A/N: For those who want to read ahead of the Webnovel schedule, you can read up to Chapter 117 on my Patreon.
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*****
"And we have a problem to deal with," said Luke as he walked to the window.
Pulling the curtain aside, he stared out at the night sky. In the distance, several helicopters were approaching fast — their red lights blinking through the low clouds, the faint chop of rotor blades growing louder by the second.
"Umbrella found us," he muttered, his tone calm but sharp. "Time to move out… and plan for the future."
He lifted his hand slightly.
The air around him rippled — a low hum filled the room, almost like static crawling through the air. Outside, the helicopters suddenly jerked mid-flight, their movements halting for a split second before bending in on themselves with a metallic crunch.
Thud… thud… CRACK!
A heartbeat later, the night sky lit up — orange and red flashes tearing through the dark clouds. The sound rolled in after, deep and heavy, shaking the glass windows with each distant explosion.
BOOM… BOOM… BOOM!
Burning debris rained down like falling stars, leaving trails of smoke across the horizon.
Luke lowered his arm and let out a quiet breath, watching the glow fade into the night.
"Now," he said softly, his eyes reflecting the flames, "we prepare for the apocalypse."
***
One year later.
The world has changed.
What started in Raccoon City should have ended there — buried beneath fire and nuclear light. Umbrella thought the nightmare was contained. They were wrong.
Beneath the ruins, in the tunnels and sewers the blast never reached, something still stirred. Not life… but death that refused to die.
Rats, stray dogs, and even insects carried the remnants of the T-virus. They crawled through the flooded tunnels, slipped into rivers, and found their way to the outskirts.
From there, it spread quietly — a single bite, a single scratch, enough to infect an entire town.
By the time the first reports reached the CDC, it was already far too late.
The virus spread faster than borders, faster than any response. No quarantine, no army, no plan could stop it.
And when another outbreak ignited in Tokyo… the infection fanned across continents like a wildfire.
Cities began to die, one after another.
New York. London. Tokyo.
They fell not with explosions, but with silence — roads jammed with abandoned cars, hospitals overflowing, people screaming in the streets before vanishing into the dark. Broadcasts ended mid-sentence as the infected broke through studio doors.
Governments collapsed under the weight of fear. Those who survived built walls, turned cities into prisons, and called them safe zones.
The rest of the world became a graveyard.
Now, the few humans left live in hiding, surviving day by day in the shadows of their former world.
Outside those walls, the infected wander endlessly — hollow-eyed, skin pale and torn, their bodies moving long after their souls have gone.
Driven by one instinct.
To feed .
***
"I still can't believe the world actually ended," Alice muttered, her voice low as she piloted the chopper through the dusty orange sky.
Below them stretched the Nevada desert — endless dunes, scattered debris, and the faint silhouette of Las Vegas half-buried under the sand. The wind howled softly against the chopper's glass, carrying nothing but dust and silence.
In the co-pilot seat, Luke sat slouched back, legs comfortably propped up on the control panel, his hat pulled low over his face.
"...Hrrr… snore—snore... zzz… pffhh—snore…"
That was his answer.
Alice glanced sideways, unimpressed. "Unbelievable," she muttered, shaking her head. "You are the one who suggested the trip and now he's sleeping while I'm driving."
A few moments later, footsteps approached from the back.
"Wake up, sleepyhead," Jill's voice came — followed by a sharp thud as she kicked the base of Luke's chair.
Luke jerked slightly, his hat sliding off his face. "Ow—damn it, Jill! I was doing deep meditation, not sleeping!"
"Sure," Jill said dryly, folding her arms. "Meditation that comes with snoring and drooling."
Luke yawned, stretching his arms above his head in slow, lazy arcs. The hat slipped back just enough to show a tired smile.
"So how much time until we arrive there—yawn?" Luke asked, blinking as he tried to wake up.
"An hour," Alice answered without looking away from the windshield.
"Then wake me up then," Luke said, sliding the hat back down as if already drifting off.
Jill stepped forward, palms on her hips. "Sleep like that and Alice and I will throw you out," she said. Her voice was calm but edged with a grin that made it sound half serious.
Luke stuck his tongue out, half-asleep. "You wouldn't," he mumbled.
"Oh, we would," Jill replied.
"Can't an overworked man get some rest?" sighed Luke, looking at the desert through the helicopter's front window.
A deserted land stretched endlessly ahead — nothing but sand, cracked earth, and the faint outline of what used to be a city.
Their destination: Las Vegas.
Hidden beneath the Nevada desert, it was one of the last remaining Umbrella facilities — the same one shown in the Resident Evil: Extinction timeline.
For this mission, there were only three people onboard the helicopter — Luke, Alice, and Jill.
Selene wasn't with them this time. She was handling something else elsewhere.
Alice took the pilot's seat, focused on keeping the chopper steady through the desert winds. Luke's role was simple: destruction. Jill? She came along for one reason — to see those Umbrella bastards die.
It had been one year since the world fell apart. In that time, Luke had leveled up three times.
It wasn't exactly hard for him. All he had to do was go to the most densely populated cities in America and reduce them to ashes with his fire magic. That's how he gained his levels so fast.
Somewhere along the way, he also unlocked one of the two advanced Fire Tree skills — a devastating move capable of flattening an entire city.
Its name: Meteorite — a spell of pure mass destruction that consumes 600 MP in one cast.
But to Luke, that wasn't much of a problem.
Thanks to certain… special circumstances, his mana capacity had grown completely off the charts compared to his current level.
[Status]
[Class: Arcane Warrior]
[Race : Wraith-Born ( Evolution not available )]
[Level: 24]
[EXP: 67,906,224 / 107,614,333] (Some of you might still be wondering why the EXP bar keeps increasing — there's a reason for that. You'll find out soon enough.)
[HP: 1,878 / 1,878]
[MP: 16,000 / 16,000]
[Stamina: 884 / 884]
[Strength: 93]
[Agility: 75]
[Endurance: 117]
[Intelligence: 92]
[Wisdom: 86]
[Luck: 7]
[Unallocated Stat Points: 16]
[Unallocated Skill Points: 4]
[SP: 17000]
[Traits: Pseudo-immortality, Regeneration (Advanced), Arcane Mantle, Telekinesis (Intermediate)]
[Skills: Basic Martial Arts, Fire Fist, Fireball, Fire Kick, Flame Sweep, Heat Burst, Blazing Dash, Stone Spike, Stone Skin, Quake, Meteor Flame Strike (Intermediate), Flame Pillar (Intermediate), Combustion Field (Intermediate), Meteorite ( Advanced ) (new)].
[Heart of the Infinite Well] (Passive)]
MP capacity Ă—10 (1000% increase)
MP regeneration +200%
If MP < 10%, regeneration spikes to +350% until recovery above 10%