[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 608 - A Method That Won't Hurt

The mine-resistant armored SUV tore down the desolate highway.

After several hours of rough travel, the convoy finally pushed through the prison's outer defensive perimeter.

The towering walls and the searchlights mounted along them cut a stark silhouette against the fading dusk.

Leon stepped out of the vehicle and turned his gaze directly to Alice, who had just climbed out beside him.

She was wearing that soiled red silk dress, head tilted back, taking in the sheer scale of the prison fortress looming over her.

The vitality here, the whole defensive infrastructure — it was the absolute opposite of the Hive.

Guards patrolled the walls. Armed vehicles sat parked across the open ground. You could even catch the smell of meat broth drifting from the mess hall.

This was the kind of place where the living were supposed to be, in a world like this.

The Hive had been far too cold.

"James. Take your people and check in."

Leon tossed the words out without turning his head.

The task force members fell obediently into line and were led away by the camp's personnel.

Leon walked to the back of the SUV and lifted the silver briefcase, the one with the T-Virus, with one hand.

He glanced back at Alice.

"Come with me."

---

The room was large and furnished simply: a wide leather sofa, a king-sized bed, and a liquor cabinet stocked with hard alcohol.

Leon crossed to the cabinet and poured two glasses of whiskey.

He handed one to Alice.

Then he raised his own glass, tilted his head back, and downed a long swallow. The tension in his shoulders finally let go.

Alice took her glass. She didn't drink.

Her eyes were fixed on the briefcase sitting on the coffee table, specifically on the red-and-white Umbrella logo stamped across its face.

Something urgent flickered through her blue eyes.

"How does the conversion work?"

The question came out of nowhere.

"Is it like before — down there, when you controlled those task force members? Will those black creatures bite me?"

Leon's hand paused, glass still raised.

He turned and looked her over, slowly, top to bottom.

"So you're agreeing?"

He raised an eyebrow. His tone was almost bored.

"I have no reason to refuse."

Alice held his gaze. Her lower lip pressed tight between her teeth.

"You were right."

"In a world like this, having no power makes you worth less than an insect."

"Umbrella destroyed everything I had. I refuse to spend the rest of my life as some pitiful clone people push around however they like."

"And I'm done cowering behind someone else's back every time a monster shows up."

"I need the power to take revenge. For that, I'll do anything."

This was not an empty declaration.

Her entire worldview had collapsed and been rebuilt from the ground up. Alice had seen reality for what it was now. Leon's brutality down in the Hive, every act of it, had become, in her eyes, the only code of conduct that made sense.

If you wanted to live well in a world that ate people alive, you needed the strength to dominate others.

Leon could crush a skull bare-handed. He could control monsters. He could dodge bullets. That was why Leon lived well.

Leon listened to every word. Then he pulled the corner of his mouth up, and a look of satisfaction moved through his eyes.

This was exactly what he'd wanted. A blade honed sharp on ambition and hatred.

Keep a blade like that in hand, and it would carve a bloody path across the entire wasteland.

"Not a bad way of thinking."

He walked to the sofa and dropped into it, crossing his legs with complete ease.

"But understand something — the conversion method using creature bites is the crudest approach there is."

"That's what I keep for disobedient dogs."

Alice paused. She glanced down at her own arm.

The image was still vivid: the Leeches punching through James's throat, and the others'. The convulsing. The spasming. Just watching it had made her teeth clench, and she hadn't needed to imagine what it felt like, it was obvious enough.

"Then what are you going to do?" she pressed.

"If getting the power means pain, I can handle pain."

For a Specimen who'd been through memory wipes, physical pain had long since lost its meaning.

Leon leaned forward without warning and set his glass down on the coffee table.

Then he reached out and pressed his hand onto the combination lock.

Click.

The case snapped open.

The T-Virus solution caught the room's light, its color something between radiant and dangerous.

"You're different from them."

Leon drew out a blue glass vial from inside, holding it pinched between two fingers.

His gaze moved over Alice without any attempt at subtlety. The silk dress, soaked through with blood, clung to every curve: the full contour of her chest, the slender line of her waist...

"I have a method that won't hurt at all."

A hint of playfulness had crept into his voice.

He set the vial casually on the edge of the coffee table. Leaned back. Spread both arms along the top of the sofa.

And stared at her. Openly. Without looking away.

Alice felt it like a drop in her stomach.

That look had nothing to do with subordinates. Nothing to do with tools.

That was how a man looked at a woman.

She was a grown adult. Even stripped of her past memories, the basic instincts remained: reading a room, reading a person.

The enclosed space. The unguarded stare. The so-called "painless" conversion method.

And what he'd said before, about making her completely his.

The double meaning landed all at once.

This wasn't just about controlling her mind.

He intended to claim her body as well.

➤ Next: Telekinesis