Ch.266Incarnations of Nightmare (4)

The pirates in Security Room A stared at the monitors with bewildered expressions.

The monitors connected to cameras were shutting down at a rapid pace. First the surveillance outposts, then the entrance, and finally the underground passages.

Everyone present knew the cameras weren’t malfunctioning without reason. The walls of the security room were trembling slightly. The space vibrated intermittently, as if something massive was moving.

An unknown entity was approaching, destroying cameras and barrier doors in the corridors.

“What about the corridor lockdown procedure?”

“It was activated as soon as the surveillance outpost cameras went down.”

“…Damn it. Even with a plasma cutter, they couldn’t get here this quickly.”

“This isn’t good. Everyone grab your gear. Skinny, you go to Zone B.”

“Tell the mercenaries on your way.”

“…Shit. Fine.”

The pirates hastily gathered equipment from the security room. While his comrades prepared for battle, the skinny pirate grabbed just one psyonic rifle and dashed out of the security room.

The ceiling lights embedded in the corridor shone brightly above his head. The corridor, a simple cylindrical design without any decoration, looked exactly as it always did.

Except for the vibrations disturbing the light.

The skinny pirate ran to the barrier door on the opposite side of the short corridor and operated the terminal next to it. All the while, the intervals between vibrations grew shorter.

“Open faster, damn it!”

The pirate stamped his feet impatiently in front of the slowly opening door. Just then, the light above his head began to flicker unstably.

Startled, he turned around to see the lights near the security room flickering before going out completely. The only remaining light was what spilled from inside the security room.

Even that was extinguished with a sudden whoosh, like a candle being blown out.

“*Gulp*”

As the pirate swallowed nervously at the sight, the barrier door finally opened. He entered, half-crawling, then closed the door behind him.

These barrier doors installed between corridors were over 1 meter thick with a double-layered structure, difficult to breach even with a plasma cutter. Since the doors between corridors were sturdier than the entrance doors, the mysterious intruder wouldn’t easily get through.

Nothing jumped out from the darkness as the door closed completely. Only an unnatural silence filled the black corridor.

“Phew.”

After sighing with relief, he moved away from the door.

He needed to reach Zone B and report what was happening before the creature arrived.

The space he now stood in was so vast that he had to tilt his head back as far as possible to see the ceiling. Yet it wasn’t empty—stacks of freezer containers were piled several layers high throughout the area.

This was Zone A storage.

All these containers held items brought by customers visiting the city for auction. Though not visible from where he stood, mercenaries and androids guarding the containers would be deeper inside.

The skinny pirate connected the battery to his psyonic rifle and headed inward. The temperature was quite low, likely due to the cold emanating from the containers. If not for the androids standing in front of the containers, he would have been trembling from both cold and fear.

“It’ll be fine. There must be some mistake. Definitely.”

After walking for a few minutes while muttering to himself, he heard voices from beyond a large container. Rounding the container, he saw five mercenaries chatting.

“Huh? Aren’t you the pirate from the security room?”

“What brings you here?”

Upon encountering the mercenaries, the skinny pirate shouted urgently.

“This is no time for idle chat! Everything outside is completely fucked!”

“Outside?”

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

“We haven’t received any communication from our team.”

“Of course there’s no communication—they’ve all been taken out! We need to alert the outside quickly…”

“What? Come on. That’s ridiculous.”

The skinny pirate felt frustrated as the mercenaries showed no sign of believing him. Hearing his shouts, mercenaries guarding other containers approached.

“What’s all this noise about?”

“He says our team outside has been taken out?”

“Please! If you don’t believe me, someone just check!”

“Fine, since our security guard friend is insisting. Someone make a call.”

“You’ll regret it if you’re wrong.”

While most mercenaries stood with folded arms, smirking, one of them picked up a radio.

“What’s the situation outside?”

“…”

“What? Stop talking nonsense?”

“I can’t reach them.”

The other mercenaries paused at these words.

“Come on, quit messing around.”

“No, seriously. Try contacting them yourselves.”

The mercenary’s expression was too serious to be joking. The others, still with smiles on their faces, tried contacting their teammates outside.

Within minutes, the smiles disappeared from their faces too.

“Why can’t we reach them?”

“What’s going on?”

Just then, all the ceiling lights went out. The storage area plunged into darkness. Only the small glow from cigarettes held by some mercenaries provided any light.

“Everyone, combat ready!”

Despite the darkness, the mercenaries didn’t panic. Those with goggles activated their vision enhancement features, while cyborg mercenaries activated special lenses in their eyes.

“Hey, security guard. Do they know about this inside?”

“They might, but I’m not certain.”

“Take this and go. Get some reinforcements.”

“Ah, yes sir.”

Realizing the pirate wasn’t wrong, the mercenaries sent him to Zone B.

The pirate put on the goggles handed to him and ran toward the corridor leading to Zone B. As he ran, several androids passed by him, heading in the opposite direction. They must have detected the anomaly and were joining the mercenaries.

Just after the androids disappeared into the darkness, loud gunfire erupted. The noise, choppy like automated factory machinery, echoed and amplified as it bounced off the containers.

Fully armed mercenaries and expensive androids—objectively, it should have been a reassuring situation, yet his heart remained unsettled.

It felt ominous. The entire underground storage felt like it was sinking into a bottomless swamp. Despite the vibrations having stopped since entering Zone A storage, where was this anxiety coming from? No matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t find an answer.

“Huff, huff, huff…”

His breathing was the only sound breaking the silence filling the chamber.

Nothing else—no gunfire, no human screams, no mechanical sounds of androids being destroyed. Nothing.

Had the mercenaries won? That would be fortunate, but if not…

“…”

The skinny pirate barely managed to operate the terminal with trembling hands. The large barrier door slowly opened. He slipped through as soon as it started opening and initiated the closing procedure before it had fully opened.

The door closed sluggishly. As he anxiously bit his lip, something appeared on the other side.

“!”

“Wait!”

One of the mercenaries he’d met earlier was running toward the barrier door.

“…Fuck!”

The pirate considered closing the door anyway but changed his mind. Two people would be better than one for escaping the mysterious intruder. He manipulated the terminal to stop the door that had just begun closing.

Just as the mercenary was about to cross the threshold, the door shook violently with a thunderous sound.

“W-what the hell?!”

“It’s the creature! The monster is chasing us!”

Hearing the mercenary’s shout, the pirate hurriedly closed the door. Through the slowly closing gap, he saw something writhing beyond, just as the mercenary had said.

‘!’

Though visible for only a moment, the pirate felt he would never forget the sight. It was a pink snake covered in countless eyes. The snake writhed toward them as if greeting them, then disappeared.

“W-what was that? I’ve never seen such a monstrosity in my life.”

“I don’t know either.”

“Damn it! We need to tell Zone B quickly… What happened to your weapon?”

“I dropped it while fleeing from that thing.”

The skinny pirate frowned at the mercenary’s words. Without weapons, they had no means to defend themselves if the monster pursued them.

‘Well, I could use him as bait.’

The skinny pirate was the only one armed with a gun. If the monster caught up to them before they reached Zone B, he could throw the mercenary to it as food.

“Let’s head to Zone B security room first.”

“Good idea.”

The mercenary seemed completely unaware of what the pirate was thinking. The two walked along the corridor connected to Zone B’s security room.

‘At least the cameras are still working.’

The pirate examined the cameras installed in the corridor as they walked. Fortunately, the ceiling-mounted cameras still had power. The security room in Zone B would know they were here and should be taking measures.

‘No, let’s contact them from here.’

Even if wireless communication wasn’t working, there was exactly one way to make contact.

Each zone in this underground storage had a wired communicator operating on a closed circuit. Montana Martio had installed these in case communications failed or they faced EMP attacks from other species.

He would have preferred to make contact before crossing over, but Zone A’s wired communicator was located near the underground storage entrance, so it couldn’t be helped. The skinny pirate signaled to the corridor camera that he intended to use the wired communicator.

“What are you doing?”

“None of your business.”

There was no need to be polite to a mercenary he planned to use as bait. After his curt reply, he approached the corridor wall. Among the undecorated walls, one section had a small switch. When pressed, an ivory-colored rod connected to a wire inside the wall popped out.

“What’s that?”

“A Cult Empire wired communicator.”

“Hmm? Was something like that here?”

The mercenary spoke with interest, but the skinny pirate didn’t respond.

He disconnected the charger from his psyonic rifle and connected it to the port on the rod. Being a Cult-made communicator, it required psyonic power.

After a moment, the communicator lit up.

“It works! This is Security Room A. Can you hear me?”

“*static* look *static*”

The skinny pirate briefly celebrated and shouted into the communicator. The communicator emitted static along with someone’s voice.

“I can’t hear clearly. This is Security Room A. Can you hear me?”

“*static* behind *static* behind *static*”

“What?”

“Behind! Behind! Look behind you!”

The urgent cry came through as soon as the communication stabilized.

“Behind? Why behind…?”

Confused, the skinny pirate turned around. Then he understood what the Zone B security room was trying to say.

“There’s a monster behind you!”

There wasn’t a single human left in the corridor who could respond to the communicator dangling from the wall.