“Here,” Chad said, handing the wireless detonator directly to Chu Feng without hesitation.
“Goodbye,” Chu Feng murmured.
He held no personal grudge against the artificial intelligence, but her primary directive dictated their absolute annihilation.
Had he not successfully achieved his Stage 2 genetic awakening, every single one of them would have died in that laboratory.
Without a moment’s reluctance, Chu Feng pressed the master override button.
CLICK!
The digital display on the wall terminal began a rapid system purge.
10%…
30%…
70%…
100% [You…
will all…
die here…] The Red Queen uttered her final, distorted curse before a plume of pungent green smoke erupted from the server junction box.
The overhead lights flickered once, and her red avatar dissolved into static as the system shut down completely.
“I should’ve fried that piece of junk an hour ago!
Cough!
Cough!” Rain spat bitterly.
She had nearly been forced to sacrifice herself because of the AI’s cold logic.
However, because the T-Virus had been circulating in her system for far too long, the exertion triggered a violent coughing fit, her face growing visibly paler.
“Let’s move,” Chu Feng ordered.
He reached out toward a discarded structural steel pipe on the floor.
Under his magnetic influence, the heavy iron flattened and reshaped itself into a broad, lethal iron longsword, resting lightly in his grip as a primary weapon.
Alice helped support the weakened Rain, while Matt shouldered Chad, and the group moved quickly out of the laboratory section.
With Chu Feng leading the vanguard, they no longer feared running into stray wanderers.
Furthermore, the Red Queen had previously herded the bulk of the facility’s infected into the utility tunnels, leaving the main access corridors completely clear.
Their trek through the dark halls was eerie and undisturbed, lifting the group’s spirits slightly as the train platform came into view.
Unbeknownst to them, deep within Dining Hall B, the heavy electronic latches securing dozens of steel containment vats suddenly disengaged one by one.
Before her core was short-circuited, the Red Queen had calculated that locking the blast doors would fail against Chu Feng.
In her final millisecond of processing, she had authorized a protocol override: releasing every single experimental Licker housed within the Hive.
Soon, the squad arrived at the subterranean train station.
“Get the engine started,” Chu Feng instructed, handing his iron sword to Alice as he headed toward the rear platform car.
“I’ll retrieve the serum.” He knew Rain’s cellular structure was likely past the point of recovery, but Chad’s infection was still in its early stages and could easily be cured.
“Got it!” Chad called out, rushing to the front cab alongside Matt.
Chu Feng reached the rear platform car and spotted the reinforced aluminum storage case hidden beneath a service panel where Spence had stashed it earlier.
He lifted the case, snapped open the latches, and verified the contents: double-helix vials of deep blue T-Virus and vibrant green antiviral serum were arranged in neat rows.
HUMMM— “Power’s up!
We’re ready to roll!” Chad’s voice echoed over the train’s intercom.
“On my way,” Chu Feng replied.
Closing the case, he stepped into the passenger compartment just as the train let out a low rumble and began accelerating down the dark tunnel.
Relief washed over everyone inside the car.
They had finally made it onto the train.
Chu Feng watched as Alice took one of the green serum vials from the case.
As a trained operative, administering an intravenous injection was second nature to her.
She quickly located a clear vein on Rain’s arm and pressed the pneumatic injector.
Standing nearby, Chu Feng remained silent.
He knew the virus had already integrated too deeply into Rain’s nervous system for the antidote to fully purge it, but he made no move to stop Alice.
No one had the right to rob a teammate of their last shred of hope.
“I don’t want to turn into one of those things…” Rain mumbled incoherently, her eyelids heavy, dark veins spreading visibly beneath her pale skin.
“Floating around…
with no soul left…” “You won’t,” Alice whispered softly, pressing a cloth to the injection site.
“If…
if it doesn’t work,” Rain muttered, staring up at Alice with fading eyes, “you know what you have to do.
Don’t let me hurt anyone.” Rain was a seasoned soldier.
Though no one said it aloud, she knew better than anyone how far gone her body was.
She was willing to cling to hope, but she was equally prepared for the worst.
“Hey, stop talking like that,” Alice forced a gentle smile, trying to keep her voice steady.
“Nobody’s dying today.” On the other side of the car, Matt administered the antidote to Chad.
Because Chad had been bitten far more recently, the green serum took effect almost instantly.
The dark red veins spreading up his neck began to recede, his clammy fever broke, and his breathing stabilized.
Within minutes, Chad pushed himself up, feeling strong enough to take over the controls in the front cab.
However, Rain’s condition continued to deteriorate.
“Here…” Rain rasped weakly, unbuckling her tactical watch and handing it to Alice.
“Track…
the timer…” The digital display on the bezel was still counting down the remaining minutes before the surface quarantine doors sealed permanently.
As soon as the watch left her hand, Rain’s head fell back limp against the steel bench, her body going entirely still.
“Rain?
Rain!” Alice called out frantically, shaking her shoulder.
There was no response.
Her pulse was gone.
A heavy, painful silence fell over the car.
Alice stared at her motionless comrade, tears welling in her eyes.
Slowly, reluctantly, she picked up the fire axe resting against the wall.
It was Rain’s final wish.
As painful as it was, Alice couldn’t bear the thought of her friend reanimating as a mindless monster.
She raised the heavy blade above her shoulder, her hands trembling violently.
GASP!
Just as Alice hesitated, Rain suddenly drew a sharp, ragged breath, her eyes snapping open as she caught the shaft of the axe in mid-air!
Everyone gasped, nearly jumping out of their skin thinking she had reanimated.
“I’m not dead yet…” Rain wheezed out, a faint, dark smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.
A collective sigh of relief echoed through the car.
“Damn it, Rain!
That’s not funny!” Matt exhaled, wiping sweat from his forehead.
BANG!
Before anyone could laugh, a massive, razor-sharp claw punched straight through the outer steel wall of the train car!
SLASH!
Matt, who was leaning against the side panel, shrieked in agony as the jagged claws tore deep gouges across his arm, spraying blood across the floor tiles.
“AAAGH!” Matt dropped to his knees, clutching his bleeding arm as he scrambled backward.
“What’s happening back there?!” Chad yelled over the noise from the front compartment.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
In an instant, the heavy steel plating on both sides of the moving train car began buckling under a relentless barrage of heavy impacts.
Multiple elongated, skinless limbs ripped through the metal skin like paper.
There’s a whole swarm of them out there!
Chu Feng’s brow furrowed in deep confusion.
This doesn’t make sense…
In the original timeline, there was only ever ONE Licker on the escape train!
He had already personally crushed that Licker back in the testing chamber.
Theoretically, the train ride should have been entirely safe.
What Chu Feng had failed to account for was his own butterfly effect.
In the original timeline, the Red Queen deployed a single Licker as her final countermeasure.
But Chu Feng’s overwhelming display of force—slaughtering the first Licker and physically forcing open her blast doors—had forced the supercomputer to recalculate its survival parameters.
Before her central core was fried, she had disengaged every single containment vat in Dining Hall B, unleashing the entire experimental batch onto the tracks!