Chapter 137: Ghost

After what felt like an eternity...

Bunny was on the very brink of drifting off to sleep. The moment she turned her face away, Cyrus pinched her chin, forcing her head right back—clearly irritated by her lack of engagement.

It was bad enough that he insisted on taking her, but this pervert explicitly demanded the lights stay wide open.

Under the soft amber glow of the bedside lamp, his dark, messy locks spilled over his brow, swaying rhythmically with his movements.

She couldn’t see his eyes—only the sharp ridge of his nose, his parted, glistening lips, and the sculpted, iron-tight lines of his abdomen rising and falling like a masterpiece of stone.

Finally, he brought the storm to an end.

After thoroughly cleaning Bunny up, he rested his face against her soft stomach with absolute satisfaction, drifting off to sleep in a matter of seconds.

Bunny stared down at him with a complex tangle of emotions. She simply couldn’t make sense of this man.

If you called him obedient, not a single thing he did belonged to the realm of decent human behavior—he was a total bully through and through.

Yet if you called him incorrigible, she had never seen him shed his icy, intimidating armor to reveal a side so tranquil, gentle, and utterly clinging.

In truth, Cyrus had never slept alongside his mother or father since the day he was born. They were perpetually occupied with affairs he could never comprehend.

Left inside a lonely crib, his sole companion had been a nurturing plush robot that patted his back to soothe him to sleep.

To Cyrus, Bunny had simply become his comfort blanket.

***

Desolate Wilderness — An Abandoned Apartment

The hooded man emptied every drop of the cellular recovery serum purloined from the Sector 616 strike unit directly into his dying comrade’s bloodstream.

Yet corroded internal organs and fractured bone tissue—dissolved long ago by toxic Aberration acid—combined with a totally chaotic, collapsing spiritual sea meant that even miraculous divine intervention could not reverse his inevitable demise.

Mutterings of discontent rippled through the remaining team members, who viewed the hooded leader’s actions as a reckless waste of priceless medical supplies on a doomed corpse.

Yet none dared openly contest his authority; within this lawless pocket, his physical combat rating remained supreme.

The hooded man possessed no name. He had chosen one for himself: Ghost.

Without warning, the apartment’s main security hatch buckled inward with explosive force. The men scrambled to draw their weapons, only to be effortlessly hurled through the air by a suffocating wave of omnidirectional kinetic pressure.

Framed in the shattered entryway stood a towering, impeccably built figure clad in a matte-black carbon-fiber combat suit. His features were entirely obscured by a mimetic metallic mask, leaving only a pair of dark, chillingly calculating eyes exposed.

Step by unhurried step, he approached the dying man on the floor, raised his sidearm, and casually discharged a high-caliber round through his skull.

Ghost’s eyes widened in horror. Drawing his twin curved blades, he lunged forward in a frantic, rage-fueled arc, his raspy voice trembling with fury.

"By what right did you execute him?!"

A dismissive, mocking chuckle echoed from behind the metallic mask. "Dead weight requires zero allocation of strategic resources."

A brutal, heavy kick slammed directly into Ghost’s sternum, sending him crashing into the concrete debris. "You are nowhere near my level. Spare me the theatrics: either pledge your utility to my cause, or every soul in this room dies right now."

Clutching his shattered ribs, Ghost dragged himself up from the dust. His face covering slipped away, exposing sharp, hybrid facial contours.

"Who are you?"

The masked operative executed a practiced spin with his firearm before sliding it smoothly back into its tactical holster, surveying Ghost with cold, detached superiority.

"My identity is irrelevant. What matters is your answer: do you choose extinction today, or survival?"

"You have sixty seconds to decide."

Ghost’s knuckles turned bone-white as he clenched his fists. Sixty agonizing seconds passed before his fingers slowly uncoiled.

He refused to die here.

"What do you require of us?"

The masked man favored pragmatic partners; he harbored zero patience for superfluous chatter.

"Secure all escaped experimental subjects, and systematically gather viable donor specimens."

Before Ghost could press for details, an encrypted data terminal, a satellite comms array, and an access frequency were tossed at his feet.

"My physical presence in this sector is limited. Utilize the terminal to log updates."

"Ask no unauthorized questions. Avoid all operational overlap with the Military Command and Sentinel Tower assets. Report any anomalies immediately."

The masked figure vanished as abruptly as he had arrived. Five minutes later, the low hum of an armored stealth VTOL vibrated through the clouds, air-dropping a heavy metal crate weighing several hundred kilograms straight into the courtyard below.

Inside lay an exhaustive array of supplies: compressed rations, purified water, field survival gear, high-grade cellular restoration sera, broad-spectrum antitoxins, alongside full sets of nano-tactical suits and a massive arsenal of weaponry and heavy ammunition.

It was their operational supply loadout.

Ghost and his men exchanged bewildered glances. Though completely ignorant of the masked figure’s background or true objective, survival dictated that they accept the hand dealt to them.

Ghost booted up the encrypted terminal. The holographic display initialized instantly, generating pages of multi-tiered target profiles listed for immediate acquisition.

The lead dossier blinked on the interface:

Code: X-019

Threat Classification: SSSS

Genetic Lineage: Neo-Gen Generation III

Current Status: Location Unknown

A glowing red banner indicated that Subject X-019’s last registered spatial coordinates had pinged along the northern border perimeter of District 616 approximately one month prior.

In the upper-right corner sat a low-resolution capture: a figure wearing an oversized, coarse patient smock, arms bound behind their back with heavy restraints, head shrouded inside a black canvas hood. Aside from a few stray locks of bone-white hair falling past the fabric, their facial features were completely invisible.

Scrolling further, dozens more entries materialized—some displaying threat levels listed as mere question marks.

Integrated tracking chips embedded inside the subjects were programmed to continuously relay real-time telemetry once brought within range.

Ghost furrowed his brows and snapped the display shut, leading his unit away from the ruined apartment building without delay.