The moment Echo One crossed the boundary, Dmitri felt the world lose a layer.
The invisible weight of the Commander's Radar vanished from the back of his mind, leaving behind a silence that felt wider than the ruined streets around him.
Dmitri raised one hand. Behind him, Echo One stopped.
Several meters to their right, Echo Two stopped as well, mirroring Echo One from across the road.
Adrian crouched behind the shell of an overturned delivery truck, one of his Scouts keeping watch beside him while two Attack Dogs lowered their bodies close to the asphalt.
One of them was Vex. The other belonged to Echo Two's rear watch.
Dmitri glanced at his old buddy—Rex—ruffling its warm fur under the cold, dark night. They hadn't joined the previous fights due to the nature of those battles.
Attack Dogs can't just join in the middle of a large firefight against swathes of zombies. Worse, they'll just be overrun if they lunged into the enemies instead.
Now, it was time for them to shine again.
From this point onward, the Commander could still receive their reports, but he could no longer use the Radar's advantage.
"I'll have to rely on you, buddy."
Rex wagged his tail.
Dmitri could not tell whether Rex was excited, anxious, or simply happy to be useful. He pressed two fingers against his comms.
"Echo One to Golden Eagle. We have crossed the boundary."
Hans's reply came after a short moment.
"Status?"
"No contact. Poor visibility. Echo Two is in support position."
"Proceed slowly toward the northeastern space, but do not enter the city. Remember my directives."
"Understood."
Dmitri lowered his hand and looked down the road ahead. Without the Radar, every window became a blind spot again.
The first few streets beyond the coverage were not empty, but just quiet.
Dmitri moved beside Rex, one hand hovering near the suppressed MP7 across his chest. Adrian and Echo Two kept to the opposite side of the road, using the abandoned trucks as cover.
The northwestern sector did not end in a clean fashion.
It stretched outward through cargo lanes, utility roads, rail lines, fenced storage yards, and the old service routes that once connected one factory block to another.
To their left, the river could not be seen yet, but its presence lingered in the air.
Dmitri could feel the slight saltiness, mixed with rotten matter emanating from that direction.
To their right, rows of transmission towers towered deeper into the darkness, their cables sagging above the ruined streets like dead veins.
Dmitri stopped near a rusted road sign.
Most of the paint had peeled away, but the reflective letters still caught the warm moonlight.
North Industrial Corridor.
Grefort Central.
River Freight Terminal.
Northern Ashington Nuclear Power Station.
Adrian's voice came through the channel.
"That confirms it. The northern route should branch from here."
Dmitri did not answer immediately and looked at Rex. He had stopped wagging his tail.
The dog stood rigidly in the middle of the road; nose pointed toward the transmission towers. He didn't growl, nor bark. He was completely silent.
Dmitri lowered his hand toward Rex's back.
"What is it, buddy? Tell me something."
Rex did not move. The other Attack Dog moved forward as well, its posture like Rex.
Several meters away, Vex did the same. Adrian noticed it too.
"Echo One," he said quietly. "These dogs are reacting to something."
"Keep your eyes open."
Dmitri looked past the road sign, toward the dark corridor leading north.
The Commander wanted routes, horde concentrations, and abnormal phenomena.
It seemed they had already found the first abnormality. Whether it was a good thing or not, Dmitri could take a guess.
He lifted two fingers. Echo One spread out.
No one crossed the road sign yet.
Rex remained still, nose pointed toward the transmission towers. His ears were raised, but his body bent close to the asphalt.
Dmitri followed the dog's line of sight.
At first, he saw nothing. The service road extended northward, with the dead towers above it, and the dark shape of storage yards not far ahead.
Then Adrian's voice came through the channel.
"Look at the road surface."
Dmitri lowered his gaze.
The asphalt ahead was cracked in a peculiar way.
The fracture stretched across the road in long, branching lines. It was thin on the edge, and thick near the center.
Dmitri crouched, hovering his hand over the cracks.
"Hive tendrils."
His eyes caught onto dried flesh, though smaller than the ones they had encountered before.
"Echo Two, confirm."
Adrian moved closer from the opposite side, keeping his rifle angled toward the northern corridor.
With a snap, his NVG equipment went online.
Vex followed beside him, but the dog stopped three meters away from the crack, refusing to take another step.
Adrian noticed the dog's behavior and crouched near another fracture.
"It's dead cold. The dogs must have been alerted."
As his nose neared, a stench of smell assaulted his nose.
"Yeah, that's... I wouldn't take a step closer either."
He quickly stood back up and grunted to the sides, cursing the heavens for his curiosity.
"Move up," Dmitri added. The cracks did not stop at the asphalt.
They continued toward the base of the nearest transmission tower.
The concrete foundation had split open. Wrapped around the exposed rebar and buried cables were blackened strands of dead biomass.
They had long been shriveled and dry.
"Thank goodness, it's dead," Adrian cleared his mouth.
Dmitri ignored the remarks and observed closer. The long tendrils trailed to the ground and led to a nearby manhole cover.
It had not been opened but rather, bent upward by something below.
The metal lid had warped into a flower-like shape, its edges curled and torn as if something thick had pushed through the utility tunnel and forced its way out.
A Scout from Echo One stepped forward.
"Squad leader, shall I take a look?"
"Go ahead."
The Scout bent down and peeked into the opening. Inside, the tunnel walls were coated with the same dead biomass.
"What do you see?" Dmitri asked.
"It's a mess down here, squad leader," the Scout replied. "It's the same thing—shriveled and dry. Perhaps this thing is dead."
"Get back up," Dmitri ordered. There was no point letting his squad member suffer more.
At that moment, Rex let out a low whine.
Dmitri glanced at him.
The dog did not look at the tunnel. Instead, it looked farther north toward the next transmission tower.
And beyond it lay the next, and the next after that.
Dmitri slowly stood, now seeing the pattern of this dead biomass.
It had not spread randomly. Everything formed a line that pointed to the north.
"What killed it then?" he asked. Was it the horde? Or something else?
"Don't know, and I don't want to know," Adrian shook his head. "Let's get out of here before things take a turn for the worse."
Dmitri nodded, not rejecting Adrian's suggestion.