Power, I Command You to Come Forth!

Even an ordinary person could exert dozens of tons of force if all the muscles in their body were twisted into one, let alone a bioengineered human like Wesker.

After he opened the Second-Stage Gene Lock, his entire body swelled up. In an instant, he became a three-meter-tall little giant, his body covered in bulging muscles, every gesture surging with hundreds or thousands of tons of brute force.

His speed also skyrocketed, reaching a level almost impossible to see with the naked eye.

With the powerful combat instincts provided by the First Stage Gene Lock, Wesker almost instantly turned the battle around, brutally crushing Zheng Zha, who had been beating him down moments ago.

Bang!

Wesker threw a punch, meeting Zheng Zha's two fists head-on.

Zheng Zha's expression changed drastically.

He felt an immense force crash into him, crushing the power condensed from his Chakra and, in passing, shattering the muscles throughout his entire arm. Although the injury was repaired in an instant, it marked the beginning of a shift in the balance between attack and defense.

Wesker's attacks followed close behind.

His fists blurred like shadows, and dozens of punches flew out in an instant.

Now it was Zheng Zha's turn to do nothing but defend. Even after pushing the Konoha-Style Taijutsu he had learned to its limit, he could only barely block Wesker's attacks and avoid being beaten to death.

But injuries were unavoidable. The muscles and bones throughout Zheng Zha's body constantly burst apart, only to be continuously repaired under the support of the Troll Bloodline.

Within the Hive, two afterimages invisible to the naked eye flickered and collided. The metal underground base twisted beneath the endlessly unleashed brute force, leaving behind deep fist, palm, and footprint marks, while blood and fragments of flesh occasionally scattered through the air.

I can't let my head be smashed. I can still recover from it, but I'll lose the ability to think for a while. Then I'll only be waiting to die.

If this fight continues, I'll definitely die. I'm no match for this anti-human scum right now.

The combat instincts brought by the Gene Lock rapidly calculated the current situation for Zheng Zha.

His gaze was vacant, vast amounts of information flashing through his pupils, yet he could see no hope of victory. He felt that he was about to fail the order Uchiha Gen had given him to stop Wesker.

Power, I need power.

I can't die. Luo Li is still waiting for me to return. I can't let Wesker threaten the battle inside.

"Power, I command you to come forth!"

Zheng Zha roared, even more frantically squeezing his body to refine Chakra. At the same time, he imitated Wesker's movements, trying to draw upon the deeper power within his body.

In battle, the aftereffects of Zheng Zha using the T-virus serum to open the Gene Lock were being rapidly consumed.

Zheng Zha could clearly feel himself resonating with every muscle in his body, as though a deeper potential was being stirred.

Although the Second-Stage Gene Lock had not fully opened, Zheng Zha had already touched its threshold.

At that moment, his control over Chakra suddenly rose to another level. He exceeded his limits, squeezing every cell in his body to refine even more Chakra.

In an instant, Zheng Zha felt intense pain throughout his body, even in his brain, as his flesh began to split and bleed.

But he no longer cared. The Troll Bloodline protected his life and kept him from dropping dead on the spot.

At that moment, Chakra more than ten times greater than before was forcibly refined. Every trace of it was condensed together, and without wasting even the slightest bit, all of it was infused into Zheng Zha's taijutsu.

Zheng Zha abandoned his earlier desperate defensive stance and threw a punch straight at Wesker.

"Futile!"

A trace of disdain flashed across Wesker's face as he threw an upright, direct punch.

Yet events did not unfold as he had imagined. Zheng Zha's arms were not broken by the head-on clash, nor was his chest pierced through or his organs sent flying.

Instead, at the instant their fists connected, an immense force beyond Wesker's imagination crushed toward him.

"How is that possible?!"

The thought flashed through Wesker's mind, and in the next instant, he lost the ability to think.

As the full force of Zheng Zha's punch erupted, the surrounding air exploded, and the surging airwaves transformed into a powerful shockwave.

Terrifying kinetic energy surged forth, instantly blasting Wesker's entire body apart into fragments of flesh and blood that rained through the air. Only half a twitching calf remained on the ground.

I suppose I didn't fail Captain's trust.

That thought flashed through his mind, and Zheng Zha could no longer maintain the Gene Lock state. His entire body convulsed as he fell unconscious.

Capillaries throughout his body had ruptured, and blood gushed out wildly like a fountain.

The Hive. Uchiha Gen brought Zhan Lan here.

This vast underground space possessed a futuristic sci-fi style.

Human cryogenic chambers were densely arranged everywhere. On the broad central platform stood a man in black and an old woman seated in a wheelchair, waiting for the arrival of the Central Continent Team.

Clearly, both had just been awakened from cryogenic preservation and were high-ranking members of the Umbrella Corporation.

The man was Dr. Isaacs, one of the Umbrella Corporation's upper echelon and a member of the World Ending faction.

Among the Scientific Research personnel Uchiha Gen had killed in the villa above the Hive earlier, there had been one of this man's clones.

The old woman was Alicia, one of the moderate faction among the Umbrella Corporation's higher-ups. She was the original body of Alice, the protagonist of Resident Evil, the true major shareholder of the Umbrella Corporation, and an opponent of the World Ending Plan.

The Red Queen's appearance was modeled after Alicia as a child. This artificial intelligence that controlled the Hive also listened only to the Umbrella Corporation's major shareholders.

However, because Alicia suffered from progeria and did not possess full legal capacity, Dr. Isaacs, who served as her guardian, had stripped her of her authority. He seized actual control of the Umbrella Corporation and continually pushed forward the World Ending Plan.

In the Resident Evil: The Final Chapter film, she and the Red Queen had worked together to end the T-virus outbreak and save humanity's last survivors.

Precisely because Dr. Isaacs exercised a major shareholder's authority on her behalf, Alicia needed to be present when he made decisions in order to command the Red Queen.

"Uchiha Gen, Zhan Lan, you two security personnel of the company. Although you refused Wesker's recruitment, I still wish to ask whether you are willing to truly join the Umbrella Corporation."

"Before answering, think it over carefully. This is the last opportunity for the two of you."

"The unusual qualities you possess are valuable to the company. I do not wish to merely study your corpses."

Dr. Isaacs did not care about Uchiha Gen and Zhan Lan's arrival. Even after learning of the combat strength Uchiha Gen had displayed on the platform, he still questioned them with victory already in his grasp, not viewing either of them as a threat.