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On the rooftop of City Hall, a mercenary lay prone with a sniper rifle, scanning the plaza below.
Through the scope, he caught sight of two figures creeping carefully along the street edge—Angela and Jill.
A cold smirk tugged at his lips. He adjusted the scope, locking onto Jill's head, ready to deliver a deadly "surprise."
With a Barrett anti-materiel rifle, even a grazing shot would rip half her body apart.
Just as he steadied his aim, something moved behind him. From the edge of the building, Alice clambered up in her Venom-formed suit, her steps silent and predatory.
The mercenary's finger tightened on the trigger—then he frowned, sensing movement. He half-rose, glancing back in confusion.
Alice was already on him. She clamped a hand around his skull and twisted sharply. Bone snapped with a sickening crack, and his body slumped lifelessly.
Alice wasted no time, scaling the city's high-rises like a predator, silently eliminating mercenaries hidden across the skyline.
When the last sniper was down, she regrouped with Angela and Jill, and the three of them hurried toward a waiting transport helicopter.
Inside the cabin, Alice's gaze swept across the interior. For a brief moment, memories of being captured and experimented on by Umbrella resurfaced.
She shook them off, stepped inside, and pressed her blade against the pilot's head.
"Take off."
The pilot, far from panicking, only smiled in a strange, unsettling way.
Alice's spider-sense screamed. She spun around—
Outside, a squad of Umbrella operatives stood waiting.
Their commanding officer grinned with a devilish smirk.
"We've been expecting you."
A squad of elite mercenaries marched into view, surrounding the helicopter.
"Alice, you're completely surrounded. Put down your weapons and surrender," the officer called, smug and confident that the fight was over.
Alice's eyes hardened. She stepped in front of Angela and Jill.
"I'll pass."
The officer's smirk vanished. His voice turned sharp with anger.
"Open fire! Kill them!"
Gunfire roared as the mercenaries unloaded their weapons.
Venom reacted instantly, peeling away from Alice's body and forming a towering black barrier in front of the three women. Bullets hammered into the writhing liquid, but none broke through.
The Umbrella commander frowned, refusing to give the order to stop. He didn't believe any shield could withstand endless fire.
But when the mercs emptied their magazines, the black wall still stood, untouched.
As they scrambled to reload, the barrier suddenly sprouted dozens of spear-like spikes that shot outward, impaling soldiers where they stood.
"What… what is this?"
The commander staggered, coughing blood. He looked down in disbelief to see a black spike jutting through his chest.
Then the hardened tendrils softened like taffy and snapped back into the barrier, which collapsed and flowed back into Alice's armor.
As the black spikes retracted, a dozen bodies hit the ground at once, blood spraying in the air before pooling across the concrete.
Inside the helicopter, Alice, Angela, and Jill blinked as their vision cleared. The plaza outside was now littered with corpses, the once-formidable Umbrella squad lying broken and lifeless.
Alice barely reacted. She turned calmly, stepping toward the pilot once more.
Alice, unfazed as always, turned and walked straight into the helicopter's cabin, stopping in front of the pilot.
"I'll take off right now! Right now…"
Before Alice even said a word, the terrified pilot was already scrambling to start the engines.
The rotors spun up, chopping the air with a deafening roar, and the transport chopper slowly lifted off, rising into the sky and flying toward the horizon.
Just as it disappeared into the distance, a mass of black liquid dropped from the sky, splattering across the head of a nearby zombie.
The creature didn't even have time to react before the liquid wrapped around its body, swallowing it whole, and in seconds the thing had transformed into Venom.
Stretching his newly formed limbs, Venom glanced at the helicopter speeding away from the ruined city. Then, without hesitation, he leapt off the skyscraper and began vaulting and swinging between buildings with terrifying speed.
His mission was already complete. He had copied Alice's unique, fully merged virus-gene sequence into himself.
Which meant she was no longer useful. Putting her on that helicopter was simply cutting ties.
Still, there were a few loose ends to clean up. Once those were handled, he could finally leave this world… and move on to the next.
Venom darted from rooftop to rooftop until he reached the top of a wrecked skyscraper.
This was the building Nemesis had torn apart earlier. And Venom was here to retrieve something.
Digging into inherited memories, he scaled the wall until he found a ventilation shaft.
He ripped the cover free with one hand, revealing something cocooned inside, bound tightly with black webbing.
Reaching in, he yanked it out and tore away the sticky strands. Inside lay a remote control device.
Venom tilted his head, grinning wickedly. Intact. He had worried Nemesis might've destroyed it, but apparently, his fears were unnecessary.
Stepping to the edge of the building, Venom looked out over the burning ruins. Fires raged across the city, the skyline reduced to rubble.
He lifted the remote in his clawed hand, slowly pressing down on the activation switch.
But then—he froze.
His head snapped up.
A missile streaked across the sky, trailing smoke, and in seconds, a nuclear warhead was bearing down on the city.
Venom's grin twisted into a cruel smirk. He slammed his thumb onto the remote's button.
The next moment, the nuke detonated in midair, right above the city.
The explosion was blinding—like the world had turned into pure white daylight. The glare seared so bright it hurt to open one's eyes.
Venom too was swallowed in that blinding storm.
"BOOM!!!"
The shockwave ripped outward with earth-shattering force, annihilating everything in its path.
The city hall went first. Then every other building followed.
Against mankind's ultimate weapon, nothing stood a chance. Everything crumbled. Everything burned. Everything was erased.
"....."