Far beneath the Philippine Sea, the Changzheng-418 prepared its second missile barrage.
Inside the ballistic missile compartnt, red combat lighting reflected across steel walls while Chinese naval personnel operated their stations with disciplined precision.
The atmosphere aboard the submarine had beco tense.
Not panicked.
Professional.
But tense.
Because everyone onboard understood exactly what they were doing.
They were bombarding one of their own capital cities.
Again.
Captain Liu stood behind the missile control officers while updated tactical data stread across the large display screens.
The western districts of Beijing remained engulfed in fire from the earlier strikes.
Yet despite the destruction—
The infected still moved in massive numbers.
Entire sectors of the ruined capital continued converging toward Adrian’s underground location like ants swarming toward vibration.
One sonar officer quietly muttered while observing the tactical overlays—
"It’s like they’re being drawn there."
Captain Liu slowly narrowed his eyes.
Because honestly—
He was beginning to suspect the sa thing.
The infected were no longer behaving randomly.
Sothing was coordinating them.
Sowhere beneath Beijing.
The missile officer looked upward from his station afterward.
"Second strike package uploaded."
The tactical display imdiately shifted.
New impact coordinates appeared across the map.
This ti the targets were closer to the underground containnt facility.
Major roadway convergence points.
Collapsed subway sectors.
Large surface swarm concentrations directly above Adrian’s extraction corridor.
Captain Liu studied the map carefully.
Too close and the underground structure itself might collapse.
Too far and the infected would overwhelm the surface before extraction beca possible.
The margin for error was dangerously thin.
"Warhead configuration?" he finally asked.
"Conventional fragntation package," the officer answered imdiately. "Adjusted for urban anti-personnel saturation."
Captain Liu nodded once.
Unlike the earlier strikes that focused on wide-area destruction, these missiles carried specialized conventional warheads designed to maximize fragntation spread across dense surface targets.
Perfect against hordes.
If anything in this apocalypse could still be called perfect.
Then suddenly—
One of the communication officers looked up sharply.
"Receiving thermal updates from Doctor Lin’s facility."
Captain Liu stepped closer imdiately.
The tactical display updated again.
And his expression hardened.
The underground sectors beneath Beijing were lighting up with movent.
Huge movent.
Thousands of heat signatures spreading through maintenance tunnels and lower corridors beneath the city.
Not surface hordes.
Underground hordes.
The infected were flooding downward now.
Toward Adrian.
Toward Doctor Lin.
Captain Liu quietly exhaled.
"They found them."
The missile officer looked toward him.
"Should we delay launch due to proximity risk?"
Captain Liu stared silently at the tactical screen for several seconds.
Then answered calmly.
"No."
His eyes focused toward the extraction corridor.
"If we don’t thin the surface sectors now, they’ll never leave the city alive."
Inside the underground containnt facility beneath Beijing, Adrian’s team continued advancing deeper through the laboratory corridors while distant screams echoed sowhere through the lower tunnel systems.
The infected had beco far more aggressive after the earlier missile strikes.
Almost desperate.
The operators moved quickly through the containnt wing while maintaining tight formation.
Flashlights and weapon lights swept across abandoned laboratories filled with overturned equipnt, shattered containnt chambers, and blood-covered walls.
Ryan glanced toward one destroyed observation room while passing.
Several bodies remained inside.
Or what remained of them.
Most wore laboratory coats.
"...This place really went to hell."
Doctor Lin walked slightly behind Adrian while carrying a secured data case retrieved from one of the archive rooms monts earlier.
Inside it contained hard drives, printed files, and sealed research samples regarding the outbreak.
The reason they ca.
And possibly the most dangerous information left on Earth.
Then suddenly—
The facility trembled.
A deep distant vibration rolled through the underground corridors.
Ryan imdiately looked upward.
"...That’s the submarine."
Adrian already knew.
Far above the atmosphere, the second JL-2 strike package had begun descending toward Beijing.
The operators increased pace imdiately.
Because once those missiles impacted—
Every infected still alive nearby would begin moving toward the blast zones again.
Then the first missile arrived.
The night sky above Beijing ignited violently.
A burning streak tore downward through thick smoke clouds over the ruined western districts before slamming directly into a collapsed transportation sector filled with infected.
BOOOOOOOOM.
The explosion engulfed entire city blocks instantly.
The fragntation warhead detonated across the ruined avenue like a steel hurricane.
Thousands of high-velocity fragnts shredded everything within range.
Vehicles exploded.
Concrete disintegrated.
The infected vanished beneath expanding fire and pressure.
Several weakened apartnt buildings partially collapsed afterward from the shockwave.
The streets disappeared beneath dust and flas.
Underground, the containnt facility shook violently.
Dust rained from the ceilings.
Warning alarms flickered red across the laboratory wing.
One operator grabbed a nearby railing.
"Damn!"
Then the second missile hit.
BOOOOOOOOM.
This one impacted closer to the extraction route.
The surface streets above Adrian’s future exit point erupted into fire.
Entire infected hordes crossing the avenue were obliterated instantly beneath fragntation bursts and collapsing debris.
The thermal feed transmitted from the Changzheng-418 showed the surface swarm density dropping rapidly.
But not fast enough.
Not nearly fast enough.
Because more infected kept erging from subway tunnels and collapsed underground access sectors.
Millions still remained alive inside Beijing.
The third missile descended monts later.
This one struck directly into a partially collapsed stadium district where infected concentrations had gathered in horrifying numbers.
The detonation looked almost unreal.
Fire consud the stadium instantly while shockwaves rolled outward across surrounding districts.
Burning infected were thrown through the air.
Several nearby structures collapsed completely.
The city itself seed to shudder beneath the impacts.
Inside the containnt facility, Ryan slowly stared upward while another distant vibration rolled through the underground corridors.
"You know..."
He looked toward Adrian.
"...I think we officially qualify as an international incident now."
One operator quietly answered—
"I think the nuclear war already covered that."
Nobody disagreed.
Then suddenly—
The lights flickered again.
But this ti—
Not from the missile strikes.
The operators imdiately noticed.
The ergency systems dimd briefly before stabilizing.
Doctor Lin’s face changed instantly.
"That’s not good."
Adrian turned toward her.
"What?"
"The lower reactor systems."
Another vibration rolled through the floor.
But this one ca from below them.
Not above.
Then the screaming started again.
Closer now.
Much closer.
One operator checked the motion tracker instantly.
And his face tightened imdiately.
"Movent mass approaching fast."
Ryan stepped beside him.
"How many?"
The operator slowly looked up.
"...Hundreds."
The underground hordes had started moving again.
And now—
The missile strikes above were driving them directly toward the containnt wing.
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