Outside, the tightly packed swarm of insects had already surged in like a flood, leaving all the survivors trembling.
Alex, the young man, leaned anxiously against a wall. Out of nowhere, a spider the size of a child's fist—covered in coarse black hair—dropped onto the back of his hand, then crawled up his arm toward his chest.
Chris Redfield reacted instantly. With a single swift motion, he stabbed straight through the spider, the blade piercing Alex's sleeve along with it.
"Careful!" he snapped, already moving to help another survivor.
Chaos. Pure chaos.
The ground writhed with hard-shelled beetles. Not far away, the cavern continued spewing out scorpions and centipedes in numbers too great to count. The ceiling was draped with spiders of every color, and above them, clouds of winged insects blotted out the sky like a moving storm.
Victoria Hand fought fiercely, gripping a flamethrower and firing straight into the heart of the swarm.
The agents split up according to plan—some rescuing survivors, others killing anything that crawled or flew.
Bella, meanwhile, followed her part of the plan: baiting the Reaper.
She stood calmly beside the chair they had prepared in advance.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. On the thirteenth second, a massive beetle slammed straight into the chair.
The chair toppled sideways, knocking over a table. As the tabletop crashed to the ground, it struck hard enough to bounce up a knife the agents had overlooked. The knife spun through the air with a sharp whoosh, shooting straight toward Bella's throat.
At her current level, this kind of danger barely registered. The angle, her position, the timing—everything had already been calculated. She simply lowered her center of gravity and shifted her body slightly, and the blade flew harmlessly past her shoulder.
The thrown knife obeyed normal physics. It didn't curve midair or fly for kilometers. It traveled a standard twenty meters, killed a few oversized mosquitoes along the way, then clattered onto the floor with a metallic clang.
"Did it work?" Victoria Hand asked urgently.
Bella scanned the area, closed her eyes, and searched for the Reaper's attention.
Nothing had changed.
"Nope. Wait. I'll try again."
She stepped back toward the trap, preparing to "tempt" the Reaper a second time.
By then, waves of flying insects had poured into the camp. With razor-sharp mouthparts, they rushed to drain the blood of every living thing.
The agents immediately formed a defensive ring around the survivors, flamethrowers spewing fire in all directions. But the sheer number of insects still forced their way through every gap.
The survivors wrapped themselves in blankets, clothes—anything they could find. Faced with a sky filled with swarming insects, their nerves finally collapsed. A dozen female survivors screamed uncontrollably, each shriller than the last. Even Bella's ears rang painfully, while the male survivors looked nauseated. Several female agents clenched their teeth to keep from breaking.
"Come kill me!"
"Come on! Kill me if you can!"
Bella pushed her mental suggestions outward, shutting out all external noise as she tried once more to provoke the Reaper's killing intent.
This time, the trigger wasn't part of the plan at all.
An agent lost his composure and hurled a grenade into the air at the swarm.
The grenade arced through the chaos… and somehow landed right at Bella's feet.
She had been focusing on a rope two meters away. The sudden surge of a death omen nearly made her jump.
In an instant, she spotted the grenade by her boot. Hiding her power was no longer an option. She grabbed it and hurled it with all her strength into the densest part of the swarm.
The explosion tore open a massive gap in the battlefield. Seconds later, even more insects surged in to fill the void.
The grenade came from an agent—and was thrown by Bella.
The swarm split into two tides: one charging the agents, the other turning toward her.
Facing the overwhelming wave of insects, even Bella felt a chill. She dashed into the agents' defensive circle, layering herself in invisibility magic while whispering over and over:
"You can't see me. You can't see me…"
Desperately trying to erase her presence.
The agent who had thrown the grenade was not so fortunate. A hairy spider crawled from his neck up to his jaw and into his mouth. Centipedes, scorpions, and every nightmare creature swarmed toward his ears and nose. Within ten seconds, his face turned dark purple, and he collapsed, dead.
To the Native American curse, one killer was dead, and the other… had vanished.
The curse sent a massive portion of the flying insects screaming into the sky, tearing at empty air—trying to rip apart whatever was hiding there.
They found another target.
Again and again, the curse was disrupted. The Reaper grew furious.
To kill humans, he required coincidences. To kill vermin, he required nothing.
Any insect that entered his radius died instantly—without sound.
The curse did not retreat. If a thousand died, it sent two thousand. If two thousand died, it sent three thousand.
To the insect swarm, the Reaper was also an intruder—another "white man." The more he killed, the more desperately they tried to tear him apart.
They collided in a brutal, suicidal frenzy.
Bella nearly cheered.
"Success!"
Her plan had worked. Only two attempts—that was efficient.
War erupted on all fronts.
Humans fought insects. Insects fought the Reaper. And the Reaper, when distracted, occasionally glanced toward the survivors—but the endless tide of cursed insects kept dragging his attention back. Many of these half-magical, half-material creatures had lived for more than two hundred years under the curse, carrying an undead trait.
With the Reaper's focus locked onto them, the two sides entered a true deathmatch.
"I can't take this anymore! I want to go home!"
"Oh God! Oh God!"
"Let me go! Please! I can't do this!"
"Stop! Stay where you are! Going out now is suicide!" Bella dragged back several survivors who tried to bolt for the exit.
She genuinely felt sorry for them. They'd been kept in the dark—didn't know who they were fighting, how to fight, or why they were here. Making it this far was already a miracle.
The survivors teetered on the edge of total hysteria. They wanted to run anywhere, as long as it was away from this nightmare. But Bella and Victoria Hand both refused to retreat. They had to wait until the Reaper and the Native curse decided the outcome.
"Shut up! Anyone who screams again, I'll put them down myself!" Victoria Hand fired several rounds into the air above their heads, crushing the panic through sheer intimidation.
Got complaints? Fine. File them later with the FBI.
She didn't care.