Because the number of people on board exceeded the rescue helicopter's standard capacity, the cabin door could not fully close and remained ajar. Cold wind, carrying the stench of rot permeating Raccoon City, continuously blasted into the cabin.
The aircraft had just gained altitude and was barely away from the hospital when the tense atmosphere in the cabin began to ease slightly. But just as everyone's racing hearts were beginning to settle, a sudden mutation occurred. Several incredibly thick tentacles abruptly burst through the pavement. As thick as a grown man's waist, the tentacles lashed out from beneath the ground toward the helicopter.
Before anyone in the cabin could react, the cold, slimy appendages tightly coiled around the aircraft's landing gear.
Lear felt the fuselage lurch violently downward. In the next second, the entire helicopter was being yanked toward the ground by a colossal force. The cabin instantly dissolved into chaos; everyone was tossed about by the massive inertia, their cries for help blending with the sounds of bodies slamming against the interior.
Fortunately, Brad's piloting skills were superb. Amidst the frantic tugging of the tentacles, he used every ounce of strength to maneuver the aircraft, managing to stabilize the fuselage and temporarily avert the fate of a crash.
"What the hell is that?"
Carlos gasped, clutching his bruised forehead. The violent shaking just now had nearly thrown him right out of the open cabin door.
Sitting in the pilot's seat, Brad gripped the flight stick with white knuckles, his forehead drenched in cold sweat. He roared back, "I don't know! But if you don't find a way to deal with it fast, we're all going down!"
Suppressing his physical discomfort, Lear looked down toward the source of the tentacles. When he saw the monster's form, cold sweat instantly soaked his back.
A massive, writhing ball of flesh, looking like a heap of sludge, was slowly squeezing out from a subway entrance beside the street. It was "squeezing" because the portion of the monster visible above ground was already three or four meters wide, and a steady stream of black, rotting flesh was still gushing out from the subway tunnel below.
The surface of this eerie ball of flesh was a mess of shattered insectoid carapaces and jagged chunks of concrete, which acted like armor plating over the rotting meat.
Lear's gaze pierced through the debris. In the center of that mass of flesh was the Nemesis, who should have been dead. More accurately, it was the completely decayed head of the Nemesis; inside the skull, a multi-legged insect resembling a centipede was writhing frantically, exerting control over this deformed body.
While Lear was observing the monster and searching for a countermeasure, Carlos, Murphy, and the others had already raised their weapons and began firing at the tentacles with everything they had. The dense hail of bullets struck the tentacles only to produce a series of dull thuds, as if hitting a pile of mud, proving completely ineffective.
"Shit! Taste this, you bastard!" Murphy let out a roar and hurled a hand grenade.
The hand grenade struck the tentacle, actually denting it before being swallowed by the flesh. A moment later, a violent explosion thundered, and the tentacle entangling the helicopter was mostly blown apart.
Murphy was overjoyed at the sight and immediately yelled toward the pilot's seat, "Brad, pull up! The tentacle is severed!"
"I can't!" Brad was pulling the control stick with all his might, but the helicopter continued to hover in place. Instead of climbing, the fuselage leaned further and further, dragged down by the force of the tentacle.
Amidst the panic, little Sherry, who had been huddled in the corner, suddenly raised a trembling hand and pointed at the severed tentacle beneath the helicopter.
"Look, everyone! What is that?"
Lear followed Sherry's finger. At the spot where the tentacle had been blown apart, countless transparent, wire-like threads were connecting the severed ends. The sludge-like rotten flesh was rapidly knitting back together along those strands.
The helicopter could no longer maintain its balance; it lurched and swayed as the healing tentacle yanked on it. The airframe shook violently, on the verge of plunging from the sky at any second.
Jill gritted her teeth, her gaze turning resolute in an instant. She stood up, preparing to leap from the aircraft onto the tentacle, but Lear was faster and grabbed her.
"I'll go! Listen, Jill, this isn't a negotiation. You'll just be throwing your life away. If I go, we have a chance. Trust me. Take care of Sherry and wait for me to come back!"
Seeing the earnest look in Lear's eyes, Jill pursed her lips. Her eyes reddened slightly, but she didn't argue further, giving him a firm nod instead.
Lear stood at the edge of the helicopter, ready to jump. Just then, Carlos handed him a shimmering tactical knife.
"Lear, take this. It's no legendary weapon, but it cost me several months' salary to have someone custom-forge it. It should be useful to you."
Lear took the dagger and flashed a smile at Carlos. "I'll give it back when I return!"
With those words, Lear hesitated no longer. He threw himself out, leaping toward the tentacles below.
Individually, the tentacles weren't exceptionally thick, but with several of them coiled and tangled together, they formed a "pathway" barely wide enough to stand on, appearing sturdy enough for now.
Using the momentum of his fall, Lear gripped the dagger and slashed downward with all his strength.
The outer layer of the tentacle was a mass of soft, rotting flesh, and the dagger sliced through it easily. However, when the blade struck those threads, it let out a sharp, metallic ring.
"This stuff is actually this hard!" Lear cursed under his breath. He exerted a second burst of strength through his core, using his momentum to swing himself firmly onto the tentacle, his feet landing on the surface of the putrid flesh.
He crouched down and reached out to touch the transparent lines, only to find they were completely different from what he had expected. Lear had assumed these threads would be hard like steel wire, but they felt like spider silk—exceptionally resilient. The dagger's edge did almost no damage to them.
Lear was momentarily at a loss for how to deal with the things when Dr. Bard suddenly shouted from above.
"Lear, catch!"
As soon as Bard spoke, a small bottle fell from the aircraft.
"That's the sulfuric acid I intended to use to destroy the T-Virus! Use this!"
Hearing the word sulfuric acid, Lear's eyes lit up. Before the tentacles could fully recover or heal, he quickly uncorked the bottle and poured the sulfuric acid onto those fine threads.
As the sulfuric acid made contact, Lear immediately smelled a pungent odor—the scent of corroding protein—and many tentacles snapped in response.
"Lear! Get up here, I can climb now! Hurry!"
Brad's excited voice came from overhead. Lear immediately intended to jump back onto the aircraft before the tentacles severed completely.
He ran quickly along the tentacles toward the aircraft. Just a moment before the tentacles snapped, Lear leaped, his hands on the verge of grasping the edge of the aircraft.
In that split second, a dark shadow swiped violently toward Lear. Unable to dodge in mid-air, Lear took the full force of the blow. He heard the crisp snap of breaking bones as he instantly lost his balance and fell straight down from the heights.
"Lear!!!"
Seeing Lear get hit, Jill, who had been standing by the aircraft door ready to catch him, let out a grief-stricken cry.
Ignoring Jill's shouts from the aircraft, Lear coughed up a mouthful of blood in mid-air. He endured the excruciating pain, desperately trying to adjust his body position as he fell.
He saw clearly that what had hit him was a truck-sized concrete pillar swung up from the ground by Nemesis. If he hadn't taken that hit, the pillar would have struck the aircraft, and everyone on board would have been finished.
Like a kite with a snapped string, Lear fell rapidly from the sky. With a loud "bang," he slammed heavily onto the roof of an abandoned sedan by the roadside. The massive impact surged through his body once more, causing him to cough up another mouthful of blood as if every bone in his body had shattered.
"Go! Wait for me outside!"
Clutching his agonizing chest, Lear struggled to crawl down from the car roof, waving his hands desperately at the helicopter circling overhead.
As if understanding Lear's meaning, the helicopter in the sky swayed left and right, then Brad immediately maneuvered the aircraft to pull up quickly, flying toward the outskirts of Raccoon City.
Seeing that everyone on the aircraft was out of danger, Lear breathed a sigh of relief, but as he let that breath out, he nearly suffocated.
At this moment, Lear felt as though his internal organs had all shifted out of place; every breath brought piercing pain. Although he could vaguely feel a power rapidly repairing his physical trauma, the damage inflicted by Nemesis had, in reality, stripped Lear of his fighting capacity.
His vision began to blur. Lear shook his head forcefully, trying hard to discern his surroundings. That strike just now had sent him flying at least a hundred meters. He looked up, but the once gargantuan Nemesis had now vanished without a trace.
Dragging his heavily injured body, he stumbled into a coffee shop and collapsed onto a seat behind the front desk.
Lear's consciousness gradually faded. The physical agony made it an impossible for him to hold on any longer; his vision went black, and he lost consciousness.
A second before passing out, he thought he saw a two-meter-tall upright giant lizard crouching beside him, staring at him.
"A Hunter? How could it..."
Before Lear could think further, everything went black, and his mind plunged into chaos.
(Translated by yourtl.app)