Axel Vance charged toward the rear of the ruined prison while keeping one eye on the battle behind him. Warden Holden had already gathered the surviving corrections officers and the braver inmates at the front, where they were struggling to contain the frenzied prisoners pouring out of the underground maximum-security wing. That left the rear filled mostly with terrified inmates, injured survivors, and people too shaken to offer any real resistance.
Those were exactly the kind of targets Ed Gein was cutting through with terrifying efficiency. His enormous body moved with unnatural speed while the small scalpel in his hand flashed from one victim to the next, opening throats with disturbingly precise movements. Every time someone tried to flee past him, Gein seemed to appear in their path before they could get away.
Axel kept the Glock raised but refused to fire recklessly. Panicked inmates were running in every direction, and one missed shot could easily hit an innocent survivor instead of Gein. He kept moving around the edge of the chaos, watching for a clean opportunity to attack from behind.
Gein suddenly bent down and grabbed an injured prisoner who had been unable to move on his own. With one arm, he lifted the man from the ground as if his weight meant nothing. Axel immediately recognized his chance.
He sprinted forward and launched himself onto Gein’s back. His left arm locked tightly around the murderer’s neck, and the impact made Gein stagger for half a second. Axel used that opening to press the muzzle of the Glock directly against his temple.
Bang! Bang!
Both rounds struck at point-blank range. The blasts were so close that Axel’s ears immediately began ringing, while two holes tore through the human-skin mask stretched across Gein’s face. A warm, thick mixture splattered across Axel’s cheek and forehead.
Gein’s massive body finally lost its balance and crashed onto the rubble. Axel was dragged down with him, but he immediately rolled away and pushed himself back to his feet. Then the smell hit him.
"Jesus Christ..." Axel gagged and wiped his face with his sleeve. Whatever had sprayed onto him smelled far worse than normal blood, and the sight of grayish fragments mixed into the thick fluid nearly turned his stomach. "What the hell is that thing wearing?"
A terrified prisoner stood nearby, so Axel pointed toward his own face. "You. Come here and tell me if I still have any of that crap on me." The man did not move.
Instead, his eyes widened.
His trembling finger slowly pointed behind Axel.
"Y-You..."
Axel frowned. "What?"
"Behind you."
A cold chill ran down Axel’s spine.
He spun around.
Gein was moving.
The man who should have been dead after taking two bullets directly through the head was slowly twisting his neck toward Axel at an unnatural angle. His empty eyes locked onto him through the damaged mask, while thick black liquid began seeping from the bullet holes instead of ordinary blood.
The prisoners nearby screamed and backed away as Gein planted both hands against the rubble. His arms trembled while he forced his body upward. Somehow, even catastrophic damage to the brain had failed to stop him.
"You’ve got to be kidding me."
Axel moved before Gein could fully stand. He stepped forward and drove a hard kick into the arm supporting most of Gein’s weight. The resurrected killer collapsed sideways.
Before Gein could recover, Axel kicked again and struck the hand holding the scalpel. The weapon flew across the rubble and disappeared beneath a broken section of concrete. Gein was finally unarmed.
Instead of immediately attacking Axel, Gein instinctively reached for his face.
His fingers touched the two ragged bullet holes in the human-skin mask.
His entire body stiffened.
Gein suddenly began tugging at the damaged edges in obvious panic, desperately trying to press the torn skin back together. His strength had become difficult to control, and the already fragile mask ripped further beneath his fingers.
"No..."
The remaining skin tore apart.
Pieces fell away from his face.
Gein froze.
For several seconds, he simply lay there with his real features exposed to everyone around him. Then a raw, furious scream erupted from his throat.
"AAAAAH!"
The sound echoed across the ruined prison.
Even the hardened inmates nearby instinctively stepped backward.
"What the hell is wrong with him?" one prisoner whispered.
Another man crossed himself. "God help us."
A third stared at Gein and muttered, "If I survive this, I swear I’m never coming back to prison."
The loss of the mask seemed to push Gein into an even deeper state of madness. He suddenly surged to his feet with speed far beyond anything he had shown before and charged straight at Axel. The distance between them vanished almost instantly.
Too fast.
Axel barely managed to raise the Glock before Gein slammed into him.
The impact felt like being hit by a speeding motorcycle. Axel was thrown backward and crashed hard across the rubble, while the pistol flew from his hand and skidded several yards away. Pain spread sharply through his chest.
"What kind of strength is that...?"
Axel rolled sideways before Gein could reach him again.
Until now, Axel had considered his enhanced Physique one of his greatest advantages. Prisoner Fitness Lv.3 had already given him strength beyond ordinary people, but Gein’s berserk state had pushed the resurrected killer into another category entirely. Trying to overpower him directly would be suicidal.
Axel immediately changed tactics.
Instead of meeting Gein head-on, he kept moving.
Whenever Gein rushed forward, Axel slipped aside and circled around him. The difference became obvious almost immediately: Gein possessed overwhelming raw strength, but his movements lacked the coordination and agility required to use it efficiently.
A huge arm swung toward Axel’s head.
He ducked.
Another strike came from the side.
Axel stepped backward just beyond its reach.
Gein roared and attacked again, but every movement was heavy and direct. Axel continued weaving around him while looking for openings. The strategy worked, but another problem quickly appeared.
Axel was getting tired.
His breathing became heavier with every dodge, and sweat soaked through his prison uniform. Gein showed no comparable fatigue.
No slowing heartbeat.
No weakening muscles.
Nothing.
"How the hell are you not tired?"
Axel dodged another wild swing and stared at Gein more carefully.
This thing was not functioning like an ordinary living body.
Even severe blood loss, brain trauma, and physical exhaustion seemed meaningless to him. Whatever had brought Gein back was driving his corpse through something other than normal human physiology.
Axel could not keep dodging forever.
He needed help.
Several prisoners were standing farther back, watching the fight with terrified expressions. Axel immediately shouted at them while sidestepping another charge. "Are you guys planning to stand there until he kills everyone?"
Nobody answered.
Axel pointed toward Gein. "He doesn’t even have a weapon anymore! He’s one man, and there are more than a dozen of you."
A few prisoners exchanged looks.
Axel kept moving. "Stop acting scared and jump him together. He can’t fight all of us at once."
That finally reached them.
One prisoner clenched his fists. "He’s right. That freak doesn’t have the knife anymore."
Another man stepped forward. "There are fifteen of us and one of him."
Someone farther back shouted, "Screw it! Take him down!"
Fear suddenly transformed into aggression.
These were still prison inmates, and most of them were far from harmless people. Once someone gave them permission to attack as a group, their hesitation vanished quickly. More than a dozen prisoners surged toward Gein from different directions.
Axel saw the opening.
He dropped low and threw himself at Gein’s legs.
The impact knocked the resurrected killer off balance, and Axel twisted his body while several inmates slammed into Gein from the side. The huge man crashed onto the rubble beneath a pile of bodies.
"Hold him down!"
Prisoners immediately grabbed his arms and legs. Others began punching and kicking whatever part of Gein they could reach. The attack quickly became brutal.
Fists struck his face.
Boots hammered his ribs.
Someone stomped on one arm until something cracked.
Yet Gein continued struggling.
He roared beneath the crowd and nearly threw several men off at once. His body accumulated more and more damage, with torn flesh and even exposed bone visible in several places, but he still refused to stop moving.
Axel stared at him in disbelief.
"How is he still alive?"
One prisoner nearly lost his grip when Gein suddenly jerked upward.
"Keep him down!"
Axel looked around desperately for something capable of ending this.
His gaze stopped on a large chunk of broken concrete lying several feet away.
That would do.
"Everybody move away from his head!"
The prisoners looked toward him.
"Now!"
Axel ran to the concrete block and wrapped both arms around it. Veins stood out across his forearms as he forced the heavy piece of rubble off the ground. Even with his enhanced strength, the weight made his muscles tremble.
The prisoners holding Gein immediately understood.
They pulled back from his upper body.
Axel staggered forward with the block raised against his chest. His eyes locked onto Gein’s head.
"Let’s see you get up after this."
He lifted the concrete higher.
Then brought it down with everything he had.
CRUNCH!
The block slammed directly onto Gein’s head.
His body convulsed violently once.
Then stopped.
Silence spread through the nearby group.
Nobody moved for several seconds.
Axel remained bent forward with both hands resting against the concrete, breathing heavily. He waited for Gein to twitch again.
Nothing happened.
Then the system notification appeared.
[Police Marksmanship: EXP +32]
Axel blinked.
He had not killed Gein with the pistol, yet the specialization still awarded experience. The reason made absolutely no sense, but Axel was far too exhausted to complain about free EXP.
"It’s finally over."
He straightened and took several deep breaths before turning toward the other side of the battlefield.
Holden had managed to stabilize the situation there as well.
Most of the frenzied maximum-security inmates had already been killed during the fighting. A handful remained alive with shattered arms or legs, but they could do little more than weakly writhe against the rubble while surviving guards and prisoners kept them under control.
For the moment, the madness had finally been contained.
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