Disaster's Edge and the Choice

The piercing alarm echoed through the laboratory, red warning lights casting everyone's faces in a ghostly glow. Fletcher grabbed Lin Xiao's arm, his voice trembling. "It... it's releasing the others... God, there are twelve incubation chambers in there. If they all break..." Lin Xiao shook off his hand and rushed to the console, pulling up the laboratory layout. The Level-Two Sample Storage Area lay at the very back of the lab, beyond three corridors and a security door. On the screen, the heat signature representing that creature was moving through the storage area. Everywhere it went, the monitoring signals of one incubation chamber after another went dark. Lin Xiao snatched a data tablet from the table and turned toward the laboratory exit—four hours. He had four hours to find a creature capable of destroying everything inside this grave that was about to be blown apart, and make sure it did not leave.

But the instant he took a step, memory struck him like lightning.

The Doctor's voice echoed in his mind. Months ago, in the safe house, that rescued Hydra Moderate Faction researcher had recounted a horrifying past. "...Highly corrosive. It can eat through skin to the bone within three seconds of contact. Uncontrollable mutation. Samples exposed to air will bond with any organic matter and create unpredictable mutants. Worst of all is aerosol transmission—if the sample disperses in mist form, the entire ventilation system becomes a pipeline of death. Anyone who inhales it will dissolve from the inside out within twenty-four hours..."

Lin Xiao's breathing stopped for a second inside his gas mask.

He abruptly looked up at the ventilation ducts. Those silver-gray metal pipes stretched out from the laboratory ceiling, connecting every section of the underground base. If the Doctor's description was true, if those released samples really could spread through aerosols...

The entire lower level of the base would become a death zone.

The upper living quarters, the command center, perhaps even the buildings on the surface could be affected through the exhaust system.

Blood Axe's groan broke his train of thought. The giant lay on the ground, the edges of the corrosive wound in his chest already turning black. The stench of necrotic tissue mixed with blood filled the air. Worse still, Lin Xiao noticed that when blood seeped from the wound and dripped onto the floor, it gave off a faint hiss—the corrosive residue left behind by that creature was still working.

"Captain..." A Conservative Faction soldier pointed at Blood Axe's wound, his voice shaking. "His blood... it's corroding the floor."

Fletcher strode over with a grim face and crouched down to inspect it. His gloved fingers did not dare touch the wound; he only shone a tactical flashlight over it. Under the harsh beam, everyone could see a faint blue glow slowly flowing deep within the palm-sized hole in Blood Axe's chest.

"Residual bodily fluid from the sample," Fletcher said quietly. "It's still corroding him from the inside."

Blood Axe's breathing became rapid and weak, every inhale accompanied by the sound of liquid rolling through his lungs. His eyes were half-open, his pupils unfocused, yet his twisted mouth still pulled into a smile. "Fletcher... you... you won't escape either..."

"Shut up!" Fletcher roared.

But Blood Axe did not stop laughing. It was the madness of a dying man. "You... you'll all die here... with me... that monster... it'll release all of them... all of them..."

Another series of explosions came from deeper inside.

This time, they were closer and clearer.

Boom! Boom! Boom—!

The crash of shattering glass sounded like hailstones striking the ground, followed by the rush of liquid pouring out. The alarm became even sharper. On the console screen, the surveillance feeds representing the Level-Two Sample Storage Area turned to static one after another. Before the final image vanished, it captured a fleeting sight: pale blue mist gushing from shattered incubation chambers and rapidly filling the room. Within the mist, several translucent humanoid outlines were slowly rising.

"There's more than one." Lin Xiao's voice was calm, but the knuckles gripping the data tablet had gone white. "It released all the samples."

Everyone still alive in the laboratory froze.

The three Conservative Faction soldiers exchanged glances, and one instinctively took a step back. The two Radical Faction wounded who could still move stopped groaning, leaving only pure terror in their eyes. Even Blood Axe, the dying giant, had the crazed smile on his face freeze.

Then gunfire rang out again.

But it was not aimed at Lin Xiao or Fletcher.

One of the Radical Faction wounded suddenly raised his pistol and fired madly toward the depths of the laboratory. Bullets threw sparks from metal walls, clanged off pipes, and left spiderweb cracks in the glass of distant incubation chambers.

"Stop!" Fletcher roared.

But it was too late.

More glass shattered. The wounded man had hit at least three incubation chambers that had not yet broken. Pale green liquid poured down like waterfalls, mixing with the blue mist lingering on the floor and producing violent sizzling reactions. White steam rose, rapidly spreading through the room.

"Put on your gas masks! All of you!" Lin Xiao shouted.

Everyone hurriedly checked their mask seals. Lin Xiao's own visor had begun to fog up, making it hard to breathe. He looked at the console—the air-monitoring data was spiking wildly: corrosive gas concentration up three hundred percent; biological active particles detected; abnormal increase in ventilation system flow...

The ventilation system was automatically extracting the air from the lab, attempting to filter and purify it.

But if the Doctor had been telling the truth, if these samples really could spread through aerosols...

"Shut down the ventilation system!" Lin Xiao rushed toward the console.

Fletcher was faster. His fingers struck the keyboard, but the system's cold prompt sounded out: [Warning: The ventilation system is an automatic emergency procedure and cannot be manually shut down. Filtration and purification procedure initiated. Estimated completion time: 8 minutes 37 seconds.]

Eight minutes.

Enough for those aerosol particles to spread through the ducts to half the base.

"Smash it!" Blood Axe suddenly rasped, struggling to sit up, only for the agony in his chest to force him back down. "Smash... the ventilation ducts... physically destroy them..."

"Have you lost your mind?" Fletcher spun around and glared at him. "Destroying the ventilation system will trap all the gas in the laboratory! We'll all die!"

"We... were going to die anyway..." Blood Axe coughed, spitting bloody saliva. "But at least... we won't kill the people upstairs too..."

That sentence silenced everyone.

Lin Xiao looked at the dying giant. There was no madness left in Blood Axe's eyes, only a clarity close to despair. At the end of his life, this man who would do anything for power had actually thought of not dragging more people down with him.

Or perhaps he simply did not want Hydra's secrets fully exposed.

Either way, he was right.

Lin Xiao looked toward the vents in the ceiling. Behind the silver-gray metal grilles, fans spun at high speed with a low hum. He could see pale blue mist being drawn into the ducts by the airflow, like a slowly flowing river of poison.

"The console," Lin Xiao suddenly said. "The laboratory has an independent emergency lockdown and purification system, right?"

Fletcher paused, then nodded. "It does. But it requires Level Three authorization to activate, and..." He looked at the screen. "The console was damaged in the firefight just now. Look here—"

He pointed to the side of the console. A stray bullet had punched through the casing, exposing charred circuit boards inside. Several wires hung loose, still giving off weak sparks.

"What about manual activation?" Lin Xiao asked.

"Inside the laboratory," Fletcher said. "There's a physical control panel behind the main control room that can manually activate the emergency lockdown and purification procedures. But someone has to go in and operate it, and..." He paused. "That panel is right next to the Level-Two Sample Storage Area."

Which meant crossing through an area that was releasing even more samples.

Facing that translucent creature and the "kind" it had just released.

Finding the control panel and manually activating the system in an environment filled with corrosive gas and unknown biologically active particles.

Nine chances of death, one chance of life.

No. There was no chance of life at all.

At some point, the gunfire had ceased completely. The Radical Faction wounded lowered his weapon and stared blankly at the blue mist spreading through the depths. The Conservative Faction soldiers gathered together and whispered among themselves, but the same word was written across every face: despair.

Fletcher's face was livid. He turned toward Blood Axe, his voice shaking with rage. "Look at what you've done! Look! If you hadn't led people in here, if you hadn't insisted on stealing the samples, if it hadn't been for you—"

"You forced me to!" Blood Axe cut him off with a howl. Every word was accompanied by violent coughing. "You... Conservative Faction cowards... always hiding underground... conducting these shameful experiments... At least... at least I dared to seize power with my own hands..."

"That isn't power! It's madness!" Fletcher shouted.

"Enough!"

Lin Xiao's voice was not loud, but it cut through every argument.

He took off his gas mask—an action that stunned everyone. The air in the laboratory already carried an unmistakable acrid odor, corrosive gas mixed with the foul stench of decomposing organic matter. But Lin Xiao drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs with that smell, then slowly exhaled.

"If you don't want to die here, listen to me."

His voice was clear and calm amid the alarms.

Everyone looked at him. Fletcher's gaze was complicated—surprise, suspicion, and a trace of expectation that was hard to detect. Blood Axe narrowed his eyes, vigilance and hostility rekindling in those dying eyes. The Conservative Faction soldiers tightened their grips on their weapons, while the Radical Faction wounded struggled to raise their guns, but ultimately did not.

Lin Xiao walked to the center of the laboratory and stood between the two factions. Blood from the glass cut on his face had not yet dried, and his combat uniform was covered in dust and unknown fluids, but he stood straight, his gaze sharp as a blade.

"The laboratory has an emergency lockdown and purification system, but it must be manually activated." He repeated Fletcher's words, then emphasized, "The console is damaged. Remote activation is impossible. Someone has to go inside and operate the physical control panel behind the main control room."

He paused, allowing the weight of those words to sink into every heart.

"Who's going?" a Conservative Faction soldier asked softly.

No one answered.

Blue mist drifted slowly from the depths like living tentacles, spreading across the floor. Wherever it touched, the ground began to hiss faintly, and tiny corrosion marks emerged on metal surfaces. One Radical Faction wounded accidentally let the mist touch his exposed wrist. His skin immediately reddened and blistered. He screamed and frantically wiped at it with his sleeve.

"See that?" Lin Xiao pointed at the wounded man. "That's what we're facing. If this gas spreads through the ventilation system to the entire base, everyone upstairs will suffer the same pain. Then they'll die."

He looked at Fletcher. "Captain, do any of your people understand laboratory equipment? At least enough to operate the control panel?"

Fletcher was silent for several seconds, then nodded. "Hansen used to work in a biological laboratory. He knows some basic procedures. But..." He looked toward the depths. "Sending him in would be sending him to his death."

"I know," Lin Xiao said. "That's why he won't be going alone."

He turned to Blood Axe. "What about your men? Any technicians among them?"

Blood Axe sneered. "They're all dead. Or..." He looked at the two wounded men. "Almost dead."

"Then it'll be you," Lin Xiao said.

Blood Axe froze.

Everyone froze.

"Me?" Genuine surprise appeared in Blood Axe's voice for the first time. "Can't you see the hole in my chest? I can't even stand up. How am I supposed to go in?"

"You don't need to stand." Lin Xiao walked over and crouched beside him. "You only need to tell me this: if you had a choice, would you rather send your men in to die, or let me go in and give your people a chance to survive?"

Blood Axe stared into Lin Xiao's eyes.

Those eyes were calm. There was no anger, no fear, not even calculation. Only a near-ruthless clarity.

"You're trying to buy me off," Blood Axe rasped.

"I'm trying to save everyone," Lin Xiao corrected. "Including you. If you cooperate, I can have Fletcher's people give you emergency treatment, at least stop the corrosion from spreading. Then you and your men will have a chance to leave here alive."

"Leave?" Blood Axe laughed, his laughter full of mockery. "This place will be blown to pieces in four hours. Where can we go?"

"That's my problem," Lin Xiao said. "You only need to answer: cooperate, or die here?"

Blood Axe fell silent.

His breathing grew weaker and weaker. Along the edge of the corrosive wound in his chest, the pale blue glow was slowly spreading. Every millimeter it advanced meant more necrotic tissue, more pain. Yet he was still thinking, the last light flickering in his dying eyes.

Then he nodded.

"Fine," Blood Axe said. "My men... won't stop you. But if you lie to me... I won't let you go even as a ghost."

"Deal."

Lin Xiao stood and looked at Fletcher.

Fletcher's expression had become even more complicated. He had watched Lin Xiao dismantle Blood Axe's resistance with only a few words, watched him persuade everyone with logic so calm it was terrifying. This young man, this outsider he had previously suspected of being a Radical Faction mole, was now standing here trying to save them all.

"Captain," Lin Xiao said. "Give me two reliable people who know some technical work. I'm going in."

Fletcher drew a deep breath. "Are you sure? There may be more than one of those creatures inside, and the gas concentration—"

"I know," Lin Xiao cut him off. "That's why we need to move quickly. Have your people prepare to receive us outside and seal every passage leading here. Once I activate the purification system, there may be a powerful airflow surge. Make sure none of them escape."

"What about you?" Fletcher asked. "How do you get out after activating the system?"

Lin Xiao did not answer.

He merely turned around, picked up a relatively intact gas mask from the ground, checked the filter cartridge, and put it back on. Then he took a tactical flashlight, a knife, and two spare magazines from a Conservative Faction soldier.

Finally, he looked toward the depths of the laboratory.

The blue mist had already spread to within twenty meters, reducing visibility to less than five meters. From deeper inside came the sound of liquid dripping, along with some slow, wet, slithering movement. More than one. He could feel it—at least four, five, perhaps even more "presences" were waking within the mist.

"Hansen." Fletcher called over a soldier. "You're going in with Mr. Lin. And you, Miller. You go too."

The two soldiers stepped forward. Hansen was a tall, thin middle-aged man with a scar on his face, but his gaze was steady. Miller was younger and looked nervous, but the hand holding his gun was steady.

"Remember," Lin Xiao told them. "Once we're inside, you follow my command in everything. Do not fire unless I give the order. Do not touch any liquid. Do not remove your masks. We have only one objective: find the control panel and activate the purification system. Nothing else matters."

The two nodded.

Lin Xiao gave Fletcher one final look, then Blood Axe lying on the ground, then this laboratory on the brink of destruction.

Then he stepped into the blue mist.

With the first step, his boot sole touched the ground with a faint sticky sound.

With the second, the mist wrapped around his calves, and visibility dropped sharply to three meters.

With the third, a low, inhuman roar came from the depths.

Hansen and Miller followed close behind. The footsteps of the three men echoed through the hollow laboratory, mixing with the alarms, dripping liquid, and those wet slithering sounds to weave a symphony of death.

Lin Xiao tightened his grip on the flashlight.

The beam cut through the mist, illuminating the path ahead.

He saw pale blue and pale green liquid flowing across the floor, like a poisonous river. Broken glass floated on its surface, along with some translucent, gelatinous residue. Corrosion marks climbed the walls like spreading vines, reaching from the floor all the way to the ceiling.

Farther away, deep within the mist, several blurry shadows were moving slowly.

Human silhouettes.

But not human.

They had no distinct outlines. Like melting candles, they twisted and warped in the fog. One shadow seemed to notice the light and slowly turned around—

Lin Xiao switched off the flashlight.

Darkness swallowed everything in an instant.

Only the red glow of the alarm lights flickered through the mist, like the eyes of hell.

"Follow me," Lin Xiao said quietly. "Don't use lights. Use night vision."

Hansen and Miller quickly switched equipment. In the green night-vision display, the world became something else: the mist was flowing gray, the liquid was a dark river, and those shadows... were bright, irregular biological heat signatures.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

They were scattered through the depths of the laboratory. Some stood still, while others moved slowly. One heat source was especially bright and especially large—it was the original creature, the one that had awakened from the incubation chamber.

It was destroying the last intact incubation chamber.

Lin Xiao could see that heat source extending some kind of limb and striking the chamber glass. Once, twice, three times—

The glass shattered.

More liquid gushed out.

More blue mist rose.

Then the heat source turned toward Lin Xiao.

It had "seen" him.