[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 763 - Anything Beyond Control Is a Ticking Time Bomb

The once-unstoppable great tree had been reduced to a heap of smoldering charcoal.

Under Rick's direction, the logistics crew moved the drained corpses of their fallen comrades to one side. They'd bring them back for burial on the return trip.

They had all grown used to death. But not like this. This particular way of dying still sent a chill down everyone's spine.

The loading work resumed.

Simon kept right on tearing server motherboards apart, not saying a word.

Shawn stood where he was, staring at the direction Alexia Ashford had gone. Then he irritably dragged a hand through his hair and turned toward Leon.

Leon was idly turning that dark-green seed over in his fingers.

"Leon."

Shawn's voice came out hesitant.

Leon didn't look up. Just kept his eyes on the seed.

"Say it."

Shawn swallowed. He glanced around at the others and lowered his voice.

"What happened just now — I think part of that's on me."

"If I'd been more careful when I checked that tree, put a few more stabs into it, I might have figured out it was still alive."

"Those guys might not have had to die."

He let out a slow breath, and the remorse in it was real.

"And..." Shawn paused. "Are you sure you weren't a little unfair to Alexia Ashford?"

Leon looked up at that. One glance.

Shawn's gut tightened under it, but he held his ground.

"She might genuinely not have known. This place has been frozen for 15 years. Who would ever think a tree could still be alive?"

"Her face just now — that didn't look like an act."

Leon shoved the seed into his pocket.

"You think I sent her away because of the tree?"

Shawn blinked. "That's not why?"

Leon turned and looked out at the crowd working through the hall.

"I let her go on purpose."

Shawn's eyes went wide. "What?"

Leon raised a hand and tapped the side of his head.

"I gave her a drop of my blood. That blood plants my mental Branding inside her consciousness."

"Through that Branding, I can sense her emotions, her thoughts. I can even control whether she lives or dies."

"But just now, I tried to issue her an absolute command."

His eyes went flat and dark.

"She resisted."

Shawn sucked in a sharp breath. "She can hold out against your control?"

Leon nodded once.

"The T-Veronica Virus is too dominant. Or maybe her sense of self is just that strong."

"A monster I can't control, one that might drive a knife into my back without warning — how could I possibly feel comfortable keeping her in the camp?"

"And she still has that terrifying ability to force plant growth."

The cold sweat came before Shawn even finished thinking it through.

If Alexia Ashford ever made her move inside Atlanta, the vines she could raise would tear the entire camp to shreds in minutes. Every wall, every building, every person, ground to pulp.

None of them would get out.

That was why Leon had to keep an uncontrollable Alexia Ashford as far from his camp as possible.

"But we already have the T-Veronica Virus. She's served her purpose." Shawn shook his head. "Why not just kill her on the spot?"

Leon shook his head.

"Only someone who's actually wronged her knows exactly how wronged she is. The tree was just an excuse. I was reading her emotions the whole time, she doesn't want to betray me."

"But for the sake of the camp, I had no choice but to push this risk factor out. She didn't show any killing intent toward me either, so I have no reason to kill her."

"That's why I let her go."

"As for whether she'll come back for revenge, you don't need to lose sleep over it. I can't fully control her, but my mental node can still read her location with perfect clarity."

Leon closed his eyes. He felt for it, that bright, dark-red point of light in his mind.

It was moving slowly across the ice fields. Then it stopped.

"As long as she's still on this earth, she can't step outside my sight."

"If she ever turns up in Atlanta again, I'll know exactly what that means."

The killing intent in his eyes was open and unhidden.

"I'll just follow the vine back to the root. Pull out everything behind her and burn it to nothing."

Then his tone eased, almost casual. "Of course, I hope she doesn't do that. That way everyone goes home happy. From here on, we each do our own thing."

Shawn's scalp prickled as he listened.

This was the Leon he knew.

He understood there was no room to push on this. He gave a short nod.

"Got it."

"Stop wasting breath. Get back to work." Leon pulled his gaze away. "Tell Simon to pick up the pace. We need to be clear of here before the next blizzard rolls in."

"Yes, sir!"

Shawn turned immediately and folded himself into the loading team.

The cleanup moved fast.

Simon packed the core-data hard drives and liquid-cooled motherboards into anti-magnetic cases with precise, careful hands.

"Leon! Everything on this floor is stripped!"

"Where's the entrance to the lower level?" Leon walked over.

Simon ran a few commands on the control console. A three-dimensional structural diagram blinked onto the screen.

"Back of the hall. There's a dedicated elevator that runs straight down to the lower cold storage." He tapped a red dot on the diagram. "Security clearance there is maxed out, multiple layers of biometric authentication required."

"But that won't slow me down." Simon grinned.

He plugged a portable decryptor into the console.

Less than 2 minutes later.

A metal wall at the rear of the hall split apart and slid smoothly to either side, revealing a silver-white elevator cab.

Leon walked in. Rick and Shawn followed.

The elevator dropped fast.

A few seconds, and the doors opened.

A wall of cold air hit them, sharper and more biting than anything outside, and swept straight through them.

The lower cold storage was compact. But every wall was lined with storage units built from thick bulletproof glass and specialized alloy. Inside them sat test tubes and petri dishes in every color.

Leon walked straight to the standalone safe at the very back.

A red combination lock blinked on the door.

He didn't call Simon down.

He simply raised his right hand. The dark-red chitinous exoskeleton spread rapidly across his fist.

He drove it straight into the lock.

BOOM!

Sparks scattered.

The lock shattered. The heavy safe door bounced open.

Leon pulled it wide.

Inside, resting quietly, was a silver metal briefcase.

He lifted it out and set it on the nearby workstation.

Click.

The case opened.

Black shock-absorbing foam lined the interior. Eight glass vials of dark-red liquid sat nestled inside in perfect rows. In the thin light, the fluid moved like something alive, drifting slowly, circling within the glass.

This was the purest, most concentrated raw serum of the T-Veronica Virus.

15 years of Alexia Ashford's work, distilled into eight vials.

Leon stared at them. Something fierce and hungry moved across his eyes.

With these, and Marcus and William Birkin's expertise, he could complete the most perfect enhancement he'd ever envisioned.

A true fusion. T-Veronica's power merged with the G-Virus.

"Pack it up. We're taking it." He closed the case and passed it back to Rick.

Rick took it with both hands, holding it like a live grenade.

"Anything else down here?" Rick asked.

Leon swept the room.

Beyond the serum, a few drawers sat nearby, stuffed with thick stacks of handwritten manuscripts and experiment logs.

"Take all of it. Don't leave a single page."

They loaded everything into waterproof bags.

10 minutes later they were back in the upper hall.

Simon and the logistics crew had already gotten every piece of valuable equipment loaded onto the heavy tracked vehicles.

"Commander! All equipment loaded!"

Leon looked around at the base. Stripped bare. Gutted clean.

"Move out."

The tracked vehicles roared out of the ice valley and retraced their route.

The wind and snow outside had not let up.

The convoy ground across the ice fields for over 2 hours before the abandoned ice runway finally came into view.

The C-17's rear ramp lowered.

Everyone moved in clean, practiced order, transferring the equipment and supplies into the cargo hold.

Simon clutched his hard drives and flatly refused to hand them off to anyone, planting himself there until he'd personally watched every one of them get secured.

Kaya sat in the warm passenger cabin and looked out at the white nothing stretching in every direction. She let out a long, slow breath.

Finally. They were leaving this godforsaken place.

Leon stood at the hatch, watching the storm outside.

He closed his eyes and reached for the mental node.

The point of light representing Alexia Ashford was still sitting motionless on the ice fields, not far from here.

He turned and walked into the cabin.

"Close the hatch. Prepare for takeoff."

The transport aircraft rolled down the ice runway, building speed, then wrenched its nose up and punched through the thick cloud cover.

Heading north. Atlanta. Full speed home.

---

Out on the blizzard-ravaged ice fields.

Alexia Ashford looked at the woman standing in front of her.

Black tactical trench coat. That familiar face.

Alex Wesker.

Alex wore her trademark haughty smile and stepped forward into the howling wind.

"Being abandoned doesn't feel very good, does it?"

She looked at Alexia's pale, wrecked face. The mockery in her voice was open and completely unashamed.

"That man doesn't trust you. He never did. You were always just a tool to him, something to be thrown away the moment it stopped being useful."

Alex extended one black-gloved hand.

"I need what's inside your head. And you need an opportunity."

A beat.

"Or more precisely — an opportunity for revenge."

➤ Next: Ouroboros and T-Fear