he went.
Then Noah saw it.
Along the wall were old hospital signs:
B2—Isolation Wing
B2—Biohazard Storage
B2—Specimen Holding
But they were crossed out with red paint.
And underneath, in crude handwriting, someone had scrawled:
TURN BACK
Noah stared at the words, chest tightening.
The system, of course, had no intentions of letting him follow that advice.
[Vital Points: 520]
Already more than half of what he had left was gone.
Noah kept going.
At the end of the hallway was a glass window. Through the cracks and scratches, he saw a large chamber illuminated by faint blue emergency lights. Fog rolled across the floor, obscuring the lower half of the room.
Inside were four enormous containment tanks—two shattered, one empty, and one still sealed. Frost completely covered the intact tank, and the pulsing sound was coming from inside it.
Noah pressed his hand against the glass, trying to get a clearer view.
A shadow moved inside the frozen tank.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
But before he could process what he was seeing, the system issued a sudden, deafening alert:
[DANGER. HOSTILE PRESENCE AWAKENED.]
[DANGER. HOSTILE PRESENCE AWAKENED.]
"What?!"
The pulse inside the tank sped up—
BA-DUM-BA-DUM-BA-DUM-BA-DUM—
The chamber lights flickered violently.
Then a horrendous CRACK exploded through the silence.
The ice on the tank's surface split.
Noah jumped back, heart racing.
Another crack.
Another.
Then the entire front of the containment tank shattered outward, shards of ice exploding across the room like thrown knives.
Something enormous stepped out.
Tall. Humanoid. But wrong.
Too many joints.
Too much muscle.
Skin stretched too tight.
Face obscured by cloth and metal clamps.
The system identified it immediately:
[Specimen Class: WARDEN — Prototype Model]
Threat Level: Extremely High
Recommendation: Escape. Combat Not Advised.]
"Yeah no—NO SHIT!"
The creature let out a low, guttural moan as its head turned toward Noah—
and its eyes, glowing faintly, locked on him through the cracked viewing glass.
It charged.
Noah spun around—
—but the hallway behind him collapsed.
A deafening boom shook the entire basement. Tiles shattered. Dust filled the air. A whole 10-meter chunk of ceiling crashed down, blocking his exit completely.
He was trapped.
The Warden slammed into the reinforced window, cracking it further.
The next hit would break through.
Noah's system screamed another prompt at him:
[New Objective: Find Alternate Exit]
Time Remaining Before Hostile Breakthrough: 17 seconds]
"Oh come on!"
Noah sprinted down the hallway, frantically aiming his light at every corner as the Warden pounded relentlessly against the glass.
The air vibrated with each hit.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
A sign on the wall flashed into view:
MAINTENANCE SHAFT — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
Yes.
Noah ran to it and ripped the metal grate off. It screeched and hit the ground, echoing through the entire corridor.
Behind him—
SHATTER.
The Warden broke through.
Noah dove into the maintenance shaft just as the monster lunged. Its massive arm smashed the wall a centimeter from Noah's foot. Concrete cracked under the blow.
Noah crawled through the narrow duct, panting, scraping his elbows, every muscle trembling.
Behind him, the Warden roared and began tearing the shaft apart.
The system chimed:
[Vital Points: 372]
[Mission Progress: 54%]
Noah crawled faster.
The pipe led into another chamber—but this one was dark, silent, and colder than anywhere he had been so far. His breath came out in white puffs.
He dropped down into the room.
The moment his boots hit the ground, lights flicked on automatically.
Rows of metal tables. Old medical equipment. Rusty operating lamps. And charts all over the walls showing diagrams of human bodies with circles marked around the heart and brain.
Then Noah saw something that stopped him cold.
A table in the center.
And on it—
a device identical to the one on his wrist.
Except this one was detached, cracked, and covered in dried blood.
The system flashed:
[Warning: Prototype System Unit Detected]
[Caution: Touching may trigger unknown system response]
Noah reached toward it—
then froze as the ceiling behind him caved in.
The Warden was coming.