A Robot

Steve, Tony, and Natasha stepped out of the underground train and officially arrived at the entrance to the underground Hive research base. If they continued downward and pushed open the heavy iron doors, they would reach the supply warehouse of the Hive.

Cameras hidden within the walls rotated slowly, their lightless electronic eyes fixed firmly on the three uninvited guests.

Before long, the cameras stopped working because Tony had used the access permissions he had previously seized to cut off the relay machine transmitting the camera feeds.

One hundred meters beneath the Hive lay a basement unknown to the average person, converted from an underground cavern. An independent air circulation system and a self-sustaining underground water recycling system turned this place into a completely sealed sanctuary.

The sanctuary consisted of several sections: a cryo-sleep area for Umbrella Corporation shareholders and senior employees, a storage area for supplies, and finally, an office area belonging exclusively to Dr. Isaac.

The office area was decorated in the style of European nobility, built upon the foundation of the cavern, making it look like a room in an ancient European aristocratic manor.

There were two cryo-sleep pods in the room, provided for the two largest shareholders of Umbrella Corporation. One was for Isaac, and the other was for Alice, the daughter of Marcus, who had co-founded Umbrella Corporation with Isaac.

A poor soul suffering from progeria, she was the old woman in the wheelchair that Duncan had seen at the shareholders' meeting, and also the original body of Alice, the protagonist of the Resident Evil film series.

Alice's cryo-sleep pod was running, but Isaac was not lying in his own pod. He sat behind a solid wood desk, savoring the whiskey in his glass, his gaze fixed on the monitor before him.

The image on the monitor was magnified, frozen on the frame where Tony looked toward the camera.

Isaac stopped drinking, his gaze toward Tony's armor filled with malice. After a few breaths, he set the glass down and muttered, "It seems the little one who escaped has brought me quite a bit of trouble..."

His decision to let Duncan leave had backfired on him much sooner than expected.

Presumably, all of Umbrella's other bases must have been attacked as well!

Isaac mistook Tony's armor for a secret research achievement of the United States military. The current situation meant that the United States and the coalition had discovered his plan to destroy the world and were preparing to take action against Umbrella Corporation.

"Initiate countermeasures and stop them up there."

The image of a little girl in red appeared on the screen, speaking in a cold, mechanical voice, "Equipment connection lost. Unable to initiate countermeasures."

Isaac frowned, immediately pushed aside his glass, and contacted Umbrella's core armed force, the Special Operations Force. Additionally, he released all biological weapons within the Hive base, using the ventilation system to guide special gases to draw them toward Steve and the others.

The high-tech robots with unknown capabilities and the enemies who had already reached his doorstep caused Isaac to lose his usual composure.

That flashy suit of armor truly put a great deal of pressure on him.

Isaac considered himself the savior of the world because he had a very deep understanding of human society, whether it was social humanities or technological advancements.

Even regarding the secret research of the United States military, he could figure it out clearly by virtue of his status as the CEO of Umbrella, which gave him the confidence to create his world-ending plan.

Because after comparing the strengths of both sides, Isaac judged that Umbrella Corporation had the ability to realize this insane plan.

Even if the initial preparations were somewhat rushed due to Duncan's disappearance, the probability of the plan succeeding was infinitely close to one hundred percent.

The appearance of Tony's armor destroyed this perception; there was high-tech equipment in this world that he did not know about.

Look!

A robot! A robot capable of conducting independent combat with a squad!

There was no need for the President of the United States to exist at all. If they had this kind of technology, why not make it public? What was the intention behind hiding it away!

Isaac's hands moved rapidly over the virtual keyboard on his desk, issuing one command after another. The commands were sent to designated departments via the wired network and successfully relayed to carry out the corresponding arrangements.

The biological weapon storage areas hidden within the underground Hive base were also thawed one after another, and the biochemical monsters sleeping inside reawakened.

In a laboratory at the Raccoon City General Hospital, an ugly humanoid monster opened its single eye.

Several helicopters took off into the sky, slowly heading toward the Hive base.

The entire Raccoon City became even more chaotic!

Meanwhile, Duncan encountered a squad of police officers covering the evacuation of civilians.

This group of people, upon seeing Duncan and his team, was clearly not as numb as the police officers guarding the intersection, and they still knew to ask for identification.

Duncan's gaze fell upon a woman with short black hair wearing a police uniform. He felt a slight stir of interest—not that he was truly smitten, but he simply felt she was very beautiful and had a great temperament, possessing a kind of... wild beauty.

"We are..."

Under the watchful eyes of this group, Duncan repeated the same story as before, bluffing the police and citizens into a state of half-belief.

Soon the two groups parted ways. Duncan continued to advance toward the city center, while the police covered the civilians' evacuation toward Meimen Bridge.

As Duncan wandered along, he accidentally arrived at the Raccoon City General Hospital, which was also the place where the infected were most active.

Even after several hours, there were still many people and police officers here killing the infected. There were also family members of the infected who, seeing their loved ones beaten to death, collapsed on the ground wailing, causing trouble for the police and concerned citizens.

In short, this was still a relatively chaotic place. Inside the hospital, there were many patients who could not be easily moved; they needed to wait for ambulances to be transferred, and there were quite a few police officers guarding the area.

The appearance of Duncan and his group attracted the attention of many, but Duncan ignored them, his gaze drifting around, searching for the figure of Alice.

It was supposed to be a matter of trying his luck, but he didn't expect to actually see a woman who looked very much like Alice!

The woman had messy blonde hair, was wearing a hospital gown, and was holding a police shotgun, standing barefoot on the street, scanning her surroundings idly.

Zombies walked very slowly. Although the sky was dim, it was still possible to distinguish from a distance whether what appeared in the distance was a person or a zombie, which made the defensive work extremely simple.

While Duncan was watching Alice, Alice also sensed his gaze and looked toward them.

Their eyes met in mid-air, and Duncan immediately walked toward her.

Alice currently seemed to have no guard up. Even seeing that Duncan was not dressed like an ordinary person and was followed by a group of heavily armed gunmen, she did not retreat in alarm.

"Are you Alice?"

Alice stared at Duncan with a hint of curiosity in her eyes and asked, "Do you know me?"

"Oh, I suppose you could say that!"

Duncan's expression was slightly strange as he looked Alice up and down, then spotted a ring on the ring finger of her left hand and pointed at it, saying, "Could you take that ring off and let me see it? Also, may I ask why you are here?"

The plot might have changed due to the premature release of the virus, and now he wanted to know just how far off-track things had gone, learn about the situation inside The Hive, and analyze the current state of affairs.

Otherwise, he was afraid a nuclear bomb might suddenly appear over his head and nuke the city into oblivion!