Reborn as a Hated Noble Family, We Start an Industrial Revolution

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: Concrete Labyrinth

Underground City – Office Sector. Condition: Pursued by Hundreds of Mutants.

”RUN! DON’T LOOK BACK!”

Sir Riven’s shout was nearly drowned out by the screams of thousands of creatures behind them.

SCREEEEEEEEECH!

A tidal wave of pale creatures flooded the asphalt streets. They didn’t run like humans; instead, they scurried on all fours, leaping over car wrecks and scaling building walls with unnatural speed. The sound of their bare hands and feet slapping against the asphalt sounded like a rain of flesh.

The Sudrath expedition party ran with all their might toward the nearest building—a glass skyscraper whose main lobby doors were already shattered.

”Inside! Everyone inside!” Captain Garrick commanded, pushing his men through the shards of glass.

As the last person entered, Riven spun around. He swung his Chain-Axe horizontally.

VROOOOM!

The first three mutants that lunged at him were sliced in half mid-air. Black blood splattered across the dusty marble floor of the lobby.

”Rhea! Block the way!” Riven roared.

Lady Rhea leaped behind a long reception desk, her movements swift yet calculated. She kicked a heavy steel filing cabinet over, blocking the entrance and creating a flimsy barricade that she could only trust for a few seconds.

CRASH!

It wouldn’t hold them for long—she knew that—but it was enough to buy time, enough for a single breath that could determine life or death.

”Take the stairs! Don’t use the dead lifts!” Sir Rianor shouted, pointing toward the emergency stairwell in the corner of the lobby.

They sprinted up the narrow concrete stairs. Heavy THUDS echoed below them—the sound of mutant bodies slamming into the filing cabinet barricade.

They reached the 2nd Floor.

Riven kicked the stairwell door open.

They entered a vast room that was alien to Aethelgardian eyes.

There were no stone walls. No wooden pillars.

The room was filled with hundreds of chest-high partitioned boxes arranged neatly like a labyrinth. Desks with ruined wheeled chairs and dark, dusty light-boxes (computer monitors) sat atop them.

An ancient Open-Plan Office.

SHATTER!

The glass windows on the side of the building burst inward.

The mutants hadn’t taken the stairs. They had scaled the exterior walls and smashed through the second-story windows.

”They’re coming through the windows!” Elara screamed.

Dozens of eyeless pale creatures swarmed into the office, leaping nimbly over the cubicles.

”Formation broken! Free combat!” Riven ordered. In a space this cramped and filled with partitions, a spear-line formation was useless.

Chaos erupted.

Rhea was the one who shined brightest in this strange battlefield.

She leaped onto a desk, sprinted across the cubicle partitions, and slid under a table just as a mutant’s claw swiped at her head.

”Die, you ugly freak!”

SLASH!

Rhea’s dagger sank into the neck of a mutant trying to pounce on her from behind a computer monitor. Rhea kicked the corpse away and leaped to the next desk. She moved like a squirrel among tree branches.

On the other side, Riven struggled to swing his massive axe due to the many desk partitions.

”This place is too damn small!” Riven grumbled.

An Alpha mutant leaped from the ceiling, ready to tear Riven’s face off.

Riven didn’t have time to swing his axe. He needed a shield.

His eyes caught the half-open steel elevator doors in the hallway.

With the power of his orange Aura, Riven charged, gripping one of the elevator doors.

”AAAARGH!”

KREAAAKKK!

The sound of tearing metal was agonizing. Riven ripped the elevator door from its hinges by force.

Just as the mutant lunged, Riven slammed it with the hundred-kilogram steel door.

BRAMM!

The mutant was instantly pancaked, pinned between the elevator door and the concrete wall.

”Eat that door!”

While the battle raged, Nor and Rumina took cover behind a large reception desk in the center of the room, heavily guarded by Garrick.

Nor spotted something on the desk.

A thin rectangular object made of metal and cracked glass. An ancient Tablet.

Miraculously, the device was still connected by a cable to the desk, and its indicator light flickered with a weak red glow. The last of the emergency power.

”Elara! Over here!” Rianor called. ”Channel some electricity into this! Just a little!”

Elara ran over while firing a fireball at a mutant, then pressed her finger to the tablet’s cable. Zzzzt.

The tablet’s screen flickered to life.

The PROJECT LEGION logo appeared.

Then, an automated voice recording began to play. The voice was distorted and filled with static.

”...Warning... Leak in Sector 4... Subject 045 is out of control... They are devouring the scientists... Security doors failed to lock... Oh God, they’re in the vents! DON’T LET THEM OUT! SEAL THIS CITY! SEAL EVERYTHING!”

CLICK. The recording cut out.

Rianor stared at the screen, his face pale.

”They aren’t victims of war,” Rianor whispered. ”They are victims of a man-made plague. This city was sealed from the outside to bury their failure.”

Riven backed up toward Rianor, his breath heavy, the elevator door in his hand already dented.

”Nor! We can’t hold them forever! Their numbers are still growing!”

Riven was right. For every one mutant that died, three more climbed through the windows. The office floor was becoming a sea of pale creatures.

Rianor recalled the holographic map that had briefly flickered on the tablet. He saw one point marked in red.

CENTRAL CONTROL TOWER.

Rianor’s genius mind spun rapidly.

”Electricity,” Rianor muttered. ”The city’s security system is dead because there’s no power.”

”Brother Riven!” Rianor shouted, pointing out the shattered window toward the massive Needle Tower in the center of the city.

”We have to get to that Tower!”

”For what? Sightseeing?!” Riven replied while punching a mutant’s head into mush.

”The Power Grid is there!” Rianor explained quickly. ”If we can turn on the Main Reactor... the city’s Automated Defense System will reactivate! Turrets, Lasers, Electric Fences... everything will turn on and slaughter these mutants for us!”

”We have to flip the switch!”

Riven looked toward the Tower, which was still a kilometer away. The streets below were swarming with mutants.

But he had no other choice.

”Fine! Let’s make a run for it!”

Riven hurled his elevator door into the mutant crowd like a giant frisbee, knocking down five of them at once.

”GARRICK! CLEAR A PATH! RHEA, PROTECT RUMINA!”

”WE JUMP THROUGH THE OPPOSITE WINDOW!”

The group sprinted through the office space, plunging through the sea of living corpses toward the Skybridge that connected the building to the next.

They ran across the fragile glass bridge, while below them, thousands of mutants looked up and began scaling the bridge’s pillars.

This was no longer a mining expedition. This was an escape from a hell that was beginning to open its doors right behind them.