'This is all reminiscing me of a piece of ancient history, also what is it with the strange aura emanating from the walls of this room?

They aren't emitting any kind of energy, or either way my senses are being tricked.'

Soon after Xeno stood tall in the center of the chamber and opened up the tightly coiled tendrils that formed his armor. They frantically exuded all kind of colors, as he infused energy into them. As the various tendrils started to madly wiggle toward the strange stone walls of the room, Xeno finally understood something.

'I see this strange aura is somehow linked to the chip that No.2345 has left me with. Probably it does not only contain information, but it should have a more practical use too.'

Concentrating on the perception of his tendrils, Xeno scanned through the room in search for an energy signature similar to that of the chip.

Needless to say, but he quickly found it. It was little cavity on the surface of metallic portal.

'This is directly connected to the functionalities of the gate, I expected this to probably be still functioning, however I did not Imagine to need its use so soon.'

As such, before proceeding Xeno decided to take out some of his things from his personal space, to properly settle himself in his new room. He mainly cared about storing into the bookshelf his old notes about the experiments he made at his old apartment. As such he carefully materialized various envelopes containing one chip each, which divided the data based on its type. For example one chip contained information about the effects caused by varying the concentration of TEF given to the subject. Or again about how specimens of different age, height and weight responded to the substance.

Xeno wasn't going to treat his future lightly, his studies needed a proper method. He knew that he hadn't been doing an extremely accurate work, but it was also true that he lacked both the means and the theory that was needed for a professional approach. Now he had them both.

He then positioned his most useful tools over the long dark metallic-like desk, probably being made of the sturdy wood of the first strata.

Finally Xeno positioned his delicate white mattress over one of the remote angles of the room. This was the last silly part of him that still remained of him. Unknown to everyone, their master didn't really like sleeping over the hard bare ground. Surely it wasn't such a problem for the alien either, but nonetheless a comfortable sleep was a habit that he had not lost as of yet.

Soon enough, Xeno was ready to resume his pursue of power. He quickly positioned the small electronic piece of metal inside the apposite cavity.

[I see you had no problems in finding this recess! Well, I must remind you that this is a short prerecorded hologram, thus it won't be able to answer you.

As I have already hinted at, in your room you'll find anything I promised you, special reward included. In fact, the room itself is my personal special gift for you!

Believe it or not, this 'fossil' is more than what you actually think. It was an important artifact in the very beginning of our civilization, later on it lost its primary function. However in your particular case, it will be a great asset, as you can both use it as a portable chamber and as the core of a small hive.

To activate it you need to empower your voice with nano-energy and shout out loud the 'password', make sure to make your words reverberate through the room.

The actual code is Xez'ets, which you should already be acquainted with.

Lastly, I know you are actually very interested in trading with me, I told you could but the amount of items or techniques I personally possess aren't that many. The true holder of the treasury is none other than the A.I. of the outpost, alias the robotic feminine voice that announced your scores during the trial.

If you want to trade with her you can only exchange one thing, 'cattle'.

Well this is all, in a few minutes the portal will open. You could wait for the rest of your team before going in, even if I would recommend you to not waste any time.

Well there would be a third possibility, of you attempting to return to the surface. I won't force you in any way, but I highly doubt you would make it alive.]

Finally the holographic image of No.2345 had stopped speaking, giving a good deal of information to Xeno, who was in a particular need of it.

'At least now I partly understand why it asked for my help, it isn't really the one in charge here, but a sort of artificial intelligence is. I guess No.2345 should act as a sort of butler, even if in this case of a residence without a master.'

After pondering for a few moments, Xeno channeled his energy flow through his vocal cords, shrieking out the password.

"Xez'ets!"

The strident and discordant voice of the alien reverberated through the chamber, loudly echoing multiple times.

Soon after the room started to vigorously shake, and as it has never existed before, it disappeared. Xeno initially panicked a bit, as he abruptly found himself in a completely white rectangular room. Which, other than the now operating portal, was completely empty. However, surprisingly he still perceived the strange energy signature of the chamber walls.

Just a few meters behind his position, Xeno sensed a small stony cube which was emanating said aura. Thus he now had no more doubts, he understood why the robot had defined it as a portable chamber.

Then he picked the gray stone cube up and without any further ado, entered through the blue spatial zone powered and contained by the metallic frame of the portal.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the portal from a different prospective…

[Joel's POV]

"KIAAA! D-Daddy I'm scared, during your training there wasn't anything like that!"

God these damned creatures! They are everywhere, roaming all around without ever being tired, seemingly accursed to endlessly suffer in agony and extreme ecstasy. Since this morning, exactly at 10 a.m. as the System had stated, we continuously heard screams of both pain and happiness.

I know what these things are, this sadistic extraterrestrial being was so bold to reveal what kind of enemy he was throwing at us!

However I cannot say for his move to have been as stupid, because nobody believed it! I will forever question what the minds of the world government were thinking that day. One of my other assumptions is that this has been played long ago, this creature must have expanded its control over our higher ups beforehand.

I had hoped for the information provided not to be true, because even if some had thought of them being similar to 'the walking dead' which we usually saw in movies. Yet the System has been loyal to its words, being both extremely bold and accurate. Our enemy is a dangerous parasite, this disgusting thing is able to proliferate through the dead and actually control their bodies. The real difference with the classic zombies is that they are not as stupid. I could define these abominations as a mixture of both the dead and demons, they seek pleasure in killing the living to implant their eggs into their fresh corpses. Also they are not as stupid, they run from certain danger and often try to exploit their numerical advantage. Some of them arriving even at forming proper hunting teams.

As I said, the System had already considered us the losing end of the fight.

In truth I had initially agreed with the government choice of declining our submission to the wicked creature. It wanted to take away our freedom, our planet, establish its own rules and put its subordinates above our leaders. But we should have at least prepared for it, I know it sounded everything so strange and unreal. Yet I believed its message and I tried to make the population aware of such danger.

"HAAAAGHH! GI..VE ME YOU..R FLESH!!"

Fuck! Shut up! Damn, they have already started to accumulate in the lower floors, we had heard them killing the unprepared civilians below us. Now it is our turn, however they are coming in for a good treat!

AN: I have described this room as a large one, however that was referred to the 3,5 meters tall Xeno. In reality Its area should be about two hundred square meters, so pretty big, consequentially his voice is able to echo.