[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 621 - High Risk, High Reward

"This world hasn't completely gone to hell yet."

"While you were all out there running and hiding, there's one man — carving out a real Eden in the middle of hell, with his people by his side."

"Not some refugee camp thrown together with rotting planks. Not some shelter with holes in every wall."

"It's an absolute fortress. Impregnable. Completely secure."

The survivors on the highway listened to the words coming through the radio. The blood in their veins began to boil.

"There are walls there high enough to keep you alive until you die of old age."

"There are heavy weapon emplacements that can blast Walkers into chunks of meat."

"As long as you've got the guts and the will to survive, that place is your final destination."

"But before that..."

Simon drew a long breath on the other end.

"Pick up your weapons, and smash the skulls of those disgusting things in front of you!"

The rock music slammed straight to its absolute limit.

The vocalist's shredding voice cut through everything.

That furious track hit like a shot of the most potent adrenaline, pumped directly into the heart of every last survivor.

The bearded man who had already closed his eyes and waited to die lunged forward and snatched a fire axe with a chipped blade off the ground.

The gray emptiness in his eyes vanished completely. What replaced it was something ferocious and burning.

"Did you hear that! He's still alive! There's a safe place! There's still hope!"

The man screamed it with a raw, ragged voice, raging at the top of his lungs.

He spun around and buried the axe directly into the skull of the foremost Walker in a single swing.

The hopeless death trap shattered.

In this godforsaken world, as long as there was still one person up in the Arctic telling them in that supremely arrogant tone where the road ahead lay, they could unleash a terrifying fighting force.

The other survivors around the school bus all went red-eyed.

They picked their crowbars back up.

With every beat of that furious heavy metal rhythm, their weapons came crashing down again and again on the heads of those monsters. Maybe it was the music, the force was far heavier than before, every movement absolutely savage.

Across the entire North American continent, scenes just like this were playing out in countless ruins.

That guy called Citizen Z, with a single radio wave, had dragged every last living soul on this wasteland back from the gates of hell by the collar.

---

Inside the main control room of the Arctic base station.

Kaya leaned against the console, a freshly brewed cup of hot coffee in her hands.

She watched Simon work, headphones on, face locked in total concentration, fingers moving across the audio tracks.

The Simon sitting there now bore zero resemblance to the pathetic wretch who had been freezing like a dog in that wooden cabin.

He sat before the flickering screens, fingers flying across the keyboard, his entire being radiating a kind of absolute composure.

This was the prophet who held the fates of countless people in his hands.

Simon pulled off his headphones and rolled his stiff neck.

He turned and looked at Kaya.

"Well done."

Kaya passed her coffee over to him.

"With a speech like that, you'd probably get people who were already planning to eat a bullet to crawl back up and kill a few more monsters."

Simon took the coffee and had a sip. The rich bitterness spread through his mouth.

On the screen, the green dots representing signal receivers across every American state were lighting up in clusters.

An enormous base of living people, fully activated by his inflammatory broadcast.

All of North America had erupted.

To think there were still this many people alive.

"This is only the first step."

Simon leaned back in his leather chair.

"Once those people actually pack up their families and make it to Atlanta, and they see that absolutely insane armed defense setup — they'll be completely devoted to following the boss from that moment on."

He could already picture it: that prison, once so empty, teeming with noise and life in the months ahead.

He wasn't just finding a way for survivors to live. He was building Leon a super-army capable of steamrolling the entire United States.

Kaya walked up to the screen and studied the map of the Americas Simon had marked with his special indicators.

"That said."

She tapped her finger on several red blinking dots at the edge of the screen.

"Getting them to cross half the country to reach that place — the road is not going to be peaceful."

"You need to plan the routes and watch out for other factions."

"And whether those people are genuinely committing to the prison or just showing up is another question entirely."

"We should screen them in advance. And don't give out the exact location directly."

Kaya was razor-sharp about this kind of thing.

"And since you have the access, we can use the satellites to monitor those road sections, give them advance warnings, tell them the safest route through each state before they hit it."

The moment Simon heard it, his eyes lit up.

"That's why you're something else. Your mind moves fast."

He immediately pulled the keyboard back in front of him.

This was exactly the detail he'd been missing when he was working alone. Now that Kaya was here beside him filling in the gaps, this enormous guidance system was finally complete.

"Then let's do this job right."

Simon began pulling up high-resolution satellite imagery of North America.

"I'll set up a 24-hour interactive channel."

"If any survivor group has a high-powered radio, they can contact us directly."

"We won't just guide them, we'll teach them how to work around areas with large-scale Walker Horde activity."

His fingers tapped steadily across the keys.

The 2 of them worked in perfect sync inside this fortress wrapped in ice and snow.

Outside the Arctic Circle the blizzard raged on. Inside the base station, it was burning hot with purpose.

One critical instruction after another traveled on invisible radio waves across thousands of miles, weaving an enormous survival network across the wasteland.

---

Far away, on the outskirts of Atlanta.

On a desolate highway, several heavy trucks loaded with supplies were rumbling forward.

This was the demolition convoy returning from the underground Hive, fully loaded.

After a full day of hauling work, they were heading back with everything they'd come for.

Chris Redfield sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle.

The radio had been on standby the whole time, they wanted to recruit people too, but the thing usually just put out bursts of white noise, only stirring when Citizen Z had a warning to broadcast.

But just now.

That furious rock music detonated inside the cab.

And immediately after, Simon's unmistakable voice came through the broadcast, clear and loud, into everyone's ears.

Chris listened to that wildly exaggerated pitch about a super-prison fortress, and the corner of his eye twitched. Hard. Twice.

He turned his head.

Leon had one hand on the steering wheel, leaning back against the seat with complete ease, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

Chris swallowed.

"Boss, has Simon lost his mind?"

He jabbed a finger at the radio.

"He actually went on a public channel and hyped this place up as the Garden of Eden."

"If this draws every living person in America here, can our place even hold them all?"

"Isn't that exactly what I need?"

Leon flicked the cigarette butt out the window into the mouth of a Walker they were passing, then turned his head to look at Chris.

He could read exactly what that kid Simon was going for.

Aggressive, sure. It might stir up some trouble. But the overall direction was right.

These days, everything carried risk.

The key was the return.

As long as the reward outweighed the risk, you pulled the trigger.

This wasn't just about recruiting people. It was about building momentum in advance, planting a banner on this wasteland with full legitimacy.

"Now that the name is out there."

Leon stomped down on the accelerator. The heavy truck let out a roar across the highway.

"Once the Red Queen is reassembled, every person who comes to join us plays by our rules."

He glanced in the rearview mirror at the long convoy stretching out behind him.

Those cargo beds were loaded with the finest technological achievements Umbrella Corporation had ever produced.

With all of that, combined with the territory he already held, he had every reason to build an independent kingdom.

The convoy drove toward the setting sun. On the road ahead, a few wandering Walkers disappeared under the tires, leaving nothing behind but dark smears on the asphalt.

---

On the other side, Fort Benning had completely erupted.

They'd heard Simon's voice too.

Only now did they understand, right next door, this whole time, there had been another large group of survivors.

When Vincent heard the news, his eyes went red with envy on the spot. Because it dragged up memories he'd spent a long time trying to bury.

He was absolutely certain.

This group had to be the same ones who had come after him before.

➤ Next: Vincent, Never Giving Up His Schemes