Chapter 19: Threshold Reached

Four hundred meters beneath the North Atlantic seabed, inside the master suite of St. Jude’s Spire, the room was warm, quiet, and peaceful.

Julius sat in his leather recliner, a bowl of fresh, sweet grapes resting on the small side table. In his hand, he held a crystal glass of chilled white wine.

Across his massive wall screen, eight high-definition camera feeds were displayed in a neat split-screen grid, streaming live video from the exterior cameras of all eight continental bunkers.

Commander Croft stood a few paces behind the recliner, accompanied by Colonel Thomas Mercer. Both veteran officers stared at the wall in stunned, horrified silence.

On Screen One, Canada was a slaughterhouse.

ThunderG had leaped into the air, unleashing a jagged spear of blue lightning directly into Titan_01’s face. The stone skin deflected the blast, but the heat boiled the water in the air, creating a cloud of blinding steam.

While Titan was blinded, two other players—a woman with shadow tendrils and a man wielding an assault rifle—flanked the stone giant. The rifleman emptied an entire drum magazine into Titan’s unarmored, infected leg.

The rotten flesh exploded under high-caliber rounds.

Titan_01 let out a gut-wrenching bellow of agony as his knee gave out, crashing heavily into the mud. Before he could turn his head, ThunderG dropped down from above, driving two fingers charged with high-voltage electricity straight through the giant’s open mouth.

A muffled pop echoed through the speakers, and smoke poured from Titan’s ears. The stone faded from his skin, leaving behind a lifeless, scorched corpse.

[BIOMASS REDUCED.]

[CURRENT COUNT: 34 / 30]

"Four more!" ThunderG screamed on the screen, his face smeared with black soot and blood. "Four more and we’re inside!"

A desperate melee broke out around him. Players who had shared campfires two nights ago were now driving knives into each other’s throats. GaleForce summoned a violent burst of wind, tossing three players off the sheer edge of the cliff. They fell hundreds of meters into the raging floodwaters below, their screams swallowed by the storm.

[BIOMASS REDUCED.]

[CURRENT COUNT: 31 / 30]

"One more!" a survivor shrieked, clutching a broken arm. "Just one more!"

Every eye turned to the wounded man who had just spoken.

"Wait—no! Please!"

Before he could take two steps, five different abilities struck him at once. A blast of fire turned his chest to ash, a wind blade severed his shoulder, and a hail of bullets ripped through his torso. He crumpled into the mud, lifeless.

A sharp, pleasant chime rang through the Canadian speaker:

[BIOMASS THRESHOLD REACHED.]

[CURRENT COUNT: 30 / 30]

[CLEARING ACCESS LOCKS...]

With a heavy groan of metal and the hiss of high-pressure pneumatics, the massive titanium bulkhead of Site 1 began to slide slowly upward.

Warm, dry air poured out of the bunker’s illuminated decontamination chamber, carrying the faint, intoxicating scent of clean air, soap, and automated food processing.

On the screen, the thirty survivors dropped their weapons and wept. Some crawled on their hands and knees, dragging their injured bodies through the mud just to reach the warm floor.

"We did it..." ThunderG sobbed, stumbling through the entrance. "We’re safe... we’re finally safe..."

One by one, the thirty bloodstained players crossed the threshold into the bright, clean interior.

Behind them, six mutilated corpses lay cooling in the North American rain, surrounded by empty shell casings and scorched rock.

Julius took a sip of his wine, watching the scene unfold with calm, unblinking eyes.

"Look at them," Julius murmured, popping a grape into his mouth. "Two months ago, they were proud gods who scoffed at ordinary humans. Now they’re slaughtering each other like dogs for a spot on a concrete floor."

Colonel Mercer cleared his throat, his face slightly pale despite his decades of military service. "Mr. Vance... the psychological toll of this is brutal. You didn’t just give them a limit. You forced them to pick who dies with their own hands."

"I didn’t force them to do anything, Colonel," Julius replied smoothly. "The sign simply stated the capacity. If they were truly noble, six of them could have volunteered to walk away and build a camp outside. But they didn’t, did they? They chose to butcher their friends."

Julius turned his attention to Screen Three: The Swiss Alps.

The fight there had just concluded. Viper stood over the body of a man whose throat had been dissolved by acid. Bloodhound was wiping a bloody hunting knife on his wet sleeve.

Above the alpine entrance, the counter flashed:

[CURRENT COUNT: 30 / 30]

[ACCESS GRANTED]

The heavy door ground open, and the thirty blood-soaked European survivors rushed inside like wild beasts, leaving eight bodies scattered across the blood-dyed snow.

One by one, across all eight screens, the numbers aligned:

Site 1 (Canada): 30 Occupants Sealed.

Site 2 (Patagonia): 30 Occupants Sealed.

Site 3 (Alps): 30 Occupants Sealed.

Site 4 (Sahara): 30 Occupants Sealed.

Site 5 (Siberia): 30 Occupants Sealed.

Site 6 (East Asia): 30 Occupants Sealed.

Site 7 (Australia): 30 Occupants Sealed.

Site 8 (Antarctica): 30 Occupants Sealed.

At each location, once the thirtieth person crossed the yellow sensor line, a loud alarm sounded.

The heavy titanium blast doors slammed downward with the force of a hydraulic guillotine, locking into the reinforced floor with three-inch steel pins. Secondary magnetic locks engaged with a deep clack that vibrated through the rock.

The external LED screens changed their text:

[SANCTUARY MAXIMUM CAPACITY REACHED.]

[OUTER BULKHEAD: PERMANENTLY SEALED.]

[ALL EXTERNAL CONTROLS DISABLED.]