Chapter 126: Subject Zero

The forty-foot adamantine blast gate groaned as it ground upward into the ceiling, releasing a blast of freezing, necrotic air.

From the pitch-black cavern beyond stepped Subject Zero.

The creature was a massive twelve-foot monster that looked like a mix of an ancient void-beast and an armored dread-ape. Thick black armor covered its muscular body, and sharp bone spikes stuck out along its spine and shoulders.

Four glowing red eyes glared through the harsh floodlights, while greenish-black bile dripped from its jaws and hissed against the concrete floor.

The beast threw its horned head back and let out a deafening, concussive roar. The sheer sonic force shattered the reinforced observation windows above, raining glass into the arena.

Calista trembled violently in Evren’s grip, her ears bleeding from the pressure.

"Amber!" Evren commanded, shifting Calista into Amber’s arms. "Take her to the exit gate! Keep your phoenix dome tight and don’t let a single drop of bile touch her!"

Amber nodded fiercely. "Got her!"

"Don’t let that thing pin you!" she added, drawing her saber.

Amber blurred toward the reinforced bulkhead at the edge of the arena, holding the paralyzed alchemist close against her chest. She flared her crimson-gold phoenix aura, forming a protective heat barrier over Calista while guarding the threshold.

Subject Zero’s four red eyes locked onto Evren and Zephyra.

With a thunderous stomp that cracked the arena floor, the multi-ton behemoth charged, moving with terrifying speed for its massive size.

It opened its gaping maw, spewing a pressurized torrent of corrosive acidic bile straight toward Evren.

Evren didn’t try to outrun the spray. Instead, he ducked down and kicked a heavy piece of broken concrete off the floor. He caught it with both hands and held it up to form an angled shield.

SSSSSHHHHH!

The acidic bile slammed into the concrete barrier, dissolving six inches of solid stone into steaming sludge within seconds.

Behind the melting shield, Evren felt the heat radiate against his knuckles.

"Zephyra, high flank!" Evren called out.

Zephyra was already gone.

Melted into the shadows along the perimeter, she vaulted off an electrified fence post, catching the iron scaffolding of the overhead floodlights.

Running along the steel girders above the beast, Zephyra uncoiled her shadow whip-blade. The razor wire snapped down with a sharp crack, looping tightly around the beast’s left sensory horn.

With a sharp pull, Zephyra yanked the wire taut, dragging the monster’s horned snout violently to the left and exposing its thick neck.

Subject Zero let out an enraged shriek, thrashing against the wire.

Evren dropped the melting concrete slab and blurred forward, closing the distance in the creature’s blind spot. He stepped inside the beast’s reach, planting his boots and driving a bare-knuckle punch into its left knee joint.

The powerful SS-Rank strike echoed like an artillery shell hitting solid iron. The force of the impact fractured the titanium-reinforced joint.

With a sickening crunch, the behemoth’s massive left leg gave out, and the multi-ton monster crashed down onto one knee.

Before Evren could follow up, Subject Zero whipped its heavy, barbed tail through the air in a lethal horizontal sweep aimed to bisect him at the waist.

Evren’s kinetic vision tracked the blurred path of the spiked tail. He stepped directly into the tail’s arc, throwing both hands out to catch the barbed appendage in mid-air.

THUD!

The momentum of the multi-ton tail whipped against Evren’s chest, tearing his dark coat.

His boots skidded three feet backward, carving twin grooves into the solid concrete, but his arms locked into place like hydraulic vises.

The beast grunted in confusion, trying to jerk its tail free.

"My turn," Evren murmured.

Bracing his heels, Evren twisted his torso, using the creature’s own momentum against it. With a roar of exertion, Evren lifted the twelve-foot behemoth off the floor and violently slammed it onto its back.

The impact shook the entire arena, sending shockwaves through the bedrock.

Subject Zero snarled in fury, thrashing its razor-sharp adamantine claws in crossed arcs to tear Evren to ribbons.

From the rafters above, Zephyra dropped like a diving hawk.

Inverting in mid-air, she drew twin shadow daggers and drove both blades clean into the creature’s upper two crimson eyes.

A fountain of black ichor erupted as the beast wailed in blinding agony, wildly swatting upward with its massive paws.

Zephyra backflipped off its snout, landing cleanly twenty paces away on the concrete.

Blinded and driven mad with rage, Subject Zero scrambled to its feet, swinging blindly in every direction.

Evren stepped right into the storm of claws. Ducking beneath a blind swipe that sheared through a steel support beam, he closed the final gap and clamped both hands onto the beast’s armored chest plate.

His fingers dug into the seams of the obsidian carapace.

"Raaah!"

Channeling his full Sovereign physical strength, Evren ripped outward.

With the horrifying sound of tearing metal and bone, he tore the chest carapace completely off the monster’s torso, exposing its glowing violet bio-core pulsating beneath thick muscle fibers.

The creature froze, sensing lethal danger.

It opened its jaws to bite down on Evren’s head, but it was already too late.

Reversing his grip on the ripped obsidian plate, Evren drove its razor-sharp edge straight into the exposed violet core like a large chisel.

BOOOOOM!

The dense slab punched clean through the core, shattering bone as it erupted from the creature’s spine. The resulting shockwave pulverized the synthetic core to dust, while the broad carapace shielded Evren from the violent spray of sizzling black blood.

Subject Zero’s four eyes rolled back.

Its massive jaw slackened, and with a heavy, shuddering thud, the twelve-foot creature collapsed lifelessly onto the cracked arena floor.

Corrosive black blood pooled around its head, hissing as it ate into the stone.

Evren let go of the embedded plate and stepped back, shaking the tension from his shoulders as silence fell over the arena.

Across the hall, Calista stared from within Amber’s flame barrier in stunned silence. The cartel’s ultimate terror, a beast meant to slaughter entire elite squads, had been ripped apart barehanded in under two minutes.

Suddenly, high-pitched emergency klaxons began pulsing through the ceiling.

[WARNING: SUBJECT ZERO FLATLINE DETECTED. SECTOR-WIDE CONTAINMENT COMPROMISED. WATERGATE SEAL ACTIVATING.]

"That was the Director’s last pet," Zephyra said, wiping blood from her cheek. "They’re locking down the exterior perimeter."

Evren walked to Amber and gently took Calista back into his arms, securing her against his chest. "Lead the way to the canal."

Zephyra sprinted toward the far maintenance exit, picking the electronic latch in two seconds.

The door swung open, revealing a downward concrete stairwell that echoed with the roar of rushing water.

They rushed up the narrow stairs, ascending two levels back toward the Sub-Level 4 drainage junction until the air turned cold and damp with the smell of canal wastewater. They burst through the drainage bulkhead onto a high catwalk overlooking the subterranean canal.

"There’s the exit channel!" Amber called out, pointing toward the dark water tunnel.

Then she stopped dead in her tracks.

CLANG! CLANG!

Across the water tunnel, three massive iron gates slammed into the canal bed, their spiked bars completely blocking the way.

Before they could react, blinding halogen searchlights flared to life from the dark water below, pinning the squad against the concrete catwalk in brilliant white glare.

Two heavily armored cartel patrol boats idled in the channel.

On their forward decks, mounted six-barrel heavy repeaters were already aimed directly at their chests, their barrels spinning up with a lethal, whining hum.

Behind the repeaters stood dozens of cartel enforcers in heavy combat gear, their rifles raised.

A megaphone crackled from the lead boat: "Drop your weapons and surrender the asset! You have five seconds before we open fire!"