Chapter 57 - Chapter 56 : Resident Evil

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Now it was eight days after the entire farce with Pierce. The dust had finally settled, the chaos swept beneath the surface though the scars remained. Natasha wasn't monitoring Luke anymore. 

She had far bigger responsibilities on her plate now—her focus was locked on eliminating Hydra agents hidden inside S.H.I.E.L.D., hunting them down cell by cell, one compromised name at a time, after Fury exposed just how deep the infection had burrowed.

And Luke also got word from Fury that his data would be cleaned from the S.H.I.E.L.D database, wiped away like he never existed in their files. 

But Luke wasn't naïve. He knew Fury well enough to understand the truth—the man's opinion of him had shifted. He could no longer be seen as just some stranger with superpowers. In Fury's mind, Luke could now be considered one of the largest potential threats in the world.

And there were some big waves all over the media—every network and paper tearing into S.H.I.E.L.D, questioning how their supposedly impenetrable security had been so lax that a World Council secretary could die right inside their own headquarters.

But Luke didn't spare it more than a passing thought. It had nothing to do with him. This was Fury's mess, not his problem. Let the Director handle the fallout and political firestorms—Luke had no intention of getting tangled up in bureaucratic blame games.

He had other things to take care of… the one-month cooldown was finally over. And that meant only one thing: he could at last step into a new world.

Luke stood in the hall, the faint holographic glow of the system panel hovering before his eyes like a portal waiting to open. 

His gaze shifted toward Selene, who stood beside him with her usual calm presence. She was dressed in her signature black tight leather outfit and long trench coat.

"Now Selene, are you ready?" Luke asked, a faint grin tugging at his lips. His tone carried a mix of excitement and anticipation, the kind that only came before diving into the unknown.

"Yes," Selene replied simply, her voice low and steady as she checked the weight of her twin pistols, snapping the magazines in place with precise clicks.

"Then let's go to a new world," Luke said as his finger pressed the glowing [World Exploration] button.

The now-familiar washing machine experience hit them—twisting, spinning, light and sound bleeding into each other until their senses nearly split apart. And then, just as suddenly, silence.

Both Luke and Selene staggered forward and landed on a street-side path. The air was heavy, and Luke immediately noticed something was wrong. He looked around and found the atmosphere… strange. Too strange for a living city.

It was night.

But it didn't feel like a normal night. It looked like an apocalypse had come and gone. Blood stained the roads. 

Cars sat abandoned in accidents, some smashed against lamp posts or storefronts, some still burning faintly with sputtering fire. 

The smell of gasoline and charred metal stung his nose. Most unsettling of all—there were no people. No voices. Not even footsteps in the distance. Just… silence.

A sudden gust of wind blew, carrying a newspaper that smacked directly into Luke's face.

Annoyed, he peeled it off, ready to crumple it and toss it aside. But then his eyes caught the headline.

"Biological Hazard Suspected Behind Rising Death Toll in Raccoon City"

Luke froze. He didn't even need to think twice. There was only one series, one nightmare, where the name Raccoon City carried that kind of headline.

Resident Evil.

The world of zombies.

Luke let out a slow breath, his mind racing as he recalled something about the biggest asshole corporation in this world. Umbrella Corporation. It was the top private organization here, a pharmaceutical giant on the surface, but in truth its reach went far beyond pills and medicine. 

Their technology was terrifying—easily decades, maybe even centuries, ahead of the modern world. Weapons, biogenetics, cloning, artificial intelligence… Umbrella dabbled in everything, and always in the shadows.

The T-Virus—Umbrella's so-called miracle. On the surface, it was engineered as a breakthrough: a revolutionary agent capable of cellular regeneration, curing disease, even pushing human evolution forward. In theory, it was a scientific wonder, unlocking doors to bioengineering that the rest of the world couldn't even imagine.

But every miracle has a shadow. The T-Virus carried with it devastating side effects. Once unleashed, it twisted life into something unnatural. The most terrifying trait was its ability to reanimate the dead. 

Corpses that should have stayed buried would rise again under its influence—but without thought, without reason, stripped of all humanity. What remained was nothing more than a husk driven by base instinct, guided only by a single, horrifying hunger: to devour flesh.

The perfect definition of a zombie.

And that wasn't all. Umbrella's cloning technology was also insane. They could create thousands of clones like they were products off an assembly line—implanting fake memories so perfectly that the clones themselves believed they were real. Entire cities could be replaced with manufactured people if Umbrella willed it.

Now, holding that newspaper in his hand, Luke realized the horror. The outbreak had already started. Blood and fire on the streets weren't from riots—they were the first signs of collapse. 

And he knew how this story went. In a month or two, the entire world would be doomed. Overrun. Humanity swallowed up by the endless tide of zombies.

And there was no stopping it. Not really. Because the outbreak wasn't an accident—it was a carefully designed plan by Umbrella. Their twisted goal: to wipe out humanity and rebuild a world shaped by their ideals.