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Chris's gaze swept over the bottomless central elevator shaft.
"Jill might be down there."
His voice carried a hint of hoarseness due to the injury to his chest.
Ada walked to a dusty Area Console, her slender fingers tapping rapidly on the screen to pull up a 3D structural map of the base.
"According to this incomplete diagram, the Main Power Room is on the third level below us. The main elevator is locked due to the power outage, so we can only take the Maintenance Passage next to it."
Her voice was as cool and detached as ever.
"Let's move."
Chris didn't hesitate for a second, turning first and striding toward the metal door marked "Maintenance Passage."
Noah, Claire, and Leon followed in sync, while Steve hurriedly chased after them.
The heavy metal door was pushed open, and a complex odor—a mix of rust, machine oil, and some unknown decaying matter—wafted toward them.
Behind the door was a narrow steel staircase, spiraling downward and disappearing into the deep darkness.
Everyone turned on their tactical flashlights, and six piercing beams of light cut through the darkness, illuminating a passage that made their scalps tingle.
The walls, ceiling, and even the handrails of the stairs were covered in a thick, translucent slime.
The slime looked like melted candle wax, reflecting a sickly, nauseating luster under the beams of light.
Between the slime, countless white threads as tough as spider silk were stretched, crisscrossing to form a massive and complex web.
Most chillingly, deep within that giant web, blurred humanoid silhouettes were wrapped in white cocoons, hanging like prey on a spider's web.
Some cocoons were motionless, clearly having lost all signs of life.
While others were still twitching slightly and weakly, as if engaged in their final and most desperate struggle for life.
"My God..."
Claire subconsciously gripped Noah's arm, her voice trembling slightly.
Steve's face was even paler, and the hand holding his Ingram submachine gun shook like a sieve.
"Stay alert."
Chris's voice was kept very low, his M4A1 Carbine pointed steadily downward, stepping with extreme caution.
The viscous liquid made a disgusting "squelch" sound under their tactical boots.
The air was thick with the scent of death.
Just as they reached the first corner, a figure staggered out from the shadows.
It was a worker in an Umbrella uniform—or rather, it used to be.
He was different from the other zombies.
A massive and hideous moth was clamped tightly onto the back of his neck.
The moth's mouthparts, like a thick straw, were plunged deep into his spine, its abdomen pulsating rhythmically as if it were extracting something.
The parasitized worker, like a marionette being controlled, lunged toward them with stiff and eerie movements.
Almost at the same time.
"Phut!"
A faint gunshot, muffled by a silencer.
A wisp of smoke rose from the muzzle of the tmp submachine gun in Ada's hand.
The Giant Moth was blown apart by a precise bullet; green fluid mixed with white tissue splattered across the zombie's back.
Losing the parasite's control, the zombie's body suddenly stiffened and fell straight forward.
However, the moment he fell, another moth lurking in the shadows suddenly burst out from him, emitting a piercing buzz as it lunged straight at Claire, who was closest!
Noah's eyes turned cold.
His left hand shot out like lightning.
The moth, moving so fast its afterimage was barely visible, was accurately snatched into his palm.
His fingers suddenly clenched.
"Squish."
A soft sound, like crushing a ripe berry.
Viscous fluid seeped through the gaps between his fingers.
He shook his hand expressionlessly, as if he had just swatted an annoying fly.
Continuing forward.
The group passed through the nauseating silken corridor and arrived at a door labeled "Lounge."
Leon kicked the door open, his muzzle quickly scanning the room. After confirming it was safe, he nodded to the others.
The lounge was a mess, with tables and chairs overturned, and the air smelled of a strange mix of instant coffee and blood.
This seemed to have become their temporary and only breathing space in this base of death.
"Everyone, check your ammo and equipment," Chris said, leaning against the wall and slowly adjusting his breathing while enduring the pain in his chest.
Claire's gaze was soon drawn to a thick leather notebook under a table.
She walked over, picked it up, and blew away the frost condensed on the cover.
"This is... a diary."
She flipped through the pages, which were somewhat stiff from the cold, and read softly by the light of the tactical flashlight Leon held out.
"Alexander Ashford's Diary..."
"...My father, Edward Ashford, along with that ambitious man Ozwell E. Spencer, discovered the 'progenitor virus.' They thought they had found the gateway to eternal life, so they established the Umbrella Corporation as a front and source of funding for their research..."
"...However, Father still died. He died during the early experiments with the virus. And his death also signaled the end of our Ashford Family's glory. No one in the Family could inherit his research anymore; we declined, pushed out of the center of power step by step by that thief Spencer..."
"...I cannot let the glory of Ashford end in my hands! After long research, I finally discovered the gene that governs intelligence. By rearranging the DNA composition of this gene, one can completely determine the absolute value of IQ through artificial means.
I used the genes of the Family's greatest ancestor, Veronica Ashford, as a blueprint. Through my superior intellect, I successfully created two perfect lives! Alfred and Alexia! They are the hope for the Ashford Family's revival, especially Alexia—she will be my most perfect work!"
Claire stopped reading there, an expression of disbelief on her face.
Chris's brows furrowed tightly.
Eternal life, progenitor virus, Ashford, Spencer... these fragments of information gradually pieced together a dark blueprint full of madness and ambition in his mind.
This also explained Wesker's near-obsessive desire for "evolution" and "becoming a god."
His roots were planted in this filthiest of soils, cultivated by the founders of Umbrella themselves.
Just then, a rustling sound came from a metal cabinet in the corner of the lounge.
Steve jumped like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, his two Ingram submachine guns aimed dead at the cabinet.
"Who's there! Come out!" he shouted, his voice masking his fear.
The cabinet door was nudged open a crack by something inside.
A tiny, snow-white mouse squeezed out from the crack. Its beady black eyes warily scanned the group before it quickly scurried across the floor and disappeared into a ventilation duct.
All of them breathed a sigh of relief.
Noah's gaze fell on a desktop computer on the other side of the room, its screen still on standby.
He walked over and tapped a few keys on the keyboard.
The computer was not password-protected.
An encrypted document appeared on the screen.
Connecting his laptop, the data stream flashed by, and the document's password was cracked.
A document, also written in the form of a diary, was revealed to everyone.
"It's William Birkin's diary," Noah said in a low voice. He scanned it quickly and then briefly summarized the core content.
"...That girl named Alexia is a monster! A true Genius! In front of her, the mind I take pride in is like a joke! That old fox Spencer kept fanning the flames in my ear, provoking my jealousy of her..."
"...I've had enough! I must prove that I, William Birkin, am the greatest virologist in the world! I've reached an agreement with Wesker. We will join forces to steal the research results of our sanctimonious mentor, Dr. James Marcus..."
"...We succeeded! We stole the mutant substance produced by combining the progenitor virus with leech DNA! And from it, we isolated and extracted a brand new virus! I named it... the t-virus!"
(Some data mentions that Marcus created the t-virus by fusing the progenitor virus with leech gene fragments, but this statement is contradictory. Marcus's research was based on subsequent improvements to the progenitor virus, not an independent discovery.)
"Lisa is truly a perfect test subject. Any virus can fuse within her body and produce new surprises. I've isolated a brand new virus; it and the t-virus are two completely different strains. Let's call it the g-virus..."
Chris's fist suddenly clenched.
Wesker, Wesker again!
This haunting bastard had been soaked in the venom of betrayal and conspiracy from the very beginning!
"Roar..."
Just then, a suppressed, low howl filled with pain and fury suddenly came from beneath the metal cabinet where the mouse had run out!
That sound seemed to come from the depths of Hell, carrying a bone-chilling resentment.
Everyone's expressions changed drastically.
Noah and Leon exchanged a look. Together, they stepped forward and, one on each side, combined their strength to shove the heavy metal cabinet aside!
Beneath the cabinet was a heavy metal grating welded with steel bars.
A pungent smell, a mix of formalin and rotting flesh, rushed up through the gaps in the grating.
They looked down, casting their flashlight beams into that dark abyss.
It was a bottomless, well-like cell.
In the center of the cell, a giant humanoid monster was bound tightly to a stone pillar by countless thick iron chains.
Its body was an eerie pale white, its muscles knotted and bursting with power.
Most bizarrely, its eyes were covered by a thick blindfold, seemingly made of leather.
It seemed to sense the light and voices from above, its body beginning to struggle violently as it let out bursts of beast-like roars!
Chris frowned.
He remembered the contents of that diary.
"...A monster codenamed 'Nosferatu'..."
"...The shame of the Ashford Family..."
Chris looked up, his gaze once again turning toward that bottomless darkness.
"'Cold Storage Cell Block'... this is the place.
"Jill must be down here!"
Before he could finish his sentence, the group immediately left the lounge, which was filled with secrets and omens.
On the road ahead, they encountered more zombies.
Due to the extreme cold, these zombies moved much slower than their counterparts in Raccoon City.
But their hunger for flesh had not diminished in the slightest.
"Bang!"
The Remington M870 in Leon's hand let out a roar, its massive kinetic energy shattering the entire upper body of a lunging zombie.
The mp5 submachine gun in Claire's hand also fired a series of precise bursts, cleanly blowing the heads off two other zombies trying to approach.
Their teamwork was seamless.
After a minor expenditure of ammunition, they finally arrived at the heavy blast door marked "Auxiliary Power Station" deep on the third level.
The door was unlocked.
Noah and Ada walked in one after the other.
The central console of the power station was pitch black, with only a few red fault lights blinking on and off.
"The power supply circuit has been physically cut, and the main System is locked by security protocols," Ada quickly judged.
"Leave it to me."
Noah sat at the console, connected his laptop, and opened remote assistance.
Less than ten seconds later.
"Beep."
With a soft chime, all the red alarms on the screen instantly turned green.
"It's done."
Ada stepped forward and, without hesitation, pulled down the large main power switch on the adjacent wall, which was covered in arc flash warning signs.
"Hum—"
A low hum of electric current came from beneath their feet, quickly spreading to every corner of the base.
Overhead, the flickering red emergency lights suddenly went out.
A second later, bright and pale fluorescent lights lit up row by row, illuminating the entire passage as if it were broad daylight.
In the distance, a muffled "clank" was heard.
Then, the familiar mechanical sound of elevator cables winding clearly reached everyone's ears.
Ada glanced back at the screen of the main console.
"Main elevator power restored."
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