The flashlight beam trembled across dozens of gigantic yellow eyes staring from the central fissure of the mass. Pupils contracted against the light. It did not glare with mindless rage. It observed. Cold. Calculating. Inhuman.
The colossal cylindrical tank dominated the ruined bio-lab. Inside, murky yellow fluid bubbled. Dozens of black veins thick as plumbing pipes sprouted from the mass, piercing upward into the ceiling vents.
"What the hell... is that thing?" Yu-jin whispered. Her voice cracked. Legs nearly folding. The metal pipe felt like lead in her grip.
"It is the Hive," Shi-hun answered, tone flat yet taut. His right hand kept the Glock 19 locked on the mass. "The university was never attacked from outside. They built it here. Cultured it inside this tank. Those veins feed the air system... it is the heart pumping viral spores through the entire campus."
As he spoke, the beam caught faint yellow motes drifting thick around the tank. Denser than anywhere else. Settling on shattered equipment and skeletons.
Shi-hun stopped breathing instantly. Instinct screamed.
"Do not inhale deeply," he snapped at Yu-jin. "The air is saturated with spores. One breath and we are infected from the inside."
He needed masks. Eyes swept the wreckage. A few meters away, beside a skeleton in a lab coat, a cracked half-face respirator lay on the floor. Straps torn. Useless.
But the perfect template.
Shi-hun rushed forward, dropped to one knee, and snatched the ruined mask. No time for doubt. The air already clawed at his lungs. He focused on every detail—rubber seal, silicone straps, filter cartridge.
[Duplicate? Target: Bio-filter Respirator. Complexity: Medium-High. Cost: 3 days. Yes/No]
He confirmed. Blue light flared. A pristine respirator appeared in his left hand. [Remaining Lifespan: 189 days]
Another for himself.
[Duplicate again. Cost: 3 days. Yes/No] Confirmed.
[Remaining Lifespan: 186 days] The burn was reckless. He was trading his own life for the privilege of breathing.
He tossed the first mask to Yu-jin. "Put it on. Seal it tight. No gaps."
She took it with shaking hands, pressed it over nose and mouth, yanked the straps until they bit into her bruised cheeks. Shi-hun fitted his own. Their breaths hissed through the filters—fuid... fuid... echoing inside their skulls like divers trapped in black water.
"We have to destroy it," Yu-jin said, voice muffled. "If it is the source, killing it... maybe the things upstairs will stop."
"Or become worse," Shi-hun replied coldly. He was not here to save the world. Only to survive and collect. "But it blocks the exit. We leave only when it is dead."
He checked the Glock. Fifteen rounds in the mag, six in the spare. Too few for something the size of a truck.
Thump... Thump... The mass beat harder. All ten yellow eyes rolled together and fixed on him. It understood his intent.
Then a high-frequency screech tore straight into their brains.
Not a sound from the air. A spike through bone. Both of them dropped, clutching their temples. Pain lanced like needles through eardrums.
The yellow fluid inside the tank boiled. Spiderweb cracks raced across the safety glass and exploded outward with a deafening crash.
Murky waves surged, slamming equipment and corpses across the floor. Foul liquid splashed to their ankles. The stench punched through the filters.
The Hive was not defenseless.
***
From the fissure, dozens of barbed red tentacles lashed out like whips. They cracked the air with sonic booms.
"Dodge," Shi-hun ordered.
He rolled behind a stainless-steel table. One tentacle smashed the concrete where he had stood, splitting it open. Yu-jin ducked behind a small safe. Her cracked ribs screamed.
Three more tentacles whipped the table aside as if it were cardboard.
No cover left. Shi-hun rose to one knee, shouldered the Glock, and fired.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Three shots punched into the mass. Black fluid sprayed. Shallow wounds. The yellow eyes narrowed in fury.
One tentacle coiled around his left ankle. Barbs punched through denim and skin. It yanked him forward, dragging him toward the gaping maw lined with grinding teeth.
"Shi-hun!" Yu-jin screamed. She forced herself up despite the pain and swung the pipe with everything she had.
Crack. Metal met flesh. The tentacle loosened for half a second. Shi-hun kicked free, rolled, and aimed again.
Twelve rounds left. Target the eyes.
He breathed steady, pushing panic aside. Only cold math remained.
Bang. One yellow eye burst in a spray of yellow sludge. The screech returned, shattering emergency lights overhead. Glass rained down.
He fired twice more. Two more eyes exploded. Nine rounds left.
But the Hive was not finished. From the spilled fluid, three translucent egg sacs that had dropped from the mass began to tear open.
Chimeras emerged. Experimental horrors. Former students stripped of skin, raw red muscle twitching. Arms elongated to the floor. Jaws split to the ears. Bigger than any zombie. Meaner than the K9s.
Three of them. One purpose: protect the Hive.
The first charged Yu-jin. She swung. It blocked with a sinewy forearm. The pipe bent. Claws slammed into her chest.
She flew backward, ribs cracking audibly. Foam cast shredded. She hit the wall, slid down into the fluid, coughed blood inside her mask, and went still.
Shi-hun spun. Three shots drilled the creature's spine. It dropped dead.
But the other two were already on him.
One crushed his right wrist. Bones ground. The Glock skittered across wet concrete. The second leaped, pinning him flat. Its weight crushed the air from his lungs. Acidic drool hissed on his mask visor, melting the reinforced plastic, blurring his vision with toxic smoke. He had seconds before it burned through to his flesh. No gun. No strength to push it off.
***
In that frozen second, Shi-hun's mind raced faster than any human limit. No time to reach the pistol. No strength to shove the beast away. Only instinct and the system.
His eyes, fogged behind the mask, caught a shattered one-liter ethanol bottle near the overturned lab table. The sharp alcohol scent cut through the filter.
He stretched his free left hand and touched the glass shard still wet with chemical.
[Duplicate? Target: Ethanol Chemical Bottle. Complexity: Medium. Cost: 2 days. Yes/No]
Confirmed. [Remaining Lifespan: 184 days]
A full bottle appeared in his grip. He did not throw it. He smashed it sideways into the chimera's head.
Glass exploded. Ethanol drenched the creature from skull to feet. Some splashed across Shi-hun's hoodie.
The beast flinched as alcohol burned its eyes. It roared wider.
He needed fire.
With the last surge of strength, Shi-hun drove both knees into its stomach, lifting it half a beat. He rolled sideways, drew the duplicated kitchen knife from his pack—not to stab, but to throw.
His eyes locked on the exposed main circuit breaker on the wall, wires sparking from earlier damage.
He hurled the knife full force. Metal pierced live wires. A deafening crackle split the air. Massive short-circuit. Sparks the size of fists erupted like fireworks, raining onto the ethanol-soaked concrete. For a fraction of a second, the room seemed to suck in all its breath. Whoosh.
Blue-orange flames roared to life in an instant. The explosion of air slammed the room. Fire raced along every drop, swallowed the drenched chimera like a living torch.
The creature shrieked, thrashing, setting its twin ablaze. Flames leaped to the Hive's spilled tentacles and the flammable yellow fluid coating the mass.
The colossal flesh convulsed. The high-frequency scream returned, nearly bursting eardrums. Tentacles whipped wildly, smashing the lab to rubble. Fire climbed the mass, popping yellow eyes one by one. The stench of burning meat filled the air.
Shi-hun ignored the flames licking his hoodie. He rose, ran through heat and smoke, and retrieved the Glock.
Six rounds left. He pulled the spare mag with six more. Not enough. He touched the empty spare.
[Duplicate? Target: 9mm Magazine (15 Rounds). Complexity: High. Cost: 5 days. Yes/No]
Confirmed without hesitation. [Remaining Lifespan: 179 days]
A fresh, heavy magazine appeared. He dropped the old one, slammed the new home, racked the slide.
Shi-hun walked straight through the inferno. Orange light danced across his dead-black eyes—colder than any reaper. He approached the writhing, burning Hive. Its final yellow eye widened, the massive pupil shrinking to a trembling slit as it pressed itself against the shattered glass. The god of the dead was terrified of a mere mortal.
He raised the barrel and pressed it into the central fissure, now split wide by heat.
"This is for the lifespan you burned," he muttered through the mask.
He pulled the trigger. Not once. Fifteen times.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Every round hammered the core. Recoil slammed his arm again and again. He never stepped back. Each bullet tore through tissue, liquefying organs inside the mass.
The slide locked empty.
The Hive gave one final violent spasm. The thump... thump... that had shaken the floor faded... and stopped.
All tentacles collapsed like cut ropes. Flames continued to consume the remains.
True silence returned to B3. Only the soft pop of dying fire remained.
***
Blue system text flared brighter than ever in Shi-hun's mind.
[Boss Target Eliminated: Viral Hive Core] [Special Reward for Clearing Ground Zero (Seoul National University)]
[Lifespan Transfer: +150 days] [Current Lifespan: 329 days]
Shi-hun exhaled long through the filter. Exhaustion nearly dropped him to his knees. But the number—over three hundred days—felt like rebirth.
He turned to Yu-jin. She had passed out from pain and blood loss. He lifted her, checked her. The foam cast was gone, but the nylon harness he had duplicated still held her ribs stable. She was unconscious, not poisoned.
Before leaving this hell, his eye caught something glowing faintly blue amid the charred, bullet-riddled core.
He stepped closer, used the knife to scrape away burnt flesh. A titanium-cased glass syringe. Unbroken by fire or explosion. Inside: glowing blue liquid that looked like the system's own blood, pulsing with an unnatural, freezing energy that defied the surrounding inferno. The moment he touched it, text appeared.
[Item Drop: Pandora Catalyst Serum]
[Type: Unique Evolution Item]
Shi-hun closed his fist around the syringe. Cold metal seeped into his palm. He did not use it yet. He slipped it deep into his pack beside the Project Pandora file. This was the real prize. The key to the next level of strength.
He hoisted Yu-jin over his shoulder. Muscles screamed. Will—fueled by new resources—pushed him forward.
The university was now a complete tomb. They had killed its womb. But this was only one small Ground Zero on a much larger map. The insane world outside waited.
Shi-hun stepped out of the vault. Orange firelight painted his back. The man who had just killed the god of the zombies. Colder. Stronger. Richer. More dangerous than anything left in the building.
Real survival had only just begun.