[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 518 - Tyrant T101 — Steel and Blood

The alarm was deafening.

Red lights strobed across the hall, making the blood on the floor pulse bright and dark.

A squad of Umbrella Corporation mercenaries in full heavy tactical gear held the entrance to the underground facility. Their M4A1 Carbines blazed, pouring 5.56mm copper-jacketed rounds in a solid wall of fire.

The rounds hit Leon. Nobody heard anything.

The black Leech armor covering his body was living body armor. Bullets shredded the outer layer, and new individuals surged in to fill the gaps before the old ones finished dying. Viscous black fluid dripped down his torso. Leon walked into the storm without breaking stride.

The mercenary squad leader's eyes went wide as saucers. His trigger finger was shaking.

What the hell are we even shooting at?

Is this the goddamn Terminator?

Before he could swap magazines, Leon was already in front of him.

Simple. Brutal.

No technique. No footwork. No form.

Leon raised his right hand. His fist was the size of a sandbag and it came in with a sound like a freight train splitting air, aimed straight at the squad leader's face.

THUD!

One dull impact.

The ballistic helmet was tough — specialized composite materials, the best money could buy. Didn't matter. Your skull was still fragile underneath.

The punch drove straight through the faceplate. The guard's forehead caved inward.

A red-and-white mix of fluid and bone fragments splattered across Leon's face.

The body swayed twice and slumped to the floor.

Leon wiped the stinking brain matter off his face. The corner of his mouth curled into something ugly.

The visual impact was total.

The mercenaries' psychological defenses, drilled in, trained to hold, collapsed in an instant.

They were human too. They took money to do a job. Not to throw their lives away.

Bullets couldn't drop him. Up close he could one-punch a skull into paste. There was no version of this job that worked out.

Run. That was the only option.

What a fucking joke.

"Run! Retreat!"

Someone yelled it. The remaining dozen scrambled and clawed deeper into the corridor, guns clattering abandoned on the marble behind them.

Leon bent down and picked up the squad leader's M4A1 Carbine. He held it one-handed, stock braced against his hip.

Ada had taught him. He'd practiced on his own. He didn't bother aiming now, just held the trigger down.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

Muzzle flash strobed. Hot brass rained across the floor.

The men running at the front erupted with blood from their backs. They screamed and pitched forward, hitting the polished marble and skidding a long way before they stopped.

The ones still moving had wised up. They scrambled behind the massive load-bearing pillars on either side of the hall, pressing their backs to stone, lungs heaving.

"Come out." Leon dropped the empty carbine.

"Don't make me come get you. Crawl out here and die."

Silence.

They'd literally just told them to come out and die. Only a moron would step out there.

All that came from behind the pillars was ragged breathing.

Leon rolled his neck. The joints cracked, loud in the ringing hall.

Offering them a clean death, and they don't want it?

Fine. Take the messy one.

His mind shifted.

The black Leech swarm coating his body responded instantly. Several globs of viscous black matter detached from his forearms, hit the floor, and converged, pulling, stretching, forming three arm-thick black tentacles.

They pressed flat against the marble and moved like snakes. Fast. Silent. They curved around the base of the pillars without slowing.

"SHIT! What the hell is THAT!"

Shrill screaming from behind the cover.

The tentacles had found ankles.

The mercenaries hacked at them with tactical knives. Every severed section grew back. The tentacles branched finer at their tips, coiled up arms, and tightened.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

Guns and knives were crushed. Wrist bones followed. The screaming echoed off the walls and ceiling.

Three men were dragged backward across the floor, each leaving a long wet streak behind them, all the way to Leon's feet.

"Help, please, don't kill me—"

One young mercenary clawed at the marble with both hands. His fingernails split and bled.

Leon looked down at the terrified, twisted face staring up at him.

So much noise.

He lifted his boot and stamped down.

The skull cracked like a dropped plate.

The remaining two didn't get a sound out. Leon swung left and right. Two heavy punches, clean and efficient.

The floor cracked under the impacts. Two more stains spread across the marble.

Pure violence. No hesitation, no ammo management, no calculations. Just fists turning obstacles into debris. When fists weren't enough, Leech tentacles. Offense and defense in one body.

They genuinely had nothing left to play.

He was about to step over the bodies and keep pushing toward the underground facility when the marble beneath his feet shuddered.

Not an earthquake.

Something of massive weight was running.

ROAR.

A deep, guttural bellow tore out of the darkness at the far end of the corridor. It carried bestial fury and something else, a resonant frequency that crawled straight up the spine.

The stragglers on the second-floor gallery had just poked their heads over the railing to check the situation. The moment they heard it, they didn't wait for orders. Weapons hit the floor. They sprinted for the emergency stairs and didn't look back.

They knew what was locked in the basement of this mansion. Every one of them knew.

This was never their fight.

The hall held a freak who walked through gunfire and exploded skulls bare-handed. The corridor was now producing something that even the executives were afraid of. Staying behind, they wouldn't even qualify as a warm-up.

Running was the only option left.

Leon didn't spare the deserters a glance.

His full attention was on the darkness at the end of the corridor.

The tremors were getting closer.

BOOM!

The heavy blast-proof isolation door at the corridor's end was punched open from the inside by something with no interest in being stopped. The thick iron panel spun through the air, slammed into a load-bearing pillar, and carved a deep crater into the stone.

Dust rolled outward in a wave.

And from the smoke, something vast stepped through.

➤ Next: Frontal Slaughter — Clash