The west corridor swallowed them whole. Cold air clung to the walls, thick with mildew and the faint copper tang of old blood. Jill took point, pistol raised, sweeping each shadow before committing to a step. Barry held the rear. Ryan walked between them in silence.
He'd tested the X-ray vision on the way over. Roughly ten meters of range, nothing spectacular, but in a place like this it was the difference between walking into a room and walking into a grave. One thing he knew for certain: Jill was steady, clear-headed, and about the only person in this mansion worth trusting. If danger showed up on his radar, he'd give her the heads-up.
"It's too quiet," Jill murmured.
"Watch behind the doors," Ryan said, keeping his voice flat.
Until he had real firepower, the smartest play was to stay unremarkable.
They reached a half-open doorway. Ryan had barely raised his hand to signal caution when a zombie lunged through the gap, arms thrashing. Jill put three rounds center-mass. The thing didn't flinch. It kept coming, fingers clawing at air.
"The head!" Barry barked.
Two shots cracked in quick succession. The zombie's skull snapped back, and it crumpled.
They pressed on to the dining room. In a cabinet tucked against the corner, Jill found a Golden Arrow. She turned it over in her hands, frowning at the ornate metalwork, then slipped it into her pack without a word.
Back in the main hall, Chris and Wesker were still nowhere to be found. Barry's expression had gone grim. "Searching together is too slow. We need to split up. I'll take the east side and the rear passages. You keep Ryan with you on the first floor. Anything goes sideways, fall back here."
He pressed a set of lockpicks into Jill's palm, turned, and disappeared down the corridor.
The two of them stood in the hall, scanning. Ryan's gaze drifted to the staircase landing, settling on a wall painting that didn't sit right. The frame was flush, but the wall behind it had a faint seam running along the edge.
"Something's off about this wall." He pressed his palm flat against the surface and pushed.
A hidden door swung inward with a low groan, and cold air rushed through the gap. Beyond it lay an outdoor graveyard.
Headstones jutted from the earth at crooked angles, half-buried in weeds. A bitter wind rolled through, carrying the damp smell of turned soil. At the center of the far wall, an angel relief was carved into the stone, its wings spread wide, one hand extended over a narrow groove. Jill stared at it.
Ryan pointed. "That slot. It's the same shape as the arrow."
Jill pulled the Golden Arrow from her pack and pressed it into the groove. Something clicked deep inside the stone. A mechanism ground to life, and a slab in the floor slid aside, revealing a staircase that spiraled down into darkness.
The crypt below was small. A stone table sat against the back wall, and on it rested a heavy, crumbling book. Embedded in the back cover was a Sword Key.
Jill flipped through the pages. The handwriting was jagged, uneven, the pen strokes of someone writing in a hurry or in fear. She read aloud, her voice dropping lower with each line.
"...this estate is no ordinary manor. Beneath the grounds, they are conducting forbidden experiments on living subjects. If those things ever break containment... no one survives. The key is hidden in this book. Trust nothing in this house..."
She closed the cover slowly. "This mansion is exactly what I was afraid it was." She pocketed the notes and pulled the Sword Key free. "At least now we can open more doors."
Ryan nodded. "Let's find out which ones."
They returned to the main hall. The Sword Key fit a locked parlor on the opposite side. The door swung open onto a dusty, cavernous room. Sheets draped old furniture. In the dead center, mounted on a display stand under a film of grime, sat a shotgun.
Jill's eyes locked onto it. She crossed the room almost on instinct, hand already reaching out.
Something prickled at the back of Ryan's neck. He opened his mouth to warn her, but her fingers had already closed around the stock.
A shriek of grinding metal split the air. Above them, the ceiling lurched and began to drop.
"Move!"
Ryan seized Jill's arm and hauled her toward the door. She stumbled, feet tangling, but he kept pulling. They cleared the threshold by inches. The stone slab hammered down behind them with a boom that shook the floor, sealing the room shut.
Jill sagged against the corridor wall, chest heaving, the shotgun still clutched in her white-knuckled grip. She looked at Ryan. The wariness that had lived behind her eyes since the moment they'd met was mostly gone now. What replaced it was simpler, rawer. Gratitude.
A few seconds passed in silence.
She reached down to her belt, unholstered a backup handgun, and held it out along with a handful of rounds. "Take it. We're sticking together from here on out, and you need something to defend yourself."
Ryan took the pistol and the ammunition. The instant his fingertips touched the gun's frame...
Ding.
A single clear chime, there and gone, ringing through the inside of his skull. No text. No explanation. Nothing.
Another upgrade. That much he was sure of. Beyond that, he had absolutely no clue. Just the faintest tug of something strange, a whisper of sensation that seemed connected to the weapon in his hand. What it meant, he couldn't begin to guess.
He'd never fired a gun in a real fight before. But his dad had dragged him to a range in Hawaii a handful of times when he was younger, mostly out of boredom, and Ryan's grip and stance had been passable enough. There'd been another kid at the range too, a boy who always wore a weird pair of glasses and turned out to be a natural. Ryan had picked up more than a few pointers from him.
"Thanks." He gave Jill a calm nod and tucked the handgun away.
After a brief rest, they climbed the staircase to the second floor. Each step groaned under their weight, old wood crying out in protest.
"Light steps," Ryan said quietly. "Sound carries."
The second floor was darker than the first. A narrow corridor stretched ahead, doors shut tight on both sides. Ryan let his X-ray vision sweep the space in a quick arc, then spoke low.
"Zombies ahead. Stay sharp."
Jill flattened against the wall, pistol up. Around the corner, a figure shambled into view, head lolling, arms slack.
Ryan drew a breath. He pulled the handgun, steadied his aim, and fired.
Three shots grazed the thing's shoulder and ribs. The fourth punched into its torso, staggering it back a step. Jill closed the gap and put it down clean.
The corridor went quiet. Ryan exhaled, and his thumb moved to the magazine release on reflex. After that many rounds, the mag had to be running low. Standard procedure.
He glanced down.
Full. Every round still seated.
His brain stalled.
What?
He blinked, sure he was seeing things. Casually, making sure Jill wasn't watching, he aimed at an empty stretch of floor and squeezed off one more round.
The shot echoed. He checked again.
Still full.
His face didn't move. Not a twitch. Inside, he almost choked on a laugh. So that's what the chime was. Infinite ammo. He'd been standing here like an idiot, carefully lining up every shot, rationing bullets like they were made of gold, and the whole time the game had handed him a magazine that never emptied. If he'd known five minutes ago, he'd have just hosed the thing down.
Jill noticed him standing still and read it as post-combat jitters. "Relax," she said. "You've got solid fundamentals."
"Mm." Ryan kept his voice even, his expression steady.
Inside, he was grinning ear to ear. Right. This changes everything. My aim's nothing special? Who cares. I have infinite bullets.
They worked their way along the second-floor corridor, clearing rooms as they went. In one that showed no signs of intrusion, they found spare ammunition, a first-aid spray, and an Armor Key resting on a desk.
"West wing doors." Jill pocketed the key, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "Now we can get through."
Ryan eyed the fork in the hallway ahead. "Leave the doors on the right for now. Play it safe. There's movement up ahead. We'll loop around through the west wing balcony instead."
"Okay." Jill nodded. "Your call."
In a mansion where death could be waiting behind any door, suspicion was a luxury. Staying alive came first.
And Ryan knew, with a certainty he shared with no one, that the moment he'd pulled that trigger and watched the magazine stay full, his odds of survival had gotten a whole lot better.
They crept past the danger, following the path the Armor Key opened, pushing deeper into the second floor's west wing. Not far ahead, the door to the balcony waited.