Chapter 2306: Story 2307: The Response Team

Flashlights cut through the darkness above the bunker staircase.

Heavy boots slammed against metal steps as armed soldiers descended into the underground facility in perfect formation. Black tactical armor covered their bodies from head to toe. Their helmets carried the faded insignia of BLACKTHORN Division.

A silver thorn wrapped around a skull.

Maya immediately aimed her revolver upward.

“Don’t move!” a soldier shouted.

Laser sights filled the room instantly.

Selena stepped forward before Maya could fire.

“Wait!” she yelled. “You don’t understand what’s happening down here!”

The lead soldier removed his helmet slowly.

He looked around forty. Sharp jawline. Grey streaks in his beard. One long scar crossed his right eye.

His expression remained cold when he saw Selena.

“Dr. Voss,” he said quietly. “You survived.”

Selena stared at him in disbelief.

“Commander Hale.”

The Shepherd growled deep within the staircase below.

Every soldier instantly turned their weapons downward.

Fear flashed across several faces.

“So it’s true,” Hale whispered.

The chained Harvester inside the containment chamber began laughing wildly.

“The Shepherd remembers you.”

Hale ignored it.

Instead, he looked directly at Maya and Ethan.

“You two are civilians?”

“Something like that,” Maya answered.

His eyes stopped on Ethan’s infected veins.

“Subject contamination confirmed,” one soldier announced.

Several rifles immediately aimed toward Ethan’s head.

“No!” Maya snapped, stepping in front of him.

“He’s still human.”

“For now,” another soldier muttered. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Ethan staggered weakly against a wall, breathing harder with every second. Sweat dripped from his face while distant whispers echoed faintly inside his skull.

“The signal...” he whispered. “It’s getting louder.”

Suddenly the Shepherd climbed another step from the darkness below.

The entire bunker seemed to shrink beneath its presence.

Several soldiers panicked instantly.

“Open fire!” someone shouted.

Gunfire exploded through the chamber.

Bullets tore into the Shepherd’s fungal armor, spraying black blood across the walls. Yet the creature barely flinched.

Then it roared.

The sound was so powerful the containment glass shattered instantly.

Subject Nine escaped.

The chained Harvester launched itself onto one of the soldiers with horrifying speed, tearing through his throat before anyone could react.

Chaos erupted.

Harvesters flooded upward from the lower staircase behind the Shepherd like a living wave.

The bunker became a slaughterhouse.

Maya fired repeatedly while dragging Ethan toward cover behind overturned medical equipment. Selena grabbed a combat rifle from a dead soldier and opened fire beside her.

Commander Hale shouted orders desperately.

“Fall back! Seal the lower sectors!”

Too late.

The Harvesters were already among them.

One infected leapt onto a soldier and slammed him against the wall hard enough to crack bone. Another crawled across the ceiling before dropping directly into the middle of the response team.

Screams echoed everywhere.

And through all of it—

The Shepherd simply walked forward.

Calm.

Deliberate.

Its white eyes remained fixed on Hale.

Recognition.

Hatred.

“You promised...” the Shepherd growled.

Hale’s face turned pale.

Maya noticed something then.

The Shepherd was not attacking randomly.

It wanted Hale alive.

Selena grabbed Maya’s arm.

“There’s an elevator shaft behind the west corridor,” she shouted over the gunfire. “It leads closer to the silos.”

“You want to go deeper into this place?”

“We need answers.”

Another explosion shook the bunker.

The ceiling above began collapsing.

Dust and sparks rained downward as emergency alarms screamed throughout BLACKTHORN Division.

Ethan suddenly froze.

His head tilted slowly upward.

The black veins across his skin pulsed violently.

Then he whispered something that made Maya’s blood run cold.

“It’s under the silos.”

Maya stared at him.

“What is?”

Ethan’s eyes slowly rolled completely white.

“The Root.”