The Battle Ends

"Heh~."

Jill glanced at the Pursuer a short distance in front of her and chuckled. "This ugly thing may be a little ruthless, but it's a reliable teammate. Much better than some humans, wouldn't you say?"

After speaking, Jill turned to look at Brad, who was keeping well away. Her look and tone made it obvious she was taking a jab at her teammate, who was so fond of wearing a yellow vest.

In the game, Brad had been a coward who was afraid of trouble, and he'd ended up screwing over the entire STARS-A Team. Even now, he was always making the team look bad. No wonder Jill had been needling him.

As for Brad's wariness of the Pursuer, perhaps it was because, in the original Resident Evil 3, the Pursuer had crushed his head with one hand.

Jill, who had fought the Pursuer to the death in the game, had become its "comrade-in-arms" in reality and was even sticking up for it.

"Enough." Chris stepped between them, his expression solemn. "Stay alert. This isn't the time for small talk."

"Yes." (x2)

Meanwhile.

The large elevator reached their level, and its doors opened. The Pursuer and three Epsilon squads boarded first, heading for the control center beneath the castle.

The remaining two squads and the Charon Task Force followed close behind. After all, the elevator couldn't hold everyone at once.

At the same time, the battle aboveground was nearing its end.

With support and cover from two AC-130s and two CH-53s, the Spear of Olympus had completely swept through the airport, barracks, and other major structures on Rockfort Island. Four LCACs had also brought the bulk of the forces to the island.

Faced with such an overwhelming force, the surviving island employees immediately raised their hands and surrendered.

Even the stupidest among them could guess that the company had attacked the island on such a scale because of its deranged leader. There was no way he wasn't involved.

If they wanted to live, surrender was their only option. Besides, most of the employees weren't Alfred's trusted followers.

Meanwhile.

Chris, Jill, and the others encountered even fiercer resistance when they reached the control center. The area was packed with armed security personnel loyal to Alfred, along with a sizeable number of Hunters and four T-103 Tyrants.

These guards and B.O.W.s had survived the A-10s' strafing runs and the AC-130s' suppressing fire.

If the army of an ordinary nation had barged in against such a formidable defensive force, it would inevitably have suffered heavy losses. Even if it broke through the final line of defense, the result would have been a Pyrrhic victory.

Fortunately, Chris, Jill, and the others had the Pursuer to draw enemy fire and cover them, making the sweep go quite smoothly.

Besides, the T-103s were utterly outmatched by the Pursuer.

In the original game, the Pursuer had been badly damaged and needed a great deal of heat to heal its injuries, so it had "helped itself" to a T-103.

They were both Tyrants, but there was a world of difference between the two models.

In less than ten minutes, every part of the control center beneath the castle, except for the last remaining control room, had fallen into the hands of the Charon and Epsilon forces.

Before the two forces could storm the control room, the mentally ill Alfred Ashford shot himself. He would rather die than fall into Spencer's hands.

Unfortunately, Alfred still believed that Spencer was the one in charge of Umbrella. He would rather die than have anything more to do with Spencer.

But unlike in the game, Alfred didn't use voice recognition to awaken Alexia, who was sleeping in Antarctica, before he died.

Red Queen had intercepted everything, and had also copied Alfred's voice code.

According to the game's lore, Alexia needed to sleep for fifteen years, or perhaps even longer, to allow the cells in her body to slowly fuse with the Veronica Virus.

Alexia had fallen asleep on December 31, 1983, and her brother had awakened her in the game on December 27, 1998, shortly before his death.

(Alfred was killed by Chris and Claire, the siblings.)

Though only four days short, the difference was extremely dangerous when it came to fusing with the Veronica Virus.

Now, Sui Bian, who already knew how events would unfold, had Red Queen stop Alfred from causing trouble in his final moments. Alexia could now sleep for as long as she wanted.

Sui Bian planned to wait until Wang Zhaofeng's research team had fully mastered the Neuralyzer technology before deliberately waking Alexia. Then he would use it to perform a complete memory-modification procedure on her.

In the original Code: Veronica, even Wesker was at a disadvantage when fighting Alexia.

If the memory-modification procedure worked on her, Umbrella would gain both a powerful humanoid B.O.W. and a genius in virology, chemistry, and biology.

But there was no need to rush. They would have to wait until early next year at the earliest—that is, the beginning of 1999—to see the results.

On the bridge of the Poseidon.

"Vulture Team has completed its sweep and is preparing to return to its base in Africa."

"The Charon Task Force and Epsilon combat teams have recovered the body of the traitor, Alfred Ashford. They are expected to return to the surface in fifteen minutes."

"All performance indicators for the T-102 weapon—the Pursuer—are good. Its combat data has been uploaded, and the Sixth Research Institute will analyze and refine it based on this field test."

The bridge crew reported the latest updates to Sui Bian one by one.

"Sir." A crew member turned to Sui Bian, who was seated in the captain's chair. "According to Major Mikhail Victor's report, we've captured a total of thirty-six survivors. How should we handle them?"

At that, Sui Bian rose from the captain's chair and walked to the windows at the front of the bridge. Gazing out at smoke billowing over Rockfort Island, he clasped his hands behind his back and gave his order:

"Keep the survivors confined aboard the Poseidon for now. The company will conduct repeated reviews to determine which of them are traitors and which are loyal to the company."

"Understood, sir. I'll relay that to the major."

"Good." Sui Bian nodded, then turned to the captain standing on his left.

"Captain, as we planned, once everything has been taken care of, leave half the security force behind to continue sweeping Rockfort Island and protect the engineering team when they arrive to carry out construction and renovations.

"Then recall Charon, Epsilon, Olympus, and the remaining half of the security force to the Poseidon immediately. We need to get to the Antarctic Laboratory as soon as possible. There's important cargo waiting for us to retrieve."

"Yes, sir."

With that, the Battle of Rockfort Island had temporarily come to an end. All that remained was to head for the Antarctic Laboratory and retrieve Alexia, who was still asleep.