“Run.”
Lincoln uttered only a single word, and all three of them accelerated at the same time.
The crunching of shattered glass beneath their feet was loud, but they could no longer afford to care.
They were about eight or nine meters from the overpass exit when the ventilation shaft overhead shuddered violently.
A joint section was slammed open from the inside, and the cover plate flew out, smashing against the glass wall before bouncing back down.
Something dropped out of the shaft.
The sound of its landing was incredibly soft—it landed on all fours with almost no impact noise, indicating that while its body weight wasn’t high, its coordination was exceptional.
The faint light from either end of the overpass barely illuminated its outline.
It was an ape.
Or rather, something that had once been an ape.
Judging by its skeletal proportions, its base host was likely a chimpanzee.
It was roughly the size of a medium dog, but its muscle density was clearly abnormal.
The muscle tissue on its forearms and hind legs bulged outward, making the blood vessels beneath its skin stand out in sharp relief.
Most of its body hair had fallen out, leaving only a few clumps of grayish-brown fur on its back and the top of its head.
The exposed skin was a dark reddish hue, its surface covered in an irregular layer of scabs and hardened tissue.
What drew the most attention was its mouth.
The bones of its upper and lower jaws had clearly been rewritten by the virus.
Its masseter muscles were more than twice as thick as those of a normal primate, and its mouth opened to an unnaturally wide angle, revealing two rows of sharp, densely packed teeth.
Its eyes were still intact.
Unlike the cloudy white eyes of the zombie dogs and normal zombies, this creature’s pupils were bright yellow, reflecting a cold light in the gloom like a cat’s eyes.
An Eliminator.
Lincoln recognized it.
He had seen this designation in Umbrella’s internal files.
“Eliminator”—a biological weapon prototype created by Umbrella using chimpanzees as experimental bases, modified via the T-Virus.
Its original design goal was to serve as a small, stealthy combat unit, utilizing primate climbing abilities and flexibility to execute specialized missions.
However, during the testing phase, this project revealed severe control issues.
The modified subjects were far too aggressive and virtually impossible to domesticate by any means.
Ultimately, it was marked as “discontinued.”
Hence, the name Eliminator.
Though the project was discontinued, the creature itself was clearly very much alive.
And the one before them was slightly different from the standard model described in the files.
A standard Eliminator was roughly the size of a domestic dog, but this one was at least two sizes larger, with forearms as thick as a young child’s thigh.
Its claws were also far longer and harder than the standard model’s; the curved, keratinous talons perfectly matched the claw marks left on the walls.
An enhanced variant.
It had likely developed a secondary mutation from long-term exposure to high concentrations of the T-Virus within the training facility’s environment.
After landing, it didn’t attack immediately.
Squatting in the middle of the overpass, its bright yellow eyes stared fixatedly at Lincoln.
Its mouth hung slightly open, emitting a low, guttural hiss.
It was observing its prey, assessing the threat.
Ordinary zombies and zombie dogs wouldn’t act like this; they simply charged the moment they saw a living target.
But primates were different.
Even after mutating, their larger brain capacity retained a degree of judgment.
Even as the creature observed him, Lincoln was observing it.
The distance was five meters.
At this range, a .45 caliber shot to the head wouldn’t miss.
However, its body was much smaller than a zombie’s, and a primate’s head movements were far more erratic and extensive than a human’s.
Targeting the head would require precise timing.
Lincoln didn’t wait.
While it was still observing, he had already raised his gun.
The front sight of his M1911 aligned with its face, his index finger resting on the trigger.
He squeezed it.
*Bang.*
The creature moved.
It didn’t just dodge—at the exact moment the gun fired, its entire body leaped to the right.
Propelled by all four limbs, its trajectory wasn’t a straight line but an arc.
It was entirely different from a human side-step; this was an explosive, instinctual evasion of a wild beast.
The bullet grazed its left shoulder, shattering a small piece of hardened tissue and spraying a shower of dark debris, but it missed its vitals.
Lincoln’s brow furrowed.
The reaction speed of this thing far surpassed any infected host they had encountered so far. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
It didn’t stop after the dodge.
Leveraging its momentum, it lunged directly at Lincoln.
Its body stretched out in mid-air, the claws on its forelimbs splayed wide, its mouth agape to its absolute limit.
It closed the five-meter gap in a single leap.
Lincoln didn’t retreat.
His physical reflexes were faster than his conscious mind.
His left hand slipped behind his waist and drew his KA-BAR, blade facing outward.
The moment the creature pounced, he sidestepped, slipping out of its direct line of attack.
Its body rushed past his left side.
Its claws scraped against the side of his tactical vest, leaving several white scratches but failing to penetrate the defense.
Even as he sidestepped, Lincoln seamlessly transitioned into his next move.
With a flick of his right hand, he inverted the M1911, pointing the barrel downward and aiming at the back of the creature’s exposed skull as it flew past.
A window of a fraction of a second.
He pulled the trigger.
*Bang.*
The .45 round entered through the back of its skull and exited from the base of its jaw.
This shot pierced its brainstem.
Its body instantly lost all coordination in mid-air.
It slammed onto the overpass floor, rolled twice, and after a brief twitch of its forelimbs, fell completely still.
Two shots.
The first didn’t kill, but the second finished it.
The entire process took less than two seconds.
But Lincoln had no time to spare, because more things were already dropping from the overhead pipe.
And this time, it wasn’t just one.
It was two.
They leaped from the opening almost simultaneously, landing one after the other on the overpass.
Their landing postures were identical to the first one: crouched on all fours, mouths wide open, their sharp screeches blending together into a deafening din.
“Billy, the one on the left!”
Lincoln shouted, while he lined up his sights on the one to the right.
The one on the right was even larger than the first.
The muscles on its forearms bulged like knotted ropes, its claws longer and more curved.
When its mouth opened, the density of its teeth was clearly a step above the standard model, with an extra row of small, hook-like teeth lining the inner part of its upper jaw.
It didn’t pause to observe like the first one.
The moment it landed, it charged straight forward.
Primate acceleration differed from that of canines.
It bounded by alternating its limbs—forelimbs reaching out, hind legs launching, forelimbs reaching out again.
It advanced at high speed close to the ground like a bouncing ball, its trajectory zig-zagging left and right rather than moving in a straight line.
Lincoln didn’t wait for it to get close this time.
He fired twice in rapid succession, the first shot aimed at its chest.
The stopping power of the .45 caliber was formidable at close range.
The kinetic impact of the bullet striking its chest forced its body back for a fraction of a second, disrupting its running rhythm.
That split second was all he needed.
The second shot followed immediately.
The barrel shifted slightly upward, aiming at the head which had temporarily stabilized as the body recoiled.
The bullet punched directly into the center of its forehead.
Its head snapped back violently, and its entire body flipped backward, crashing onto the shattered glass.
Its limbs kicked twice before it stopped moving.
Less than 0.3 seconds separated the two shots—the first to stop, the second to kill.
The one on the left was intercepted by Billy.
Billy fired three consecutive shots with his P226.
The first two hit its torso, but the stopping power of the 9mm round was a tier below the .45 caliber.
Although it slowed the creature down, it didn’t create a large enough opening.
The third shot was aimed at the side of its head, but the angle wasn’t clean.
The creature jerked its neck at the last second, and the bullet only sheared off a chunk of its scalp and ear.
Wounded but far from dead, the pain drove it to let out an even shriller shriek as it leaped at Billy on all fours.
Billy took a step back, raising his P226 again to finish it. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
But its speed was too fast.
Its forelimbs had already reached Billy’s forearm, its curved claws digging into the fabric of his sleeve.
Billy’s reflexes were also quick.
He wasn’t pulled down; instead, his left hand grabbed the creature’s wrist, shoving it outward with force while his right hand pressed the muzzle of his gun directly under its jaw.
He pulled the trigger once.
The 9mm bullet traveled upward, piercing through its entire cranial cavity.
Its head snapped upward violently, its body instantly going limp and sliding from Billy’s grip.
Billy shook his scratched forearm, his expression cold.
Rebecca had also fired.
Another creature had crawled out of the pipe near the overpass entrance.
It was the smallest of the four, but it was also the fastest, rushing in her direction almost the instant it hit the ground.
Rebecca fired four shots in succession, missing the first two.
The Eliminator’s movement path was too erratic.
Its erratic, zig-zagging bounds kept slipping out of Rebecca’s sights.
Her third shot caught its shoulder, and the fourth hit its neck.
The neck shot slowed its momentum, but it wasn’t fatal.
It stumbled for a step before accelerating again, now less than three meters from Rebecca.
Lincoln had already turned around.
His M1911 was raised level, the barrel extending past Rebecca’s shoulder, aimed directly at the face of the pouncing Eliminator.
His timing on the trigger was immaculate.
The creature was already airborne, its chest and face fully exposed with no room to change direction.
The .45 round punched through its left eye, blowing a shower of grayish-red debris out the back of its skull.
Its body lost all control, crashing down less than half a meter from Rebecca’s feet and sliding a short distance before stopping.
Rebecca breathed heavily, her Beretta still raised, her muzzle trembling slightly.
The overpass fell silent.
No more sounds came from the ventilation shafts.
All four Eliminators had been killed.
Dark reddish corpses lay scattered across the floor, mingled with shattered glass and dark blood.
Lincoln quickly checked his ammunition.
He had fired six rounds from his M1911, leaving four in the magazine, with about thirty more rounds in reserve.
He hadn’t touched his shotgun.
The interface panel automatically popped up.
[T-Virus Sample Library]
Collection Progress: 19/100
Safety Threshold: 81/100
Previously it was 85, and now it was 81—a drop of 4 points, corresponding to the four Eliminators they had just killed.
The Collection Progress had risen from 15 to 19, also an increase of 4.
The ratio was the same as before: one unit per infected host.
Lincoln glanced at the data and closed the panel.
At 81, there was still some margin, but he couldn’t afford to squander it.
“Is everyone alright?” he asked.
Rebecca nodded, chambering another round into her Beretta.
Her hands had stopped shaking, but her face was still a bit pale.
Billy looked at the scratches on his forearm.
They weren’t deep, having broken the skin but missed the muscle.
He asked Rebecca for a bandage, wrapped it around his arm a few times, and said nothing more.
Lincoln looked toward the open door on the other side of the overpass, where the lights beyond were still on.
“Let’s keep moving. We’ve reached the East Wing Annex. The backup exit should be on the bottom floor.”
He ejected the magazine of his M1911, replaced it with a full one, and racked the slide to chamber a round.
Then, he walked toward the overpass exit.
Inside his tactical vest’s inner pocket, the empty sealed tube pressed against his chest, its metal surface slightly cold.
Eliminators were products of the T-Virus, not living hosts for the T-Leech Virus.
He wouldn’t be able to harvest what headquarters wanted from them.
The only things carrying the fully active genetic material of the T-Leech Virus were the leeches themselves, and the entity that had collected all the samples and controlled the entire B1 level.
Whether that entity was Marcus or not, if he wanted to obtain the samples headquarters demanded, he would have to face it sooner or later.
Lincoln didn’t look back, walking across the overpass with steady steps.