On the roof—

The mass kept forming.

Even under fire.

Rounds tore through it in bursts—

CRACK—! CRACK—! THUD—THUD—!

Strands snapped, shredded, scattered outward in black fragments that slapped against the rooftop surface or whipped back toward the main body. Each impact disrupted it—

But didn’t stop it.

It kept pulling together.

Reforming.

Expanding.

One of the security officers tightened his grip on his rifle, shoulders tense as he kept firing in controlled bursts.

His voice cut through the comms, strained but still holding structure.

"Contact lost with Mr. Olynk’s unit! Last signal places them a few levels below! Requesting orders, sir—what’s our directive?!"

Another voice overlapped, sharper—

"Targets not neutralized! Structural integrity at risk if this continues!"

Charles didn’t hesitate.

"Keep firing at it!"

His voice carried clean authority, cutting through the rising noise.

He turned to Don immediately, eyes locked on him.

"If we go airborne—can you hold off the spikes if it attacks?"

Don didn’t answer right away.

His gaze flicked back to the mass, tracking its movement, calculating distance, speed—angles.

Then he shook his head.

"I don’t think so."

Blunt.

No padding.

Another officer shouted from the side, rifle kicking against his shoulder as he fired again—

"Sir, it’s not working! We need heavier weaponry—but the proximity to the chopper—!"

"Sir!" another cut in, breath uneven, "we just lost all ground-level contact! That group infected threat could be here any minute—!"

The voices layered.

Urgent.

Disciplined.

But breaking at the edges.

Charles clenched his jaw.

Time wasn’t there.

Options weren’t clean.

So he chose.

"We’ll just have to try!" he snapped. "Keep firing! Set up secondary formation and explosives by the door—now!"

Movement followed instantly.

Officers broke from position, some maintaining fire while others shifted, pulling equipment, setting charges near the access point.

Boots scraped against the rooftop—

SKRR—~

Metal clanked—

CHK—~

Charles turned back to Don.

"Don, we need to—"

BOOOOM—!!!

An explosion suddenly tore through the building from below.

The rooftop lurched.

Not a small tremor—

A full-body jolt.

The ground beneath them shifted violently, cracks spreading across the polished surface as loose equipment toppled over.

One of the ammo crates slid several feet before slamming into a barrier—

THUD—!

The med station rattled, tools clattering across its surface—

A sniper near the edge lost footing for half a second, catching himself just before going down, his rifle dipping before snapping back up.

The helicopters rocked slightly on their mounts, rotors stuttering before stabilizing—

Dust pushed up through seams in the structure, faint trails slipping through cracks as the force echoed upward.

The firing didn’t stop.

It staggered—

Then resumed.

CRACK—! CRACK—!

The mass at the edge convulsed under the disturbance, strands flaring outward before pulling back in, reforming faster now, more aggressive in its motion.

Charles’s stance shifted, wings flexing slightly as he absorbed the tremor, his injured side tightening in response.

Don didn’t move.

But his eyes sharpened.

Something below had escalated.

Several floors down—

The source of it burned.

What had once been a display hall—wide, polished, lined with exotic vehicles and sculpted installations—was gone.

Or rather—

Unrecognizable.

The luxury had been torn apart.

High-end cars, once pristine, now sat twisted and crushed against shattered columns.

Some burned outright, flames crawling over warped metal as fuel fed the fire—

FSSSHH—~

Glass displays had exploded, fragments embedded into walls, floors, and bodies alike.

Sculptures lay broken across the ground, pieces scattered among debris and blood.

Smoke hung thick.

The air itself felt heavy.

Near the stairwell—

Mr. Olynk stood.

Or what remained of him.

His uniform was torn, sections burned through completely. One side of his face had taken the worst of it—skin blistered, parts blackened, others raw and exposed beneath.

Blood ran from a gash along his temple, dripping down past his jaw.

One arm hung slightly lower than the other.

Not useless—

But not right.

His grip on the rifle in that hand was loose, fingers tightening intermittently as if reminding themselves how to function.

Around him—

The remaining officers weren’t much better.

One leaned heavily against the wall, barely upright, his breathing shallow and uneven.

His abdomen had been torn open in places, blood soaking through what remained of his gear.

Another knelt nearby, rifle still raised, but his arm shook violently with each attempt to steady it.

They were holding.

Barely.

Across from them—

It stood.

The male infected.

Its body had been reduced—

But not stopped.

The right side—

Gone.

Both arms missing entirely, torn away at the shoulder. The pincer that had once replaced one of them was nowhere to be seen.

Half of its face had been obliterated, exposing bone and ruined muscle beneath, one eye socket empty while the other remained fixed forward.

Its chest—

Riddled.

Multiple holes punched clean through, greenish fluid leaking steadily from them, thick and viscous as it dripped down its torso—

...drip...

...drip—~

But its legs—

Were worse.

They glowed.

Not faintly.

Bright.

Cracks ran along the surface of them, splitting open in uneven lines that revealed something inside—something molten.

From those openings, thick orange gas poured outward, heavy and slow at first—

SSSSHHH—~

Where it touched—

It burned.

The floor beneath it warped and softened, edges melting under the heat as the gas spread outward in a low cloud.

Then—

It thickened.

Compressed.

The glow intensified—

And—

BOOM—!!

The gas detonated outward from its own legs.

The blast tore through the lower half of its body, ripping one of the remaining limbs apart completely.

Flesh ruptured under the force, fragments of it thrown outward as the shockwave shattered nearby debris and sent a burning gust across the room.

Even it—

Took damage.

Severe.

Its body staggered from the blast, chunks missing, more fluid spilling from newly opened wounds.

But it didn’t fall.

Didn’t hesitate.

Its remaining eye—

Stayed fixed.

Blank.

Unchanged.

And then—

It moved forward.

Again.

The heat alone was enough to break lesser men.

It rolled through the ruined hall in waves, thick and suffocating, carrying the stink of melted metal and something worse beneath it.

The male infected kept coming, each step uneven yet unstoppable—

Its body dragged forward through damage that should have ended it long ago.

It didn’t slow.

Didn’t react.

Didn’t care.

—

Mr. Olynk saw it.

And for the first time in a long time—

He felt something close to fear settle in his chest.

Not panic.

Not yet.

But close enough to tighten his jaw.

Enough to make his grip on the rifle adjust.

He had seen violence. Had enforced it. Lived around it.

But this—

This thing didn’t operate within any rule he understood.

Behind him, one of the officers let out a strained breath, voice low but shaking.

"...what the hell is that thing..."

No one answered.

Because there wasn’t one.

Olynk turned instead, forcing his focus onto his men.

"Listen," he said, voice cutting through the noise, fast but controlled. "That thing isn’t stopping. And whatever’s coming up behind it—those infected or whatever they are—they’ll be here soon."

He pointed toward the stairwell.

"The only way this works is if we cut both threats off here. We use a VX-9 compression charge. Wide radius—fifteen meters minimum. Enough to take out the stairwell and anything in it."

He stepped forward slightly, eyes flicking back to the advancing creature.

"So if we—"

"So we detonate close to the stairs and the mutant," the officer near the steps cut in, pale blue eyes lit faintly, thin streams of binary scrolling across them. His voice was steady despite everything. "We collapse access and take it out with us."

Olynk didn’t argue.

Didn’t hesitate.

He nodded once.

"Yes. That’s the play. We stop them here."

He gestured sharply.

"Me and K-4 hold it with what we have left. The rest of you—"

"Hand me the charge."

The voice came from the ground.

All of them turned.

The injured officer.

Barely holding on.

His body leaned against the wall, blood pooling beneath him in a dark spread that had already soaked into the fractured floor.