2026-08-05 20:11:04Vladivostok, Kosmonavtov Street, Building 78 — Same Time
“What kind of idiot leaves the keys in the ignition?”
Yuri was furious.
“Bibikov, you fucking moron!”
“Yura, everyone knows it's our car,” Artyom protested. “Nobody would dare steal it.”
“Blah-blah-blah…”
Yuri barely listened.
While they'd been waiting for the car, they'd been watching Dushny's movements.
Dushny.
What a ridiculous surname. Yuri could already imagine the nickname the guy must have had among his classmates.
Dushnoy. Dushila.
Something along those lines. But none of that mattered now. Dushny had reached Fort No. 1.
And he'd stayed there.
Yuri looked up as a black Land Cruiser pulled into view.
“Okay.”
He straightened. “Everybody move.”
Fort No. 1
“What is this place?”
I stared through the windshield.
The concrete structure that supposedly passed for Fort No. 1 looked abandoned. No guards. No tourists. No lights.
Nothing.
I drove onto the grounds without any trouble and parked in what looked like a makeshift parking area.
“This is Fort No. 1,” Virgo explained. “It's also known as Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich's Fort.”
“Okay…”
I looked around.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Where exactly am I? And why am I here?”
“Wait here for a while.”
Virgo’s voice was calm.
“Then the people chasing you won't be your problem anymore.”
That sounded ominously final.
“Now get out.”
“What?”
“Go down the stairs. Then find the ammunition storage.”
I stared at the entrance.
“That's assuming I know where it is.”
I got out anyway.
The stairs led underground. I descended and immediately found myself surrounded by darkness.
It was already night outside.
Down here, it felt like I'd stepped into a concrete tomb.
No windows. No lights. Nothing but damp air and blackness.
I didn't like it. Not one bit.
I switched on my phone's flashlight and started down a long corridor. The beam caught rusty doorways as I passed.
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The air smelled damp and ancient.
I'd never really cared about Vladivostok's historical sights. Apparently, I was getting the full experience now. Although I seriously doubted this place offered guided tours.
“Welcome to Fort No. 1,” the guide would say. “Please mind the mold. Don't touch anything. And if you hear screaming, that's probably normal.”
The fort had once been built to defend Vladivostok from a Japanese invasion. Now its military purpose was long gone.
It had been abandoned to rot, becoming a playground for treasure hunters, history buffs, and people who enjoyed crawling around old ruins for reasons I couldn't understand.
My flashlight swept across the wall.
Then stopped.
A faded inscription.
AMMUNITION STORAGE.
There had obviously been a proper sign there once. Someone had apparently decided the sign would make a nice souvenir. All that remained was the words, sprayed in red paint.
My phone rang.
The old Nokia 7337 ringtone echoed horribly through the empty corridor. I nearly jumped.
I answered.
“The storage room is right in front of me,” I told Virgo.
I looked around.
“Now what?”
Silence.
“Where do I go?”
“You're already there.”
Something felt wrong. Very wrong. I heard her voice through the phone. But I also heard it behind me.
“You're already there.”
My blood ran cold.
I started turning.
Then the flashlight went out instantly.
The corridor disappeared into absolute darkness.
Fort No. 1 — Forty-Seven Minutes Later
They stood beside Dushny's abandoned BMW and tried to figure out what the hell he was thinking.
If Yuri had been in Dushny's position, he wouldn't have stopped anywhere.
He certainly wouldn't have parked in the middle of nowhere and practically announced, Come get me.
And he would have gotten rid of the GLONASS tracker immediately.
The kid clearly had no idea how to evade anyone.
He'd be finished soon.
“Maybe he's trying to play Rambo?” Bibikov suggested.
“What?”
Strelnikov looked at him.
“Rambo.”
“I know who Rambo is.”
Artyom gestured toward the fort.
“Maybe he figured out we were tracking the car. So he deliberately picked an isolated place where nobody would hear anything.”
Yuri stared at him.
“So we walk into the bunker, and he picks us off one at a time.”
“Something like that.”
Yuri grinned.
“You've been watching too many movies.”
He looked toward the entrance.
“Actually, this place being deserted is perfect for us. Nobody's going to hear anything.”
He checked his Saiga-12K.
“Grab your guns.”
Artyom and Igor did so.
“And stay together,” Yuri added. “If we split up, that idiot might actually have a chance.”
With the Saiga-12K in his hands, Strelnikov led the way into Fort No. 1.
The place was miserable.
Dark.
Damp.
Dead quiet.
If Yuri had been forced to describe it in one word, he'd have gone with sinister.
Something about the place felt wrong.
Water dripped somewhere in the darkness.
The walls were wet.
The air probably reeked of mold, although Yuri couldn't smell much anymore. A bad case of the flu had damaged his sense of smell years ago.
Which was actually useful in his line of work.
When you spent your days cutting up corpses, there were certain smells you were better off not noticing.
His boots slapped against the concrete.
Not exactly stealthy.
But Yuri wasn't worried.
Anyone rushing him in this darkness was going to get a face full of buckshot.
Still…
Something bothered him.
Something's wrong.
Then he heard a strange wheezing sound behind him.
Yuri spun.
Igor was clutching his throat.
Blood sprayed between his fingers.
His lime-green shirt was turning red.
“What—”
Artyom spun around and immediately opened fire.
The AKS-74U erupted into the darkness.
The gunshot was deafening in the confined corridor.
Yuri’s ears rang.
He instinctively opened his mouth, trying to equalize the pressure.
“Stop!”
Artyom turned toward him.
“What?”
Something moved in the darkness.
A flash.
And Bibikov's head simply—
disappeared.
Yuri’s brain took a second to process what his eyes were seeing.
Then instinct took over.
He raised the Saiga and fired.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Nothing.
There was nobody there.
“What the f—”
Something slammed into the back of his head.
Hard.
Not hard enough to knock him out.
Yuri staggered forward, spun, and caught the next strike on the shotgun's fore-end.
A wooden club.
He stepped backward, brought the Saiga up, and fired at the figure.
The pellets tore into the man's body.
The robed idiot wearing a silver elephant mask collapsed in a mess of blood and shredded fabric.
Yuri barely had time to process what he'd just seen.
His instincts told him to turn.
He did.
Too late.
Something hit him in the side of the head.
It felt like Mike Tyson had personally decided to introduce himself.
The world went black.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 61
The local schools of necromancy knew this perfectly well. The problem was that such a setup was ridiculously expensive, so they couldn't exactly use it as their standard operating procedure.Instead, they'd developed cheaper alternatives. Less effective, perhaps. But much more affordable.My situation was different. My life literally depended on this corpse. I wasn't going to cut corners.Once the graphite rods were installed—with several expressive but very quiet curses along the way—I mounted the accumulator, connected everything, and began the reverse assembly.The sawed-open sternum was a different problem. I had to think about that one. Eventually, I came up with a system that allowed relatively quick access using bronze bolts and plates.If I ever needed to reach the accumulator or the dead heart, I could simply undo the bolts and open the chest again. Sewing human flesh wasn't the same as sewing cloth. You actually needed to know what you were doing.When everything was finally
CHAPTER 60
Holy shit.Something clicked inside Gennady. It was as if someone had suddenly flipped a switch.The corpse opened its eyes.“Hello, friend…”I gave him an uncertain smile.“I'm pretty sure you're not particularly happy to see me, but we're going to be working together for a while.”Gena didn't answer. Not only because he couldn't. He didn't want to talk.“Get into the harness. We're leaving.”I gave him the command.Gena said nothing. But he stood up and walked toward the sled. Despite my concerns, he understood the instruction perfectly and correctly slipped into the sled harness.I stared at the undead man.Volobuyev Gennady AnatolyevichLevel: 10That was disappointingly uninformative. Maybe there was more information somewhere in the menu? There hadn't been anything useful when I'd raised the rat, but a rat was a
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 59 (15)It might look like I had made the decision to experiment on this dead kid rather easily, especially since he hadn't done anything wrong.The truth was, I'd spent a long time fighting myself over it.The Anatoly from my old world had been locked in a brutal argument with the Anatoly I had become.A doctor's ethics. Basic human morality. The simple, instinctive fear of what would happen if I crossed certain lines.All of it stood against what I was doing now.But in the end, that other Anatoly—the one who wanted to get out of this miserable situation alive and in one piece—had won.So I would raise as many corpses as necessary.I would kill anyone who tried to threaten my way of life or take what was mine.I'd cross that line again.I'd rethink my values again.I'd force myself to understand things I hadn't understood before.
CHAPTER 58
At a certain stage, nigredo became extremely chemically reactive, which meant the material used to handle it had to meet certain requirements. The spoon would eventually be ruined, just like the pot, but there was no avoiding it.I could have used gold, of course.Unfortunately, I didn't exactly have a collection of precious ritual utensils lying around.Silver, incidentally, was forbidden.For some reason, silver was deadly to undead, and nigredo prepared in a silver container simply didn't work once it entered an undead bloodstream.Apparently, the roots of this phenomenon came from the same place as the old vampire fear of silver.Well, vampires were undead too, so I suppose it made sense.I left the nigredo to mature and went back to stitching the blood vessels.The cat had been busy working on his own ritual circle the entire time.“Can't I come with you?” I asked.“I wouldn't recommend it,&
CHAPTER 57
“What do I do with the corpse?” I asked.“Cast the spells the way the book says.” Vopros barely glanced up. “The important thing is to preserve the head.”He remained completely focused, using the claw of his right paw to make tiny adjustments to one of the concentrators inside the ritual circle.I’d accumulated quite a collection of spell diagrams while studying the specialized literature, and I’d painstakingly memorized them.So the first thing I did was cast Dead Stasis on the corpse’s head.The spell temporarily halted the decomposition of the brain.Technically, it was already too late to save him. The kid was well and truly dead, and irreversible processes had already begun in his brain.But I still needed to preserve whatever was left.I pressed my index fingers against the dead boy’s temples, moving the other fingers through a complicated seque
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 56 (14)For another hour or so, someone continued eating. Eventually, the sounds faded. Then came the footsteps retreating across the sand.“He’s gone,” Vopros said.“What the hell was that?”“Another living person came to the ruins,” the cat replied. “Unfortunately, he ran into a corpse.”He paused.“Not an ordinary corpse, though. From what I heard, the dead man stabbed his victim with something sharp and then ate him. That’s about it.”“Is that normal around here?”“You still haven’t figured that out?” Vopros asked in return.Yeah. I probably should have figured it out a long time ago.“But I’ve never heard of corpses using weapons.” I shook my head.“The Red Moon raises all kinds of people,” Vopros began explaining. “Some spent their entire lives as farmers. Others were craftsmen. Some were warriors. If the last group is thrown into the portal while their bodies are still relatively intact, they retain some of their skills when they’re raised.”He gave me a meaningful look
You may also like
SILVER FANG SUTRA THE DOCTOR OF WAR
Husain2.4K viewsThe Data Dark Lord's Reckoning
Steve Kingsley 193 viewsFORGE MY SWORD
Daniz4.8K viewsThe Return Of the God Of War
Shonowo Adeniyi Moses4.1K viewsThe Lost God of War Returned
WestReversed1.2K viewsSTEEL LOTUS
Chidezny325 viewsThe void's promise
amine890 viewsAsura God of War: Awakening of the Ghost
elawati463 views