Chapter 102: The Bad News
At first, it didn’t look like anything unusual.
The streets below were still filled with abandoned cars. Zombies wandered in loose clusters, dragging their feet across broken asphalt. Some bumped into each other, others just stood still like they had forgotten where to go.
Then the ground moved.
It was subtle at first, like a ripple under the surface. The road bent upward slightly, just enough to tilt a parked car to one side. A few zombies lost their balance and fell, their bodies rolling against each other.
Adrian frowned.
"What is that..." he muttered.
The ripple grew.
Stronger.
Wider.
The entire street started to bulge, like something massive was pushing from below.
Then the tremor came again.
Harder this time.
The building itself shook. The glass panels around the window rattled faintly even through the layers of newspaper. The floor beneath Adrian’s boots vibrated in a low, steady pulse.
Ryan stepped closer.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked.
Seo didn’t take her eyes off the gap.
"It’s here," she said quietly.
The ground split open.
A long crack tore through the street, running across lanes, cutting through cars like they were nothing. Asphalt broke apart, chunks of it thrown upward along with dust and debris.
Then, it came out. At first, it looked like a column. But it kept rising.
Adrian’s eyes widened slightly as it climbed.
It didn’t stop at the height of a building.
It kept going.
Past the rooftops.
Past the height of the surrounding structures.
Until it stood there.
A massive, towering body rising out of the earth, its size comparable to a skyscraper.
It wasn’t smooth.
Its surface was layered with jagged plates, overlapping like armor but uneven, twisted, almost organic in a way that didn’t make sense. Parts of it glowed faintly red between the gaps, like heat trapped inside something alive.
Then its head emerged.
Wide.
Split open slightly at the front.
Not like a mouth.
More like a tearing point.
It shifted, turning just enough that Adrian could see the structure of it. No eyes. No clear features. Just layers of hardened flesh and something deeper beneath it that pulsed faintly.
Adrian didn’t speak.
For a moment, he just watched.
Trying to understand what he was looking at.
Seo’s voice broke the silence.
"That thing," she said quietly, "is why Seoul looks like this."
Ryan looked at her.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
She didn’t look away from it.
"That is not part of the virus," she said. "No virus can make that."
Adrian’s eyes stayed on the creature.
"Then what is it?" he asked.
Seo shook her head slightly.
"I don’t know," she admitted. "But it appeared after the outbreak started getting worse. And everywhere it moves..."
She paused.
"...everything disappears."
The creature shifted again.
Its massive body bent slightly before slamming back down into the ground. The impact sent another shockwave through the area, flipping vehicles and scattering what remained on the street.
The building trembled again.
Adrian felt it in his bones this time.
Seo suddenly reached out and pulled the newspaper back into place, covering the gap.
"Don’t stare at it too long," she said.
Adrian looked at her.
"Why?"
She hesitated.
Then answered.
"I’m not sure," she said. "But it feels like it can detect attention."
Ryan frowned.
"Detect... what? Movement?" he asked.
She shook her head again.
"No," she said. "Not just movement."
She looked back at the covered window.
"...Something else."
Outside, the low, distant sound of the creature moving beneath the ground echoed faintly through the city.
Adrian stepped back from the window.
His expression didn’t change much.
But the way he held himself did. He reached to his earpiece.
"Sentinel Eye, confirm visual."
There was a brief burst of static.
Then—
"Cold Reach One, Sentinel Eye," the AWACS responded, voice steady but slower than before. "We have visual and thermal acquisition on the anomaly."
Ryan stepped closer.
"Anomaly?" he repeated.
"That’s what it is," Adrian said quietly, eyes still fixed toward the covered window.
The AWACS continued.
"Be advised, we are detecting an extreme thermal signature originating from surface level... and extending below ground."
Adrian’s brow tightened slightly.
"How deep?" he asked.
There was a pause.
Longer this time.
As if the system itself was trying to process something it wasn’t built for.
"...Standby," Sentinel Eye said.
Inside the room, no one spoke.
Even Seo remained still now, listening.
Then the AWACS came back.
"Cold Reach One, thermal readings indicate the majority of the mass is not above ground," it said. "Repeat, the visible portion is only a fraction."
Ryan frowned.
"How much of a fraction?" he asked.
"Estimated surface exposure is less than twenty percent of total structure."
That landed hard.
Adrian didn’t react outwardly, but his eyes narrowed just a bit more.
"Give me a length estimate," he said.
"Working," Sentinel Eye replied.
"Cold Reach One, based on thermal tracking from subterranean movement and residual heat trail..."
A slight crackle in the comms.
"...we are estimating total length in excess of one point eight kilometers."
"What the fuck..." Adrian cursed under his breath.
Then, its head shifted upwards, towards the two Black Hawks hovering in the air just above the skyscraper.
"Cold Reach One, it’s looking at us," one of the pilots said, his voice tightening over the comms.
Adrian’s head snapped slightly toward the covered window.
Even without seeing it, he could feel it.
That pressure again.
Like something had shifted its attention.
"Sentinel Eye, confirm orientation," Adrian said quickly.
"Confirmed," the AWACS replied. "Anomaly head structure has reoriented. Vector aligned with your rooftop position and airborne assets."
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
"It knows," he said.
Before anyone could say anything else—
The ground erupted again.
But this time, it wasn’t the main body.
It was faster, and sharper.
Multiple points along the street burst open at once, as if something beneath had split itself into branches.
Then they came out.
Tendrils.
Segments of the creature shot upward from the ground like spears, tearing through asphalt and debris as they surged toward the sky. They weren’t as thick as the main body, but they were still massive, each one lined with the same jagged, armored plating.
"Contact! Multiple vertical spikes!" the AWACS shouted.