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The air was filled with a strange mixture of ozone, the smell of scorched flesh, and the odor of melted metal.
Morpheus's massive, twisted body lay on the ground like a pale statue shattered by lightning.
The wisps of smoke seeping from every pore of her body were the final embers of her insane ambition.
"Wheeze... cough... cough..."
Bruce coughed violently, kneeling on one knee, one hand supporting the massive cannon that had drained nearly all his strength, the other clutching his spasming chest.
The aftereffects of the high-voltage current passing through his body made every breath feel like being pricked by needles.
He looked up, his gaze shifting from the charred corpse that had completely lost its life force in the distance to Noah, who was leaning against the blast door, his left shoulder a bloody mess and his entire right arm charred and carbonized. Bruce felt as if he had just woken from a bizarre nightmare.
"We... won?" His voice was as hoarse as if it had been sanded down.
Phoenix Bell set down the heavy cannon barrel from her shoulder, the immense weight leaving her shoulder numb and sore.
She walked over to Noah, crouched down, and quickly examined his injuries.
Noah's left shoulder had been pierced by Morpheus's electric claws, leaving five gruesome holes deep enough to reveal bone. The surrounding muscle tissue had turned an ominous charred black due to the electrical damage.
His entire right arm, having collided with Morpheus in their final clash, was completely necrotic. The skin and parts of the muscles had carbonized under the terrifying heat and current, emitting a nauseating smell of scorched flesh.
"Don't move." Phoenix Bell took out a first-aid kit from her Tactical Backpack, but her fingers paused slightly the moment they touched Noah's wound.
She could clearly feel a faint yet incredibly tenacious vitality beneath Noah's charred flesh, repairing the damaged tissue at a speed that defied reason.
The necrotic cells were being frantically devoured and replaced by new ones.
"Your body..." For the first time, Phoenix Bell's always calm eyes revealed unconcealable astonishment.
"I'm fine." Noah took a deep breath, his voice weak but exceptionally steady.
"Just a little surprise from the g-virus."
Bruce dragged his heavy footsteps over. When he saw Noah's left shoulder visibly recovering and his completely ruined right arm, his face was a mixture of shock, admiration, and concern.
"My God, Noah... are you sure you're still human?" He shook his head, then gave a bitter smile.
"But thank God you're not. Otherwise, all three of us would have been done for today."
The three of them didn't linger for long.
With Phoenix Bell and Bruce supporting him on either side, Noah was helped up. They passed through the circular blast door that Morpheus had opened and entered the island's true core—the Main Control Room.
In stark contrast to the ruin and bloodshed outside, this place was filled with a futuristic, technological feel.
Beyond the huge ring of floor-to-ceiling windows were countless failures soaking in green nutrient fluid, like a grotesque specimen exhibition hall.
Hundreds of screens on the Central main console flashed with complex data streams.
And in the deepest part of the control room, they saw the ultimate objective of their mission.
It wasn't a simple console, but a seemingly bottomless, massive vertical shaft plunging straight down.
A missile silo.
The silo walls were covered with intricate pipelines and support structures.
A pitch-black intercontinental ballistic missile, exuding an ominous aura, stood silently on its launch rack like a dormant steel behemoth.
Its warhead undoubtedly contained the Umbrella Corporation's most malicious creation—some new model of virus capable of destroying a nation, or even an era.
"Madmen..." Bruce stared at the missile, feeling a chill shoot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
Without the slightest hesitation, Phoenix Bell immediately walked to a separate communication console and quickly connected to the highest encryption-level channel.
"This is 'nightingale,' please respond."
After a few seconds of static, a steady male voice came through the channel: "'nightingale,' this is 'Central.' Report your status."
"Primary target Morpheus Duval of the 'Spencer' has been eliminated. However, we have discovered an intercontinental missile with a leftover biochemical warhead in a ready-to-launch state at his secret base in the Atlantic, coordinates XXX.XXX. I repeat, an intercontinental missile with a biochemical warhead. Requesting instructions!"
Phoenix Bell's report was met with over ten seconds of silence on the other end of the communication channel.
Clearly, the impact of this news far exceeded everyone's expectations.
After more than ten seconds, 'Central's' voice sounded again.
"...Situation acknowledged. 'Termination' operation plan altered. Highest directive activated."
"'Orbital Weapon System - Zhulong' has locked onto your coordinates. It will begin charging in thirty seconds. Charging time: thirty minutes." (In the game, China has orbital weapons.)
"Thirty minutes from now, 'Zhulong' will conduct a saturation-level destruction strike on the target coordinate point and all objectives within a five-kilometer radius."
"You have thirty minutes to evacuate to a safe zone. I repeat, you only have thirty minutes!"
"Good luck, comrades."
The communication cut off.
Bruce's face turned pale as he listened to Phoenix Bell's translation. "Orbital weapons? You Chinese deployed that thing outside the atmosphere? Melts everything? Are you kidding me!"
"This is no joke." Phoenix Bell turned off the communicator, her expression unprecedentedly serious. "We must leave immediately."
Just as the three were about to move, supporting Noah as they headed out...
"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!!!!!!!!"
An unprecedented, deafening roar, as if capable of tearing the heavens apart, erupted from the direction they had come from, from the deeper parts of the base!
The entire Main Control Room, and indeed the entire island, trembled violently under the force of this roar!
The sound was filled with endless pain, hunger, and madness... In the chaotic biochemical waste treatment facility.
The 'Fatty,' dragging a broken arm courtesy of Noah, stumbled out from the depths of a dark corridor.
It had lost too much blood, and the wound on its abdomen made its movements slow and difficult.
But an instinctual, extreme craving for fresh flesh, born from the virus, drove it here.
It smelled the scent of the 'God's Blood'—that alluring energy emanating from the white tyrant's body.
It saw the motionless, charred corpse lying on the ground.
Food.
"Heh... heh..." The 'Fatty' let out greedy gasps as it shuffled towards Morpheus's corpse.
Just as its intact hand was about to touch the corpse...
The corpse, which should have been thoroughly dead, suddenly opened its eyes! The eyes that had lost all their light were now wide open!
No longer glowing with blue electricity, they held a deeper, more chaotic, pure darkness.
A charred hand, moving with unbelievable speed, shot out and grabbed the 'Fatty's' outstretched arm.
The 'Fatty' froze.
The next second, an irresistible, immense suction force emanated from that charred hand.
"...Heh...!!!" For the first time, the 'Fatty's' virus-eroded brain experienced an emotion called 'fear.' It wanted to struggle, to flee.
But it was too late.
Its massive, mountain-like body began to deflate and shrivel rapidly, like a punctured balloon.
All the flesh, fat, and virus within its body were being frantically devoured and absorbed by that charred hand!
In just over ten seconds, the one-ton 'Fatty' was reduced to a desiccated, skin-and-bones mummy, which then shattered with a 'crack,' crumbling into a pile of powder on the ground.
Having absorbed all the life energy of the 'Fatty,' Morpheus's charred body began to undergo a second mutation in an utterly horrifying manner.
Countless bloated masses of fat, twisted lumps of flesh, and purplish-black cadaveric stains erupted and proliferated wildly from her body's surface.
Her body swelled up like a balloon, quickly surpassing the size of the 'Fatty.'
But it wasn't enough.
Far from enough.
The newly born, bloated, and deformed monster slowly turned its head, casting its chaotic gaze towards the still-frantically churning... nest below.
An even greater craving for life drove it to take heavy, lumbering steps forward.
It reached the break in the walkway and, without hesitation, that massive body composed of countless layers of fat and tumors leaped down towards the insect nest below!
"BOOM—!"
The moment it landed in the nest, the entire insect hive erupted into Chaos.
Countless monstrous insects swarmed forward, attempting to tear the intruder apart.
However, what they faced was a bottomless abyss.
That colossal mass of flesh, like a black hole, began frantically devouring and fusing with everything it could reach.
Monstrous insects, insect eggs, secretions, even the entire flesh-and-blood base of the hive itself... A grotesque, indescribable monster, impossibly vast and haphazardly assembled from the corpses and flesh of countless creatures, was slowly taking shape within the unfathomably deep processing pool.
Its size was expanding at a frenzied, per-second rate.
Finally, after devouring the entire insect nest, an ultimate flesh golem, over twenty meters tall and wide enough to completely fill the entire processing plant—its body a mass of writhing flesh, shattered carapace, twisted limbs, and countless gaping maws—slowly'stood' up from the abyss.
It no longer possessed a fixed form, resembling a living, constantly squirming mountain of meat.
"ROOOOOOOOOAR!!!!!!!!"
It let out a roar that echoed across the entire island, then began to move slowly in one direction.
Any wall, building, or metal structure in its path was effortlessly crushed into dust under its absolute mass... "Quick! Go! Go!"
Bruce and Phoenix Bell, supporting Noah between them, sprinted at top speed through the shaking base.
Behind them came the continuous, thunderous roars of what sounded like a mountain collapsing.
Walls cracked, ceilings crumbled; the entire base was moving towards utter destruction under the advance of that unknown behemoth.
The regenerative ability within Noah's body was working frantically. The charred, blackened flesh of his right arm had now sloughed off, revealing the newly grown, pink flesh underneath.
Though he still couldn't exert force with it, he could at least walk on his own now.
"This way!"
Relying on memory and the map, Phoenix Bell led the two through the labyrinthine base, which threatened to bury them alive at any moment, struggling to find an exit.
Finally, amid a violent tremor, they burst out of the base's uppermost exit and onto a beach covered in black volcanic rock.
Turning back, they witnessed a scene of terror they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
At the island's center, an enormous mountain of flesh, so vast it seemed it might crush the entire island, was slowly squeezing its way out from the shattered mountainside.
Its movement was slow, but each step elicited a groan of protest from the overburdened earth.
"We... we were just... fighting that thing's 'predecessor'?" Bruce stared at the moving mountain of meat, feeling his legs tremble.
Without time for further thought, the three of them sprinted towards the hidden cove where they had stashed their speedboat.
Untying the mooring rope and starting the engine, the black speedboat shot out to sea like an arrow from a bow.
Just as the speedboat reached a distance of roughly eight kilometers from shore...
The sky lit up.
A pillar of light, several times brighter than the sun, as if a divine judgment, tore through the gloomy clouds and silently, precisely struck the center of the isolated island.
There was no sound.
No explosion.
Only extreme light and heat.
The colossal flesh-mountain monster, the entire island, and the "Spencer" cruise ship docked on the island's other side all began to melt and vaporize instantly under the beam's radiance, as if ice thrown into a steel furnace.
Rock turned to magma, steel to molten metal, flesh to ash.
Even the surrounding seawater evaporated instantly under the terrifying heat, forming a massive, ring-shaped cloud of white steam.
It lasted no more than a dozen seconds.
When the light beam vanished, all that remained on the sea was an immense, bottomless whirlpool and an area of still-boiling, crimson-stained water.
The island and all the evil upon it had been physically erased from the world.
On the speedboat, the three stared dumbfounded at the cataclysmic scene, speechless for a long time.
Only after the sea calmed did Bruce finally let out a long, slow breath.
"Alright, I take back what I said before. Compared to this, everything earlier was just an appetizer."
He turned to Noah and Phoenix Bell, a brilliant, relieved smile spreading across his face.
Then he extended his hand.
Phoenix Bell looked at him and extended hers as well.
Noah smiled and put his hand forward too.
"Slap!"
Three hands met in mid-air with a crisp clap.
Mission complete.
Phoenix Bell activated the emergency distress signal transmitter and sent out their coordinates.
Then, as if by unspoken agreement, all three of them lay back inelegantly on the speedboat's narrow deck, gazing up at the now-dispersed clouds and the faintly emerging stars.
Waves gently lapped against the hull, like a lullaby.
No one spoke, simply savoring the hard-won peace.
After a long while, Bruce turned his head. His blue eyes sparkled under the starlight as he looked at Phoenix Bell beside him.
"So, Ling..." he asked in an unusually earnest tone, "How about it now? Want to consider getting an American boyfriend?"
Phoenix Bell didn't answer immediately.
Gazing at the stars, a dazzling, summer-flower-like smile appeared on her usually frosty face.
She turned her head, met Bruce's hopeful gaze, and her red lips parted slightly.
"We'll see."
Bruce's expression instantly fell. Helplessly, he turned to Noah on the other side, spread his hands, and made a'See, I told you so' face.
Seeing his deflated look, Noah finally couldn't hold back and burst into hearty laughter.
The laughter carried far, far across the open sea.
At the edge of their vision, where sea met sky, a massive black silhouette with navigation lights blinking was slowly approaching their coordinates.
It was the warship coming to take them home... Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic.
In a luxuriously decorated office filled with classical ambiance.
Drake C. Simmons hung up the final call, a trace of barely concealed irritation on his face.
He walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the city's glittering lights, his brow deeply furrowed.
Morpheus was dead.
That mad, brilliant scientist he'd worked so hard to bring aboard his ship was really dead.
Along with his island and all his research, turned to ashes.
It threw all his subsequent plans into disarray.
However, fortunately, before the operation, he and Morpheus had already performed that 'double act.'
Simmons returned to his desk, turned on his computer, and opened an audio file.
Inside was the recording of their 'brilliant' conversation.
In the recording, he was righteous and persuasive, appealing to reason and emotion, ultimately'successfully convincing' the terrorist Morpheus to abandon the attack and plan to 'commit suicide out of guilt.'
This recording had already been anonymously leaked by him to the world's largest media outlets.
By tomorrow morning, he, Drake C. Simmons, would be hailed as a national hero who prevented a global bioweapon crisis.
Though he had lost an important asset, gaining a ticket back to the pinnacle of power wasn't a bad trade.
He closed the audio file and casually opened another file, encrypted and sent to him by Morpheus before the operation.
It contained Morpheus's proudest achievement, the culmination of his life's research—all the research data and theoretical materials on 'God's Blood.'
Simmons's gaze fixed intently on the description on the screen about 'maintaining complete rationality and intelligence post-mutation.'
Slowly, a light identical to Morpheus's—sickly and fanatical—began to glow in his eyes.
(End of the'Souls Under the Gun' Arc)
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