Raptors

Carl stepped back into the underground facility she had visited once before, and all she felt was darkness.

The air in the underground laboratory was murky and damp, heavy with the pungent mixed smell of disinfectant and iron. Carl switched on her night-vision goggles and saw twisted metal frames and shattered chunks of concrete in the darkness.

This place had clearly been subjected to a professional demolition. The environment had been severely damaged, and from Carl's perspective, every part of it looked ready to collapse at any moment.

"God, this is worse than a junkyard." Jack muttered, gripping the Golden Bitch as he vigilantly swept his gaze around. Oliver silently followed behind, his cybernetic eye giving off a faint red glow in the dark as it continuously scanned environmental data.

"We're about at the entrance, Carl. You said you'd been here before. From what you remember, how much farther is it to the core of the laboratory?"

Oliver examined their surroundings as he questioned Carl. After thinking for a moment, Carl replied:

"It shouldn't be far. The collapses caused by the demolition changed a lot of this place, but as I remember it, we're almost at the part where we can enter the laboratory. There's an ecological garden inside; we can check it out when we get there. Wait, there seems to be an experimental pod over there."

Carl's gaze passed over an experimental pod that had likely been blasted out by the explosion. Its reinforced glass had shattered, and there was nothing inside except several deep claw marks and viscous glowing fluid.

The eerie luminous traces were denser here, like trails of slime left behind by some creature.

"Look at these marks." Carl crouched down, her gloves once again stained with glowing slime. "They weren't made by machinery. They