Seeing that everyone was ready, Sui Bian raised his left hand and lightly tapped his Bluetooth earpiece. He said to the Red Queen in a calm voice:
"Lift the lockdown. Let that old bastard Marcus out."
"Yes."
At the Red Queen's response, the sealed blast door took several seconds to unlock before slowly opening.
As the door opened, everyone tightened their grip on their weapons. According to the information Sui Bian had shared, Marcus was the most difficult B.O.W. to deal with.
Soon, a handsome, long-haired man in a flamboyant white dress slowly emerged from the control room. Spreading his arms with a smile, he said:
"Welcome, everyone. Heh heh, the whole world will soon be consumed by my fury—"
Suddenly!
"Pong!!" A gunshot rang out, cutting off the man's monologue.
The man's face... even his entire head had been blown to pieces. Despite that, his head began regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The man eventually regained his original appearance, his expression filled with disbelief and extreme rage.
This flamboyantly dressed man was James Marcus.
And the one who had fired just now was Sui Bian, standing behind the others.
"Pong! Pong!"
Sui Bian held a Beretta M92F level in his right hand and fired several more shots at James.
"Rat-tat-tat!"
Hunk and the rest of Alpha opened fire almost in sync with Sui Bian, their fingers squeezing the triggers as they unleashed a hail of bullets at Marcus.
"Everyone, open fire!"
"Yes!"
Next came STARS Bravo Team and SWAT.
"Pfft! Pfft!" In an instant, Marcus was riddled with bullets, dark blood spraying everywhere.
Under the concentrated attack, Marcus's entire body shook uncontrollably, and his flamboyant clothes were torn to shreds.
In the game, Marcus transformed into an extremely viscous, disgusting leech creature, but now he didn't even have a chance to change forms.
At that moment, Hunk stopped firing of his own accord. He reached down with his left hand, removed the Thermite Grenade clipped to his right hip, pulled the ring, released the safety, and threw it at Marcus.
Six other members of Alpha also stopped firing and hurled Thermite Grenades at Marcus.
Then...
"Whoosh! Whoosh—fwoosh!" One after another, seven Thermite Grenades detonated around Marcus.
Thermite Grenades didn't cause violent explosions when they detonated. Instead, they were more like Chinese sparklers, spraying sparks everywhere.
The sparks landed on Marcus, who was still under attack, and quickly ignited him. The flames grew more and more intense, showing no sign of stopping.
"Roar!!! Aah!!!" Scorched by temperatures nearing three thousand degrees, Marcus couldn't help letting out a horrifying scream.
A woman's voice was mixed into the screams. It seemed the system hadn't been exaggerating when it said he was a hermaphrodite.
In the end, Marcus, who hadn't even had time to transform, became a charred corpse.
"Cough... cough, cough!"
The thick smoke from the burning Thermite Grenades made many STARS Bravo Team and SWAT members cough uncontrollably, but it had no effect on the members of Alpha wearing their "Octopus Heads."
Sui Bian, whose physical abilities had been enhanced to those of a Super Soldier, was unaffected as well. At the same time, the system reminded him:
[The death of the abnormal entity James Marcus has been detected. Congratulations, Host. You have completed the challenge mission and received its reward: 200 points. You now have 360 points.]
Hearing the system's report, Sui Bian was certain that Marcus was well and truly dead.
He immediately contacted the Red Queen through his earpiece. "Have the RPD escort our technical staff into the mountains. Collect the bodies and retrieve all data from both underground facilities."
"Yes, sir," the Red Queen replied in her usual cool voice.
After ending the call with the Red Queen, Sui Bian returned the Samurai Edge to the holster on his belt, then withdrew from the underground facility under the escort of a squad of Alpha.
Although the Red Queen had guided them in clearing out every zombie and B.O.W. in the facility, Hunk still led the remaining combat personnel in a final sweep, ensuring the technical staff would have a "green" work environment.
Next.
The more than two hundred officers sealing off the mountainous area began to narrow the perimeter, making sure there were no zombies or Zombie Dogs left in the mountains.
The Hive's technical staff, wearing masks, respirators, gloves, and protective suits, drove toward Spencer Mansion and the Training Facility under the protection of thirty officers.
The technical staff began collecting the bodies of all the B.O.W.s and T-Virus byproducts—zombies—as well as Marcus's charred remains. They also retrieved the paper files and local hard drives from both facilities.
While the combat personnel fought zombies, Zombie Dogs, and various B.O.W.s, the Red Queen used the surveillance systems in both facilities to record all the combat data.
In the game, Wesker wanted to use the experimental data from STARS's battles against B.O.W.s to increase his value to Umbrella's rival companies.
Combat data could reveal the strengths and weaknesses of B.O.W.s, allowing researchers to make targeted upgrades. It was an extremely valuable resource.
However, Sui Bian had no intention of selling it. He planned to have the Hive's researchers use the combat data to improve the Tyrant T-103 model.
That way, when they encountered abnormal entities with unknown properties in the future, they could send out better Tyrants to serve as the Vanguard and minimize human casualties.
The cleanup would take at least three days. Sui Bian headed back to Raccoon City first, intending to discuss STARS's future with Irons.
In the game, every STARS member except Wesker, Chris, Jill, Rebecca, and Barry had met a grisly end, but that didn't mean the other STARS members were weak.
According to the lore, STARS was made up of carefully selected elite personnel. And from Sui Bian's close observation, Bravo Team members' skills and shooting accuracy far surpassed those of SWAT.
Still, they fell short of Alpha by quite a bit.
Even so, STARS was a rare group of elite personnel, especially with Chris and Jill, those two "protagonists," among them.
According to his plan, once he had fully taken control of Umbrella, he would reorganize the UBCS, discarding the dross and keeping the essence.
He planned to select UBCS members who were loyal to the company and had combat experience and ability, then bring in all of STARS to form a new unit.
The unit would be structured like an MTF, and Sui Bian also planned to establish multiple MTFs to deal with abnormal phenomena around the world.
Before you continue