"Sizzle, sizzle..."
Billowing white smoke suddenly rose.
The liquid's corrosiveness was extremely intense; even steel could not resist it. Only the transparent bulletproof glass managed to hold out.
After all, only glass was truly corrosion-resistant.
Other substances were rapidly scorched and melted. Watching the surface armor gradually being eaten away and exposed,
the BSAA Squad Members hiding inside the armored vehicle scrambled to open the doors and flee. If they stayed inside any longer, they would be dissolved completely.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!!!!"
But unfortunately,
once they left the protection of the armored vehicle, they became nothing more than food for the C5 Giant Fly.
Needle-like tentacles shot out one after another, rapidly hitting the BSAA Squad Members as they scattered in all directions. Accompanied by bursts of wretched screams, their living flesh was instantly evaporated by the high heat and vanished.
In the blink of an eye,
the BSAA Squad, which originally numbered thirty or forty people, was completely wiped out.
Every single one of them ended up in the belly of the C5 Giant Fly.
Even those vehicle-mounted weapons... including the main battle tanks,
had turned into heaps of scrap metal, paralyzed on the ground and half-melted by the corrosive liquid, completely unable to continue the fight.
The situation had now become extremely troublesome and thorny...
At this moment, a deathly silence hung over the hotel plaza.
Aside from the constant snarls of various zombies reaching their ears, there was almost no sign of any living person. In the entire city center, only Javier and Sherry remained as survivors.
"Roar, roar, roar..."
"Hiss, hiss—!!!!!!"
Faced with the only two remaining pieces of living gourmet food,
the C5 Giant Fly was no longer as excited as before, even though Javier and Sherry were high-quality protein.
After all, its current size was far too massive.
Javier and Sherry alone could no longer satisfy it. Like a queen ant in desperate need of feeding and reproduction,
the C5 Giant Fly needed more food,
rather than two living things that were difficult to catch. Compared to a cunning rabbit, it much preferred the buffet behind it.
And so,
under the astonished gazes of Javier and Sherry,
the C5 Giant Fly simply gave up on capturing the two of them. Instead, it turned and began slowly crawling up toward the rooftop of the adjacent hotel building.
Its massive chelicerae acted like hooks, gripping the steel skyscraper. The C5 Giant Fly's enormous body fluttered its wings,
continuously dragging its heavy frame toward the rooftop.
The entire skyscraper was nearly crushed under its weight. Once it reached the hotel rooftop, the C5 Giant Fly opened its sharp mouthparts and began emitting a series of shrill screeches:
"Buzz, buzz, buzz—!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The sound carried very far,
like a summer cicada clinging to a tree and chirping frantically. The continuous, ear-piercing sound was incredibly irritating.
The sound waves spread directly to every corner of the city center. The C5 Giant Fly's motive for doing this was very clear: to attract food...
Just like the Shrieker in the C-Virus,
it used its bloated throat to emit a far-reaching sound to attract more of the zombie horde to gather.
It was for the purpose of herding monsters. These Shriekers were like heralds; wherever they found survivors, they would start calling for reinforcements.
And now,
the C5 Giant Fly was employing the same method to attract its prey. By climbing to the top of the hotel rooftop,
it could spread its screeching even further. Once this shrill cry radiated out, it would draw in an endless tide of zombies.
To anyone else,
a horde of hundreds or thousands of zombies was terrifying,
but to the C5 Giant Fly, it was a free buffet—one that was being delivered right into its mouth on a conveyor belt.
No matter how many zombies were attracted, it would eat them all. After all, no one had ever seen a queen ant in a colony eat itself to death.
As long as there was food,
the queen could continuously and repeatedly breed and produce, like a machine on an assembly line, working non-stop 24 hours a day.
"..."
"What is it planning to do...?!"
Watching the C5 Giant Fly slowly climb the hotel building until its massive body was hanging off it,
Sherry, standing nearby, frowned and hurriedly asked Javier. Clearly, she did not yet understand the C5 Giant Fly's goal.
"It plans to use sound to attract more of the zombie horde so it can capture more food. Once it devours the entire city center's zombie tide,"
"then this C5 Giant Fly's size will be even more massive than this hotel building. At that point, aside from ICBMs or small nuclear bombs, no other weapon will be able to destroy it."
Watching the C5 Giant Fly hanging from the hotel rooftop, still emitting its shrill cries, Javier explained calmly.
A trace of unease flickered in his eyes.
He was somewhat angry—angry about when the reinforcements from BSAA and the HK Government forces would finally arrive.
After all, with a body as massive as the C5 Giant Fly's,
it was impossible for it not to have been spotted on satellite maps. Given the military's various intelligence-gathering capabilities, such a huge and troublesome monster...
Without the help of the government and BSAA,
it would be very difficult to kill it relying on themselves alone. Thus, Javier felt a bit helpless, not knowing when the reinforcements would actually arrive.
After all,
you couldn't really expect it to follow the American movie trope where the FBI, police, and other characters only come waddling in to wrap things up when everything is almost over.
It was better to abandon the trope of the police arriving last as soon as possible. Javier did not want to deal with this behemoth all by himself.
"Javier,"
"Look... what is that?!"
Right at that moment,
Sherry, standing to the side, covered her mouth with an expression of utter shock at the scene before her. As the C5 Giant Fly hung from the hotel rooftop and began its shrill screeching,
its massive body was also undergoing a change. The C5 Giant Fly's bloated abdomen suddenly began to writhe.
The end of that bloated abdomen suddenly distended,
and spheres covered in mucus began rolling down along the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the hotel building. Each sphere was as large as a small car.
They were coated in a greenish-white liquid.
The moment this liquid touched the air, it rapidly hardened, hanging the spheres outside the hotel windows like cocoons wrapped in spider silk.
One after another, they came in great numbers. In the blink of an eye, the C5 Giant Fly had already laid more than a dozen spheres.
Without a doubt,
this was reproduction.
Just like a queen ant or a queen bee... no, just like a greenbottle fly itself, it was laying eggs.
Having eaten and drunk its fill, it had begun its instinctive breeding.
It turned out that the C5 Giant Fly's screeching earlier wasn't just to attract food from the zombie tide; it was also the painful cry of the C5 Giant Fly during labor.
And now,
if the C5 Giant Fly were allowed to continue laying eggs,
the consequences of the Resident Evil disaster in Lanshiang City would be unimaginable. If BOWs similar to the C5 Giant Fly hatched one by one, Lanshiang City would truly descend into a hellish catastrophe.
It would then suffer the exact same nuclear bombardment as Raccoon City. After all, with such a dangerous monster,
the HK Government would not allow it to spread to other cities. If necessary... they would nip it in the bud. This wasn't cruelty; it was the most rational choice.
"Squelch..."
"Splat—!!!"
The hatching speed of these spherical eggs was also astonishing. Almost as soon as they were birthed by the C5 Giant Fly, they began to hatch.
Under the writhing of the massive spheres, the eggshells broke open, and fat, white, twisting maggots quickly fell out from within.
They were almost no different from the creatures seen squirming in excrement in a latrine. This disgusting scene was enough to make one gag.
But what was even more terrifying
was their size—comparable to a small car. Can you imagine a maggot the size of a sedan twisting and writhing in front of you?
Moreover, their self-defense capabilities were not weak.
That white outer shell was very hard, as if they were clad in a layer of armor. The biting of ordinary zombies couldn't even break through their defense.
As long as they supplemented themselves by devouring large numbers of zombie corpses as food, this armor would soon harden again.
Then, just like natural evolution, they would emerge from their cocoons as butterflies... no, they would emerge as greenbottle flies.
C5 Fly Larvae of all sizes would be born one after another in the center of Lanshiang City. They would be the masters here, just like the Invisible Bugs in the Spanish castle. This was simply a disaster.
"..."
"Now things have become even more troublesome. This is no longer just a question of whether we can deal with Simmons and the C5 Giant Fly; we must stop it from continuing to lay eggs and reproduce."
"If it continues to breed without any hindrance, I'm afraid not just Lanshiang City, but other cities on HK Island will be affected. This is much more serious than the original outcome."
Looking at the spherical eggs being gradually spat out from the C5 Giant Fly's bloated abdomen, Javier's brow furrowed, and his expression turned grim to the extreme.
This was the so-called butterfly effect.
In the original timeline, Simmons' C5 Giant Fly definitely didn't have the skill to lay eggs and reproduce, but now it had learned it. This greatly increased the difficulty and necessity of killing it.
It gave Javier no chance to stall for time.
After all, given the current situation, once enough time passed and these egg-larvae evolved into C5 Fly Larvae,
they would take to the skies,
spreading the infection to other places and cities. These flying BOWs would be very difficult for the HK Government's military and BSAA to stop.
They would fly right over the defensive nets and dive into other cities like suicide bombers. Trying to stop them with anti-aircraft guns
was simply impossible.
Therefore, Javier had to kill the C5 Giant Fly as quickly as possible. He could not let it continue to lay eggs so brazenly; otherwise, he would become the true culprit of this disaster!
"Sherry, listen to me carefully..."
"In a moment, run to safety immediately. I'll give you some weapons for self-defense. What you need to do now is protect yourself and then call for reinforcements from BSAA. Do you understand?"
"This is the equipment from those BSAA Squad Members just now. Once you have it, contact their headquarters immediately and tell them they must send reinforcements no matter what. If they are unwilling,"
"then there's no need for this so-called anti-bioterrorism organization to exist anymore. After all, they would have to be stupid to not distinguish the priority of such an important matter."
After thinking for a moment,
Javier did not hesitate.
He immediately turned his head and gave Sherry serious instructions.
He then took off the RPG and grenades he was carrying and handed them to Sherry, along with the BSAA Squad's handheld computer.
These were items dropped by those BSAA Squad Members when they died, which Javier had happened to pick up. They could be used to contact other BSAA members.
Sherry's only task was to move to a safe place and protect herself.