The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 51: Everything Goes Smoothly

The rest of the drive went off without a hitch. Their vehicle rolled to a slow stop at the main entrance of Longshan Medical University.

The heavy iron gates were locked tight.

Su Jin scanned the perimeter from the passenger seat, confirming the coast was clear of zombies.

He stepped out, jogging briskly toward the barricade.

Bang. A single bullet shattered the padlock. He yanked the heavy wrought-iron doors wide open.

The SUV crawled onto the campus grounds, parking near the athletic field before the three men disembarked.

Su Jin swept his gaze over the quiet courtyard. He pulled the map Sun Ya had given him from his chest pocket. “Looks clear. Better than I expected.”

“But Old Sun’s intel said this area had heavy student traffic. It’ll be pitch black inside. Fu Hu, you take point and keep your shield up. Cheng Du and I will cover your six.”

“Once we breach the teaching building, we’ve got less than two hundred yards before we hit the basement stairwell.”

“Keep your fingers off the triggers unless absolutely necessary. Gunfire will just pull every rotting corpse from the upper floors down on our heads. Stick to the bows.”

“That’s the play. Any questions or concerns, spit them out now.”

“None,” the two men replied in unison.

“Good. We move out in a minute. Just wait.” Su Jin tilted his head, staring up at the overcast sky.

“What are we waiting for, Director?”

“For the cloud cover.”

…

The trio fell into a single-file formation, sweeping their sectors with every cautious step as they approached the looming academic building.

Su Jin took a slow, measured breath at the entrance before slipping into the shadows like a ghost.

A massive, sweeping staircase dominated the main lobby.

They immediately stacked up behind the stairwell’s corner, peering down the right-hand corridor.

Over a dozen zombies stood huddled in the gloomy hall, their limbs twitching at unnatural angles.

It was the only route to the underground laboratory.

“Director, how the hell do we push through that?” Cheng Du whispered. “We can’t brute force it without ringing the dinner bell. Maybe we head upstairs and scout a detour?”

“Quiet,” Su Jin hissed, pressing a finger to his lips. “More movement means more variables.” His cold eyes tracked the shifting horde.

“I’ll thin the herd first. You two provide overwatch with the bows. Flash your lights to draw aggro if things go south.” Without taking his eyes off the targets, Su Jin began unlacing his boots.

Cheng Du glanced down, blinking in utter confusion.

Three pairs of socks? The Director was dead serious, standing there in three thick layers of cotton.

He had even taped some kind of textured, non-slip rubber padding to the balls of his feet.

Su Jin leveled his breathing, placing his heavy boots onto the linoleum without making a single sound.

He systematically unclipped every piece of loose gear that could rattle or clink, shoving it all into Fu Hu’s massive hands.

“Director, what exactly is the play here?” Fu Hu rasped.

“I’m flanking them,” Su Jin replied flatly. “We create a crossfire. Though, ideally, I’ll just butcher them all myself.”

Before either man could object, Su Jin’s right calf coiled like a spring, launching him silently into the air.

His padded foot planted flat against the vertical wall, carrying his momentum straight up to the ceiling.

Like some twisted, oversized arachnid, he bounded across the upper corners of the corridor, springing back and forth between the narrow walls in a terrifying display of agility.

He froze in the rafters, dangling directly above two rotting stragglers.

Su Jin released his grip and plummeted. In a blur of motion, he drew two heavily modified, razor-sharp screwdrivers from his belt and drove them straight down into the backs of their necks, severing their spinal cords and hearts in one brutal thrust.

His anatomical precision from dissecting endless corpses, combined with his unnatural speed in the shadows, made the execution flawless.

The two bodies crumpled like severed puppets. Before they even hit the floor, Su Jin had already kicked off their sinking shoulders, vanishing back into the ceiling shadows.

The wet thud of the collapsing meat immediately drew the hungry groans of the surrounding horde.

Su Jin skittered overhead, completely bypassing their line of sight, and dropped behind the very back of the pack.

He fell again. Squelch. Squelch. Two more skulls caved in.

…

Crouched in the stairwell, Cheng Du watched the silhouette move in impossible, three-dimensional trajectories, reaping lives with mechanical efficiency. His jaw went slack. “Christ… Was the Director always this terrifying?”

“Without a doubt. He could snap both of us in half,” Fu Hu murmured. He held his compound bow at full draw, his eyes glued to the massacre. “And the sun’s still out. This isn’t even him at peak capacity.”

“You haven’t been around long enough. The boss sleeps maybe three hours a night. If he’s awake, he’s either dissecting these things or figuring out faster ways to kill them.”

“He looks perfectly fine to me,” Cheng Du muttered.

“He gets a recharge from the sunlight. Honestly… I think he might actually hit harder than me now. Probably just can’t take a punch as well as I do.”

By the time they finished whispering, all fourteen zombies lay motionless in a pool of black blood.

Cheng Du and Fu Hu exchanged a weary glance and crept out of cover.

Su Jin stood amidst the carnage, a thin sheen of sweat gleaming on his forehead.

The hallway was on the shaded side of the building, and the cloud cover helped, but there was still too much ambient light piercing through the windows.

The acrobatics had drained him. If he had operated under the pitch-black cover of night, he wouldn’t have even broken a sweat.

“Boss, that was insane,” Cheng Du whispered reverently, throwing up a thumbs-up.

Su Jin merely wiped his brow. “Standard infected are just meat bags at this point. The real threat is getting swarmed by sheer numbers. Stay sharp. We got our Abilities from them. It’s only a matter of time before we run into a freak with Abilities of its own.”

He dropped into a low crouch. “The path ahead is clear save for a few strays. I’ll carve a path. Just keep your heads below the windowsills as we pass the classrooms. We reach the end of the hall, and we’re golden.”

….

The infiltration was flawless. Within minutes, they stood before the heavy doors of the underground laboratory.

Su Jin gripped the heavy steel handle and gave it a firm yank.

It didn’t budge. A cold knot formed in his stomach.

The reinforced security door was a military-grade hunk of steel, broken only by a tiny, explosion-proof viewing slit.

According to Sun Ya’s blueprints, the facility had an emergency generator, but it should have bled dry days ago.

The magnetic locks were wired to fail-safe and disengage the moment the grid died.

If it was still holding fast, blowing it open without C4 was physically impossible.

“What’s the hold-up, Director?”

“I don’t know. It’s locked tight,” Su Jin muttered, his brow furrowing. “This makes no logical sense.” He pressed his face against the reinforced glass of the viewing slit.

The laboratory interior was an absolute wreck.

Weighing his options, Su Jin tapped a hard rhythm against the thick glass with his knuckles.

A few agonizing seconds passed before a gaunt, ecstatic face suddenly pressed against the other side of the glass.

Su Jin’s expression instantly turned to stone. He shot a dark glare back at Fu Hu and Cheng Du.

“Hold the choke point at the stairs. Keep the stragglers off my back,” he ordered coldly.

Turning back to the glass, Su Jin over-enunciated his words, letting the stranger read his lips.

“I. Am. Here. To. Rescue. You.”

Two more faces scrambled into view. Three survivors in total: one elderly professor and two pale, emaciated students.

The trio on the inside began frantically disengaging a series of heavy manual deadbolts.

The heavy steel groaned open. Su Jin slipped through the crack like a viper, instantly shoving the door shut behind him and throwing the latch.

The three survivors swarmed him, tears of desperate salvation streaming down their filthy faces.

“Are you military? Did the army send you? Is the quarantine zone safe?” The old man babbled, grabbing at Su Jin’s tactical vest.

Su Jin plastered on a reassuring nod. “Slow down. How many of you are trapped in here?”

“Just us three. We barricaded ourselves in with the emergency rations, but we’re completely out. A few more days and we would’ve starved,” one of the students choked out, wiping his nose.

Su Jin cut straight to business. “Are the lab mice still alive? Where is the Sodium Fluorescein and the Portable UV Light?”

The professor blinked, caught off guard. “Uh, one batch died off… We only have about eighty mice left. But the chemical agents and lights are all secure.”

“Pack it all up,” Su Jin barked with the authority of a commanding officer. “We move out the second you’re ready.”

Blinded by the promise of salvation, the three survivors scrambled around the lab, eagerly shoving the precious cargo into hard cases.

Within minutes, they scurried back, presenting the packed supplies like loyal dogs.

Su Jin quickly inspected the cases, verifying the inventory. “Hand them over. My squad is holding the perimeter outside. You three lead the way.” He gestured toward the heavy steel door.

Muttering endless praises and thanks, the three of them eagerly turned their backs and marched toward the exit.

The very next second.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Three suppressed gunshots coughed into the sterile air. Three bodies hit the floor.

A pool of crimson rapidly expanded across the white tiles. Su Jin swayed slightly on his feet, feeling the crushing weight of pragmatism. He closed his eyes, exhaled a long, heavy breath, grabbed the supplies, and slipped silently back into the dark.