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The air inside the building was like a cold, damp cloth soaked in rust and decaying fluids, pressing tightly against everyone's mouths and noses.
Droplets of water seeping from the walls, mixed with the fishy scent of moss and the cloying sweetness of dried blood, congealed into a nauseating stickiness in the dim light.
It was excessively quiet here.
There were no expected roars, no signs of struggle, not even a single wandering zombie.
Only that man curled up in the corner, like a statue about to weather away, added a final touch of human sorrow to this dead silence.
Noah stopped in his tracks, his gaze piercing through the gloom and landing precisely on Claire's profile.
The distant firelight danced in her azure eyes, reflecting a hint of anxiety and anticipation that was hard to conceal.
"Did you bring a photo of your brother?"
Noah's voice was soft, yet like a stone thrown into a still lake, it broke the suffocating silence.
Claire was stunned for a moment.
Her fingers subconsciously touched the tactical pouch at her waist, and then she gently shook her head.
Her neat reddish-brown ponytail followed suit, tracing a slightly disappointed arc in the air.
"No..."
"I... I didn't think there would be a time when I'd need a photo of him..."
There was a hint of frustration in her voice.
They had repeatedly rehearsed every detail before setting out, yet they had overlooked this simplest and most direct method.
Leon, standing nearby, habitually wanted to say something witty to lighten the mood, but he swallowed the words as they reached his lips.
He could feel that Claire's current emotions were like a taut string; any untimely touch could cause it to snap instantly.
Ada stood in the shadows with her arms crossed, her all-seeing almond eyes quietly observing without offering any opinion.
Claire took a deep breath, suppressing the surging emotions in her heart, and turned her gaze toward the dying man.
"He's very tall, taller than anyone here."
She tried to keep her voice steady, as if stating an objective fact.
"About five feet eleven inches tall, weighing around two hundred pounds, with solid muscles, short reddish-brown hair, and very sharp eyes..."
(In the official games, Chris's hair is sometimes black and sometimes brown... This follows the novel's setting, making it reddish-brown like Claire's.)
She used the most concise words possible to sketch Chris's silhouette.
Before she could finish.
The man had already laboriously shaken his head.
This simple action seemed to exhaust all his remaining strength.
His gaze swept hollowly over the four people before him, his voice as raspy as two dry leaves rubbing together.
"We haven't... held... such a large man here..."
"Not... a single one..."
Claire's body swayed imperceptibly.
Those blue eyes, which had just been burning with fire, dimmed in an instant.
Just then.
Ada, who had been silent, suddenly spoke.
Her voice was cold and pleasant, carrying a characteristic, convincing calm.
"This proves your brother hasn't been caught, doesn't it?"
Claire snapped her head up, looking at Ada blankly.
Ada stepped out of the shadows, the firelight outlining her exquisite curves and illuminating her face, which was calm to the point of perfection.
"If he were truly captured by Umbrella, given his identity and strength, the most likely place for him to be held would be here."
"Since he's not here, it means he likely hasn't fallen into enemy hands at all."
"Isn't that good news?"
Ada's logic was clear, cold, and devoid of any emotion, yet it directly struck the tangled mess of disappointment in Claire's heart.
No news is good news.
A glimmer of light gathered and ignited once more in the depths of Claire's eyes.
Those azure eyes became bright once again.
She looked at Ada and nodded solemnly.
"Thank you."
Noah breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Claire recover.
His gaze fell back onto the man curled up in the corner.
Not a trace of color could be seen on his dark face, only a layer of deathly pale gray.
The wound on his abdomen continued to seep blood, like an unpluggable leak of life.
"Do you need help?"
Noah stepped forward slowly and crouched down, keeping his gaze at the same level as Rodriguez's.
"I'm a doctor."
His voice was steady and peaceful, possessing a power that could soothe the heart.
Rodriguez's eyelids lifted with effort.
He looked at the young, composed Oriental face before him, which held a hint of concern, and his mouth twitched into a self-deprecating smirk that looked worse than crying.
"A doctor...?"
"Heh..."
He shook his head, his cloudy eyes filled with endless regret and a sense of release.
"No need..."
"My sins... must be washed away by death..."
"I... I won't last much longer..."
A fit of violent coughing interrupted his words.
What he coughed up was thick saliva mixed with dark red blood clots.
He gasped, seemingly using all his strength to speak again.
"Do you... have any painkillers?"
"Anything will do..."
"As long as it can... let me go without so much pain..."
Noah didn't speak.
He just silently took a small medicine box from the side pocket of his tactical backpack.
Then he poured out a blister pack of white tablets wrapped in aluminum foil.
Eight tablets in total.
They were High-Potency Analgesics provided by Trant, several times more effective than morphine, but with equally massive side effects.
He handed the entire pack of tablets to Rodriguez.
Rodriguez's hands, cold from blood loss, reached out trembling.
His fingers fumbled with the aluminum foil for a long time.
Finally, he only carefully popped out four tablets.
Then he pushed the remaining four tablets, along with the foil pack, back to Noah.
"Thank you..." he coughed weakly a few more times.
"These... are enough..."
This tiny gesture moved Noah's heart slightly.
Even at the end of his life, this man seemed to retain a final shred of human dignity and decorum.
Rodriguez had no water and swallowed a tablet dry.
The tablet got stuck in his throat, causing another bout of heart-wrenching coughing.
After a good while, he finally recovered.
The medicine seemed to start taking effect.
His pained, distorted face gradually smoothed out.
He let out a deep, long sigh.
In that sigh, there was release, regret, and a hint of relief.
"You guys..."
His gaze swept over Noah, Claire, Leon, and Ada.
"You must... eliminate Umbrella..."
"This company... is a cancer on humanity... a total demon..."
His voice gradually became a bit clearer as the medicine began to work.
"I... I have done too many filthy things for them..."
"I sold my conscience, betrayed my country, and defiled the oaths I once took..."
"I deserve... to end up like this..."
As he spoke, his eyes became increasingly unfocused.
"In that... in that mansion... lies... Umbrella's greatest secret..."
"Alexia... she is the... real... demon..."
"Watch out... watch out for her... virus..."
"She... isn't dead... like the rumors... outside... say..."
His voice grew fainter and fainter, finally vanishing completely.
Only an extremely faint sound of breathing remained, proving he was still alive.
Noah reached out with two fingers and placed them on Rodriguez's carotid artery.
The pulse was very weak; he seemed to have fallen asleep.
Noah stood up and shook his head at the others.
"In this environment, his injuries are essentially terminal."
"He's lost too much blood; it's already a miracle he's held on this long."
Leon looked at the man who had fallen into a deep coma, a complex expression appearing on his face.
"Poor guy."
He sighed.
"However, will Alexia and that mansion he mentioned at the end be important clues?" A flicker of thought crossed Ada's eyes.
"Alexia Ashford, one of the founders of Umbrella, granddaughter of Edward Ashford, a true Genius."
"Legend has it that she graduated from university at the age of ten and was appointed by Umbrella as the chief Researcher of the Antarctic Base."
"But after that, she mysteriously disappeared. The official story is that she died in a virus experiment accident."
"Now it seems that rumor isn't true."
Ada looked at the silhouette of the massive mansion looming in the firelight.
"That Ashford Family mansion is likely our ultimate destination."
Noah nodded.
"Let's search here first to see if there are any other clues."
The four immediately scattered and began a carpet search of the small prison area.
On the cold iron bed, there was only a moldy mattress.
The rusty toilet was filled with nauseating filth.
Scattered in the corners were some belongings of prisoners that were no longer recognizable.
They carefully checked every inch of the floor and every part of the walls.
They found nothing.
This place was like a completely forgotten corner; aside from death and decay, no other valuable items could be found.
Leon, somewhat disappointed, kicked aside an empty metal locker.
"Well, it seems this really is just an ordinary prison cell."
"Aside from that dying guy, there's nothing."
Claire's heart sank along with his words.
Although Rodriguez's words had given her new hope, the inability to find any trace of Chris still left her unable to feel at ease.
Noah walked to the end of the prison area.
There was a heavy iron door leading outside.
The door was unlocked.
He grasped the cold doorknob and pushed hard.
"Creak—"
A piercing sound of metal grinding broke the dead silence of the prison cells.
A stronger, hotter current of air, mixed with flying ash, rushed toward them.
Outside the door was a relatively open outdoor space.
The ground was covered in cracked concrete, with craters of various sizes left by explosions everywhere.
A few military trucks, burned down to their skeletons, were parked haphazardly at the edge of the open space like silent steel corpses.
The four came out of the prison area one by one.
The open environment made them subconsciously tense their nerves.
Just then.
"Buzz—"
A blindingly bright spotlight shot down from above without warning.
The beam of light instantly locked the four of them in the center of the open space...
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