The sunlight didn’t linger long over the surface of the Arklay Mountains.
Fog always rose early in the mountains, spreading like a gray-white blanket that quickly swallowed the surrounding trunks.
Rebecca got to her feet and brushed dirt from her tactical pants.
She straightened the bulletproof vest that no longer looked remotely green and worked the shotgun’s action again.
“Cha-chack.” She raised her head and looked through layers of treetops toward the distant ridge.
Deep in the fog, sharp roofs and Gothic chimneys were barely visible.
A huge Western-style mansion stood alone in the wilderness.
Leon walked up beside her, carrying the Doorstop smeared with blackened residue, his boots snapping dead branches underfoot.
The black high-carbon-steel armor gave off a dull sheen in the fog.
The clasps on his chest plate were still open, exposing the sweat-soaked black compression shirt underneath.
He shook out his blond hair and followed Rebecca’s gaze.
“Looks like our developer built a luxury housing project up here too,” Leon said, breaking the silence.
Rebecca didn’t laugh.
She bit her lower lip, brows drawn tightly together.
“Captain Enrico said they were withdrawing toward that mansion.” She pointed.
“The rest of the team has to be over there too.
I’m the medic.
I have to regroup with them.” Then she turned to Leon.
Her fingers tightened around the gun sling, and her words came more slowly.
As far as she was concerned, Leon—the specially recruited officer—had already been dragged far enough into this.
The underground facility was destroyed.
He had every reason to take the mountain road back to Raccoon City and call for help.
“Are you…” She hesitated.
“Are you going back to the station for backup?” Leon looked down at her.
The broad greatsword rolled once in his hand before he planted its hilt heavily in the mud.
Leave the rookie behind and go solo?
The academy never taught me that.
“Are you kidding?” Leon curled his lip.
“Leave a barely grown medic alone in the middle of nowhere?
I don’t need tomorrow morning’s headline reading, ‘Heartless Cop Abandons College Girl.'” Rebecca stared at him.
“Besides”—Leon lifted his chin toward the mansion—”if those terrorists built something that big underground, the fancy place upstairs has to be part of their hideout too.
We’re already here.
Might as well clean out the whole nest.” He bent down, picked up the heavy iron helmet he’d tossed into the grass, and tucked it under one arm.
“Most importantly, I still haven’t reported back to Captain Wesker.
I need his signature on my probation paperwork.” Leon added what he considered the most compelling reason of all with a perfectly serious face.
Rebecca opened her mouth.
The knot that had been lodged in her throat suddenly loosened.
Looking at the man built like a steel tower, she visibly relaxed.
The corners of her mouth lifted before she realized it.
“Lead the way, sir.” Leon tilted his head.
They followed the ridge toward the mansion.
The fog thickened, and daylight visibly faded around them.
A few hundred meters from the estate, they found an abandoned wooden tool shed at the edge of the forest.
Half the door had rotted away, and wind leaked through the roof.
Rebecca’s steps began to wobble.
Continuous high-intensity fighting and hours of sustained stress had long since exhausted the young medic’s reserves.
Leon kicked the broken door open, confirmed that the only occupants were a few rats, and pushed Rebecca inside.
“Get some sleep.
We’ll move once it’s fully dark.” Leon used the greatsword to shove debris aside and clear a somewhat clean patch of floor.
Rebecca really couldn’t keep going.
She hugged the shotgun to herself and leaned against the wall.
Her head began to nod, and within minutes her breathing settled into an even rhythm.
Outside, the forest disappeared into complete darkness.
Fog pressed against the doorway like a wall.
Leon didn’t sit down.
He set the helmet by his boots and began rummaging through a heap of junk in the corner by the shed’s dim light.
Against thick-skinned bastards, smashing alone takes too much work.
I need some penetration.
He pulled back a dust-covered canvas sheet, and his eyes lit up.
Beneath it stood an old industrial pedal grinder, a huge rough diamond wheel mounted on a rusted iron frame.
Several rusted logging axes lay nearby.
Leon walked over and lifted the Doorstop greatsword that had served as a bulldozer all night.
Its broad black spine was smeared with monster fluids and bits of flesh, and its square edges were battered and pitted.
He improvised an earplug for Rebecca, then carried the equipment as far away from her as the shed allowed.
He stepped on the grinder’s pedal.
Rusted gears squealed, and the wheel slowly began turning.
Leon gripped the hilt with both hands, lowered his center of gravity, and forced the palm-thick edge of the greatsword hard against the spinning wheel.
“SKREEEE—!” The shriek of cutting metal tore through the quiet.
Great fans of bright orange-red sparks erupted from the contact point like a miniature meteor shower.
The light illuminated Leon’s hard expression and the muscle lines standing out along his arms as he worked.
Black armor flashed savagely in the sparks.
He increased the rhythm of his feet, driving the grinder faster and faster.
Like a tireless blacksmith, he used terrifying wrist strength to hold the massive blade firmly against the wheel, grinding away excess steel little by little.
The shed filled with the harsh smell of scorched metal.
The originally square, blunt edge gradually became a rough bevel under the violent grinding.
For a full half hour.
When Leon finally released the pedal, black smoke curled from the grinder and its gears seized completely.
He raised the greatsword in front of him.
The iron slab that had once looked like a door now had a cold, gleaming cutting edge ground along one side.
The finish was crude and deep wheel marks scarred the bevel, but that only made it look even more viciously capable of tearing flesh.
Leon touched the hot edge.
A clear sting bit into his fingertip.
“Counterterrorism equipment upgrade complete.” He grinned in satisfaction.
“Next thick-skinned one gets sliced.” “Leon?” Rebecca woke coughing on the smell of burned metal.
She rubbed her eyes and stared in confusion at Leon standing in the darkness with a gleaming greatsword.
“Awake?” Leon shouldered the weapon one-handed.
“Time to work.
Let’s go knock on the neighbor’s door.” They left the tool shed and used the fog as cover to approach the side courtyard of the mansion.
A rusted iron gate stood partly open.
Weeds grew waist-high through the courtyard, and broken stone statues loomed vaguely through the mist.
The instant Rebecca reached for the gate, a dark figure burst from the shadows beside it.
“Don’t move!
Stay right there!” A hysterical shout exploded through the fog as the barrel of an M870 shotgun thrust out from behind a statue and aimed straight at them.
The man holding it wore the same S.T.A.R.S.
uniform as Rebecca.
His face was covered in blood, his clothes torn into strips, and his trigger hand shook violently.
“Richard!” Rebecca recognized him and cried out in relief.
Richard Aiken, communications specialist for Bravo Team.
At Rebecca’s voice, he froze.
The muscles in his face twitched, and his mouth fell open.
“Rebecca?
Thank God, you’re alive!
The captain and the others—” Richard stopped mid-sentence.
His gaze passed over Rebecca’s shoulder and landed on the huge shadow behind her.
A monster stood there wrapped in battered black heavy armor, iron boots planted in the mud, carrying an absurdly long greatsword with a freshly ground edge.
Strange black scorch marks still stained the blade.
“What…
the hell is that?!” Richard’s voice jumped an octave.
Ignoring Rebecca, he reflexively swung the shotgun toward Leon’s scarred chest plate.
“Back off!
Get away from her!” Richard’s finger was already on the trigger.
Leon didn’t move.
His eyes watched the communications specialist on the verge of collapse from behind the faceplate.
He didn’t even raise his sword.
“Richard!
Don’t shoot!” Cold sweat broke across Rebecca’s skin.
She rushed over, seized the trembling barrel, and forced it downward.
“He’s friendly!
He’s with us!” she shouted.
“He’s a specially recruited officer.
Leon.
He’s the one who’s been clearing the way this whole time.” “An officer?” Richard stared at the oppressive black armor.
“You call that an officer?
He looks more like a monster than the things eating people in there!” “Don’t judge by appearances, senior.” Leon’s calm voice came through the iron helmet with a muffled metallic resonance.
“My probationary badge is in my pocket, but it’s a little hard to reach right now.
Want to come closer and check?” Richard studied Leon’s relaxed posture, then Rebecca’s unwavering expression.
At last, some of the tension bled out of him.
He gulped air and slowly lowered the gun.
“Sorry…” He wiped blood from his face.
“This place…
this place is a madhouse.
Captain Enrico went inside, then we got separated.
I ran into a group of—” Before Richard could describe what he’d suffered inside the mansion, the surroundings changed in a way that raised the hair on their necks.
The summer insects calling from the grass went silent all at once, as though some invisible hand had closed around every throat.
The courtyard became terrifyingly quiet.
Only the fog moved slowly between the broken statues.
Leon’s eyes changed beneath the helmet.
Every animal instinct he possessed screamed a warning.
Wrong.
Too quiet.
He shot out his left hand, grabbed Richard by the collar, and simultaneously shouldered Rebecca backward.
“THUD!” He shoved both of them roughly into the shadow of a broken stone statue.
“What are you—” Richard tried to struggle, but Leon pinned his shoulder with one hand.
The weight behind that black armor made resistance pointless.
“Shut up,” Leon hissed.
Rebecca immediately pressed herself against the cold stone and tightened both hands around the shotgun.
By now, her trust in Leon’s instincts was absolute.
At some point, an overpowering stench had entered the air.
It smelled like rotting meat left fermenting in a dark, damp basement for more than a decade, strong enough to make them gag.
Richard’s face went white.
He clearly recognized it.
“It’s here…” His teeth chattered.
“It actually followed me outside…” “Scrape…
scrape…” A skin-crawling noise came from above the dark canopy.
Something enormous was dragging scales slowly across thick tree trunks and the wooden balcony on the mansion’s second floor.
The sound came from every direction, as if some vast creature covered the whole courtyard from above.
“Scrape…
scrape…” It drew closer.
Branches overhead could be heard snapping under the weight.
Richard shook in terror.
The shotgun nearly slipped from his hands.
“W-what is making that noise?” he stammered.
Leon released him.
He stepped out of the statue’s shadow and reached back for the newly sharpened black-steel greatsword.
In the night, his heavy armor made him look like an immovable iron tower.
Leon stared into the rolling fog overhead, listening to the horrifying scrape of scales, and let out a cold laugh.
“Just a guard snake with terrible hygiene.” He leveled the greatsword in front of him.
The freshly ground edge flashed with a chilling glint in the weak light.
“Back up.
I’m going to test the new edge.”