The sound of a blade sinking into flesh rang out clearly.
No miracle occurred; Javier was indeed injured. This was an indisputable fact. When Chris, Jill, and the others opened their eyes,
they discovered that Javier's body had been violently struck by the Reaper's scythes. The blades were lodged deep within Javier's flesh.
"Drip, drip..."
Gaping, gruesome, bloody wounds had been carved into both sides of his shoulders. Crimson blood flowed onto the ground, and one could even faintly see the grim white bone within.
The final scythe had struck Javier's abdomen, sinking almost halfway through. The wound was terrifying; he had nearly been severed at the waist.
A fatal scythe aimed at his neck had been parried by Javier using his knock-off Yamato. In short, Javier's injuries were not optimistic. Without timely medical treatment, Javier could die from excessive blood loss at any moment!
"Hiss..."
"Even though I won't die, being injured really hurts...!!!"
Feeling the intense pain radiating from all over his body, wave after wave of agony stimulated Javier's brain like a tide, causing him to gasp involuntarily.
He had almost been unable to withstand the pain and fainted just now,
but fortunately, he endured. Looking down at the blood flowing from his abdomen and shoulders, Javier couldn't help but remark that this might be the most serious injury he had ever sustained.
In the past, when he was afraid of death, the most he had suffered was a broken rib. He would never place himself in such a dangerous situation.
The reason he took such a risk today
was that Javier intended to test his abilities—to see if a body fused with the T-Virus and a small amount of G-Virus truly possessed such powerful regenerative capabilities. If it did... then Javier could try adopting a playstyle of trading injuries.
*Squelch...*
And in the next second,
a miraculous scene indeed occurred.
The wounds originally carved open by the Reaper's scythes suddenly began to heal at an extremely rapid pace. What was most unbelievable
was that the new flesh of the wounds directly pushed out the scythes lodged inside. By the time the wounds had returned to their original state, the Reaper's scythes had been forced out, leaving a gap of a centimeter before they could cut into the skin again.
And this
was the powerful regenerative ability Javier obtained after fusing the T-Virus with a trace amount of G-Virus. It was also the first time Javier had displayed the power of the bio-viruses within his body.
"This..."
"How is this possible...?"
"Has Javier also fused with a bio-virus?!"
Watching the miraculous scene before them,
Chris, Jill, and the others were in disbelief, their eyes filled with shock. It was one thing for Javier to dare charge forward with a katana to engage in melee combat with a Reaper several times his size,
but now, even after sustaining extremely severe injuries, Javier could still recover easily. Chris, Jill, and the others found this quite difficult to accept.
Javier could no longer be called a human...
but rather, just like a bio-monster, he was a living virus-infected being!
This made Chris and Jill feel a sense of estrangement. They thought Javier had betrayed them and begun experimenting with bio-viruses. The idea that a former comrade-in-arms could very likely become an enemy was something they found very hard to accept...
However,
Javier had no time to worry about that,
because this was a necessary condition for the path to immortality. He was now approaching the advanced age of thirty. Although his physical fitness was at its peak,
in another ten years, he would enter the decline of his forties. After forty, limbs start to ache, at forty-five one begins to feel inadequate, and at fifty one can practically retire.
Looking at the timeline,
Javier would be at least in his forties by the time the plot of Resident Evil Village began, and the Resident Evil crisis wouldn't fully end until he was in his fifties.
Faced with such a frustrating future,
Javier didn't want to be a white-haired old man carrying out missions and clearing dungeons. And even if he didn't clear dungeons, with this physical state,
if he was unlucky enough to encounter a virus outbreak,
he would kick the bucket immediately. Therefore, fusing with the virus to achieve immortality was the only path Javier could choose.
The best-case scenario would be fulfilling his ideal wish for immortality...
And if that couldn't be realized, it didn't matter,
because even just completing the fusion with the virus would be enough to keep Javier young for many years. The simplest example was the child Sherry;
she was clearly already in her thirties,
yet her appearance was still similar to that of an eighteen-year-old girl. This was the youth brought by the virus. The ordinary G-Virus could extend one's lifespan by at least two to three hundred years.
And if it were the G-Virus with devouring abilities, based on the setting of gaining energy by devouring other objects,
one could even live for seven or eight hundred years.
The most typical example was someone like Lisa, who could easily live for seven or eight hundred, or even a thousand years without a problem, unless some accident occurred in the meantime.
Therefore,
the power of the bio-virus was necessary!
Back to the scene,
"Hiss hiss hiss..."
The Reaper saw that this tiny human was actually unharmed after taking its four-scythe slash. A look of confusion appeared in its large eyes; it quite failed to understand how Javier had withstood that strike.
But it didn't matter;
if one four-scythe slash couldn't kill Javier, then it would try a second. At the same time, the Reaper's tail suddenly began to wriggle and vibrate.
It seemed the Reaper before him intended to spit out a liquid from its mouth that affected the optic nerves to attack Javier.
Once hit by this special mucus, Javier's vision would be affected, becoming blurry and indistinct.
*Creak, creak...*
*Clang—!!!*
Not only that,
the Reaper once again raised its four sharp, giant scythes, extending its limbs to their limit, preparing to release a slash with maximum force to once again tear Javier's body into four pieces.
But this time...
Javier didn't plan on giving the Reaper that chance. He had only intended to interrupt and test the bio-virus regenerative ability within his body just now.
Now that the experiment was over,
Javier had obtained the results he wanted and had no intention of continuing to experience the pain of being cut in half.
After all...
the Reaper was at most an elite mob, not a level boss. Therefore, Javier had not reached a point of helplessness. If he wanted to kill the Reaper before him... Javier could do it at any time—!!!
"..."
"Since ordinary bullets can't break through the hard armor on your body, how about trying this instead...?"
Looking at the Reaper cockroach before him preparing its final attack,
Javier was faster. He immediately took a strange-looking weapon out of his storage space.
Its body was composed of segments of carapace,
with an incredibly sharp short blade growing at the tail. It was pitch black all over and looked like the tail of some creature, while the front end had a handle welded onto it, truly turning it into a wieldable weapon.
And this...
was the trophy Javier had obtained during the Plaga parasite dungeon in Spain: the tail of the ultimate perfect Plaga parasite fusion, Executioner Verdugo.
The blade on this tail was incomparably sharp, cutting through iron as if it were mud and slicing through floor tiles as easily as tofu.
It could even easily cut through steel plates,
making Javier suspect it was a weapon from another dimension. Thus, after killing Verdugo with the incendiary armor-piercing rounds of the barrett heavy sniper rifle, Javier had cut it off as a trophy and modified it into a handheld weapon.
The hardness of the carapace of the scorpion-monster Verdugo was comparable to an armored vehicle, much harder and stronger than the Reaper before him.
So Javier believed there was no reason Verdugo's tail blade couldn't penetrate the samurai armor of the Reaper.
"Die—!!!"
Looking at the Reaper within reach,
Javier decisively thrust out the tail blade in his hand like a knight's lance. In an instant, the sharp blade radiating a cold light pierced through the Reaper's head.
It went straight from the chin through the top of the head, and the entire small head was sliced off by Javier.
*Squelch...!*
The moment it was decapitated,
the Reaper's four-scythe attack stopped abruptly. Its body froze in place and then collapsed with a crash, like a decapitated armored samurai...
*Squelch...!*
The tail blade easily pierced through the Reaper cockroach's head, and a pool of dark green mucus splashed out.
Just like that...
one Reaper was successfully killed by Javier alone, which counted as one of his few solo kill records.
With the power of the T-Virus and a trace of G-Virus fused within him, Javier could take better risks without fearing the consequences.
"..."
"That's one dealt with,"
Javier muttered to himself as he looked at the fallen Reaper. To be honest, he also felt it was incredible; after all, in the past, he wouldn't have dared to seek death like this by engaging in close-quarters combat with such an elite mob.
But now,
as long as he protected his head, the most critical part,
Javier even felt he could fight three or four Reapers at the same time and had the confidence to take them down. Perhaps this was the sense of inflation brought by great power.
Javier slightly understood Wesker's mindset back then. Obtaining such powerful strength made it unsurprising to develop thoughts of ruling the world.
But fortunately, Javier had self-awareness;
he only wanted longevity. If he could achieve immortality, that would be best; if not, extending his lifespan would satisfy him.
After all, even Javier himself didn't think the world would survive for that long. In a thousand years, the world would likely be completely different, and Javier might not even like a world that had undergone such massive changes!
"Hiss hiss hiss...!!!"
However,
just because one Reaper had fallen
didn't mean things would end so easily. Because of the previous gunshots, all the Wire Spider monsters in the vast warehouse had been attracted over.
Although it wasn't as terrifying as the dense army from before, there was still a considerable number—at least twenty of them.
Underestimating them would lead to a lot of suffering,
because these hideous-looking Wire Spiders still had the ability to kill. Their sharp teeth and front claws could just as easily hook a prey over and devour it!
"Chris...!"
"Those Wire Spiders are gathering. Order everyone to open fire immediately,"
Seeing this,
Jill, who was nearby, reacted quickly and hurriedly shouted to Chris. The incendiary armor-piercing rounds of the barrett heavy sniper rifle couldn't be used to deal with these Wire Spiders; it would be overkill.
Jill simply slung the barrett heavy sniper rifle behind her back,
pulled her familiar Beretta pistol from her thigh, and swapped magazines in a few motions, preparing to use her continuous, gapless pistol fire for suppression again.
But, it was at this moment that Javier suddenly reached out to stop Jill and the others. Still stained with the green blood of the Reaper, Javier's expression now looked exceptionally excited.
The Reaper hadn't been enough for his warm-up just now.