Chapter 48: Chapter 10.1: Kageyoshi Part 2 The entrance to the main research floor was a dark maw, a stark contrast to the pristine, star-lit atrium behind them. A clear cold seeped from the opening, carrying the sterile scent of a hospital mixed with the faint, coppery tang of old blood. The air was still, heavy, and silent in a way that felt unnatural, as if the very fabric of sound had been sucked out of the space.
Jin took the lead, his stun baton held loosely at his side. The dim light from his headlamp cut a nervous path into the oppressive darkness. The feeling was a low, persistent thrum at the base of his skull, a deep, gut-level feeling of wrongness, of a place that had been violated and left to fester.
"Stay tight," he murmured, his voice barely disturbing the silence. "Watch your footing."
As they stepped across the threshold, the scale of the facility became apparent. It was a cavernous space, two stories high, with a maze of catwalks, dormant machinery, and shattered containment vats stretching out into the gloom. Holographic projectors flickered erratically on the walls, displaying corrupted data streams and ghostly images of cellular structures before dissolving into static.
A soft, chittering sound echoed from the darkness ahead. From behind a large, overturned server rack, a single Crawler emerged. It was smaller than the ones they had fought before, no bigger than a dog, but it moved with a terrifying, skittering speed. Its multifacetted eyes glinted in the dim light as it scanned the corridor, its antennae twitching. It hadn’t seen them yet, hidden in the shadows of a side passage.
"Clara, can you use the environmental controls?" Sera whispered.
"I-I can try," Clara stammered, her fingers flying across her tablet. "The fire suppression system for this sector is offline, but I might be able to trigger a localized power surge in the lighting conduits."
"Do it," Sera commanded.
Clara tapped a final command, and a moment later, the lights at the end of the corridor flared with blinding intensity. The Crawler hissed in surprise, its multifaceted eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden glare.
"Now!" Jin yelled, not waiting for orders. His body moved on pure instinct, the principles of swordsmanship adapting to the stun baton in his hand. He burst from the shadows, the Crawler reacting with terrifying speed, its claws lashing out. Jin flowed underneath the attack, his movements a blur of black and gold. He didn’t try to fight it head-on. Instead, he used its momentum against it, striking at its legs with the baton. The crack of electricity on chitin echoed in the corridor as the creature stumbled, its legs spasming.
’Your form is improving,’ Asha noted. ’The adaptation of sword principles to an improvised weapon is inefficient, but your body is compensating with increased agility.’
Before the creature could recover, Rosa was there, her own stun baton crackling as she brought it down on the creature’s back. "Go for the joints!" she yelled, ducking under a wild swipe.
Sera provided covering fire from the rear, her precision shots forcing the Crawler to keep its head down, creating openings for Jin and Rosa to exploit. The creature was fast and vicious, but it was outnumbered and outmaneuvered.
Jin saw an opening. As the Crawler lunged at Rosa, he sidestepped and drove the baton into the soft underbelly beneath its carapace. The creature convulsed, a high-pitched shriek tearing from its throat before it collapsed to the floor, twitching.
Silence returned to the tunnel, broken only by their ragged breathing. Jin stood over the fallen creature, his chest heaving, the baton still humming in his hand.
"Is everyone okay?" Jin asked, his voice firm as he scanned the darkness for any more threats.
"Good," Rosa said, a grin on her face. "That was more fun than I’ve had in ages."
Clara just nodded, her eyes wide behind her glasses.
"We need to keep moving," Jin said, his voice firm.
They navigated the rest of the research floor with a newfound sense of urgency. Finally, they saw it. Set into the far wall was another blast door, smaller than the main entrance but far more heavily fortified. It was made of a black, non-reflective metal, covered in stark red and yellow warning symbols.
As they approached, a low, guttural growl echoed from the shadows behind a large, overturned server rack. From the darkness emerged a creature unlike any they had seen before. It was larger than a Crawler, its body a grotesque fusion of chitin and malformed metal, as if it had been fused with the very machinery of the lab.
’Jin, that’s... that’s not in any of the standard bestiaries I have access to,’ Asha’s voice was tight, stripped of its usual clinical tone.
It took one look at them and charged, its metal claws screeching against the concrete floor.
"Clara, get to that console!" Jin yelled, already moving to intercept the creature. "Sera, Rosa, on me! We have to hold it off!"
The creature was terrifyingly fast, a juggernaut of flesh and steel. Jin met its charge head-on, his baton raised. The impact was tremendous, a shockwave of force that sent him skidding backward, his strength being pushed to its absolute limit. The creature was impossibly strong.
It swiped at him with its metal claw, and Jin barely managed to dodge, the weapon slicing through the air where his head had been a second before. He countered with a strike to the creature’s leg, but the baton just glanced off its armored hide, doing no damage.
"Its armor is too thick!" he yelled, ducking under another swipe.
Sera’s pulse rifle barked, the high-energy rounds sparking against the creature’s carapace but failing to penetrate. "My rounds aren’t getting through!"
"Then we aim for the weak spots!" Rosa yelled, vaulting over a fallen console to attack the creature from the side. She aimed for the joints, the places where the metal was fused to the flesh, her baton creating showers of sparks with each impact.
The creature roared in frustration, turning its attention to Rosa. It lunged, its massive claw poised to strike.
"Rosa, look out!" Jin screamed.
He didn’t think. He activated his `Combat Art: Desperate Strike`, pouring all of his stamina into a single, powerful blow. He didn’t aim for the creature’s body; he aimed for the floor right in front of Rosa.
’Unprecedented energy surge from your adrenal medulla,’ Asha’s voice cut through the red haze of his focus.
The baton struck the concrete with a deafening crack, and the shockwave of kinetic energy sent up a shower of debris. The creature, caught off balance, stumbled, its lunge going wide. Rosa scrambled back to safety, her eyes wide with shock and gratitude.
The creature turned its glowing red eyes back to Jin, its rage clear. It abandoned all pretense of tactics and charged, a mindless engine of destruction.
Jin stood his ground, his baton held in a two-handed grip. He knew he couldn’t stop it head-on. But he didn’t have to. He just had to buy Clara time.
He could hear her frantic typing from the console behind him. "Almost there! I just need to bypass the final firewall!"
The creature was almost upon him. Jin took a deep breath, centered himself, and prepared for the impact of his life.
Then, a soft chime echoed from the console behind him.
’"Access Granted. Welcome, Heir of Tsurugi."’
The massive blast door began to grind open, revealing a sliver of darkness beyond.
"Jin, it’s open!" Clara screamed.
Jin didn’t hesitate. He turned and sprinted for the doorway, the creature’s furious roar echoing behind him. He dove through the opening just as the massive door began to slide shut, the creature’s metal claw scraping against the edge with a final, enraged shriek.
The door sealed with a definitive, final thud, plunging them into absolute darkness and silence.
’We are now sealed in Sector 7B,’ Asha stated, her voice returning to its usual calm. ’Atmospheric controls are online. Air quality is optimal. It seems your mother valued comfort as much as security.’
"Is everyone... is everyone okay?" Jin asked, his voice a raw whisper. He leaned against the cold metal of the door, his body trembling with a combination of exhaustion and adrenaline.
A chorus of shaky affirmations answered him.
"I’m okay," Sera said, her voice steady as she reloaded her pulse rifle.
Clara was already tapping at her tablet. "We’re locked in. The lockdown protocol is one-way. I can’t open it from this side without a full system reboot, and the main console for that is... well, on the other side."
"Then we find another way," Jin said, pushing himself off the door. He took a deep, steadying breath, and as he did, a familiar chime sounded in his HUD.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[LEVEL UP!]
𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂 [Current Level: 7]
[EXP: 570 / 1500]
[STAT PROGRESSION DOUBLED - Tsurugi Bloodline Bonus Applied]
[HP: 420 / 420]
[Stamina: 420 / 420]
[Core Attributes Updated:]
[STR: 16.00 → 18.00]
[AGI: 11.50 → 12.50]
[END: 14.00 → 16.00]
[RES: 12.00 → 13.50]
[PER: 14.00 → 15.50]
[Skill Progression: Melee Weapon Mastery (Improvised) (Lv. 5 → 30%)]
[Skill Progression: Predator Instinct (Lv. 1 → 10%)]