[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 524 - Terrifying Destructive Power

The mercenaries were completely dumbfounded.

Their training had never covered how to deal with monsters their own company had built.

The firing lines collapsed into chaos. Everyone was yanking triggers in a blind frenzy, just trying to stay alive.

It didn't matter. Conventional weapons against this class of bioweapon accomplished exactly one thing: making them angrier.

Leon had no interest in watching the slaughter.

He waved his hand and cut with the remaining three Tyrants through the gap in the fire lines, slipping fast into the dense forest to the side.

On the outer slope, the Scorpion King had been waiting long enough.

It lay sprawled in the mud, its two massive pincers grinding together with restless impatience.

When it saw Leon step out of the trees with three gray-white monsters standing over two meters tall, its tail stinger snapped up on instinct.

"Put it away. They're ours."

Leon swung himself up onto the Scorpion King's broad carapace.

The three T-02s fell in behind, their footfalls heavy and measured, obedient as trained dogs.

If anyone who didn't know better had stumbled onto this scene, they would have died of a heart attack on the spot.

"Ada, I'm finished here. Moving toward your coordinates now." Leon opened the mental link.

"You made a lot of noise over there. You okay?"

Ada's voice carried the rush of moving water underneath it. Her breathing was quick.

"Better than fine. Just left Wesker a little surprise." Leon patted the Scorpion King's shell and signaled it to move faster.

The monitoring room.

Wesker stood with both hands braced on the console.

The screens showed a disaster.

His two Tyrants were tearing through the armored convoy like it was made of cardboard. The screams of mercenaries. The crump of exploding vehicles. All of it pouring through the audio feeds, filling every corner of the room.

His masterpiece. His pride. Now a meat grinder chewing through his own forces.

The technician sat nearby, teeth knocking together.

"Director — the line's been broken. First squad is wiped out. Second squad is routing. Those two Subjects — they're completely out of control!"

Wesker took off his sunglasses.

His eyes locked onto the screen and didn't move.

There. Leon, riding a giant mutant scorpion, three Tyrants at his back, dissolving into the dark.

Without even glancing behind him.

Naked humiliation.

"Should we — should we activate the underground facility's self-destruct sequence?" The technician could barely get the words out.

"Activate what, exactly?"

"They're already gone, you useless NPC."

Wesker's foot snapped out and sent the swivel chair spinning across the floor.

He drew a slow breath. Forced the rage back down.

The losses were catastrophic.

Most of the Spencer Mansion's security forces were gone. William had been taken. John's Hard Drive was lost.

And now he had to personally clean up after two rampaging bioweapons that were currently tearing his own people apart.

What he couldn't accept, what genuinely kept his jaw tight, was that he still had no idea what this kid had done. How anyone rewrote a T-02's base genetic logic in a matter of minutes was beyond anything Umbrella's biology division had ever theorized.

It overturned everything.

Dump the mess on someone else and walk away clean.

That kind of move.

What an absolute bastard.

Wesker slid his sunglasses back on, covering the kill-intent in his eyes.

"Notify the cleanup squad. Wrap it up. Put those two defective units down." He turned and walked for the door.

"Get the military to seal every exit out of the Arklay Mountains. I don't want a single fly getting through."

Downstream, in the river channels cutting through the Arklay range.

Ada and Rebecca were pushing William's cart along the muddy bank. Every step was a fight.

Rebecca was soaked in sweat.

"Ada, how much further?"

"Almost there. Past the next bend, there's an abandoned road." Ada kept her eyes moving, scanning the dark on all sides.

Then heavy footsteps came from behind them. Dense. Rhythmic.

Branches snapped like gunshots.

Rebecca seized up, both hands white-knuckling her gun.

Ada let go of the cart handle. The tension bled out of her shoulders.

The thicket split open.

A massive black scorpion pushed through.

Leon sat on top of it, clothes dark with blood and muck.

Behind him, three gray-white giants, radiating pure menace.

Rebecca's legs gave out. She sat down hard in the mud.

She had just survived hell. She had clawed her way out with nothing left to give. And now she turned around and was looking directly at the final boss.

"Easy, Rebecca."

"Let me introduce them. New security hires." Leon dropped off the scorpion's back and walked to the cart.

He looked down at William, still out cold.

"Huh. Gotta say, the old man sleeps like a rock."

Rebecca:...

Well, yes. Because Ada had chemically knocked him out.

Ada stared at the three Tyrants standing there perfectly docile, and the corner of her eye twitched once.

"You tamed them?"

"Just a small trick." Leon dragged a hand across his face and wiped the blood and grime off.

"Come on. Everyone on the scorpion. We're going home."

"We need some strong backs at the moat anyway. With these three, we can skip the excavator fuel costs entirely."

The group moved out.

Ada and Leon rode the Scorpion King side by side.

Rebecca and the unconscious William rode in the Tyrants' hands.

Rebecca looked up every now and then at the massive fingers wrapped around her, her thoughts nothing but static.

What had happened to this world.

Umbrella's ultimate bioweapon.

Going to dig a moat.

Absurd enough to make you laugh. Real enough to make you sick.

➤ Next: The Military and the President