The next morning, after thorough preparation, Adam and his team set out once again to explore the underground shelter beneath Nagazora Hospital.
This time, stealth was unnecessary. They used a truck recovered from the gang as transport, reaching their destination in under an hour. Upon arrival, they gathered in the hospital lobby before proceeding toward the stairwell—the same one they had reached previously but never had the opportunity to explore.
Adam stood at the entrance of the dark shaft, his expression grim. He turned back to his team.
"Stay on high alert, and don't act rashly," he reminded them, his tone firm. With that, he ordered them into formation.
Each T-Doll in this new batch squad was designed for a specific role, making them a highly specialized and efficient unit unlike the earlier batch which was made with haste and lack any form of specialization in their manufacturing.
The Defender T-Doll, built with an extra-thick chassis and reinforced armor plating, was essentially a walking fortress. For this mission, she carried a tactical shield nearly a hundred kilograms in weight and several inches thick, a weapon she usually left behind as overkill but deemed necessary now.
Another member of the squad was a specialist T-Doll, heavily modified by Angeline with a staggering number of advanced modules. She was equipped with Electronic Countermeasure (ECM), EMP Disruption, Hacking Interface, Data Encryption & Counter-Hacking, Optical Camouflage, Active Noise Suppression, Anti-Detection, Signal Interference, Holographic Decoy Projection, and Battlefield Data Collection Modules—essentially, every enhancement Angeline could cram into a single unit.
The remaining two were weapon specialists, designed purely for firepower. Outfitted with Quantum Deployment technology, they functioned as walking arsenals, limited only by the number of weapons they could physically wield.
With this lineup, the squad was powerful enough to dismantle an entire nation if given time. And yet, in Adam's eyes, it was still barely enough to face the Honkai—or whatever potential threats lay hidden within the shelter.
The Honkai wasn't a virus or radiation—it was far worse.
As Su had explained, the Honkai was alive. It constantly evolved, adapted, and changed, making it impossible to create a universal cure. Adam had learned this firsthand—his repeated attempts to cure Honkai Corrupted body tissues are met with failure and the only effective way is to purge them all.
Similarly, the only way to truly deal with the Honkai was complete and total extermination—leaving nothing behind, no traces for it to escape, adapt, or evolve further.
(AN: Actually, I didn't know if this is canon. But according to canon sources, the Honkai of the Current Era is very tame compared to the Previous Era after Prometheus AI formed the Honkai Consciousness. Maybe I'm wrong. Idk. 🤔)
———
Certain of his deductions, Adam turned to the Specialist T-Doll.
"Scan the underground space. See if you can find anything unusual."
The T-Doll complied, running a thorough scan before her sensors picked up something. She pointed toward the mechanical room.
"There—an active electronic device."
Alice's eyes lit up with excitement. Finally, a clue.
"Let's go!" she urged, her energy renewed.
With their objective clear, the team cautiously moved into the mechanical room. Adam immediately noticed something odd—there was no surveillance in this section. That only reinforced his suspicions.
The Specialist T-Doll quickly pinpointed a hidden entrance leading to a concealed elevator lobby. Unlike the rest of the hospital, the elevator still had power. That meant the shelter had its own independent energy source.
They stepped into the elevator, ready to descend—only to be met with an unexpected issue.
"Weight overload…" one of the T-Dolls muttered.
A brief silence followed before all eyes turned toward the Defender T-Doll.
At nearly 300 kilos, she was the obvious culprit.
Faced with the wall of stares, the Defender T-Doll stiffened. Her body trembled slightly as if trying to suppress something, and her pale complexion did nothing to hide the deep flush spreading across her face.
Her three teammates struggled to contain their amusement, their barely restrained smirks only making things worse.
Glaring at them, she turned to Adam, her tone clipped.
"I'll take the other elevator, Boss." Without waiting for a response, she stomped out of the cabin.
Adam, unfazed, stopped her before the doors could close. "Take Alice with you. We don't know what's waiting down there, and going alone isn't safe. Even for you."
She opened her mouth to argue that she is the tankiest amongst them, but his tone left no room for discussion. Swallowing back her retort, she nodded and entered the other elevator with Alice.
With that settled, the team split into two groups—The Defender T-Doll and Alice descend first and the other will descend after a few seconds of delay.
The real mystery lay below and Adam had an ominous premonition about this.
———
Ding.
The crisp chime signaled the elevator's stop, and the doors slid open, revealing a dark, abandoned lobby mirroring the one above in layout.
The air was thick with decay. Flickering lights cast erratic shadows against the walls, heightening the eerie atmosphere. Deep claw marks and gouges marred the surfaces, while dried blood stained the floor—silent remnants of past violence.
Yet, despite the facility's reputation as a nest for mutated hybrid abominations, the atmosphere was unnervingly calm. Too calm.
The Defender T-Doll immediately took position at the only entrance leading deeper into the shelter, her towering shield blocking the passage. Behind her, the two Weapon Specialists stood ready, covering her flanks. Meanwhile, the Specialist T-Doll initiated a full scan of their surroundings.
Within moments, the battlenet flooded with data—detailed facility layouts, security camera feeds, thermal imaging results, and Honkai radiation levels. The team absorbed the information swiftly.
"Seventeen biological signatures detected," the Specialist reported. "Confirmed through visual footage. All concentrated in the northeast section of the shelter."
She hesitated for a moment before continuing.
"Honkai radiation levels are lethal beyond the quarantined sections."
A heavy silence followed. The data painted a grim picture of what lay ahead.
Adam processed the findings quickly. As he had suspected, this so-called shelter was nothing more than a hidden research facility. Thick blast doors lined the hallways—originally intended for quarantine, but now perfect for their strategy.
"We'll use the facility's lockdown protocols to our advantage," Adam said. "By hacking into the main control system, we can manipulate the doors to funnel the enemies into a choke point. That will minimize risk and maximize our firepower."
The T-Dolls acknowledged his plan with curt nods. With their strategy set, it was time to execute.
Alice, the fastest and most agile among them, would lure the enemies into the chokepoint while the rest lay in ambush, ready to unleash overwhelming firepower.
At least, that was the plan.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
A thunderous noise—like the stampede of a raging herd—shook the ground violently, sending vibrations through their feet.
Adam's eyes snapped to the security camera feeds. What had been a group of dormant abominations moments ago had suddenly gone berserk, tearing through the facility in a mindless rampage.
"Boss! They're heading straight for us!" the Specialist T-Doll cried out, her complexion pale as she tightened her grip on her weapon.
The others reacted similarly, shifting into combat stances, but Adam knew that fighting in the cramped elevator lobby was a death trap. Against enemies that could tear through walls with sheer brute force, staying put meant being crushed in the stampede.
He briefly considered retreating to the surface and calling in Angeline for a kinetic bombardment—flattening the entire underground facility. But that would destroy all leads on the cult. That wasn't an option.
His indecision lasted less than a second before instinct took over.
"Into the hallway! Now!" he commanded.
The Defender T-Doll didn't hesitate. She gripped the steel door, biometric lock and all, and ripped it clean off the wall, clearing the path. The team rushed in behind her just as—
CRASH! ROAR!
A towering abomination, nearly seven meters tall, smashed through the thick blast doors like they were paper.
Its form was a grotesque fusion of humanoid and Chariot Beast. Most of its skin was the smooth, silicone-white and purplish-pink hue characteristic of Honkai Beasts, but patches of human flesh remained—evidence of a horrific mutation, as if a person had been forcibly grafted onto the creature. Pulsating, purplish-pink veins bulged across its body, and its eyes burned with rage, madness, and pain.
It locked onto the group—its expression a raw mix of fury and torment—before bellowing a deafening roar and charging with high leaps intended to flatten its enemies with its powerful and massive limbs.
The battle had begun.
The abomination charged, its colossal frame charging through the remains of the blast door with terrifying momentum like a raging bull. The walls trembled with each thunderous step, debris crumbling beneath its sheer weight.
Adam didn't hesitate.
"Scatter and reposition! Do not engage head-on!" he barked as he sprinted deeper into the corridor, his T-Dolls following suit.
The Defender T-Doll pivoted sharply, planting her feet as she raised her towering shield, bracing for impact. The moment the abomination lunged at her, she activated the shield's reactive property and her servos, reinforcing her stance. The collision sent a deafening shockwave rippling through the corridor—steel groaned, and dust exploded into the air as the sheer force of the impact pushed her back several meters.
But she held on with her boots entrenched into the cracked marble floor.
"Defender, maintain position! Weapons team, focus fire on its legs—bring it down!" Adam ordered, his eyes darted on the battlenet seeing Defender's body state. Her inside is basically a wreck from stopping the charge but thankfully nothing crippling as the nanomachines have already started the repair to bring her back to a functional state.
The two Weapon Specialists reacted instantly. Heavy-caliber penetrating rounds tore through the air, hammering into the abomination's legs. Each impact sent bursts of purplish-pink blood splattering across the walls and ground, but the beast barely faltered. Its mutated flesh regenerated unnaturally fast, sealing the wounds almost as quickly as they were inflicted.
Adam cursed under his breath. "Switch to high-explosive rounds! Aim for the joints!"
The command was barely issued before a whoosh sounded—one of the T-Dolls had already swapped to a grenade launcher loaded with anti-armor grenades which basically is a high explosive AP shell.
BOOM!
The shell struck the creature's knee joint and penetrated before an explosion blasted it apart revealing the bones. This time, the monster faltered, its charge disrupted as it staggered to one side. The Defender T-Doll seized the opening, surging forward with a dash ro delivery a powerful shield bash that shattered and snapped the exposed bone and sent the abomination stumbling back with a guttural snarl.
But the momentary advantage didn't last.
With an enraged bellow, the monster lashed out with an arm thick as a steel beam. The Defender barely raised her shield in time before the impact sent her crashing into the wall on the side with a sickening crunch.
"Shit—Defender's down!" the Specialist T-Doll shouted, her voice sharp with urgency as she saw the Defender's state through the battlenet flashing red with numerous warnings.
Adam's mind raced. A prolonged fight was suicide—this thing wasn't just regenerating; it was learning, adapting to their tactics in ways no typical Honkai Beast would. They needed to put it down, fast.
Firing off suppressive shots, Adam quickly analyzed the battle. Unlike normal Honkai Beasts, these abominations were once human—and that meant they still retained human weaknesses. A crippling blow to the legs could hinder their movement. A well-placed strike to the heart or brain could end it. But such obvious weak points aren't easy to take advantage of considering the thick layer of carapace surrounding them.
Without hesitation, Adam made his move.
His rifle vanished into his Inventory mid-stride, replaced instantly by a machete-like blade. Then, like a phantom, he shot forward—slipping past the abomination's flailing limbs with unnatural agility. In a single fluid motion, he vaulted off the wall, blade flashing in the dim light as he carved through the exposed ridges along its back, severing the spine just below the neck.
The abomination screeched, a raw, ear-splitting sound of pain and desperation. Even with its body failing, it twisted sluggishly, attempting a final, clumsy shoulder slam.
Adam dodged with ease.
The attack never landed. The creature collapsed, its massive frame slumping to the ground as it let out guttural roars of agony. But even as it writhed, its wounds pulsed—flesh already beginning to regenerate.
Adam didn't give it the chance.
Raising his blade, he delivered the final blow. A swift, decisive slash.
The abomination's head separated cleanly from its body. The grotesque form twitched once before finally growing still. The pulsing veins faded, and the unnatural regeneration ceased.
"Target's biological activity has ceased. It's dead, boss," the Specialist T-Doll confirmed, kneeling beside the remains for a quick scan.
Adam exhaled, lowering his weapon.
But then, a strange feeling settled over him. His body still thrummed with the adrenaline of battle, yet something felt… off. His movements had been too smooth, too instinctive. He hadn't needed to think—his body had known exactly where to strike, exactly how to move.
As if he had done this a thousand times before.
The thought lingered in his mind, unsettling yet familiar.
Adam put it aside when he remembers there are more of these abominations still crawling in this place.
—————
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