The massive body overhead forced the fog apart.
A grotesquely huge mutant python thrust half its body from the dark canopy, bringing a nauseating gust with it.
Richard didn’t even manage to scream.
All he saw was a head larger than the hood of a Jeep, jaws gaping and dripping viscous venom, shooting toward the three of them like a gray-brown bolt of lightning.
Its fangs gleamed lethally in the dim light.
“Get out of the way—!” Richard’s mind crashed.
He screamed himself hoarse, but his legs might as well have been nailed to the ground.
He hadn’t even finished raising his gun.
Yet in his despairing vision, the man in black plate armor didn’t retreat a single step.
Leon stepped heavily into the fetid gust instead, driving one black military boot deep into the mud.
He gripped the freshly sharpened greatsword with both hands and raised the broad blade vertically in front of him in a defensive guard.
“BOOM—!” A deafening crash rang out as the python’s fangs slammed into the black-steel spine, scattering sparks.
The terrifying impact traveled down the blade.
Leon clenched his teeth, every muscle beneath the heavy armor snapping taut.
The blow didn’t lift him.
The brutal ballast of the full black plate suit anchored his stance.
Like a steel spike driven into the earth, he stopped the snake’s strike head-on without giving up half a step.
Venom ran down the sword and dripped onto his armor with a sharp corrosive hiss.
Leon gave a cold laugh behind the faceplate.
“This guard snake’s breath is criminal.
Does Umbrella never brush its pets’ teeth?” The python shrieked after its first attack failed.
Its enormous body slid rapidly from the treetops and coiled through the courtyard outside the guardhouse, knocking down trees and stone statues in swaths.
In the blink of an eye, its body—more than ten meters long—wrapped around Leon and his armor.
One coil.
Two.
Three.
The python contracted with all its strength, trying to crush the tin can and the flesh inside it into paste.
Teeth-grinding metal shrieks tore through the night.
Leon’s black armor groaned under the constriction.
The greatsword was simply too long to swing while he was packed inside coils with no room to move.
Leon changed techniques immediately.
His right hand left the hilt and seized the middle of the blade while his left braced against the point.
He turned the newly sharpened greatsword into a short spear and, using explosive force from his waist and core, drove it viciously into a section of snake thicker than his thigh.
The sharp edge split the python’s tough scales and buried itself deep in flesh.
The python shrieked in pain and thrashed wildly through the muddy, leaf-strewn courtyard.
Its constriction became even more violent.
Richard stared from behind the statue, eyes nearly bulging out of his head.
He watched the armored man disappear inside a knot of snake and roll across the ground, trembling all over.
That crushing force could snap a support column.
“Is he insane?!” Richard stammered at Rebecca.
“It’s going to squeeze him to death!” Rebecca kept the shotgun trained on the rolling coils without firing.
There wasn’t a trace of panic on her face—only blind confidence.
“Don’t shoot and hit him!” Rebecca shouted, pushing down the rifle Richard tried to raise.
“Just watch.” She stared at the black armor throwing sparks through the mud.
“He’s about to start breaking bones.” A massage at this level isn’t even enough to loosen my joints.
The instant she finished speaking, a roar erupted from the center of the coils.
To kill the stubborn serpent for good, Leon simply released the sword.
He left the greatsword buried in its body, freed both hands, abandoned the weapon entirely, and shifted into barehanded combat.
The high-carbon-steel heavy armor held against pressure strong enough to snap trees.
Protected beneath it, Leon’s ribs remained intact.
He forced his waist around inside the thrashing coils.
Both steel-braced hands clamped like vises onto the huge snake’s lower jaw and the vital point behind its head.
With its weak point trapped, the python opened its enormous mouth and bit at Leon’s helmeted head.
“Perfect!” Leon swore and didn’t dodge.
His left hand locked the lower jaw in place.
His right clenched into a fist, and the heavy steel bracer drove forward with a roar of displaced air—straight into the open mouth.
“BANG!
BANG!
BANG!” The dull impacts came without pause.
Leon’s iron fist worked like a pile driver, hammering the python’s soft mouth from the inside.
Venom and shredded tissue sprayed everywhere.
Leon was drenched in foul slime, and the sharp scales gouged countless bright white scars into his black armor, but he ignored all of it.
After several heavy punches left the python stunned, Leon suddenly reached in and seized one enormous twenty-centimeter fang in its upper jaw.
He planted both feet against the snake, his back and waist muscles locking hard.
With a roar, Leon ripped the fang out by the root.
“HSSSSSS—!!!” The python screamed.
Its massive body convulsed, and at last the crushing coils loosened.
Richard had gone completely blank.
His shotgun dropped into the mud with a clatter, his mouth hanging wide enough to fit a fist.
What had he just seen?
A man—a man in black armor—had endured the constriction of a giant python over ten meters long and ripped out one of its fangs barehanded.
Which one of them was the monster?
Richard’s brain simply gave up trying to answer.
Leon gave the python no time to recover.
The moment its coils loosened, he twisted free and mounted the huge snake’s head.
He locked both legs around its neck, raised his steel-wrapped fists, and began hammering the skull from both sides.
“That’s for wrapping me!” “BANG!” “That’s for squeezing me!” “BANG!” Every curse from Leon came with another iron fist crashing into the snake’s head.
Mud exploded.
Bone fragments flew.
The repeated blows pounded a crater into the ground around them.
Under the sustained physical punishment, the python’s skull finally collapsed into bloody ruin.
Its giant body went limp, leaving only faint reflexive twitches.
Only then did Leon stop.
Breathing hard, he rose from the pool of blood, black armor festooned with scraps of flesh and venomous gore.
He turned, grabbed the sharpened greatsword still buried in the snake’s midsection, and ripped it free one-handed with a harsh scrape.
Leon raised the hilt in both hands.
The black-steel edge traced a cold arc through the night.
Adding his falling weight to his own savage strength, Leon brought down a plain vertical chop onto the already mangled snake’s head.
“SHRK—” The sharpened blade split the huge head cleanly in two, removing any chance that it might rise again.
Leon held the sword in one hand and casually flicked venomous blood from the edge.
He removed his helmet, tucked it under one arm, and shook out his sweat-soaked blond hair.
Damn.
This armor needs one hell of a wash when we get back.
He turned to Richard, who was still sitting there in a daze, and a hard smile pulled at his mouth.
“Comms.” Leon nudged the snake’s head with one boot.
“Does this count toward your team’s cleanup quota?” Richard swallowed with difficulty.
There was no suspicion left in his eyes when he looked at Leon—only awe.
He shook his head repeatedly, barely able to form words.
“Who…
who is he?” Richard asked Rebecca, his voice still unsteady.
“I told you already.” Rebecca walked over and patted Richard’s shoulder, a hint of pride in her voice.
“He’s a specially recruited officer.
Come on, get up and show us the way.” Richard scrambled to his feet and retrieved his gun.
After what he’d just seen, walking beside Leon now felt safer than hiding inside an armored car.
“Captain Enrico and the others went into the mansion, then we got separated.” Richard led the way and pointed toward the huge building nearby.
“The front door isn’t locked.” The three crossed the wrecked courtyard and reached the mansion’s heavy carved doors.
Leon slung the sharpened greatsword across his back.
Its broad spine nearly covered him from shoulder to shoulder.
He placed both blood-smeared steel bracers against the carved doors and pushed.
“Creeeak—” The heavy wooden doors slowly opened.
A stale smell of mold rolled out, mixed with the faint scent of blood.
Beyond lay an extravagant mansion hall: dark-red carpet, a classical staircase, and strange oil paintings along the walls.
Yet the place was utterly still, devoid of any sense of living presence.
The instant all three stepped inside—a skin-crawling sound came from around the corner of the second-floor corridor.
“Wet chew…
creak…” It was the sticky sound of chewing mixed with fingernails scraping across wooden floorboards.
Richard went rigid, finger tightening around the trigger.
Rebecca immediately leveled her weapon at the shadows above.
Leon didn’t stop walking.
He didn’t even draw the greatsword from his back.
He only flexed his snake-blood-smeared hands, the armored knuckles clicking together sharply.
He glanced at the other two, that wild hard smile returning to his face.
“Come on.
Let’s see how this household treats its guests.”