!
Inside the MRI scanning room, a massive pool of blood crept across the linoleum, the machine's deafening hum grinding on without end.
Cheng Du practically dragged his broken body into the room, leaning heavily against the doorframe.
Taking in the absolute slaughterhouse before him, and spotting Su Jin collapsed alongside Gao Tianfang inside the scanner's bore, his heart seized. He scrambled frantically toward the machine.
A literal waterfall of gore had painted the floor beneath Gao Tianfang, with fresh, dark rivulets still seeping out.
Having endured Su Jin's frenzied, piston-like knee strikes, the mutated soldier's internal organs had been violently ruptured and now dangled grotesquely from his shredded torso.
The entire room reeked of charred meat and rusted iron.
"Boss! Boss, talk to me!" Cheng Du's hands trembled violently as he reached in, desperately prying Su Jin out of the dead monster's crushing death grip.
Seeing Su Jin's eyes rolled back, his pale lips bubbling with frothy blood, pure terror spiked through Cheng Du's veins.
"Boss! Hang in there!"
Fueled by pure adrenaline, Cheng Du hoisted Su Jin into his arms and practically lunged across the hall toward the opposite room.
Sunlight!
There was an exterior window! As long as he dragged him into the sun, the boss would definitely regenerate.
Moments later, he dumped Su Jin roughly onto the sun-baked floorboards. Cheng Du slammed his ear against the man's battered chest, listening desperately for a rhythm.
Seconds ticked by. Absolute, terrifying silence.
Cheng Du's jaw went slack, his eyes darting around the empty room in utter disbelief.
Snapping out of his stupor, he locked his hands together and slammed them down into chest compressions, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Boss! You can't die! We have a whole damn family relying on you! How the hell is everyone supposed to survive without you?! You can't be this selfish!"
"Boss.. Boss!" Cheng Du pumped the chest, tears streaming down his grimy face, openly sobbing now. "Boss.. You can't just wither away like a delicate flower! Boss!"
"Hrk..!" The previously comatose Su Jin sucked in a violent gasp of air. He shot bolt upright, eyes bulging wide, before instantly collapsing back onto the floor like a sack of wet cement.
"Boss!" It was like a thousand volts of electricity ripped through Cheng Du, his grief instantly vaporizing into wild ecstasy.
"Get out of the way.." Su Jin weakly swatted at the air, glaring up at him.
"Huh? Go where?"
"You're blocking my damn sunlight."
Realizing his massive frame was casting a shadow, Cheng Du hastily scrambled out of the beam of light. Scrubbing the snot from his nose, he asked, "How bad is it?"
"Half my ribcage is pulverized. It's going to take a minute to knit back together. But I'm not dead, and I can walk." Su Jin wheezed, his breath rattling in his chest. "Give me a second to stabilize, then we find a car. The convoy is waiting, we can't leave them exposed."
"Boss, you practically gave me a heart attack. Your pulse was completely gone."
"Ugh.. I never thought I'd live to hear the phrase 'wither away like a delicate flower' directed at my own corpse." Su Jin stared blankly at the ceiling. "If you ever spout that sickening garbage at me again, I'll put you back in the MRI machine myself."
"Hey, I wasn't born a bottom, but I gave you my first time. Don't be so rough on me."
"Shut your mouth! Go grab my bag and the gun."
...
After resting long enough to stave off shock, the two broken men leaned heavily against each other and began the agonizing descent.
Su Jin was operating with a thoroughly shattered ribcage.
Cheng Du wasn't faring much better, sporting his own collection of fractured bones.
To make matters worse, Gao Tianfang's sweeping kick had clipped him right before the tackle, severely mangling his ankle.
Navigating a hundred flights of concrete stairs was sheer torture. Every single step ground their fractured bones together, as if their own bodies were medieval iron maidens.
Finally hobbling out onto the ground floor, a collective wave of relief washed over them. It felt like crawling out of hell itself.
"Keep your head on a swivel. There might still be zombies roaming the perimeter. I'm on point with the gun; you watch our six." Su Jin brought the firearm up, sweeping the muzzle left and right.
Fortunately, the battlefield was relatively clear. There were only two or three zombies shambling aimlessly near the curb.
However, they were hundreds of yards away and hadn't caught their scent.
Breaking into a painful, limping jog, they hijacked the nearest abandoned sedan. Su Jin slid into the driver's seat and cranked the ignition.
The engine coughed, sputtered, and roared to life!
"Beautiful! Let's get the hell out of here. Good things come to those who suffer." Su Jin flashed a bloody grin as his hands clamped around the steering wheel.
Cheng Du slumped into the passenger seat, grinning like an idiot.
Throwing it into gear, the sedan peeled out, tearing down the ruined highway straight toward the Talent Residential Community.
...
Outside the Talent Residential Community, the survivor convoy was already lined up and idling.
Fu Hu and a handful of the veteran tactical team stood at the very rear of the formation, their eyes glued to the horizon.
Fu Qingdai stood silently among them, her chest tight with gnawing anxiety.
Wei De compulsively tapped the face of his wristwatch. "It's way past the rendezvous time. They should have made it back by now.. Do you think they got ambushed?"
"No, definitely not." Sun Ya stated, forcing a steady tone. "The Boss's combat specs are off the charts. With Cheng Du running interference, a two-on-one is heavily in their favor. The delay is probably logistics. The streets are packed with dead batteries and stalled engines. It takes time to hotwire a ride. Just keep your pants on."
"Right, right.. Wait, look! Here they come!" Fu Hu suddenly bellowed, his voice booming over the idle engines as he pointed down the street.
Seeing the battered sedan tearing down the asphalt toward them, a collective wave of euphoria washed over the tense crowd.
...
"Look at that, the whole family's waiting on us." Su Jin chuckled, easing up on the gas. "Today is actually a damn good day. Even the sky looks pretty. Look at those golden clouds."
"Huh? What golden clouds?" Cheng Du stuck his thick head out the window, squinting up at the sky in total confusion.
"Right there, dead ahead. The massive one glowing like a gold ingot.. Hiss, wait. Looking closer, that cloud is actually unnatural. Why is it moving like that?" Su Jin squinted through the windshield, his tactical paranoia suddenly overriding his relief.
A split second later, Su Jin's jaw dropped in sheer horror.
The golden anomaly violently ruptured. A brilliant, laser-thin beam of golden light shot down from the stratosphere, momentarily tethering itself to the crown of Fu Qingdai's head before instantly vaporizing—taking the golden cloud with it.
[Mission completed. Please proceed to the designated location for evacuation.]
The cold, systemic prompt of the Company flashed directly across his retinas just as a pile of debris loomed in the road. Startled out of his mind, Su Jin violently wrenched the steering wheel.
The tires screamed against the asphalt, burning thick black streaks across the pavement.
The sedan drifted wildly before slamming headlong into a concrete utility pole, the hood buckling upward in a geyser of white steam.
"Boss! Are you trying to kill us..!" Cheng Du wailed, clutching his freshly re-broken ribs.
Su Jin slowly peeled his forehead off the deployed airbag. His chest was heaving uncontrollably as he stared blankly through the cracked windshield.
The cold text of the mission prompt had dissolved, replaced by an agonizingly sterile countdown.
'00:05:00'
'00:04:59'
'00:04:58'
Panicking, Su Jin whipped his head to the left. Fu Qingdai and the rest of the team were sprinting toward the crashed car, their faces pale with terror.
He whipped his head to the right. Just down the block, a sterile red extraction beacon was flashing directly into his optic nerve.
Su Jin's expression completely froze. His entire reality began to fracture.
How many agonizing nights had he jolted awake, fantasizing about this exact moment? About clearing the board, surviving the hellscape, and finally returning to his old life?
But now that the extraction order was actually here, staring him in the face... there was absolutely zero joy. Just a suffocating avalanche of panic and sheer, blinding terror.
Why.. why now?! It was too fast! Too abrupt! He hadn't mentally prepared for this!
Su Jin began to hyperventilate. His bloodshot eyes flared, the veins in his neck bulging against the collar of his ruined shirt, before he brutally hammered his fists into the shattered steering column, unleashing a feral, heartbroken roar.
"You can't do this! I bled for this Company! You can't just rip me out like this! Dropping me in this hellhole without a word and now yanking me out blind?!" Su Jin's voice completely broke. The unhinged warlord vanished, leaving only a broken, exhausted man who let his head sag uselessly against the plastic wheel. "Just give me five more minutes.. Please, I'm begging you. Just give me five minutes. At least.. let me say goodbye to them.."
'01:00:00'
'00:59:59'
'00:59:58'
"Thank you." Su Jin whispered, his voice trembling with overwhelming gratitude as he slowly lifted his head.
"Boss.. did you hit your head? Are you okay?" Cheng Du asked, leaning over with genuine concern. "The family is here. Let's get out before this thing catches fire."
"Yeah. Let's go see them."
Looking for more free chapters? Visit www.skynovelvault.com to read over 5,000 free chapters and continue exploring more stories from SkyNovelVault.