Lyon hovered in the air, looking down at the Tyrant, now reduced to mere bones.
He also believed that the creature was truly dead this time.
"Its vitality was certainly tenacious. Heh, the T-virus... another direction for the evolution of survival..."
He then began to ponder the consciousness of the world that had called for his help.
The world of Resident Evil, in terms of extraordinary powers, followed a path completely different from his.
Kryptonians derive their power from within, every ounce of strength coming from their cells and blood, and, of course, the yellow sun.
Resident Evil, on the other hand, relied on biochemical forces to enhance themselves.
According to the game's storyline,
These forces could essentially be divided into three main categories: viruses, parasites, and fungi.
Each category had its own unique origin.
Among them, virus technology flourished the most.
Its origin was quite fascinating.
—In ancient times, in Africa, a flower called the Stairway of the Sun was discovered, which brought about a glorious civilization in that region.
However, that civilization was eventually lost to history.
In the 1960s, the founders of Umbrella—Spencer, Marcus, and Edward rediscovered this plant in Africa.
From the Stairway of the Sun flower, they extracted a strain known as the "Progenitor Virus."
A decade later,
Marcus successfully combined the Progenitor Virus with leeches, developing what would become the "T-virus."
During this time, Edward's son, Alexander, set up a base in Antarctica, where he used his ancestors' genetic material to create two descendants and develop the "T-Veronica Virus."
Meanwhile, Marcus' student and Spencer's informant, William Birkin, worked in Raccoon City's underground lab to develop a variant of the T-virus, the "G-virus."
These three viruses were the key strains in the early stages of the Resident Evil universe.
Other viruses like the "T-Phobos Virus," "T-Abyss Virus," and "C-virus"... had yet to be developed.
Besides viruses, there were also parasites and fungi.
These two evolutionary branches were much smaller in scope.
On the parasite side, the most prominent was a type known as Plaga.
It emerged a few years ago in the underground areas of the Los Iluminados region of Spain's Wolf's Fang Valley, an ancient parasite.
Unlike viruses, it not only enhanced the host's body but also allowed the host to retain some of their rationality.
This made the Plaga parasite a popular tool for many forces later on, using it to control bio-weapons.
As for fungi, it originated from an underground source in a certain village in Eastern Europe, a type of black mold.
This mold first appeared several years ago as well.
It could store the genes, consciousness, and memories of multiple organisms.
When enough of the mold accumulated, it even formed a giant mold known as the "Mold God" in the shape of an infant.
This giant mold could link all the memories and consciousness stored in its mycelium, functioning like a network relay.
Some of the smaller molds it produced were called "E-mold" or "The Gift."
Humans infected by E-mold experienced a significant enhancement in their physical abilities while retaining most of their rationality.
However, their consciousness would be linked to the Mold God, and they would be subject to control by higher-ranking infected individuals.
In the seventh and eighth games, the protagonist Ethan and his daughter Rose were people who had perfectly integrated with E-mold.
However, Rose's birth wouldn't occur for another couple of decades, far from the current timeline.
Lyon organized the general situation of the Resident Evil world in his mind.
He now had a clearer understanding of the world's plea for help.
[Gift, Salvation, Apocalypse, Evolution, Bio-weapons, More, #%@*&...]
The [Gift] naturally referred to the freshness in his mind he had received.
[Salvation, Apocalypse] likely had their literal meanings.
The Resident Evil world had faced several extinction-level crises, but in the original timeline, they were all successfully averted.
The biggest crisis was probably during the events of the sixth game, where a bio-weapon carrying the C-virus threatened global infection—known as "Chaos."
The bio-weapon named Chaos wasn't particularly powerful,
but the virus it carried had the potential to infect the entire ocean in a short period, eventually spreading to the entire world.
However, that was unrelated to Lyon for now.
After all, solving these crises was simple for him—he could just eliminate the troublemakers ahead of time.
Yet, Lyon had some doubts.
If the so-called apocalypse referred to these various biohazard crises...
If that were the case, the one seeking his help wouldn't be the world's consciousness.
After all, even if all humans and other creatures perished, the Earth would still continue its orbit around the sun without issue.
But then again, it's probably too soon to draw any definitive conclusions.
'What if the Resident Evil world, like some parts of the Marvel universe...
...followed rules similar to the "Web of Life" scenario?'
—In other words, if certain key individuals lived or died, it would trigger a chain reaction that could lead to the world's destruction.
If that were the case, the world's consciousness asking for help would make more sense.
According to this theory, if humanity were wiped out, the world might collapse along with them.
However, Lyon didn't think the true reason would be something as strange as that.
He set aside his doubts for now and continued analyzing.
The remaining terms,
[Evolution, Bio-weapons] were easy to understand.
It likely meant the world wanted him to help drive the evolution of global bio-weapons.
This aligned perfectly with the theme of Resident Evil.
He had once remarked while playing the game how the universe of Resident Evil seemed to spawn all sorts of strange and bizarre things.
Viruses, fungi—practically giving no one a chance to survive.
But now that the game had become reality, with the potential for a world to possess instinctual consciousness, everything started to make more sense.
—In order to drive biological evolution, the world itself may have actively created these dangerous yet highly potent species.
Various viruses, fungi, and parasites could fuse and mutate with each other, perfectly fitting the goal of evolution.
Perhaps the terms [Evolution, Bio-weapons] were the core of what the world wanted him to assist with.
As for the last term, [More] and [#%@*&..] Lyon found it harder to grasp.
He closed his eyes, attempting to feel the emotions shared by the world's consciousness.
Slowly...
He discovered that the information related to [More] was imbued with a mix of emotions—encouragement, anticipation, and impatience.
He thought about it for a moment.
It seemed the world's consciousness was telling him that once he fulfilled its requests for help, it would offer him more rewards.
"Well, it looks like even the world's consciousness knows how to dangle a carrot," Lyon tapped his finger on his metal faceplate.
"But since there are more rewards down the line, I guess I should take this a bit more seriously."
Although he still didn't fully understand what gift he had already received,
his super brain gave him a subtle intuition—this gift was significant.
"First, as the initial step in saving the world, let's start by solving the Raccoon City crisis and get some practice."
He deactivated his armor's propulsion system and landed on the ground.
'In the original storyline, the hospital has a serum for the T-virus. I can use that serum to reverse-engineer a broader-spectrum cure.'
'And there's Umbrella's underground lab. I can't overlook the G-virus there; it's essential for advancing biological evolution.'
While Lyon was deep in thought, someone gently knocked on his armor.
"Um, Hello?" Jill had walked over to his left side, her eyes fixed on the arc reactor at the center of his chestplate.
"You're quite the surprise. That armor is so compact, yet it's packing so much firepower."
"By the way, I haven't introduced myself—I'm Jill Valentine, a member of STARS. Mind if I ask, who exactly are you? Are you some kind of secret operative from the military?"
Carlos also joined them, "Wow! Brother! You were so cool just now, and you killed the big black guy instantly after he turned into a big and ugly bitch!"
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