The power system in the dome hall had completely failed. Emergency lights flickered in the thick smoke, emitting a dull, single-tone alarm.
Curtis's mutation was entering its final stage. Dark-red muscle tissue piled up on his spine in layered masses, like clots of blood that had exploded inside a pressure cooker.
The most unnerving part was the massive eyeball at his right shoulder, rolling wildly in time with his frenzy, each refocusing accompanied by the stringy, wet sound of mucus.
Leon braced one hand against a wobbling console, staring at the all-too-familiar sight, and swore under his breath. "Another big eyeball on the shoulder. Can't they change up the aesthetic? From Raccoon City seven years ago to now, I'm getting fatigue just looking at it."
He was griping, but his hands didn't slow. His assault rifle spat flame, precise bursts landing on Curtis's joints.
A massive roar tore from Curtis's throat as a huge bone claw swept across. Leon ducked under it and grabbed the frozen Angela, dragging her behind a pillar.
"Listen, Angela. Don't look at that eyeball. In my experience, anyone who stares at one of those ends up with permanent trauma." Leon changed magazines as he spoke, keeping his voice low.
Curtis's huge body slammed into the central fountain and shattered it. Stone fragments flew everywhere.
Heavy footsteps pounded in from the north side of the hall. A squad of fully armed Marines charged through. Their commanding officer, before he'd even fully assessed the situation, was already shouting into his mic, "Target sighted. Fire at will!"
A dense barrage swept across Curtis's flank. But this kind of blind suppressive fire only enraged the beast. Curtis let out a low growl and swung his mutated giant claw in a wide arc.
Screams ripped through the air. Two Marines, along with the reinforced ballistic shields in their hands, were flattened into twisted scrap by a single blow. The sound of shattering bones was jarring in the cavernous hall. The remaining troops were flung backward by the shockwave, slamming into the concrete walls like kites with cut strings.
"Don't go near it! That's not something you can handle!" Leon shouted through clenched teeth.
Just as Curtis was about to crush the chest of one wounded soldier beneath his foot, two low but penetrating shots cut through the slaughter.
The bullets bored cleanly into the soft tissue behind Curtis's left knee joint, the flex point where the G-Virus had deliberately left a seam during its runaway growth, to preserve mobility. Dark green fluid burst from the wound, and Curtis's massive body lurched violently to one side, the whole flesh mountain of him staggering into the glass lab on his flank.
Leon paused and looked up at the ruined second-floor gallery.
Ryan stood on a high point in the rubble, Desert Eagle in hand, looking as relaxed as a man surveying his own estate.
"Leon, quit studying its looks. This thing WilPharma cooked up is just a bloated mess they stitched together from scrap data we threw out years ago."
Ryan pulled a silver metal case from inside his trench coat and tossed it down. The case traced an arc through the air and landed neatly at Leon's feet.
"Catch. Recognize this?"
Leon snatched up the case and flicked the clasp with his thumb. A syringe filled with a pale blue liquid lay quietly inside.
"Now that's a good thing." Leon's eyes lit up at the familiar color. He'd seen what this stuff could do in Spain. Black-tech capable of dropping top-tier mutants in an instant.
"G-V1 targeted suppressant. Dissolution efficiency on shoddy G-Virus like that is very high."
Ryan glanced down at the scattered, disorganized Marines, his voice carrying a cold professionalism. "Drive it into the core in its chest. I need the genetic collapse data after the injection. If you miss, I'll consider sending you back to the lab for some remedial education. Dr. Annette would love to have a quality sample like you."
Leon watched Ryan disappear into the shadows, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Fine. So I don't end up getting sliced up by that mad scientist woman, I'd better put this one right on target."
Ryan moved through the underground corridors, his X-ray vision cutting through several floors of subterranean flooring.
"Found Downing."
He tilted his head, a glint of amusement in his eyes.
In his sight, Frederic Downing was sprinting at full speed through the secret garage corridor on Sublevel 3, clutching a silver-white climate-controlled briefcase. His goal was clear enough. Drive out of here through the secret tunnel on Sublevel 3.
"Jill, get into the security system. Lock down every exit in the garage."
Jill's fingers flew across her specialized terminal, strings of dark green override code flashing across the screen.
"Access taken. Blast doors on the underground garage have been forced down. But he's already behind the isolation zone doors. I'm done on my end, coming to you now."
Ryan hurried down the stairs. As he rounded the corner on Sublevel 2, his footsteps stopped without warning.
His gaze cut through the reinforced concrete wall in front of him, thirty centimeters thick. On the other side, four elite security personnel were positioned with weapons drawn along both sides of the corridor.
"Small-time thugs always love these outdated tricks."
Ryan didn't push the door open. With X-ray vision and super damage active, he fixed on the figures behind the wall and fired four shots straight into the concrete.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
The sound of the rounds punching through the wall was dull and clipped. The four elite guards didn't even get out a scream before their skulls were perforated with precision through the wall.
Ryan stepped over the rubble on the floor and gave Jill a small smile as she caught up, and then the two of them headed deeper in together.
"Let's go. Time to harvest our technical assets."