The Remains

Captain Kromi heard the other man's nonsensical reply and knew he had no chance of surviving the day.

And if he died at the other man's hands, not even a scrap of his body would remain, much less his brain, which could be taken back to preserve these memories for his next clone.

He might as well end it himself!

Kromi glanced down at his watch. The five minutes were almost up. At least he'd succeeded in luring the other man to the Rod of God's target zone!

He fought to suppress his fear, raised his head to look at the terrifying enemy approaching him, and grinned savagely. "I'll be waiting for you in Hell! Hahahaha!"

With that, he quickly changed the magazine in his pistol. But this time, he didn't aim at the enemy. He pressed the muzzle beneath his own chin, intending to kill himself!

Seeing this, Xia Tianming rushed forward. Before Kromi could pull the trigger, Xia Tianming swept his claws sideways, shredding the man's entire hand along with the pistol!

Captain Kromi stared blankly at his severed wrist, blood gushing from it. They wouldn't even let him die?!

Xia Tianming managed a rare smile. "It wouldn't taste good if your brain were damaged."

Kromi...

"AAAAHHH!!!!!"

****************

Devouring and absorbing the commander had given Xia Tianming 10 points of Blacklight energy.

Xia Tianming's Blacklight Threshold now stood at: 735/3000.

Most importantly, he'd actually managed to use the Blacklight Virus's [Memory Deep Web] ability to retrieve many useful fragments of memory from the commander's brain.

They included the location of the Umbrella Corporation's main base, the military deployments within hundreds of kilometers of it, and information about some of the company's senior executives.

Kromi's memories had also revealed part of the Extinction plan. The Umbrella Corporation's main base had built silos and had rockets loaded with biological viruses. The viruses could be spread to every corner of the world by launching the rockets!

If he replaced the biological viruses in the rocket warheads with his own Blacklight Virus, wouldn't that save him a lot of trouble? He wouldn't have to personally travel to every corner of the world to "sow the seeds."

Wait... Why was there a Rod of God, too...?

At last, fragments of Kromi's memories of his conversation with Wesker before his death surfaced as well!

So the commander had been bait, deliberately luring him to the target zone of this space weapon?!

Virus tendrils, symbols of his danger sense, sprouted from Xia Tianming's body again. His scalp began to prickle as the dark night sky above him gradually lit up.

Without a word, he tried to flee the danger zone.

But the space-based laser weapon had already locked onto Xia Tianming. It would fire at 300,000 kilometers per second; once it had taken aim, its target was as good as hit!

Before he could even move, a pulse beam more than five meters across and nearly 100,000 degrees Celsius plunged from the sky and engulfed him!

Three seconds later, the pulse beam fired by the Rod of God in space vanished. The laser's temperature was so high that the satellite's materials couldn't withstand it for long, or they would melt and break apart.

But with power like that, three seconds was more than enough.

The land touched by the pulse beam was left with a cylindrical crater nearly five meters deep. In an instant, the surrounding sand and soil had been scorched into transparent, crystalline glass!

No living thing could possibly have survived the Rod of God's judgment, especially with that man right at the center of the beam!

Seated in his office, Wesker saw that the target had been eliminated and couldn't help but smirk.

If they couldn't capture the target alive and he couldn't serve the company, then he could simply vanish from the world.

Anyone the company couldn't make use of was an enemy. Otherwise, he'd end up with another Alice on his hands.

Besides, some parts of the man's body, shattered earlier by the Vulcan Cannon, remained on the ground. They could be collected and taken back to the company for cloning research. That was the only reason Wesker had been willing to eliminate him.

Still, to be safe, he'd better have someone check whether the man showed any signs of life in the five-meter-deep crater scorched by the pulse beam.

"Hey, anyone still alive out there? Go check on him."

Wesker picked up the communicator, opened the channel to the entire team, and asked in a languid voice.

The crater left by the Rod of God was billowing with thick smoke, and the satellite feed couldn't see through to the bottom. They had no choice but to send someone to check with their own eyes.

A few soldiers at the scene had indeed survived by sheer luck. After receiving their superior's order, they slowly approached, still shaken.

The clone soldiers, who should have been used to death by now, had once again felt a primal fear of it after witnessing Xia Tianming's terrifying, brutal slaughter.

The soldiers crept toward the edge of the crater, trembling. They cautiously leaned over, afraid that some tentacle might reach out, wrap around their necks, and drag them in...

When they cautiously turned their eyes toward the smoking bottom of the crater, the sight below made their eyes widen in disbelief!

At the bottom of the pitch-black crater lay a human-shaped lump of charcoal, even blacker than before, its body twisted into a contorted pose!

Its splayed limbs made it look as if it might spring out of the crater at any moment!

The soldiers hurriedly reported what they'd seen to their supervisor, Wesker.

When Wesker heard, shock appeared on his stern face as well.

A carbon-based life-form had still left behind remains after being engulfed by temperatures of 100,000 degrees Celsius?!

The company had once tested the Rod of God's power using captured rebel prisoners as targets. The instant they were engulfed by the pulse beam, they'd been vaporized. Nothing remained, and they hadn't even had time to scream.

In that sense, it was a fairly "humane" space weapon. You felt no pain at all; you were simply gone in an instant...

Did his body even qualify as an Earth-based life-form anymore?!

He'd been engulfed by the space beam for three seconds. It had scorched a deep crater into the ground, and yet he'd still left behind a body??

No... It couldn't be a body...

At the thought, Wesker stood up in a panic, grabbed his communicator, and shouted an order. "Shoot the corpse! Shoot it and see if it moves!!"

The soldiers heard that their superior wanted them to do something tantamount to suicide, and their eyes trembled with fear. But they had no choice but to obey. They knew that disobeying would only earn them an even worse fate.

So the clone soldiers lowered their guns and aimed at the "charred corpse" at the bottom of the crater. After a brief hesitation, they pulled the triggers.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!!!!

After the barrage of gunfire, the soldiers had each emptied a magazine. Hundreds of bullets had hit the contorted charcoal corpse, kicking up black dust!

One soldier accidentally inhaled some of the black dust carried up by the rising heat and couldn't help sneezing.