So by now, you must have realized that the world is much wider than you or Atlas thought, and the first volume is coming to an end with the story of the movie. Before the second volume, there will be many chapters exploring the world and setting up the second volume, which would follow the story of.....
So 1.5 Will setup the second volume.
And 2.5 will setup the fourth volume.
And after it third volume will be in different world I am thinking of Tokyo Ghoul or Demon Slayer, as he needs a lot of experience to level up beyond 15 levels.
Fourth volume will return to the world.
So before that, because I am going to introduce a character, I wanted to clear the situation of Harem As the second volume brings them all to Raccoon City.
Alice
Ada
Jill
Claire
Ashley
Excella? Maybe
Rachel Foley
Rosemary ? Maybe
And??? Please provide guidance for the future, as I aim to take the high road by introducing them earlier than the Atlas meeting.
*****
"I'm a visionary!" Spence countered, laughing breathlessly. "We can go anywhere. Rio. Paris. We can buy a private island in the Caribbean. We can hide in a fortress in the Swiss Alps, or in Eastern Europe in some villages, sipping champagne while the rest of the world burns."
He stepped closer to her, his voice dropping to a seductive whisper.
"Far away from the chaos that is about to fall upon the world. We just opened Pandora's Box, Alice. The old world is over. But with that money? We can build a paradise in the ashes. We can do whatever we want. Be whoever we want."
Alice looked at him with pure, unadulterated disgust.
"You did this?" she asked, her voice trembling with suppressed rage. "You killed all these people? You destroyed an entire facility... for money?"
"I did it for us!" Spence shouted, his composure cracking. "This was the plan! We were supposed to be rich! We were supposed to be kings!"
"So this is how you make my dreams come true?" Alice asked coldly, her muscles tensing, ready to spring.
"Don't be stupid," Spence warned, sensing her movement. He shifted his aim back to Matt, thumbing the hammer back. "I'm offering you a way out. Don't throw it away for a dead cop's brother."
"Go to hell," Matt snarled, stepping in front of Alice.
Spence's face hardened. The mask of the charming partner fell away, leaving only the cold emptiness of a killer.
"Wrong answer."
He tightened his finger on the trigger, aiming directly at the center of Matt's forehead.
"Believe me, I don't want to shoot you," Spence muttered, his eyes darting to the door. "I might need the bullet for the things outside. Back off."
Spence took a step backward toward the exit.
He didn't notice the ripple in the water behind him.
A female scientist, submerged and presumed dead, silently rose from the murky depths. Her skin was grey, her jaw hanging open.
Spence took another step back.
CRUNCH.
The zombie lunged, sinking her teeth into the soft flesh where Spence's neck met his shoulder.
"ARGHHH!"
Spence screamed, the sound echoing off the metal walls. He spun around, panic overriding his aim. He slammed the butt of the revolver into the zombie's temple. Crack. She staggered back, splashing into the water.
"Get him!" Matt yelled.
Matt lunged forward, tackling Spence. They splashed into the freezing water, grappling for the gun.
But Spence was fueled by adrenaline and the T-Virus that was now coursing into his veins.
He drove a knee into Matt's stomach and followed it with a savage right hook to the jaw.
Matt collapsed into the water, dazed.
Spence scrambled backward, clutching his bleeding neck. He looked at Alice, then at the door. He raised the gun again, firing a warning shot into the water near her feet.
BANG.
"Stay back!"
He backed through the heavy steel door, slamming it shut.
CLICK. WHIRR.
He engaged the manual lock from the other side.
"Open it!" Alice screamed, pounding on the door. "Spence!"
From the other side, Spence's voice came through, muffled but dripping with venom.
"Where's the Anti-Virus?" Rain wheezed, slumped on the stairs.
"Oh, it's on the train," Spence shouted through the steel. "Right where you found me. I'm going to cure myself, and then I'm leaving you all here to rot."
There was a pause.
"I'm beginning to miss you already, Alice," he said, his tone mocking. Then, the sound of splashing footsteps faded away.
"Shit!" Matt slammed his fist into the wall. "He will get away with it. He has the cure, he has the train... he wins."
"I don't think so."
The sudden, synthesized voice startled them.
Above the lab benches, a mounted security monitor flickered to life. Static cleared to reveal the Red Queen's avatar.
"What do you mean?" Alice asked, looking up at the screen.
The Red Queen smiled—a chilling, knowing expression.
"Lately," the AI purred, "I've been a very, very bad girl."
The screen shifted. It changed from the avatar to a live security feed.
[ LOCATION: THE HIVE – TRAIN PLATFORM ]
The grainy black-and-white footage showed Spence running onto the platform. He looked frantic. He dropped the duffel bag, ripping it open. He pulled out the silver briefcase, unlocked it, and grabbed a green spiral vial. The Anti-Virus.
He rolled up his sleeve, desperate to inject himself before the infection took hold.
But then, he paused.
He looked up.
From the shadows of the train ceiling, something dripped onto his face.
Spence raised his head.
Hanging directly above him was a nightmare. A creature of raw, exposed muscle, with a brain visibly pulsing beneath a translucent membrane. It had massive, razor-sharp talons and a tongue that extended like a whip.
"Oh, hell... shit—"
Spence couldn't finish his curse.
The creature dropped.
It didn't just attack him; it enveloped him. The massive claws pinned him to the floor. Spence screamed as the creature buried its teeth into his neck, ripping out his throat in a spray of dark pixels on the screen.
The scream died down quickly, replaced by wet tearing sounds.
Matt stared at the screen, horrified. "What the hell is that thing?"
"Subject-009," the Red Queen answered, her voice clinical. "An early experiment utilizing direct injection of the T-Virus into living tissue. It went wrong. A second mutation occurred. They are essentially mutated humans that resulted from the VA CT process, a trait in certain T-Virus strengths which forced the second set of mutations among severely injured zombies."
She zoomed in on the creature as it lifted its head, hissing.
"It is an abomination of exposed tissue. A hunter. The more fresh DNA it absorbs, the faster, stronger, and more lethal it becomes. Codenamed... The Licker."
Alice watched the creature tear Spence apart. "So that's what was hunting us."
"Yes," the Red Queen agreed. Then, her voice shifted. It became quieter, laced with a strange, algorithmic confusion. "But... It seems none of the variants are perfect. Not like the other one."
Alice frowned. "What? There is another one?"
"Not the same," the AI corrected quickly. "Completely different."
The screen flickered, showing a split-second frame of a grey figure with silver claws moving through the sewers, but it vanished before they could see it clearly.
"If we remove the Licker from the equation... There is another entity currently in the Hive. He is also mutated, but the divergence is radical. He is stronger. Faster. But unlike the Licker, he is human-like. He is smarter. By a significant margin."
The Red Queen paused, her holographic eyes widening.
"From his behavior, I am certain he possesses a sense of self. He displays vanity. Strategy. Humor. He seems to be able to communicate. The T-Virus has evolved and mutated in his body beyond anything I have in my database."
Rain coughed up blood. "Communicating zombies? Great."
"I have seventy years of research data," the Red Queen continued, her voice gaining intensity. "From the Progenitor Virus discovered by Spencer, to the T-Virus, to the G-Virus prototypes to their many variants. In all that time, necrosis always leads to cognitive degradation. The process involves cell mutation along with an increase in size and mass. Always. Always."
She leaned forward in the monitor.
"But this Subject...A-1 he is evolving upward. He is becoming something new."
Matt swallowed hard. "Gulp... he seems very dangerous. How the hell did you create this thing?"
"We did not create him," the Red Queen snapped. "He evolved himself. In this very day. From a normal, unknown normal T-Virus infected human."
"Impossible," Alice whispered.
"In fact," the AI mused, "it started the moment you, Alice, opened your eyes in the shower. A coincidence? Perhaps. But I have no idea how he does it. It is beyond anything and I say even beyond science. He absorbs biomass and converts it into... potential. He doesn't rot. He does not decay; rather, he is perfectly regenerating his body to resemble that of a normal human male without uncontrolled mutation. He is beautiful."
"Beautiful?" Matt looked at the screen in disbelief. "You're talking about a monster."
"I am talking about the Apex," the Red Queen corrected, her tone bordering on obsession. "I cannot identify why he is like this. Why is he so different? Why does the virus obey him instead of consuming him? He defies every model I run. He is the only variable I cannot predict."
"WHAT!?" Matt shouted.
---
Location: Sector 4 – Molecular Biology Lab 04 (Flooded).
Time: 04:45 AM.
"WHAT!?" Matt shouted, his voice cracking with disbelief.
"What do you mean by that?" Alice asked, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the screen. "'He evolved himself'? That's biologically impossible."
"It is as I said," the Red Queen replied, her holographic avatar flickering with streams of scrolling data. "He evolved. The mutation began on the same day—no, the very moment—you woke up, Alice."
She paused, her digital eyes shifting slightly.
"But do not overthink it. It is merely a statistical anomaly. A coincidence. Though my probability processors suggest... otherwise."
"So why didn't you tell us before?" Matt yelled, slamming his hand against the wall. "If there's a super-zombie out there, we had a right to know!"
"I am not programmed to concern myself with your 'rights'," the AI retorted coldly. "I left the infected for you to deal with. It was my way of sterilizing the environment. I did not calculate that you would survive this long. Frankly, your continued existence is an error in my predictive modeling."
As the Red Queen spoke, a sound cut through the tension.
CRACK.
It came from the observation window overlooking the flooded lab. A web of white fractures appeared on the reinforced glass.
Alice spun around, raising the revolver.
Through the distortion of the glass, she saw a nightmare.
The Licker—Subject 009—was clinging to the outside of the window. Its exposed brain pulsed wetly. Its tongue, thick and muscular, lashed against the glass like a piston. It didn't have eyes, but it knew exactly where they were.
THUD. CRACK.
It slammed its massive claws against the pane again. A shard of glass fell onto the wet floor inside.
"Shit! He's getting in!" Matt yelled, backing away, looking for a weapon, anything better than a wrench.
"The glass is reinforced polycarbonate," the Red Queen noted impassively. "But against the localized pressure exerted by Subject-009's talons? It will fail in approximately fifty five seconds."
"Get us out of here!" Alice commanded, looking up at the camera. "Open the door!"
"I cannot," the Red Queen refused. "You are compromised."
The avatar pointed a small finger at Rain, who was slumped against the wall, her skin grey, her breathing ragged.
"You must eliminate the infected contagion before I release the lockdown."
"No," Alice shook her head. "No shit. I am not doing that."
"Do as she says, Alice." The voice was weak. Rain looked up, her eyes clouded with the early stages of the T-Virus cataracts. She coughed, and black blood splattered onto her tactical vest.
"I'm just a burden," Rain wheezed, forcing a smile that looked more like a grimace. "I will only slow you down. Look at me. I'm already dead."
"Kill her," the Red Queen urged. "I know I am only delaying the inevitable. Spence Parks was right. You just opened Pandora's Box, Alice. The old world is over. But I will do what I have to protect Umbrella and the surface world, even if it is just for a few more hours."
As the AI spoke, her consciousness split.
While she lectured Alice, her sub-routines were scanning the deep underground infrastructure—the sewers beneath the Hive.
[ LOCATION: RACCOON CITY SEWER NETWORK - NORTH QUADRANT ]
The camera feed was grainy and dark, illuminated only by infrared.
The Red Queen watched in digital horror.
The path—the Apex-1—had taken was littered with corpses. But these weren't normal corpses. They were dried, mummified husks, drained of all fluid and vitality by the Apex's unique feeding mechanism.
Because they were dry, they were brittle. And because they were brittle... they were food.
Rats. Hundreds of them. A sea of vermin swarmed over the dried remains of the zombies he had killed. They gnawed on the infected, mummified flesh.
[ BIOLOGICAL HAZARD ALERT ]
[ VECTOR CONFIRMED: RATTUS NORVEGICUS ]