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The heavy wooden door, engraved with an evil emblem, stared coldly at the two uninvited intruders.
Mottled iron plates and dark wood shimmered with a lifeless light under the hazy moonlight, as if they had stood here for centuries, witnessing countless unknown sins.
The smell of decay, dampness, and burning in the air seemed to permeate from behind this door.
Just as Leon S. Kennedy was about to step forward to study how to open this door to Hell, a faint but clear sound came from the direction of the mountain path they had come from, growing closer.
"Creak... creak..."
It was the overburdened, tooth-aching groan of wooden wheels rolling over a gravel road.
Following that were the voices of several people talking in low but still coarse voices, intermittent in the wind.
"¡Daos prisa! ¡No os demoréis!" ("Hurry up! Don't dawdle!")
"Es que los dos sacrificios son bastante pesados..." ("Those two sacrifices are quite heavy...")
Noah and Leon S. Kennedy exchanged a look.
The two of them silently hid in a dense pine forest by the roadside.
They concealed themselves in the darkness, calmly observing the approaching prey.
The sound drew closer and closer.
Five flickering torchlights pierced the thick fog, illuminating the rugged mountain path.
Five Villager of varying heights, holding crude torches, were laboriously pushing an old wooden wheelbarrow toward the gate.
The torchlight jumped, making their expressionless faces flicker in and out of the light.
Their eyes, just like the attackers encountered before, were hollow, dull, and devoid of any normal human emotional fluctuations.
Stacked on the wheelbarrow were two large gunny sacks tightly tied with thick hemp rope.
Dark, unknown stains seeped through the surface of the sacks.
More importantly, those two sacks were twisting and struggling violently with an irregular frequency.
"Mmph... mmph-mmph..."
Muffled whimpers filled with fear and despair came from inside the sacks, sounding as if the occupants were gagged.
They were living people.
Watching the wheelbarrow still dozens of meters away from the massive wooden door.
With just a single exchange of glances, an action plan formed in both of their minds.
They moved silently through the dark forest, using trees and rocks as cover to quickly circle behind the five-person team.
The Villager at the very back was hunched over, pressing his shoulder firmly against the rear of the cart to help his companions push the heavy wooden vehicle.
All his attention was focused on the path beneath his feet and the creaking wheels; he didn't notice the shadow of death quietly looming behind him.
Noah's figure appeared behind him soundlessly, like a falling leaf.
A cold palm lightly rested on the back of his neck.
The Villager's body stiffened, and for the first time, a hint of confusion appeared in his hollow eyes.
"Crack."
A slight, crisp sound, like a dry branch snapping.
Noah applied force with his palm, precisely snapping the man's cervical spine.
The Villager's body went limp, and before he could even groan, Noah dragged him into the dark grass by the roadside.
The four people pushing the cart in front didn't even notice that their companion had fallen behind permanently.
"¿Qué pasa? Parece que pesa menos."
("What's going on? It feels a bit lighter.") The Villager walking at the very front muttered.
"¡Dejaos de tonterías y empujad! ¡Si retrasamos el sacrificio del Amo, estamos todos muertos!"
("Stop talking nonsense and push! If we delay the Master's sacrifice, we're all dead!") another voice scolded roughly.
In that moment when they were a Divided Soul.
Leon S. Kennedy suddenly lunged from the shadows on the side, his body low, his tactical knife flashing under the torchlight.
Thud! Thud!
Two dull sounds of a sharp blade slicing into flesh.
The two Villager walking on the left didn't even have time to see the attacker's face; they only felt a chill at their throats as a surge of hot liquid erupted.
They instinctively clutched their necks, but could only feel their lives rapidly draining away with the blood.
The two stumbled a couple of steps, the light in their eyes fading quickly, before they fell heavily to the ground.
The remaining two Villager on the right finally reacted!
"!..."
Before they could shout, Noah's figure had already swept past them.
Using the edges of his palms, he struck their temples like lightning, one on the left and one on the right.
Bang! Bang!
Two dull thuds sounded as their skulls were impacted by immense force.
The two Villager' bodies instantly stiffened and then fell forward flat on their faces.
In less than ten seconds, all five Villager had been silently dealt with.
Noah stepped forward, used his knife to slice the ropes binding the sacks, and then pulled open the mouth of the bags.
When they saw the people curled up inside the bags, the two of them couldn't help but be stunned.
Inside the bag, tied up like a Zongzi with a rag stuffed in his mouth, was none other than the young policeman with the slicked-back hair and glasses—Ricardo.
And in the other bag was the old policeman whose face was written with "unpleasantness"—Manuel.
The two were covered in mud, their faces pale, and their eyes filled with the panic and confusion of having narrowly escaped death.
"What, couldn't bear to see us go?" Leon S. Kennedy pulled the rag out of Ricardo's mouth, a hint of mockery in his smile. "You even prepared such a big surprise to keep us here?"
Noah walked over and helped Manuel untie the ropes on his body, adding a flat remark.
"Or is it that you have old flames in the village? Did their husbands find out, so you were tied up to be drowned in the lake?"
"Cough... cough-cough!" Ricardo began to cough violently, greedily breathing in the cold air, taking a long time to recover.
He glanced at the five corpses on the ground, then at the unharmed Noah and Leon S. Kennedy, his face squeezing out a smile that looked worse than crying.
"Manny's old flame... cough... is in there alright, but unfortunately, her husband... wasn't very welcoming to us."
"Will you die if you don't talk?!" Manuel was helped up by Noah; he rubbed his numbed wrists and glared fiercely at Ricardo.
Noah looked at these two disheveled guys, his brow furrowing slightly: "What exactly is the situation with you two? Didn't we tell you to go back? How did it end up like this?"
At the mention of this, Ricardo got angry. He pointed at Manuel's nose and cursed loudly: "Ask this old geezer! This dim-sighted prostatitis patient, he crashed the car!"
"It's not all my fault!" Manuel's face turned red as he argued excitedly, "I swear! I really saw it! A black shadow suddenly lunged out of the woods, its speed was unbelievable! I crashed trying to avoid it..."
Leon S. Kennedy interrupted their argument, caring more about the aftermath: "So, how did you get captured?"
"Don't even mention it!" Ricardo's expression instantly collapsed into one of utter despair. "The car was broken, the communicator was full of static, and we were just standing by the road fretting over that pile of scrap metal. Then, out of nowhere, five... five of these guys showed up."
He pointed at the corpses on the ground, his voice still trembling with lingering fear.
"They didn't say a word, just stared straight at us. I actually thought they were Villager coming to help and even waved at them! Then... then they just rushed us like they were crazy, pinned us to the ground and tied us up! They kept muttering nonsense about'sacrifices' and 'purification'."
He paused, seemingly recalling an even worse memory, a look of disgust appearing on his face.
"Then, we were thrown onto a broken truck that was so old it looked like it could fall apart at any moment, just like Manuel's prostate. After driving for a while, we were switched to this damn wheelbarrow, and then... we ran into you guys."
"Can you fucking stop mentioning my prostate!" Manuel finally reached his limit and roared.
"Alright, stop arguing." Noah stopped the pointless dispute and looked at Manuel, asking, "Can you still contact headquarters and have them send someone for backup?"
Manuel shook his head dejectedly, pulling out the communicator with a broken shell from his pocket: "It's no use. The signal interference here is too strong, I can't get through at all. It's like something is blocking it."
"Then why don't you just take the Villager' truck and leave?" Leon S. Kennedy pointed toward the mountain path behind them, where they had just passed.
"Good idea!" Ricardo's eyes instantly lit up, feeling like he had come back to life. "Let's go! Manny! Let's get out of this hellhole!"
He brushed the dust off himself and turned to leave, but at that moment, by the moonlight, he accidentally caught a glimpse of the nearest Villager corpse.
At the corpse's neck, there was a fatal wound sliced open by a knife.
From that bloody wound, a long, thin, disgusting flesh-colored tentacle was slowly... extending out, wriggling slightly in the cold air.
Ricardo's footsteps came to a sudden halt.
The bit of relief and joy on his face vanished without a trace, replaced by a fear and disgust that came from the depths of his Soul.
"What... what the fuck is that thing..." His voice was trembling, his finger shaking as he pointed at the still-moving tentacle.
"Shut up! Don't look!"
The previously silent Manuel suddenly barked.
He grabbed Ricardo by the collar and forced his body around, preventing him from seeing the horrific sight again.
The old policeman's face didn't have Ricardo's panic, only a weariness of someone who had seen through everything.
"Listen, kid." He stared intently into Ricardo's eyes, his voice raspy and solemn.
"This is no longer something small-time cops like us can handle. Forget it, understand? Everything that happened tonight, everything you saw and heard, bury it in your gut and take it to your grave!"
"I... I understand..." Ricardo was cowed by the determination in Manuel's eyes and nodded despondently.
Manuel let go of him, then turned to Noah and Leon S. Kennedy, solemnly straightening his mud-stained police uniform.
He took a deep breath and then extended his hand to the two of them.
"This time, I truly have to thank you, my American friends. If it weren't for you, the two of us would probably have been pushed through that door and made into sausages by now."
Ricardo also came to his senses and hurried forward, likewise extending his hand.
"That's right, when you... when your work is finished and you return to town, you must come find us at the 'Isabella' bar. Manny and I are buying! The best tequila, as much as you can drink!"
"No question, it's on us." Manuel nodded heavily.
Four hands gripped tightly together on this silent and eerie mountain path.
A moment later, the two didn't linger; supporting each other, they walked down the mountain without looking back.
Soon, the sound of an old truck engine starting up came through, two dim yellow headlights lit up, the vehicle turned around, and quickly disappeared into the thick fog from which they had come.
The world returned to silence once more.
"Leon."
Noah watched the two retreating headlights and suddenly spoke.
"Yeah?" Leon S. Kennedy was checking his ammunition and responded casually.
"Don't you think you seem to be a vehicle killer?"
Leon S. Kennedy's movement paused, and he turned his head, his face full of question marks: "What did you say?"
"I thought about it carefully," Noah said, crossing his arms and rubbing his chin.
"Starting from Raccoon City, the SUV you drove ended up totaled. The helicopter you took to South America also crashed. And now the police car of those two officers is a pile of scrap metal. It seems that as long as it's a vehicle you've ridden in during a mission, it doesn't end well."
Leon S. Kennedy was stunned.
He blinked, his mind quickly recalling his experiences over the years.
Police cars... helicopters... snowmobiles... speedboats... it seemed... it seemed that was really the case!
His expression instantly became extremely colorful, from confusion to shock, and then to a kind of exasperated amusement.
"WTF?!" He couldn't help but curse, "I never fucking noticed that!"
Noah patted his shoulder and said in a sympathetic tone, "It's okay, just helping you save some money on car insurance in the future."
After saying that, he ignored Leon S. Kennedy, who was still questioning his life, and turned back to the massive iron-wood door.
Leon S. Kennedy followed gloomily, temporarily pushing aside this nonsensical worry and focusing his attention back on the task at hand.
He stepped forward, pressed his hands against the cold door panel, took a deep breath, exerted his muscles, and slowly pushed the door open just enough for one person to pass through.
"Creeeeaaaak—"
The sound of the ancient door hinges turning was long and heavy.
Noah immediately slipped into the gap, his desert eagle lowered slightly as his gaze quickly swept over the space behind the door.
Darkness, silence.
A stone path covered in weeds led into deeper darkness.
On both sides of the road were several half-collapsed stone houses, their black windows looking like the eyes of monsters.
No ambushes, no traps; at least within his field of vision, everything was safe.
"It's clear."
Noah said in a low voice.
The two of them didn't hesitate anymore; one after the other, they squeezed through the gap in the door, their figures quickly merging into the even deeper darkness behind it...
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