In the wreckage of the shipping containers, the red brick that had been heated to a glow was now reduced to powder.
Saddler's huge, deformed body was pinned tight in the twisted gaps of steel. The fusion of the G-Virus with the Las Plagas parasite had plunged him into an unprecedented frenzy. Pink masses of new flesh writhed madly, trying to engulf and assimilate the metal containers around him. Dozens of bloodshot eyeballs spun at random across the tumors, all of them fixed on the man in black strolling toward him.
"Uncle Ryan, the G-Virus inside this thing is proliferating exponentially. Its cellular activity is already beyond the destruction threshold of conventional weapons." Becky shouldered her drained electromagnetic rifle, brow furrowed as she delivered her report.
"I know."
Ryan walked up to a point less than ten meters from Saddler and stopped, hands still in the pockets of his trench coat. He glanced at Leon, who stood poised as though facing the end of the world, then at the winded Luis beside him, and let out a quiet laugh. "Leon, put the knife away. Fighting a monster whose genetic foundation is rotted out, pure physical salvation gets exhausting."
"Then what are you planning to do? Throw another brick?" Leon gave a bitter smile and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Ryan didn't answer. He reached unhurriedly into the inner pocket of his coat and produced a custom injector gun with a strikingly sci-fi design. Inside the transparent blast-proof glass tube flowed a viscous liquid that glowed with a cold blue light.
"Allow me to properly introduce you," Ryan said, tossing the injector gun lightly in his hand. "The magnum opus of Dr. Annette Birkin, chief scientist of Starfire Pharma. The product of years of all-nighters and countless lost hairs. A G-virus targeted suppressant. Codename 'G-V1'."
Luis, seeing the tube of blue liquid, had an instant professional reaction. His eyes went wide. "Good lord. A targeted drug for the G-Virus? You people managed to produce something like that?"
"The theoretical data is flawless, but we've been stuck without a suitable living lab rat to run a clinical trial on." The smile at the corner of Ryan's mouth cooled as his gaze locked onto Saddler, still thrashing among the ruins. "Lucky us today. We just happened to run into an enthusiastic volunteer. Nice big specimen, and he's even willing to take the injection himself."
"ROAARRR!"
Saddler seemed to sense the lethal threat contained in that blue fluid. He let out a world-shaking roar and ripped himself free from the container steel that had him pinned. The bone scythe that his right side had mutated into sliced the air with a shrieking whistle and came chopping straight down at Ryan's head.
"Too slow."
Ryan's eyes sharpened. He didn't yield half a step. The instant before the bone scythe would have touched his forehead, his whole body blurred into a black afterimage, sliding in along the sweep of the falling claw in a move that flat-out defied inertia.
Thud.
Ryan's left hand shot out and clamped down with perfect accuracy on the rim of the largest primary eyeball on Saddler's right shoulder. The terrifying grip strength crushed the hardened keratin around the eye, and the force alone pinned Saddler's massive bulk in place.
"No... heretic... get away..." Saddler howled in agony, tentacles lashing against the ground.
"Don't squirm. Be good while you're getting your shot."
Ryan's tone was flippant. His right hand moved without hesitation, driving the custom injector gun hard into the violently throbbing fusion core of G-Virus and Las Plagas in Saddler's chest.
Hiss.
The high-pressure valve released, and the glowing blue G-V1 suppressant flooded into the monster's core.
Time seemed to stop.
The next second, Saddler let out a scream a hundred times more piercing than when he'd been hosed down by the attack helicopter.
It was a total collapse originating from the deepest strands of his genome. The blue glow of the serum spread through his veins like floodwater breaching a dam. The G-virus cells that had been proliferating wildly shriveled and died the moment they made contact with the suppressant, as if splashed with concentrated sulfuric acid.
And with the G-Virus's manic life force no longer supporting it, the Las Plagas parasites it had forcibly consumed met their own extinction right alongside it.
"Becky, combat recorder on." Ryan let go and sprang lightly backward more than ten meters, landing cleanly and dusting off his coat.
"Understood, Uncle Ryan." Becky immediately pulled the mini recorder from her tactical pack and aimed the lens at the collapsing Saddler.
"Clinical data log. G-V1 suppressant demonstrates significant efficacy against a Las Plagas and G-Virus hybrid mutant. Target cell breakdown rate meets projections, no secondary mutation rebound observed. This is the bonus question on the final exam. Get clean footage, we need to hand it in to Dr. Annette when we get back." Ryan delivered the instructions with a perfectly straight face.
Leon, Luis, and Ashley stood a short distance off, watching what looked like a large-scale medical experiment play out, and completely lost their bearings. Everyone else in the apocalypse was scraping by tooth and nail, and this crew was standing here calmly taking clinical notes.
Less than a minute passed.
That arrogant Saddler, nearly three stories tall moments ago, crumpled under the suppressant's vicious backlash like a deflating hot air balloon. His muscle liquefied into pus, his bones splintered inch by inch, and in the end he shrank into a puddle of grayish-white rotten flesh no more than half a meter high, still twitching feebly on the ground.
Saddler's ruined human face floated in and out of visibility in the mess of flesh, his gray-white eyes filled with disbelieving despair and venom.
"Great... Holy Lord... will not... spare you..."
"If your Holy Lord knew you were this weak, he'd probably excommunicate you."
Ryan stepped calmly up to the puddle of rotten flesh, drew his Desert Eagle from his hip in a reverse grip, and leveled the muzzle casually at what remained of Saddler's skull.
"Game over, fraud."
BANG.
A crisp shot rang out, and the large-caliber armor-piercing round blew the last spark of life from that lump of flesh. This lunatic who'd tried to rule the world with parasites ended up dying in the most pitiful posture imaginable, put down by the power of science.
"Phew." Leon exhaled a long, heavy breath, nearly collapsing from sheer exhaustion. "Finally... completely over."
"Nicely done, Uncle Ryan!" Sherry ran over excitedly and helped Becky pack up the recorder with practiced ease.
Ryan was about to holster his pistol and lead the group off to find a boat to leave The Island, when his brow twitched faintly. His eyes flicked toward the communications tower at the highest point of the island.