Umbrella's North American base looked like a barn surrounded by barbed wire, with dense hordes of zombies standing outside the wire.
A rough glance showed at least one to two thousand of them.
A thousand miles of barren land, not a blade of grass growing—this was no longer a metaphor but a stark reality, as the T-Virus had caused the land to begin desertifying.
At this moment, the sound of machinery operating echoed from inside the barn. The ground split open, revealing a lift platform below, and Yang Tao emerged from the barn with several cloned Alices.
The scorching sun poured down from the sky.
Stepping out of the barn, Yang Tao looked up at the orange sun in the sky, feeling a strange urge...
But on second thought, this was a complete world after all, so Yang Tao dismissed the idea of extracting its sun.
"Monday, you can go look in the water channel over there..."
"Water channel?"
Monday, not understanding, led her sisters to the edge of the water channel and looked down.
Inside were corpses everywhere.
They looked and dressed identically; they were all Alice's avatars, avatars who had failed the 'challenge' and died.
Upon seeing this scene, several of them turned pale, and two even started to retch uncontrollably.
There were differences between avatars, however.
In both personality and ability.
"Damn it!!"
Monday, suppressing her nausea, cursed under her breath. Now she regretted not having personally dealt with the culprit, Dr. Alexander Isaacs, earlier.
The zombies outside the fence, seeing so many living people, became incredibly agitated and slammed against the iron fence, making banging noises.
Unfortunately, the zombies' evolution ability in the movie seemed to have been castrated; even in large numbers, they were still just ordinary zombies.
If this were a game, among these one to two thousand, at least a few big ones would have appeared.
Yang Tao summoned a wooden door.
Ten Mutated Iron Golems filed out of the wooden door in a line.
After being improved and upgraded by the Tinkers Construct Blacksmith, the current Mutated Iron Golems' health had increased to 2200 points.
Iron Golems of this strength would be considered Boss-level in a normal world, but here, for Yang Tao, they were merely mass-produced grunts.
"Iron Bro, activate datafication and clear out the zombies outside."
After datafication, these zombies could remain whole, then be directly converted into energy value for complete clearance; otherwise, it would be a bloody mess outside with no place to even step.
Upon receiving the command.
Iron Bro and the others walked with heavy steps towards the iron fence.
Boom... Boom...
Streaks of lightning struck from the clear sky, each strike taking out zombies within a 3x3 radius.
In an instant, the surroundings resembled an apocalypse, with the outer zombies falling like straw.
Alice's duplicates were startled by the sudden lightning, frantically covering their heads and crouching down, each showing a look of panic.
Although they possessed good physical qualities, they still appeared extremely small in the face of nature's furious display. Only Yang Tao, unconcerned, took out a white lounge chair and set up a parasol beside it.
He took out many fruits and food from his backpack and placed them nearby, then leisurely sat on the lounge chair, watching Iron Bro continuously clear out the surrounding zombies.
Not to mention Iron Bro wouldn't get infected; even if it could, these zombies wouldn't even have a chance to get close to Iron Bro.
Iron Bro, having passed through the barbed wire to the outside, continuously attacked the stragglers with the energy cannons on its shoulders, and the Cleaver in its hands swung impenetrably.
These zombies, none with more than 40 health points, were simply lining up to give experience.
The rumbling thunder continued to sound, but Alice's avatars had reacted and carefully stood up one by one.
Monday had been in contact with Yang Tao for a longer time, so she was now considered the leader of this group of avatars.
"Sir, this is..."
"Mutated Iron Golems. You can call them Iron Bro. Their nature is similar to robots, but they possess their own intelligence..." Yang Tao lay on the lounge chair, comfortably narrowing his eyes, his gaze not even on the group of Alice avatars, and said softly:
"Monday, the situation is as it is. This Umbrella North American base now belongs to me."
"And one more thing, although it might be hard for you to accept, the truth is, you are also assets of this base."
Yang Tao's words were cold and unfeeling, but the truth of the matter was just that: they were at most products of biological experiments.
If Yang Tao wanted to, he could continuously mass-clone Alice, but Yang Tao felt there was no point; there were only a hundred or so Alices, after all.
"However, I am a relatively kind person, so I give you the power to choose. Those who wish to stay are warmly welcomed; those who wish to leave will not be stopped."
Although Alice's avatars looked normal, they had a major flaw: their life cycle. Without human intervention, these Alice avatars would have a maximum lifespan of three years, then die from genetic collapse.
After all, they were just biological weapons.
A hot gust of air blew through, and several Alice avatars stood in the farm clearing, looking at Yang Tao, who was lying on the lounge chair as if resting with his eyes closed.
His words caused them to fall silent for a moment, then they began to discuss. Soon, several Alice avatars made a decision, and three of them walked over to Yang Tao.
"Made your decision?"
The Alice avatars standing opposite Yang Tao nodded gently.
"We've decided to live our own lives..."
"Very good. If I'm not mistaken, your original, Alice, will arrive in a few days. At that time, you can leave with her if you wish."
Yang Tao paid no attention to their choice; he felt no loss whether they stayed or left.
He took some wooden planks from his backpack and placed them on the empty ground nearby, then took out several large parasols and tossed them to the others, saying, "You're just idling anyway, so lie down together, get some sun, and eat something. Your original won't arrive for a day or two."
According to MOSS's satellite positioning, it would take at least two days for Alice and her group to reach this place.
Wilderness, zombies, beautiful women... the scene was filled with a sense of the absurd.
Yang Tao lay on the lounge chair, checking his exploration value.
[World Exploration Value: 16.21%]
The big villain alone contributed 10% of the exploration value. Next, when the protagonist arrives, he will definitely get the first mod.
Two days later.
The area near the barn had been completely transformed by Yang Tao; the desertified land was now replaced by grass blocks, with tender green grass swaying in the wind.
Yang Tao was holding a fishing rod, sitting on a small stool, with a pond in front of him. Monday was leading Tuesday, Wednesday... seven or eight people swimming in the pond.
But this did not hinder Yang Tao's fishing. The fist-sized bobber suddenly sank, and a fishing rod emitting an enchanted glow flew out of the pond.
"Damn it, another fishing rod! This is the seventh fishing rod today!"