RTS System in the Apocalypse: New World

Even if I die for it, you will have to pay the price!

Adrian had no intention of dying in a sewer.

Unfortunately, the city seemed interested in arguing with him.

The tunnel shook behind him as another sewer-type tore itself out from the wall. Suppressed fire cracked through the drainage line, slapping black blood against the concrete.

"Echo Two-One, left seam!"

"On it!"

A burst followed.

The thing folded before it could crawl fully out, but Adrian did not feel any relief.

The walls were moving now.

The blackened flesh tightened section by section, waking only when Echo Two came close enough.

Thin strips peeled away from the concrete. Pipe joints pulsed like veins. Old residue that looked dead a minute ago suddenly turned alive.

Adrian hated smart enemies.

Dumb infected ran at bullets. Smart ones made bullets feel too few.

He did not wait for more.

"Echo Two-One, Two-Two, I’m going in!"

"Understood!"

"Vex!"

The dog rushed beside him.

Echo Two-One and Echo Two-Two opened fire at the same time. Suppressed bursts cracked through the drainage line, short and hard, punching through the seams where the black flesh began to split.

Adrian ran. There was no time for quiet steps anymore.

Dirty water splashed beneath his boots. His NVG view shook with every stride, grainy shapes jumping in and out of focus as the corridor bent deeper into the drainage line.

A sewer-type dropped from the ceiling ahead.

The dog slammed into its side and dragged it down before its limbs could spread properly. Adrian fired twice into its skull as he passed.

They didn’t stop and quickly moved along.

This dog is bloodthirsty, Adrian gulped.

The red pulse deeper in the tunnel flickered again.

This time, it did not vanish immediately.

Adrian saw it on the Radar map, saw the bend ahead, saw the corridor widening into something larger.

And inside there, the tunnel shuddered.

The flesh along the walls tightened as if the place had realized he was not supposed to get this far.

Good, Adrian thought. Scaredy cat now?

Another sewer-type tore out from the right seam, half its body still glued to the wall. It opened its jaw, but Adrian fired before it finished emerging. The bullets tore through its face, and the thing folded back into the flesh.

Vex snarled and lunged at something Adrian had not even seen yet.

A long arm stretched from the floor.

Adrian kicked it aside and kept moving.

After a few moments of scuffling, he and Vex finally reached the bend.

The smell in the air became stronger, wetter, and too warm for an underground drainage line. The spores had grown much thicker, almost blocking his vision.

His boots struck a grated platform. And then, the tunnel opened.

It was not a room but a junction.

Three drainage lines met beneath the western edge of Grefort, feeding into a lower basin where black water should have collected.

But the basin was gone. Or rather, something had filled it.

Black flesh climbed the walls in thick layers, wrapping around pipes, ladders, railings, and broken maintenance platforms.

It had grown around with wanton abandon, taking up as much place as it could.

Sewer monsters hung from the walls half-way out. Their eyes were closed, but Adrian felt that they were more than alive and ready to strike.

Some were folded inside wet sacs. Some had limbs half-exposed, twitching whenever the flesh around them pulsed. Others were only outlines beneath the black membrane, waiting to be peeled open when needed.

Gracious me! How disgusting!

At the center of the junction, beneath a cage of bent pipes, something dark sat inside the flesh.

It was a jagged stone—a shard.

The flesh around it bent inward, all roots and veins pulling toward it like the entire chamber existed to protect that one ugly thing.

Adrian did not need a report.

He did not need another guess.

This was the heart.

Adrian raised his hand and marked the center—Priority Target.

And in that moment, the Radar blipped with red. The entire junction pulsed with extreme danger at once.

Red dots burst across the map, appearing from the walls, the basin, the ceiling, the pipe mouths, and the wet sacs hanging around the chamber.

A tendril suddenly slipped from the flesh and made its way straight toward Adrian.

Can’t move in time!

"Woof!"

Vex slammed into Adrian’s side.

Adrian’s vision lurched.

The tendril cut past where his chest had been a heartbeat ago and stabbed into the grated platform with a wet crack.

"Shit!"

Adrian rolled once, shoulder striking the floor hard. Vex landed in front of him, claws scraping against the metal as it bared its teeth toward the basin.

The tendril pulled itself free. Three more followed.

They rose from the flesh around the shard, thin and dark, twitching like exposed nerves.

Adrian did not waste time thanking the dog.

He raised his SMG and fired. His other hand quickly grabbed a grenade and pulled out the pin.

The first tendril snapped back under the burst. The second coiled sideways, faster than it should have moved, while the third whipped toward Vex.

"Vex, back!"

The dog obeyed at once.

The tendril struck the floor where Vex had stood, leaving a black smear across the grate.

Adrian quickly threw the grenade. It bounced once against the platform, rolled under the twitching tendrils, and dropped toward the basin.

"Cover!"

He threw himself behind the edge of the corridor.

Vex followed, hitting the concrete beside him with a heavy grunt.

The explosion punched through the junction.

Heat, pressure, and black water burst outward. The grated platform screamed beneath the force. For one moment, Adrian’s NVGs washed white, then snapped back into a grainy mess of smoke and moving shadows.

Behind the smoke, the tendrils writhed endlessly on the platform, leaking black fluid that smoked against the rusted metal.

The flesh around the shard tightened. Then, a mysterious wave pulsed outward.

Countless voices surged into Adrian’s mind, almost knocking him out of his consciousness.

Vex howled in retaliation. The sound tore through the voices, rough and familiar enough for Adrian to grab onto.

His vision snapped back in pieces.

The Priority Target marker still blinked over the shard’s position.

Adrian sucked in a long breath.

Vex barked loudly again as it tore another sewer monster who jumped out of its shell.

Adrian turned his eyes over. "Good boy... shit!"

The chamber pulsed again.

This time, he did not wait for it to finish.

"Echo Two, fall back! Vex, let’s—"

Boom!

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