The [Myriad Tentacles] burst from Xia Tianming's body and instantly swallowed the thousands of soldiers in the spiral corridor. Then, like a flock of birds returning to their nest, they quickly retracted, carrying the nutrients from the virus, and returned to his body!
Just a moment ago, the spiral corridor had been filled with gunfire, explosions, and screams. Now it had fallen silent in the blink of an eye. Every so often, an empty helmet stained with blood clattered down the stairs.
The Hunter had been ready to feast, but when the "food" before it suddenly vanished, it let out a low, gurgling growl, seemingly displeased that its master hadn't left it even a single piece of meat.
But devouring those thousands of soldiers had instantly provided Xia Tianming with nearly ten thousand points of viral energy!
This time, though, there was no reminder in his mind telling him how much more he needed to break through the Blacklight Threshold.
Was he now free to develop as he pleased?
After all, the Blacklight Virus had infinite potential for evolution. In other words, it had no upper limit!
It could devour anything from a single cell to an entire planet. The only questions were the degree of evolution and how much time it would take.
Alex Mercer had once evolved enough to devour all of Manhattan in just eighteen days. In this post-apocalyptic bioweapon world, Xia Tianming had countless resources all to himself, so he would only grow faster!
After retracting the Myriad Tentacles, Xia Tianming continued falling from where he had been suspended in midair. With a thunderous boom, he slammed into the ground like a bomb, kicking up a cloud of dust and leaving a massive, spiderweb-like crack in the concrete!
It was time to keep moving. After wiping out so many of the enemy's troops at once, they probably wouldn't be able to gather another force like that anytime soon.
The Hunter leaped down from above and landed heavily. It shook its massive body, dislodging the many bullets embedded shallowly in its hide, then followed behind Xia Tianming like a well-behaved pet dog.
He had landed directly at the very bottom of the spiral corridor. If he had walked down step by step, it would probably have taken him at least ten minutes.
No matter how far one fell, the Blacklight Virus would suffer no damage from the impact. After all, no one had ever heard of a virus invisible to the naked eye being killed by a fall—and Xia Tianming was a collection of viruses.
Using the memories he had taken from Wesker, he knew the route to the main base lay at the bottom of this spiral corridor.
The only thing in the area where he had landed was a massive bronze door, shut tight and etched with exquisite patterns, as if waiting for someone destined to open it.
But Xia Tianming didn't even give it a second glance. Instead, he turned and walked to a blank stretch of concrete wall directly opposite the door.
Suddenly!
He clenched his right hand into a fist and easily smashed through the wall before him. Sparks crackled at once from the spot he had struck!
Then the seemingly seamless wall began to open from the middle, sliding apart to reveal a hidden passage inside.
This was the only route to the main base!
As for the ornate bronze door opposite, it was a crude misdirection. Beyond it lay a dead end, with countless traps waiting along the way.
Xia Tianming walked straight into the dimly lit passage. The Hunter licked its spiny, scarlet tongue and obediently followed behind him like a pet dog.
Once they entered, the hidden door slammed shut behind them. The lights in the passage switched on one by one as Xia Tianming walked, revealing everything within.
This was called a passage, but it was more like a horror museum filled with bizarre, grotesque creatures.
Instead of cold concrete walls, both sides of the corridor were lined with display cases made of transparent glass. Inside were failed test subjects injected with bioweapons—sights so disturbing they made one's skin crawl!
The first to catch his eye were a group of deformed infants who had been altered starting in the embryonic stage!
Some had two heads of different sizes, while others had a dozen or more eyes crowded onto one face. Some were missing arms or legs; others had grown organs and limbs that no human should possess!
They were every bit as horrifying as the ghostly infants in any horror movie!
Farther along were experimental specimens at every stage of life: men and women, young adults and the elderly. The mutations in their bodies surpassed every imaginable nightmare!
Some had no limbs at all. Instead, their large intestines spilled out of their abdomens, twisting and mutating into octopus-like tentacles that supported their bodies;
Some had their abdominal cavities completely cut open, exposing their internal organs. Their sharp ribs had been forced outward as far as possible, as if they could open and close like a gaping maw;
Still others crawled along the floor like scorpions. Their cervical and coccygeal vertebrae had broken through the skin of their backs, curving out into the air, while venomous-looking barbs had grown from their tails!
They were all failed products of experimentation, pinned to foam boards and displayed behind the glass like works of art. One could only imagine the twisted tastes of the people who had made them!
For hundreds of meters farther down the corridor, all kinds of other bizarre monsters were on display.
From insects to invertebrates to mammals and finally humans, the Umbrella Corporation had experimented on nearly every living thing on Earth!
Without exception, every one of them wore an expression twisted in pain and agony. They had been injected and altered as test subjects while still alive!
And all the human test subjects were survivors captured in the wasteland, not mass-produced clones from the Umbrella Corporation's cloning factories.
Those researchers believed the clones were tainted with industrial contaminants and weren't pure enough. That was why they had to experiment on humans born naturally on the surface.
That was why they were still searching the surface for survivors—not to preserve the human race or ensure its continuation, but to use them for all kinds of inhumane experiments...
Xia Tianming slowed as he walked through the corridor, looking at the infuriating "exhibits" behind the glass on both sides.
He wanted to be angry, to condemn what they had done. But the Blacklight Virus had stripped away all the emotions a human should have, so his eyes remained placid and numb.
The Hunter bared its teeth at the deformed test subjects behind the glass, uglier even than itself, wanting to tear every last one of them apart.
But without its master's orders, it didn't dare do anything.
"Sometimes, we must make sacrifices on the road to human evolution. They are all heroes and stepping stones toward a perfect humanity..."
Just then, an aged voice rang out from within the passage, trying to paint the deformed monsters behind the glass in a more flattering light.
Xia Tianming recognized the voice as that of Spencer, the founder of the Umbrella Corporation. He also knew Spencer had been watching him through hidden cameras ever since he entered the underground base.
When Xia Tianming said nothing, Spencer asked again, "My boy, where do you come from? The depths of the Earth's core? An extraterrestrial life-form? Or a mutation of the bioweapon virus?"
"My existence predates yours."
Xia Tianming spoke in a cold voice.
In truth, he was only twenty years old. But he didn't know why he had said those words. Was the Blacklight Virus inside him controlling him?
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