Chapter 513

Pfft!

A 9mm bullet pierced straight through Ke Lai Er's left thigh, fresh blood instantly gushed from the thumb-sized wound, spilling out and tracing the thigh's powerful contour, staining the black seat.

The adrenaline secretion caused Ke Lai Er to feel only temporary numbness, requiring a moment's wait before sensing the burning and tearing pain.

"Ah…ah!!!" but this did not prevent Ke Lai Er from screaming voicelessly.

"Shut up."

Leon again aimed the gun at Ke Lai Er's head and repeated the question: "How do you escape this illusion? Note, you only have this one chance."

"You"

This Ke Lai Er was about to say, "You're sick! What the hell are you crazy about?!"

But upon second thought, since Leon really is a 'madman', if she didn't follow his words and actions, her head would definitely not be safe.

But Ke Lai Er simply could not understand Leon's 'illusion'.

She tried to calm her emotions, after a few seconds of silence she still shook her head, putting on a resigned expression, and said: "Sorry, I can't answer your question because I fucking don't know what you're talking about!"

?

Seeing Ke Lai Er give up, Leon couldn't help but start doubting whether his judgment was correct.

After all, Ke Lai Er Redfield is his colleague's sister, and the real Ke Lai Er is working in the 'volunteer' industry in the main universe, making it impossible for her to appear in Sri Lanka of Universe 03.

Thus, this Ke Lai Er before him is definitely a fake, an abnormal creature generated from that abnormality based on his memories in the illusion or dream, so Leon bears no psychological burden.

However, Ke Lai Er's various reactions seemed very much in line with a 'normal human's response.

But.

Bang!

Pfft!

But Leon still pulled the trigger, shooting Ke Lai Er in the head.

The 9mm bullet entered from the forehead, exited the lower rear side of the skull creating two thumb-sized irregular holes, then struck the passenger door.

However, the bullet that burst out of the skull no longer had much force and would not cause violent ricochets inside the vehicle.

Ding!

And with lifeless, unfocused eyes, Ke Lai Er slumped forward, hitting the barrier above the storage compartment and twitching a few times.

To be honest, even knowing Ke Lai Er was fake, shooting and killing an abnormal creature that looked, acted, and even had the same personality as his colleague's sister truly left Leon's heart unable to find peace.

Afterwards, seeing the nearby zombies about to surround the police car, he stopped dwelling on the Ke Lai Er issue and drove toward the police station in central Raccoon City.

Because the police station possessed the company's most important research facility, namely the orbital train and elevator leading to the 'Mother Nest'.

Regardless, Leon wanted to first go to the company to investigate, holding hope that he might find a way to escape the dream there.

More than ten minutes passed.

Due to the streets being congested with numerous scrapped and anchored vehicles, Leon had to abandon the police car and choose to walk to the police station only two intersections away.

Before leaving, Leon first retrieved a Glock and its ammunition and magazines from the corpse of the police officer zombie, then found a Remington shotgun and its shells in the police car's trunk, and finally left the dead Ke Lai Er inside the police car.

Next, he proceeded toward the police station while staying alert to his surroundings, pondering the various aspects after arriving in this environment.

First, everything here felt utterly real; moreover, over a hundred years ago Leon had researched the 'brain in a vat' hypothesis, but after his direct superior gave a negative opinion, he never again considered the possibility that the universe was fictional.

However, the innocent demeanor displayed by that Ke Lai Er influenced Leon to start thinking that this world is 'real', while the main universe is the 'dream'.

?!

At the moment he realized this thought, Leon instantly felt danger.

It seemed that his rationality had been affected after shooting Ke Lai Er dead.

Possibly because guilt caused a slight waver, allowing the abnormality that had been secretly observing him to find an opening and intrude.

This place absolutely cannot be 'reality'.

The strong will forged over two hundred years allowed Leon, in an extremely short time, to stop dwelling on the shooting of Ke Lai Er and to feel no guilt whatsoever.

After restoring his rationality, Leon noticed that the number of zombies on both sides of the street began to noticeably increase; some special individuals would spew out fast-moving, twitching tentacles from their mouths, while others had their heads replaced by blood-red arthropods.

Not only that, he actually discovered that the lickers and hunters—biological weapons long discarded by the company—had also flooded the streets.

In an instant, countless mutant creatures blocked the main thoroughfare that led quickly to the police station.

"Bang! Bang!"

Leon naturally wouldn't surrender; he immediately pulled the trigger of his VP70, firing controlled bursts that blew the heads off several zombies lunging at him.

"Gurgle… gurgle…"

At that moment, several more zombies appeared—mutants whose mouths had sprouted tentacles and whose heads had been replaced by arthropods—suddenly shifting from a shambling gait to a running speed comparable to an athlete's as they charged at him.

"Bang! Bang!"

Seeing this, Leon hurried to increase his burst rate, but soon he heard a "click!"—his magazine had been punctured.

Moreover, Leon no longer did what he used to two hundred years ago—flamboyantly tossing away empty magazines—but instead immediately slipped his VP70 into the holster on his right thigh, then grabbed the Remington shotgun slung behind him and pointed its muzzle at the nearest mutant zombie.

"Boom!!" Countless fine grains sprayed out of the barrel.

"Pop!!" The arthropod that had replaced the head and was connected to the zombie's spine was directly blown apart by the countless fine grains.

Having dealt with that threat, Leon could not linger; he immediately shifted to the right rear, preparing to take another alley to bypass the main thoroughfare and head for the police station.

"Boom! Boom!"

During this, Leon sprinted quickly, freeing his right hand to load shells into the Remington; after the horde behind him had opened a gap, he turned and fired on the faster mutants, lickers, and hunters to hold them back.

After repeating this several times, Leon finally broke free of the zombie horde on the main thoroughfare, entered an alley, and vanished after a series of left and right turns.

Soon after.

"Huff… huff…"

In the dark, damp alley, Leon leaned his back against the wall, unable to stop panting heavily, trying to calm his heartbeat and breathing back to normal, and he proceeded to reload the Remington and VP70 with fresh ammunition and magazines.

Having gathered everything, Leon then slightly closed his eyes, relaxed a little, and rested for a moment.

Since his consciousness was trapped, he clearly sensed that his body in this illusion lacked any nanomachine assistance from reality.

Therefore, Leon's physique is no different from that of an ordinary person at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first; at most, he is just a recent police academy graduate, slightly stronger than the average person.

Moreover, Leon was unsure whether dying in the illusion would also mean the death of his physical body in the Sri Lan Camp.

Although Leon was not a researcher, he also knew that once the brain believes it has suffered 'real' damage, it will then feed back to the body.

So he would not, or rather, it is absolutely impossible for him to attempt to return to the real world by suicide; moreover, in this situation, self-understanding appears to Leon as a cowardly, timid act.

If worse comes to worst, he'll cause a huge ruckus in this Raccoon City, after all he's lived for nearly two and a half centuries.

Saying he's lived enough might not be accurate, but this life has been worthwhile.

Immediately he opened his eyes, gripped the Remington held in both hands, and was about to continue forward…

""Beep… beep…""

But he felt a few drops of viscous liquid falling onto his head.

The moment he sensed this abnormality, Leon, unlike the protagonists in the horror movies his son and daughter like to watch who foolishly look up, instinctively slammed the butt of his Remington upward.

""Bang~!""

""Ah…~!""

Accompanied by a thick, dull impact and a woman's scream, the thing that had been crawling above was knocked down by Leon.

At the same time, Leon moved away from the wall he was leaning on, and naturally pointed the gun at that fleshy mass, pulling the trigger without hesitation.

""Boom!!""

""Pff!!""

Countless fine grains instantly shattered it into pieces; the most aggravating part was that the fragmented chunks still writhed, seemingly trying to reassemble themselves, while emitting an furious roar:

""Leon…… Kennedy, why did you kill me… why did you kill me!! This world is the real one…… The Umbrella you serve is far from the righteousness you imagine…… And this place should truly be your starting point……""

Listening closely, the roar from the sarcoma seemed to carry the distinctive tone of that 'Claire'.

It is obvious that a headshot was fired, yet it did not truly kill 'Claire'; moreover, this thing underwent some mutation, becoming the fleshy mass before us.

""Boom! Boom!""

But Leon didn't wait for 'Claire' to finish; he kept firing several more shots, reducing it completely to rubble.

Immediately afterward, Leon turned and left without any hesitation.

Is Umbrella righteous?

If he were still a rookie officer, perhaps due to the T-virus spreading, turning citizens into zombies and mutants, and the likes of the biochemical weapons' lickers and hunters, he might have had his mind clouded by 'Claire's' words, beginning to hate and despise Umbrella's actions.

To be frank, back then he saw things in black and white; without the words and guidance of his superior Sui Bian, he would have simply viewed Umbrella as an evil, black-hearted villainous organization.

But as he aged, after dealing with numerous tough incidents and gaining an understanding of the company's actions, Leon began to firmly believe that D and personnel are 'necessities'.

Moreover, what does the Umbrella in the illusion have to do with him?

Even if he truly 'crossed over', the Umbrella of a parallel universe does not conform to the main universe's ideals, and Leon would definitely try to overthrow it or take it for himself, after all, the one worth letting him 'work for' is Sui Bian, not Umbrella.

Not long after.

Leon then arrived at the front gate of the police station.

Under the bloody night light, the police station rebuilt from the Bogu Museum exudes an inexplicable eerie aura that makes people want to stay away.

"".""

Leon, meanwhile, furrowed his brows.

Because no matter how he tried to stay calm and composed, he would still be affected by the station's eerie emanations, causing even his memories of the main universe to begin blurring.

For a moment, with his right hand gripping the Remington and his left hand vigorously rubbing his temples, Leon once again fell into the struggle of distinguishing 'reality' from 'dream'.

""Boom!!""

At that very moment, Leon heard a 'massive object' descending from the sky ahead, the sound of it crushing and flattening an abandoned car.

!

This forced Leon to end his deliberation, no longer considering 'reality' versus 'dream'; he quickly released his left hand, re‑grasped the bolt responsible for loading, then raised the Remington and aimed its barrel at the huge creature that had made that noise.

!!

Just this look alone made the usually unflappable Leon widen his eyes, revealing an extremely different expression.

Because the thing that flattened the car was none other than the company's early‑stage, relatively stable, high‑performance biochemical organic weapon——

Tyrant T-103.

And it is a Tyrant T-103 about 2.4 meters tall, wearing a bullet‑proof restraint (a dark‑green trench coat) and sporting a gangster‑style fedora.

""Boom! Boom!""

Upon clearly seeing the Tyrant's form, after a brief hesitation Leon immediately pulled the trigger, worked the bolt, and launched a fierce assault at its head.

But the shotgun's attack caused the Tyrant no pain or irritation at most, merely obstructing its vision a bit and knocking off its beloved hat.

""Thud, thud!""

Thus the Tyrant swung its arms and took heavy steps toward Leon.

Knowing the Tyrant T-103's capabilities, Leon saw that his shotgun was ineffective and that his ammo was about to run out; he quickly slung the Remington behind his back, drew the VP70, and while circling and running, continued to fire bursts at the Tyrant's head with both hands.

For a while, the Tyrant that was being circled could not get close to Leon.

However…

Then the Tyrant suddenly thrust its right arm and shoulder forward, bent its knees into a sprinting pose, and with a whoosh charged at Leon at full speed.

But Leon timed it just right, dove to his right, rolled with the momentum, and successfully dodged the Tyrant's charge.

""Boom—!!"" and, like a moving mountain peak, the Tyrant smashed the police station's metal gate flat with its head.

Having lost track of its target, the Tyrant was just about to turn when it failed to notice that Leon had already reversed his charge, swiftly arrived behind it, and leapt onto its back with a high jump.

Immediately, Leon's left hand clenched tightly around the Tyrant's neck, while his right hand gripping the VP70 pressed the gun muzzle against the Tyrant's left eye at close range, and he repeatedly pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang!

Pfft! Pfft!

Although the 9mm bullet is helpless against the Tyrant's skin, it can still be used as the eye for surveillance, after all, the eye is one of the Tyrant's few weak points.

Moreover, while the bullet pierces the eye, it also rolls and stirs wildly inside the Tyrant's skull.

!!!

The Tyrant, sensing the threat of a 'crash', struggles wildly.

But at this moment, Leon had already emptied the magazine of his VP70; however, in the heat of the moment, he flung the VP70 aside, actually pulling out the Glock he had previously searched for, and began repeatedly pulling the trigger against the Tyrant's right eye...

(End of chapter)