Infinite Hunter

He tried again, but this time it didn't work. Cheng Yijiu felt quite sleepy, so he went to bed.

This was only the first step. If he wanted to process the cold iron into a weapon, he still had to obtain other materials, and most importantly, the alchemical blueprints—the alchemical blueprints for the weapons. Alchemical blueprints weren't just a matter of copying a structure and blasting diagram onto a piece of paper. They required specific materials, drawn on specific paper, and a special ritual to draw upon the artist's spiritual energy.

"Describe it in your mind, and pay the price based on the effect..." This blueprint requires the alchemical materials corresponding to the finished product's effect to be paid, so the success rate is very low. Of course, there is a method with a 100% success rate - using the refiner himself to pay the price... The method with the highest success rate in all alchemy is for the refiner to pay the price himself.

The first page of the introduction to alchemy had the words "equivalent exchange" printed in large font. And what could be more suitable for the alchemical formula than the body and soul of the refiner? Cheng Yijiu didn't want this, otherwise he would have to bear the cost of failure. Cheng Yijiu only wanted to refine two things - two at the moment, namely a dagger and an M21 double-barreled short shotgun, one of his favorite weapons recently.

As for the spear? That would have to be considered later. Using alchemy to craft an entire spear would consume too much time and energy; he'd only want to craft the barrel and trigger assembly. "We'll also need ebony wood, silver wire, and alchemical blueprints. The ebony will also need to be processed alchemically." Since the more complex the structure and the more powerful the function, the harder it is to craft the blueprint, Cheng Yijiu decided it was best to finish a dagger first.

The alchemical blueprint for the dagger required a sheet of lambskin parchment, then a silver pen with a special ink—ideally, mixed with the user, Cheng Yijiu's own blood—to be drawn on the paper. A ritual also required the preparation of ruby ​​powder. Cheng Yijiu felt his head growing increasingly dizzy as he performed this ritual. Fortunately, he had finished drawing the dagger's pattern before passing out, and he also diligently drew the runes from the introductory alchemy manual. The only function he needed was the ability to break demons; if he wanted to add other abilities, he probably couldn't do it now.

Luckily, after he sprinkled ruby ​​powder on it, blew out the candle, and threw the parchment into the brazier, the flames flashed and the parchment didn't burn. Instead, it became a typical drawing with ivory yellow and old brushstrokes, quite Gothic style. As for the synthesis of the dagger, that would be several days later. Cheng Yijiu hoped to succeed in one go, otherwise he would have to spend almost a month to do it again.

Luckily, he succeeded. There was nothing special about this dagger; it was just a double-edged dagger with a guard, nothing special. However, there was a strange pattern along its spine: the rune of the Devil Breaker, covering both sides. "How effective it will be depends on how I perform during the mission," Cheng Yijiu thought, carefully inserting the dagger into its sheath and placing it on his body. He was definitely too late to use the spray gun; the mission was almost over.

Volume: G's Story

Chapter 1 Enter

"Survive until the final objective is achieved. Kill G." He looked at the computer screen. "It's nonsensical, but it seems the restrictions have disappeared." Cheng Yijiu looked at the prohibited items below and found nothing. This meant weapons from any era were allowed. He still had time to consider carefully. The era seemed to be at least the late 1990s. Cheng Yijiu immediately put on a jacket with a bulletproof lining—a T-shirt and a jacket, followed by a pair of 511 overalls.

He donned a Soviet-style leather coat, complete with a holster and a multi-purpose waist pouch. Cheng Yijiu also carried a medium-sized backpack, containing essential medications. He began selecting weapons—given his physical advantages, he could carry a wide variety. Legal considerations arose—automatic weapons could easily trigger an overreaction from American police in the United States. So, he started with a 1911A1, chambered in .45ACP ammunition. He also brought an extra magazine and a box of ammunition.

As for his other pistol, he chose the P320 full-size 9mm pistol he had just copied from the blueprints. The sand-colored frame, made of high-strength aluminum alloy, looked quite beautiful. He also brought a spare magazine and a box of 9mm bullets. As for a long weapon? He didn't think he needed it. Cheng Yijiu slung a Contender G2 pistol into his pocket, and of course, a box of Winchester Magnum .300 bullets.

Finally, he grabbed an 870 rifle with a short stock and a two-thirds barrel, stuffed his belt with 12-gauge bullets, put on his waterproof hat, and prepared to set off. He filled his military water bladder with water and strapped it to his back. He checked his food supplies, found nothing wrong, then locked his dagger, walked to the door, and opened it...

Before him appeared a forest, with a rather large Victorian-style house faintly visible in the distance. "The moon is beautiful tonight," Cheng Yijiu glanced at the sky. The next moment, he saw flames rising from the other side of the house, accompanied by the sound of explosions. Cheng Yijiu stood still in the darkness, and then he heard gunshots, continuous gunshots. "It feels familiar," Cheng Yijiu muttered, and he also walked towards the house.

As he walked, Cheng Yijiu pulled out his short-handled Remington 870 shotgun, 12-gauge shotgun shells loaded and ready to fire. Under the moonlight, the villa crouched before him like a monster, while from the woods to the side, there were rustling sounds and deep barking. Cheng Yijiu stopped, pointing his gun in the direction of the sound. Suddenly, the bushes shook, and out jumped a large animal.

Cheng Yijiu could already see it was a Doberman, its body ulcerated, its eyes bulging, and its fangs looking particularly long due to its rotting lips. Two more jumped out, and Cheng Yijiu curled his lips. "I finally know what's going on!" He fired without hesitation. The shotgun erupted in a long burst of fire. The Doberman was sent flying. Cheng Yijiu loaded the bullet with his left hand while his right hand simply pulled the trigger.

Three shotgun shells blew away the three dogs, but they were not dead and were struggling to get up and bite people. Cheng Yijiu completely understood why. He just sighed, pulled out the P320 from his waist, aimed at the dog's head and fired. After each shot, the dog stopped moving. Cheng Yijiu took out the shotgun shells and loaded them while striding to the edge of the wall. He climbed over the iron railing and walked in. The place he walked to looked like the back door on the side of the villa.

"No key," Cheng Yijiu muttered. He searched the surrounding mats and under the flowerpots, but couldn't find the spare key left outside. Blasting the door lock with a slug wasn't an option, so Cheng Yijiu fumbled for his dagger. The alchemically forged dagger sliced ​​through the composite wood door with ease. Using the serrations on one side, Cheng Yijiu spent several minutes sawing through the lock and the door panel.

Even though the lock was still stuck, the door was pushed open. Cheng Yijiu saw no light inside, only the moonlight shining in. "Maybe the electric meter tripped." He flipped the switch on the wall with his hand, but there was no response. "Where is the distribution room in this house?" Cheng Yijiu thought. He turned on the tactical flashlight he was carrying and picked up the 1911 in his hand - what he needed now was a headshot, so it was safer to use a .45ACP.

Cheng Yijiu could hear the noises from the house. He heard low, strange breathing coming from one side, and also heard gunshots from somewhere else. "STAR Force? There's no need to confront them." Cheng Yijiu realized he was in the living area of ​​the house, and the room in front of him was the kitchen. Cheng Yijiu bit the water pipe at his collar and took a sip of water, then walked into the kitchen—a rather large room with a stainless steel counter in the middle, covered in a variety of tools. Against the wall were cooking utensils, from ovens to steamers to gas stoves, and a large freezer.

There was a figure on one side of the room. Cheng Yijiu's flashlight shone on him. This person was lying face down on the ground. Then Cheng Yijiu saw another person sitting at the door leading to the interior of the villa. There was blood on the door and the wall. Both of them were silent and seemed to be dead, but Cheng Yijiu knew that was not the case. "If the red dot appeared, we would know whether they were the background image or not..."

Cheng Yijiu grabbed a metal bowl on the table and threw it to the ground between the two "corpses". After a clang, accompanied by a low roar, the two "dead men" began to move slowly. They slowly stood up from the pool of their own blood on the ground, dragging their heels and stretching out their hands to move towards Cheng Yijiu. "The speed is very slow, basically the speed of an average person walking slowly. And the eyes should be useless." He adjusted the tactical flashlight to a strong light and shone it on the faces of the two dead men. The other party did not react in any way.

Cheng Yijiu took two steps back and raised the pistol in his hand. With two shots, he knocked the two zombies to the ground again. Of course, Cheng Yijiu aimed at the head and was prepared for the bullet to be bounced off by the frontal bone, the hardest part of the human body. Unexpectedly, it exploded directly. Cheng Yijiu kicked the fallen zombies a few times. His tactical boots almost broke their leg bones, but they didn't stand up again. Cheng Yijiu flipped the heads of the two zombies with a long barbecue steel fork. "It feels like the skull bones are a bit brittle. By the way, I remember there is a setting that says the skull bones will be lost."

The brains inside were smashed, so the two zombies lost their ability to move and were truly "dead". Cheng Yijiu used a steel fork to search the two people and found some useful things - although there was no ID card or the like, but he found a bunch of keys. He opened the door and walked into the corridor. The power was still not restored and the corridor was pitch black. Cheng Yijiu stepped back and his flashlight swept across a piece of paper on the wall, "The blueprint of 1F, very good."

Chapter 2 Normal Settings

The first-floor blueprints were a valuable resource, and Cheng Yijiu quickly scanned them under the flashlight. "The power distribution room is in the basement? So, first, we need to find the stairs going down." It was on the map, so Cheng Yijiu quickly ran over there after putting it away. Well, there were bodies strewn about in the hallway. How many of them were zombies? Anyway, Cheng Yijiu tapped the wall with the steel fork in his hand.

"The sound seems a little quieter?" Seeing that he hadn't attracted any zombies, Cheng Yijiu was slightly disappointed. "What a rare real-life experience." To save bullets, Cheng Yijiu pulled out his anti-demon dagger. The hilt was made of solid tangents, with only a hollowed-out center to reduce weight. The hilt was wide enough for the cold air to penetrate the wood, leaving Cheng Yijiu's palm feeling good—even through his tactical gloves.

Walking up to the first corpse, Cheng Yijiu pushed it with the steel fork and then stabbed it with his right hand without hesitation. It was obvious that the "corpse" began to move as he pushed it, making a gurgling sound in its throat. But before he could slowly stand up, the dagger had already penetrated his skull. "It feels like penetrating a rotten wooden board. Although it still has a little strength to maintain its basic shape, it can be smashed open even with a small hammer." This is how Cheng Yijiu felt from the feel of it.

After the knife went in, Cheng Yijiu felt heat coming out of the edge of the wound, and when he shone the flashlight on it, he found that the edge was already burnt. Soon, sticky blood began to flow from the zombie's eyes and ears, and the back of its head arched up and exploded. Seeing that the other corpses didn't get up, Cheng Yijiu simply pried the dagger up and down, prying open the zombie's skull - "Ah, it's burnt inside!" It seemed that the high temperature inside first boiled the brain, and then directly dehydrated it and burned it into ashes.

That's why the zombie's ears and eyes bleed, and its head swells. Cheng Yijiu looked at the gray surface of his dagger, which was not stained by a single speck of filth. "It seems the virus isn't the simple RNA virus I previously thought... After all, the drastic mutations in the game are impossible. Some even violate the basic law of conservation of energy and almost completely violate biological theory. Now it seems this thing is related to 'darkness'."

The dagger's cold iron material and the demon-breaking runes attached to it only served to inflict severe damage to dark creatures. Against ordinary prey, it was at most a sharp dagger. This situation seemed to be very helpful for Cheng Yijiu's future hunting. Perhaps even if it cut into a zombie, this dagger could still have a powerful effect - that was something he would have to try out.

Cheng Yijiu kicked the now-dead zombie onto the others. With a low roar, at least half of the "corpses" rose from the ground. With remarkable agility, Cheng Yijiu leaped over, slashed a zombie, and then leaped back. He shone the flashlight on the zombie to observe the effect. Well... the zombie was bleeding, and the wound was turning black and curly, as if burned by the intense heat.

The flowing blood quickly turned black and dried, leaving a black mark on the clothes. Finally, near the zombie's wound—because Cheng Yijiu had aimed at his chest, the zombie's entire chest muscle and skin seemed to have been burned away, and even a few ribs had fallen off, but that was the end of it. "Scratching the flesh is like that. If I stab him deeper, I should be able to effectively burn some of his internal organs," Cheng Yijiu thought.

Then he finished it off with another shot, again using the P320 to headshot the zombie. These zombies moved very slowly, only unleashing rapid attacks of cuddling and biting when very close. Cheng Yijiu quickly closed in again, stabbing the zombie's skull from the side before quickly withdrawing. This time, the observation yielded encouraging results; it seemed only one cut was enough—boiling, burning tissue gushed out from the wound, followed by steam. The zombie continued to stagger for two or three steps before collapsing.

This is easy. Cheng Yijiu's movements are as swift as a cat. The dagger in his hand is his claw. Soon he knocked down all the zombies - and then another group stood up... "Sure enough, this is considered a tradition." Cheng Yijiu muttered, and walked over the corpses piled on the ground. He began to run to the stairs according to the route on the map. The dark staircase looked like the mouth of a monster.

Cheng Yijiu scurried through the corridors, flashlight in hand. He had no map of the area, so he could only search room by room. Luckily, most doors had nameplates, so after navigating around a dozen zombies, he finally found the power distribution room. "Damn it! There's no fuse, so I can't turn it on." Cheng Yijiu laughed. Wasn't this a classic biohazard scene? He retrieved the map for B1 from behind the door and began searching the room.

He opened a cabinet on one side and found a box of 9mm bullets, a box of bandages, disinfectant spray, and even a bottle of Umbrella's hemostatic spray, effective for treating external injuries. This drug is considered one of Umbrella's flagship products, effectively stopping bleeding, disinfecting wounds, sealing wounds, and providing effective pain relief. This substance can help wounds heal quickly, so this small bottle is not cheap.

After putting these things away, Cheng Yijiu found a logbook from a corpse that had not turned into a zombie. "What's written on it... the password is 2344. Is the spare fuse placed in the password cabinet?" Cheng Yijiu didn't mind this kind of running errands. After all, as long as the zombies didn't surround him, there was no danger at all. The only thing to worry about was whether he would be infected with the T virus. "There is no evidence that the T virus can never be transmitted through the air."

Cheng Yijiu mapped out his route, kicked the door open, and knocked down the zombie behind it. Then he ran straight to the room with the locker containing the spare parts. As soon as he opened the door, two zombies howled and lunged at him. Cheng Yijiu crouched down and charged from below, aiming back and firing two shots, each of them piercing the back of the head. Then, spinning again, he thrust his dagger with his left hand, stabbing the third zombie's eye socket and piercing its skull.

This place looked like a warehouse. Cheng Yijiu ran to the side and found that the wire door locked the password cabinet at the back. Either he found a crowbar or he found the key. These were two other options...

Chapter 3 Search

In a normal biochemical game, one would run off to find tools, but in normal reality, Cheng Yijiu pulled out a dagger, scabbard-fitted, and began cutting the wire. It took Cheng Yijiu about twenty minutes to carve a large enough hole for someone to pass through. This wire door could only be opened from the front with a key; it couldn't be opened from the inside, so there was no such thing as a small opening to reach in and open the door. After entering the password, Cheng Yijiu obtained the fuse.

Let's go back. On the way, Cheng Yijiu heard the roar of zombies, but they should be somewhere else. The zombies on the road had been cleared. Cheng Yijiu quickly returned to the distribution room and installed the fuse, then he turned on the switch. Suddenly, the lights in the room came on, and at this moment, the surviving members of STARS rushed into the villa and came to the lobby of the villa.

Cheng Yijiu stood in the distribution room, thinking about where to capture and kill G. "G shouldn't be here... Does this mean I have to go to Raccoon City to solve the problem? Then my mission here is probably just to survive and try to get to Raccoon City - I remember there is Umbrella's secret research institute down there, and there seems to be a secret subway line leading to Raccoon City." As to whether it was true or not, Cheng Yijiu could no longer remember.

He carefully examined the map of B1 and discovered that it didn't include any routes to the possible secret research institute further down. Therefore, he had to investigate the entire B1 and even the entire house. Cheng Yijiu left the switchboard room and began searching the previously unsearched rooms in B1. "Storage room?" Cheng Yijiu pushed open the door. There shouldn't be any further clues inside, but wasn't the point of this game to open all the doors?

Cheng Yijiu should have enough bullets because he has a dagger to kill the zombies, and what he found in the storage room were various canned goods and fresh foods such as fruits. "I don't know if they are contaminated by the T virus, but at least the cans shouldn't be." Cheng Yijiu selected a few cans and threw them into his backpack, then left. He casually put a box of 9mm bullets and a box of 12-gauge shotgun shells he found in the storage room on the table.

He didn't take any himself, so he gave it to the two protagonists. The next room was indeed a weapons room, but it wasn't locked. Cheng Yijiu walked in and took a look. There were .22 rifles and 12-gauge pistols, as well as some stun guns and 9mm pistols, all locked in the gun cabinet. And the bullets, Cheng Yijiu didn't take any. After looking at them, he felt that they were not as powerful as his own firepower, so he pushed the door open and walked out.

This time, the door locked automatically, and Cheng Yijiu realized he couldn't open it without his key—a special ID card key. "Hmm, this should be a side quest for the protagonists." There were gunshots on the first floor, probably the two protagonists running around. Cheng Yijiu had a map of the first floor. The house was clearly divided into two wings, east and west. Cheng Yijiu was currently in the west wing.

The middle door of the basement was locked, so it was impossible to go to the basement of the east wing. Cheng Yijiu did not push open the other doors because there were probably zombies in the lounge.

Cheng Yijiu went up to the first floor from another staircase in the west wing. Before going up, he listened carefully for a while, but didn't hear any footsteps. After he went up, he saw a strong man running over, stopping and firing the revolver in his hand. Cheng Yijiu didn't see the target he was shooting at, but he was basically sure that if it was a zombie, it would have been shot in the head. After the guy ran away, Cheng Yijiu went up to the first floor silently and walked towards the direction he ran out.

Cheng Yijiu exited through the door at the back of the hall, which surprisingly locked automatically. A garden appeared before him. "A cemetery? This isn't a church. Why would they build one behind a house?" Cheng Yijiu walked a few steps before stopping and picking up his shotgun. As expected, two zombie dogs barked and leaped out from behind the tombstones. Cheng Yijiu was prepared, and a single shotgun blast sent both dogs flying.

Cheng Yijiu stabbed the fallen dog with a dagger—he severed its cervical vertebrae with a single blow. "Sure enough, the bones have become brittle." The burning effect instantly extinguished the activity in the dog's brain. Cheng Yijiu paused in front of the tombstone, examining the name. "I can't tell, but there's something nearby." A shadow snaked in the darkness before him. Cheng Yijiu put away the shotgun and pulled out his competitor pistol from his pocket.

The .300 Winchester Magnum was fully loaded, and Cheng Yijiu stood in the moonlight, waiting for the enemy to attack. Under the moonlight, the enemy was fully revealed. It was a huge snake, about ten meters long and very thick. Cheng Yijiu wrinkled his nose; he had smelled the snake from the beginning. "I remember this snake... but how did it appear here? Shouldn't it be in a room in the villa?"

The snake was a T-Virus test subject. Cheng Yijiu raised his gun and aimed it at its head. As the snake "shot" down at him, Cheng Yijiu opened fire. The powerful rifle bullet shattered most of the snake's head cleanly, obliterating it. The recoil shook Cheng Yijiu's body slightly, causing the muzzle of the gun to tilt upwards. The snake's body slumped to the ground, and Cheng Yijiu pushed with his thumb, causing the gun to fold open. After the shell ejected, he fished out a bullet and reloaded.

He tucked the loaded hand cannon back into his pocket and replaced it with a lightweight P320 9mm pistol. The moonlight was bright enough that he didn't need a flashlight, and Cheng Yijiu could see clearly in this situation—he had night vision. He left the cemetery through a small gate—the lock of which Cheng Yijiu had pried open with a dagger. However, as soon as he stepped onto the ground behind him, it suddenly shook, as if the underground gas pipe had exploded.

Cheng Yijiu was thrown into the air, twisting his body in the air, trying to regain his balance, and he did, landing on his feet first and rolling to absorb the impact. "I almost got hurt." Cheng Yijiu looked at the ground ahead. There was a huge trench, and the turned earth blocked the small door tightly. Cheng Yijiu could still feel the ground shaking slightly. He half-knelt and felt the ground with his palms.

"Strange rhythm, is this the subway?" Cheng Yijiu stood up and tried to walk, but he stopped just as he took a step, one foot hanging in the air. "This doesn't feel good..." He picked up a piece of cement nearby and tried to throw it far away...

Chapter 4 Pool

The concrete block fell to the ground, and Cheng Yijiu squatted down, placing his palm on the ground to sense the slight movement. "Nothing unusual, maybe I'm just overthinking it." The slight vibration his palm felt didn't seem to change anything, so Cheng Yijiu shook his head and smiled. He stood up straight, but suddenly the ground exploded, and a thick brown object rushed three or four meters into the air and stopped.

The creature before Cheng Yijiu, its shape clearly visible in the moonlight—after all, it was less than five meters away. "Is this a Mongolian Death Worm?" Cheng Yijiu had read about many monsters, and this creature before him certainly looked like a Death Worm. Its skin was covered in short, coarse hairs, about a meter thick, like a snake, but not a snake. Cheng Yijiu thought it was a giant earthworm.

"T virus infection? The problem is that virus infection is unscientific. How does it breathe?" Cheng Yijiu just thought of this and immediately laughed again, "We already know that this involves the power of darkness, so why bother considering how this mutant creature breathes?"

The creature began to retreat, apparently having failed to catch its prey. Cheng Yijiu calmly watched it retreat. "Oh, damn! I should have looked for white phosphorus incendiary grenades earlier." Cheng Yijiu took out the shotgun. "Luckily, there's a single-shot incendiary round in the shotgun shells, but unfortunately, there's only one." Cheng Yijiu took out the bullet, unloaded it with a click, and loaded it into the chamber through the ejection port.

Cheng Yijiu could see the monster's head. As he'd imagined, it had a ring-shaped, grinding mouth. The tube-like interior was covered in sharp "teeth," which moved constantly with the movement of its muscles. Cheng Yijiu fired directly into the mouth. With a sharp whistling sound, the creature suddenly retreated into the ground, and the ground began to shake. Cheng Yijiu ignored everything else and quickly passed through the area.

The feeling under his feet was different. The ground below was concrete, and the mutant earthworm should not be able to get through at all. This was a river, and beside the river was a dam and a reservoir. It seemed right to call it a swimming pool. There was a row of small houses at the dam. Cheng Yijiu walked into the dam management office and began to search for useful information. "There are bullets here. What is this document?" Cheng Yijiu flipped through the documents. Under the simple report was a row of numbers.

He walked out of the dam management office and saw the nearby villas, brightly lit and filled with the sound of gunfire. He stood by the pool, looking at the villas. "I wonder if the Tyrant prototype has an exposed heart like in the game? I wonder why the heart is growing outward? Is it because it's so large to accommodate its terrifying vitality and mobility, so the chest cavity can't accommodate it?" If that was the case, killing the Tyrant would be quite easy—Cheng Yijiu didn't believe that a single shot from a high-powered weapon wouldn't be enough to destroy a heart.

Unless it can be regenerated unscientifically...

On closer inspection, so-called "biological weapons" like the Tyrant are also considered impressive-looking but practically useless. They're expensive, but their effectiveness isn't necessarily any better than a squad of soldiers—they're still no match for high-powered rifles. However, they're resistant to pistols and small-caliber rifles. If their intelligence were improved, they could be useful as special agents protecting VIPs.

These tyrants were tall, and their military coats were quite intimidating. Their healing abilities were incredible, allowing them to deflect bullets for their targets far more effectively than ordinary guards. At this thought, Cheng Yijiu suddenly felt a sense of relief. He broke out in a cold sweat and suddenly jumped back. A massive mouth suddenly erupted from the pool, biting through nothing right in front of him before slamming down hard, shattering the cement around the edge. Cheng Yijiu slipped and fell into the water.

Cheng Yijiu quickly grabbed the edge of the pool and scrambled to shore. He looked back and saw a massive dorsal fin emerge from the water, circling and diving about ten meters away. "It's coming for me!" Cheng Yijiu rolled over quickly, moving himself further away from the pool. However, the shark didn't reappear. "How big? At least six meters... This is freshwater, how could there be a great white shark?"

From the fleeting glimpse he'd just taken, Cheng Yijiu noticed the shark's skin was severely ulcerated. Perhaps it wasn't used to fresh water, but it was most likely due to the T-Virus. Cheng Yijiu felt around, finding no other damage besides being soaking wet. He returned to the control room to see if the pool could be drained. "We do have a pump, but to start it, we need to get to the workshop downstairs."

Coming out of the room and walking around the pool to another room, Cheng Yijiu was very careful to avoid getting too close to the pool, but he still felt very strange, "This pool is just a square with a side length of more than 100 meters, and we don't know how deep the water is. This shark must be very cramped in it, right?" It would be fine if the sluice gate between this pool and the river outside was open, but now - Cheng Yijiu saw clearly that the sluice gate was closed.

Thinking carefully, it's impossible for such an infected shark to be kept directly in a tank—it should be in the laboratory tank. It appeared here? Something must have happened. Cheng Yijiu entered the room and found the control panel. He pressed the drain button, but it didn't move at all. "Should we go down to the basement to check the power supply and water pump?" Cheng Yijiu sighed.

He descended from the nearby elevator—pulling the chain manually. It was supposed to be electric, but now it had to be manual. Sure enough, there were the howling of zombies below. Cheng Yijiu pulled out his pistol and flashlight, and began shooting at moving targets as he advanced. He fired from a very close range, roughly three to five meters—pistols are like that; their effective combat range is within ten meters. Moving targets beyond that distance are difficult to hit.

Even for a sharpshooter, the most effective method is to shoot from within effective range; there's no need to deliberately fire from a distance just to show off your marksmanship. Zombies don't move very quickly, so Cheng Yijiu quickly blew away the skulls of the zombies that appeared before him with a single shot. What appeared before him was a thick drainage pipe and an underground drainage trough, with a small door on one side labeled "Distribution Room."

"Always a problem with the power room..." he muttered, and sure enough, the circuit breaker tripped. Cheng Yijiu flipped the switch, and with a vibration and roar, the machine started up. He walked out of the power room, and the moment he closed the door, the room automatically locked. A column of water poured down from above, crashing into the drain, making a deafening sound. Amid the torrent, several figures appeared, climbing up, reaching the metal workshop floor...

Chapter 5 Underground

Cheng Yijiu watched as these monsters crawled out of the water and onto the metal platform. They had round heads, more than a third of their bodies, resembling oversized giant salamanders. Their arms and legs had suction cups, resembling giant frogs standing upright. "They look like amphibians," Cheng Yijiu said, uninhibited by these creatures. He drew his pistol and opened fire.

Cheng Yijiu used a .45ACP pistol, firing one shot after another at the monsters, splashing blood. "Click!" The slide did not reset, and the bullets were used up and the chamber was empty. Cheng Yijiu calmly pulled out the P320 to fire again - the monsters had already fallen to the ground, and Cheng Yijiu just wanted to make sure they were dead. Cheng Yijiu ejected the magazine, loaded the second magazine, and started to reload the empty magazine at the same time.

While reloading, he observed the creatures he had killed. "They can really scare people in a tropical rainforest, but at most they'll just startle people and cause minor casualties. They're not lethal enough." He used a steel fork to poke the corpses of the monsters and made this judgment. After Cheng Yijiu finished reloading, he started the elevator and went upstairs. He walked out of the control room and found that the water level in the pool in front of him had dropped by more than half.

"Sure enough, there's a submerged cement platform near the corner. Hey, I never saw an escalator leading down here before." Cheng Yijiu spotted a two-stage escalator leading to a door on the cement platform. There was a steering wheel to open the door. The water level stopped falling when it reached the same level as the cement platform. Judging from the sound and the water surface, the drain below must have been sealed again.

"How much has the water level dropped? Ten meters... How much deeper is it? I'm not sure. It looks like there's at least twenty meters below." Cheng Yijiu saw the shark's dorsal fin dragging on the surface, swimming around the concrete platform. He scratched his head and said, "What a shame I don't have grenades. Otherwise, it would be easy to deal with this shark." He searched the room next to him again, trying to find some explosives to solve the problem.

Shooting a shark underwater is a foolish idea. The bullet's power is greatly reduced when it enters the water, and the bullet will shatter. Therefore, the correct method is to use the shock wave created by dropping explosives into the water to kill the shark - or else make the shark jump out of the water. Unfortunately, Cheng Yijiu didn't find any explosives. Maybe there are some in the villa, but he can't go back for the time being.

Cheng Yijiu pondered for a moment, finally coming up with a plan. He went to the control room and took the elevator down again. He dragged the bodies of several of the monsters he had killed into the elevator and then carried them to the surface. He found a cart and brought the bodies to the pool. Cheng Yijiu pushed the bodies onto the cement platform, letting the blood slowly flow into the pool. Cheng Yijiu himself prepared himself, took out his competitor's pistol, and aimed it at the cement platform.

The shark's fins drew ripples on the water, forming a white V in the moonlight. It must have sensed the scent of blood, for it charged straight toward the concrete platform. The moment the shark appeared, Cheng Yijiu had a complete look at it. Its mouth, especially its jaw, had grown abnormally large, making it resemble a giant head. Its body was covered in ulcerated skin, just like those zombies.

"A cartilaginous fish, perhaps its bones have become extremely fragile?" This was likely the opposite, because when the shark suddenly leaped up to attack him, it landed and shattered the concrete edge of the pool. Now the shark seemed to be moving normally, and perhaps its bones were completely undamaged. The shark leaped directly onto the edge of the concrete platform, opening its maw to gnaw at the slumped corpse.

Cheng Yijiu opened fire, the dull, powerful sound drowning out the faint roars in the night. He wasn't loading a fully capped round, but rather a shrapnel round with its lead core exposed. This was the powerful .300 Winchester Magnum round, and it blew a visibly large hole in the shark's head. Dirty blood flowed from the shark's jaw, and then the shark, at least six meters long, began to slide into the water and disappeared.

Cheng Yijiu calmly reloaded his bullets. He walked around the pool and went down the stairs. As expected, he was not attacked by a shark. What Cheng Yijiu did not notice was that when he went down, a shark fin bigger than the previous one appeared on the surface of the river outside... "Rusted to death?" Cheng Yijiu struggled to turn the steering wheel. After a lot of effort, he turned the steering wheel with a teeth-grinding friction sound and opened the sealed door.

Inside was a passage, a very dry passage, even with lights. Cheng Yijiu casually closed the door and turned the dial to lock it—he didn't know how long the passage was, and if water got in, wouldn't it be terrible? So he had to lock the door tightly. Just as he locked it, the floodgates outside opened, but Cheng Yijiu didn't hear it because of the cement wall and the heavy waterproof door...

Walking forward along the corridor, the only sound echoing in the corridor was Cheng Yijiu's own footsteps. He turned a few corners and saw another watertight door. After opening it, there was another corridor with an elevator at the end. Cheng Yijiu found that the elevator only had a down button. He didn't know which floor the secret subway might be on, so he could only look at it one floor at a time. Going down one floor, what appeared in front of Cheng Yijiu was like a scene from a science fiction movie, a room made up of electronic automatic doors. The corridor was illuminated by soft white light.

Cheng Yijiu had only taken a few steps when the electronic door in front of him suddenly opened. A naked, bald giant, over two meters tall, emerged from the doorway. Both of his hands had mutated into giant, scaly claws. The problem was that these claws seemed to have no gripping function, only piercing and cutting abilities. The giant's skin was festering like a zombie, and a beating structure was exposed over his heart, like an external heart...

A strong, rancid odor blew over, and Cheng Yijiu immediately realized what it was. "Isn't this a tyrant? Is there such a tyrant? Why does it look like a defective product?" No matter what, he had to enter combat mode. Cheng Yijiu immediately took out the spray gun and grasped the dagger in his left hand. Since it was a "dark" T-virus, the dagger, which had already proven its powerful magic-breaking ability, was perfect for it.

It's just that Tyrants are superior to ordinary people in every aspect, so Cheng Yijiu doesn't have absolute confidence that he can win - fortunately, he remembers that most Tyrants are actually morons and can be entangled. "Think about it, women and split hairs can stand up to Tyrants. As a strong hunter, I don't have anything to fear."

Chapter 6: Battle with the Tyrant

Cheng Yijiu had finally figured out what this thing was. It was probably the original Tyrant prototype, the one that had been discarded because it wasn't up to standard. He hadn't expected it to be destroyed, and now it was actually activated. "Compared to a werewolf, what makes you so much stronger?" Cheng Yijiu thought the werewolf was more terrifying, at least in terms of speed. But the Tyrant wasn't vulnerable to silver bullets...

Those bony claws could actually tear through metal walls; the Tyrant's strength was truly immense. Cheng Yijiu had to be extremely careful not to get hurt; being infected with the T-Virus was no joke. In fact, he was seriously trying to recall where the T-Virus antibodies were hidden. "Anyway, there must be some in the Raccoon City research lab." The Tyrant was rapidly approaching, and this damned place had only one passage, forcing Cheng Yijiu to confront the Tyrant head-on.

Of course, they'd use their shotguns to bombard the exposed, massive heart, forcing the Tyrant into shutdown mode. As for killing the Tyrant? That was certainly possible, but to what degree? Cheng Yijiu's current premonition suggested the Tyrant's brain hadn't become fragile. "Anyway, let's deplete this monster's regenerative nutrients first." Cheng Yijiu fired his shotguns continuously, aiming at the Tyrant's massive, exposed heart.

It was a bloody mess. Amidst the wailing, the Tyrant used his massive claws to protect his heart. Cheng Yijiu watched as his shotgun shells were deflected by the mutated claws. "Damn, it's so tough!" Cheng Yijiu watched as the Tyrant protected his heart while charging at him with his claws. Cheng Yijiu rolled on the ground, rolling under the Tyrant's armpits. He had to be extremely careful not to get scratched.

By this time, Cheng Yijiu had abandoned the shotgun, letting it fall to the ground. He pulled out his pistol and fired repeatedly. After firing a few shots, Cheng Yijiu stopped. It was a waste. Although the prototype Tyrant was a failure, its skin rotten like a zombie, its muscles and bones were unexpectedly hard and tough. When the 9mm bullet from the pistol hit the Tyrant's body, the bullet was visible to the naked eye, just embedded in the muscle.

There was no point wasting bullets then—a .45mm round wouldn't penetrate as well as a 9mm. Shooting the tyrant in the back of the head would have the same effect: it wouldn't penetrate the skull. That made things simple, just run. As for the truly effective weapon—the competitor only had one bullet, so it was best to wait until the most opportune moment to use it. There were several rooms ahead, and Cheng Yijiu felt he could use them to maneuver.

"If I lock the Tyrant in a room, I'll have a chance to take the elevator up," he thought. There was no need to go into the room the Tyrant had left. It must contain the modulation tank, and it was likely broken into. He didn't think he'd find anything there. So he had to go to one of the other rooms, preferably one with an electronic lock that would allow him to lock the Tyrant in—not some sensor lock that would automatically open when someone approached.

Cheng Yijiu quickly approached a door, only to discover it was a sensor door that required an ID card to open. This was a problem, but where did he even have an ID card? Cheng Yijiu's previous plan was simply overconfidence. "That's going to be troublesome!" Running directly to the elevator at the end was the most unreliable option. With the Tyrant's speed, he could definitely catch up before the door closed. By then, he wouldn't even have room to dodge and would be doomed.

Cheng Yijiu gritted his teeth, shifting the dagger from his left hand to his right. He glanced at the short shotgun on the ground, touched the 12-gauge buckshot and slugs on his belt, and let out a long breath before facing the tyrant, who was running at full speed. With his mind focused as never before, Cheng Yijiu charged at the tyrant, ready to repeat his old trick and slide through the gap left by the tyrant's waving claws.

His dynamic vision was now very good, and he stared at the Tyrant's large claws, the subtle tremors of the opponent's muscles when he exerted force, and Cheng Yijiu was staring at them intently. At this time, Cheng Yijiu's mind was blank, and he didn't think about anything. The Tyrant swung his claws at an extremely fast speed, and combined with the speed of his sprint, the afterimage of the claws tore through the wall. Cheng Yijiu suddenly slid while charging, and the dagger in his right hand took advantage of the momentum and directly cut the Tyrant's ribs.

The tyrant's skin, like a zombie's, was festering, yet incredibly tough, like cowhide, and the muscles beneath were like incredibly strong rubber. However, with this dagger, it felt like slicing through a mango. Cheng Yijiu rolled forward, then grabbed the shotgun on the ground with his left hand, flipped it over, and began to reload—instead of the four standard rounds, Cheng Yijiu used single-shot rounds.

The Tyrant's turn wasn't as swift, his right side a bit unsteady. Cheng Yijiu watched the wound rapidly expand, accompanied by a sound like a snapping guitar string. "That's too much! How loud is a ruptured tendon?" Cheng Yijiu watched as blood flowed from the Tyrant's ribs. The skin above the wound had turned black and ash, while the underlying muscle also began to darken and expand rapidly, like an open mouth.

The Tyrant's healing ability couldn't compare to the dark creatures of the werewolf, but his ability to mutate and evolve was far superior. The wounds inflicted by Cheng Yijiu's demon-breaking dagger were nearly impossible for the Tyrant to heal, but that didn't prevent him from developing a compensatory mechanism—visible granulation tissue grew from behind the wounds on either side, regrowing above them to form new muscle groups. "Then just wait and see!" Cheng Yijiu cursed.

It was the same dodge-and-counter pattern. The Tyrant's attacks were remarkably mechanical, with little to no variation. This guy's intelligence was definitely questionable. This time, Cheng Yijiu's sliding tackle was quite composed. He fired a left-handed shot from below, piercing the Tyrant's exposed heart. Then, with his right hand, he sliced ​​through the Tyrant's ankle, severing his ligaments, tendons, and bones. Regeneration wasn't easy.

The Tyrant's movement was slower this time. Of course, he had another option—crawling. However, the bullet to his chest seemed to have had a significant effect, and the Tyrant fell to one knee, motionless. Cheng Yijiu fired another shot—aiming for the shattered heart—before sprinting over and stabbing the two-meter-tall experimental subject in the skull. Cheng Yijiu decisively let go and rolled over, because at that moment, the Tyrant's claws suddenly slashed upward.

Cheng Yijiu was just about to be disemboweled, and then the tyrant madly attacked the walls, floor, and ceiling around him, and also let out a rare roar. Finally, with the sound of the dagger on the skull being ejected with a "bang", hitting the ceiling and then falling to the ground with a clang, the tyrant fell straight to the ground.

Chapter 7: Breakaway

Cheng Yijiu could sense that the life was draining from the tyrant before him. He first picked up the dagger and examined it to see if it was undamaged, then slowly approached the fallen tyrant. He could see the scorched wound on the tyrant's head was widening, and the tyrant's head seemed to be gradually collapsing. The skull, once strong enough to deflect pistol bullets and buckshot, seemed to be becoming fragile.