The brief moment of nostalgia dispelled some of the chill, but it also made the surrounding darkness seem even deeper.
Noah turned away from the computer. The file about Chris on the screen still displayed a cold stream of data, but it could no longer provide any more valuable information.
Higher-level clearance acted like an invisible wall, locking all the secrets firmly behind it.
His gaze shifted to the high-precision 3D metal printer in the center of the room.
Its shell was a matte, dark gray alloy, with hard, cold lines, imbued with the rigor and power characteristic of German industrial design.
Countless pipes and cables of varying thicknesses, like the veins and nerves of a giant beast, connected various parts of the machine, finally converging into a core printing chamber made of bulletproof glass.
"It seems this is our only hope." Noah walked up to the machine and gently tapped the heavy casing with his knuckles, producing a muffled "thump-thump."
The control panel was covered with various complex German buttons and indicator lights, but amidst the dazzling array of symbols, one groove stood out clearly. Its shape was an exact match for the Eagle Emblem in Claire's hand.
The two exchanged a look, and Claire understood immediately. She stepped forward and carefully placed the emblem, which carried history and mystery, into the groove.
"Click."
With a soft sound, the emblem fit perfectly.
It was as if a sleeping behemoth had been injected with a Soul.
The entire machine emitted a low, powerful hum, and countless indicator lights sequentially turned from red to green.
Complex mechanical structure diagrams appeared on the control panel screen, rotating slowly within the interface, next to rapidly scrolling data streams.
Finally, the image froze.
The holographic interface clearly displayed the precise structural diagram inside the emblem, along with a striking English prompt: "KEY FABRICATION PROTOCOL INITIATED. REQUIRED MATERIAL: UM-78 Alloy Ingot." (Key Fabrication Protocol Initiated. Required Material: UM-78 Alloy Ingot.)
"UM-78 Alloy..." Noah frowned slightly as he looked at the unfamiliar code name.
He quickly searched his memory for relevant information but found nothing.
This was clearly a special material used internally by Umbrella.
(In the game, you need to put out the fire, obtain the box from the helicopter, and get the metal material from the box.)
They began searching the room carefully.
This so-called "High-Precision Metal Printing Workshop" was more like a highly classified laboratory.
On the shelves against the wall were various components of unknown purpose, sealed in vacuum bags.
Scattered across the workbench were several technical documents filled with complex formulas and blueprints.
Finally, their eyes locked onto an inconspicuous lead-gray metal cabinet in the corner.
On the cabinet door was a yellow and black radioactive material warning sign, and below it, a line of small text: "TEMPERATURE CONTROLLED STORAGE UNIT. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY." (Temperature Controlled Storage Unit. Authorized Personnel Only.)
Noah ignored the warning.
He walked up to the cabinet, gripped the edges of the door with both hands, and the veins on his arms swelled slightly like coiled Dragons.
"Screech—"
Amidst a grating sound of twisting metal, the heavy aluminum alloy cabinet door was forcibly ripped off its frame.
A bone-chilling coldness surged out of the cabinet.
The interior of the cabinet glowed with a faint blue light, and a silver-gray metal ingot lay quietly on the central shelf.
It was about the size of a regular metal plate, but its surface was unusually smooth, reflecting a strange luster, like liquid mercury.
The surrounding air condensed into a thin layer of white frost due to the extreme low temperature.
"This must be it."
Noah put on his tactical gloves and carefully took out the metal ingot, which radiated a bone-piercing coldness.
It felt heavy in his hand, far exceeding the weight of steel of the same volume.
He placed the alloy ingot into a slowly opening material input slot on the side of the printer.
The slot closed, and a stronger surge of energy sounded from inside the machine.
"Humm—"
The printing chamber instantly lit up with several dazzling, welding-like laser beams of different colors, crisscrossing the small space, precisely cutting, melting, and shaping the alloy ingot.
The air began to fill with a faint scent of ozone and the characteristic scorched odor of burning metal.
The entire process was full of industrial aesthetics.
The cold machinery was creating the "key" to open a new path with precision beyond human limits.
Claire stood quietly beside Noah, watching the metal constantly change shape in the intense light, lost in thought.
This machine represented the peak of human technology, yet Umbrella used it for the dirtiest and most wicked purposes.
She subconsciously moved closer to Noah, resting her head gently on his shoulder.
The familiar and reassuring scent of Noah diluted the coldness and oppression brought by the surrounding environment.
"Noah..." Her voice was soft, like an almost inaudible sigh. "Tell me, when all this is over, where... where will we go?"
Noah did not answer immediately.
He reached out and wrapped his arm around Claire's shoulder, holding her tighter in his embrace.
The dazzling light from the printing chamber shone on his profile, making his calm and focused eyes appear exceptionally gentle.
"Home." He gently rubbed Claire's hair with his chin, his voice low and firm.
"Our home in Manhattan."
"Once we find Chris and save everyone, we'll go home."
"I'll trim the lawn in the yard. Didn't you always want to plant a field of sunflowers in the backyard? We can also fish in the Hudson River, and in the evening, sit on the porch and drink your favorite lemon-flavored soda."
"And the puppy Sherry likes..."
Claire's eyes were slightly moist.
She closed her eyes, buried her face deep in Noah's chest, and nodded vigorously.
Yes, home.
On this isolated island, which felt like Hell, that single word held a warm power capable of healing everything.
"Ding!"
A crisp notification sound interrupted the brief moment of tenderness.
All the lights on the printer extinguished simultaneously, returning to their initial silence.
A small metal tray slowly slid out from the side of the machine, accompanied by a faint hiss.
Lying quietly on the tray was a brand-new Eagle Emblem.
It was identical in appearance to the previous bronze emblem—a magnificent eagle poised for flight, exquisitely carved and lifelike.
But its material was a silver-gray that shimmered with a liquid luster.
Furthermore, on the back of the emblem, there was an extremely complex circular pattern resembling chip circuitry.
The emblem also radiated astonishing heat, causing the surrounding air to visibly shimmer.
Noah used a long-handled metal clamp, which was lying on the workbench, to pick it up and place it in the adjacent cooling tank.
"Sizzle—"
With a loud crackle, the coolant instantly boiled, releasing large plumes of white steam.
A few minutes later, when the emblem had finally cooled down, Noah picked it up.
It was still warm to the touch, possessing a strange metallic vitality.
"Let's go." Noah handed the key to Claire.
"Time to go meet our two'sentinels'."
The corridor was pitch black, with only the stark white light from the detection room at the end filtering through.
The closer they got to the exit, the stranger Noah felt.
It was too quiet.
Given Leon's personality, this amount of time was enough for him to have subtly inquired about Ada's entire ancestry.
Even if Ada ignored him, he should still be talking nonstop to himself.
But now, it was completely silent outside.
Noah and Claire exchanged puzzled glances.
When they pushed open the corridor door and re-entered the metal item detection room, the sight before them made them stop in unison.
Leon and Ada stood separated on opposite sides of the room.
Leon leaned against the large row of lockers where all their weapons were stored.
His arms were crossed over his chest, and he casually bent one leg, tapping the floor repeatedly with his toe.
He was looking down, seemingly engrossed in studying a scratch on his tactical boot.
But on his handsome face, a spectacular battle of expression management was taking place.
He was desperately trying to use every muscle in his face to suppress the corners of his mouth.
But those damned corners of his mouth, like two mischievous sprites with minds of their own, stubbornly curled upward, attempting to form a standard goofy grin that was one-third smugness and seven-tenths the satisfaction of a successful conspiracy.
His face was slightly flushed from this intense internal struggle.
And on the other side.
Ada Wong was still the noble and aloof queen.
She stood sideways to the group at the opposite end of the room, elegantly extending her hand, clad in a black leather glove, as if checking her immaculate fingernails.
Her expression remained as calm as an ancient well.
However.
A faint, highly incongruous blush appeared on her perfect, iceberg-like cheek.
The blush spread from her cheekbones all the way down to her fair, swan-like neck.
Her fitted black tactical suit also showed a few slight creases at the waist and back.
As if, not long ago, she had been forcibly pressed against a cold metal wall... and a single rebellious strand of hair had slipped from her perfectly neat bun, falling gently by her cheek.
Noah glanced at Leon, who looked like he was about to suffer internal injuries from holding back.
Then he looked at Ada, who was using all her strength to maintain her aloof persona.
His gaze met Claire's across the room.
A silent, knowing, and helpless look passed between them.
They could almost visualize everything that had just happened there.
Seeing Leon's expression of triumph, which was practically floating toward the heavens, and Ada's look of embarrassment mixed with a hint of complex emotion.
Noah and Claire wisely chose to remain silent.
"It's done."
Claire was the first to break the awkward silence, which was thick with subtle chemistry.
She shook the Eagle Emblem key in her hand, wearing her usual bright smile, pretending not to have noticed anything.
Her voice acted like a spell that broke a petrification magic.
Leon's body jolted, and his twitching face finally returned to normal.
He let out a sigh of relief, as if granted amnesty, and then spoke loudly in a tone that was exaggerated to the point of being theatrical.
"That's fantastic! Claire! I knew if you and Noah handled it, there would be no problem!"
"What are we waiting for? Let's go! I can't wait to kick Umbrella's ass!"
As he spoke, he strode quickly to the lockers and retrieved Noah's and Claire's gear, handing it over.
He looked so eager that it seemed as if staying for one more second would expose his little secret to the light of day.
The two re-equipped themselves.
"Clack, clack."
Crisp sounds of metal clashing echoed throughout the quiet room.
Once all their gear was strapped on.
Claire came to the heavy gate that led out of the prison and once again raised the key in her hand.
"Let's go."
She gently pressed the key into the perfectly matching slot in the center of the gate.
"Beep—"
A crisp electronic confirmation sound rang out.
The indicator lights around the slot turned from red to green.
Immediately after.
"Rumble rumble rumble—"
A deep, massive rumbling sound came from inside the wall.
The ground beneath their feet began to tremble slightly.
Several enormous alloy lock cores, each as thick as a wrist, were slowly retracting.
Accompanied by a grating metallic screech, the heavy gate, strong enough to withstand a small nuclear blast, slowly opened.
A gust of free air, mixed with a strong smell of the sea, gunpowder, and damp earth, rushed towards them.
Outside the door was no longer a suffocating concrete passage.
Instead, it was a vast expanse shrouded in night and firelight.
A narrow suspension bridge, cast from steel and concrete, stretched from beneath their feet into the dark depths in the distance.
Beneath the suspension bridge was a bottomless chasm.
Black seawater roared wildly at the bottom of the cliff, crashing against the steep rock face, sending white spray flying everywhere.
This bridge was the only passage connecting the prison fortress to the main body of the island.
However, at this moment, this sole lifeline was broken.
In the middle section of the suspension bridge, a massive gap, over twenty meters in diameter, lay menacingly, like a scar gnawed by a demon.
That was Wesker's masterpiece.
Broken rebar, like the exposed ribs of a monster, jutted out haphazardly.
Shattered concrete blocks continued to fall downwards, plunging into the endless abyss.
(In the game, there's a path on the left that leads directly across.)
"Well, it seems no one prepared a red carpet welcome for us."
Leon held his broken butterfly, his tone returning to his usual relaxed and teasing manner.
Noah walked to the edge of the broken bridge.
He squatted down, carefully observing the massive gap.
The fierce wind howled up from the bottom of the cliff, making his clothes flap loudly.
"The main load-bearing steel cable on the left is still connected," Noah said, pointing to a twisted steel cable as thick as an arm at the edge of the gap.
"We can swing across from there."
This plan sounded crazy and dangerous.
But no one present raised any objections.
Noah, without hesitation, went first.
He took a few steps back, then suddenly ran forward and jumped.
His body cut a swift, leopard-like arc through the air.
At the moment of descent, his hands precisely and firmly grasped the cold, rough main load-bearing steel cable.
The immense inertia carried him swinging towards the other side of the abyss.
The howling wind swept past his ears, and below him were surging black angry waves.
At the peak of his swing, Noah released his hands, his body performing a nimble somersault in the air, landing steadily on the equally dilapidated bridge surface on the other side.
The entire process was smooth and fluid, filled with a pleasing sense of strength and beauty.
After he found his footing, he immediately took out a bundle of high-strength nylon rope from his tactical backpack, secured one end to a relatively sturdy section of the bridge railing, and then forcefully threw the other end back.
"Claire!"
Claire didn't hesitate for a moment.
She grabbed the rope, secured it on her side, then similarly stepped back and ran.
Her movements lacked Noah's explosive power but possessed the lightness and elegance of a ballerina.
She soared across the chasm of death like a red petrel.
Next was Ada.
Her movements were even more composed than Claire's.
She barely took a running start, just a light push off her foot, and her body floated across like a weightless black feather.
Her tactical boots landed precisely on the swaying high-strength nylon rope as if she were walking on solid ground.
Finally, it was Leon's turn.
"Hey, guys, don't blink, watch me perform a cool Kennedy-style leap!" He still quipped.
But the slightly stiff expression on his face and his slightly pale lips betrayed his inner nervousness.
After all, he didn't have the superhuman Physique of Noah and Claire.
Nor did he possess Ada's acrobatic skills.
He was just an agent with very good physical fitness at the moment, having only undergone a month of special training.
He took a deep breath and charged forward with all his might.
"Ah—!"
A powerful shout echoed through the entire canyon.
He succeeded.
But just as his foot was about to land on the bridge on the other side, the already unstable concrete block beneath his foot cracked with a "snap."
"Damn it!" Leon's body suddenly dropped.
He was suspended entirely by the rope, swinging back and forth like a pendulum in the fierce wind.
"Leon!" Claire exclaimed, instinctively moving forward.
But a hand was faster.
Ada had already stood at the edge of the bridge at some point.
The delicate grappling hook gun in her hand was already aimed at Leon.
She looked at Leon struggling in mid-air, a very complex expression flashing in her almond-shaped eyes that seemed to see through everything.
There was tension, concern, and a hint of unspoken frustration that she herself hadn't noticed.
"Hold on tight, rookie!" Her voice was still cold, but it trembled slightly.
Leon looked up in mid-air, meeting Ada's gaze.
He grinned, a smile uglier than a cry.
"Don't worry, honey, a little scene like this won't stump me."
He exerted force with both arms and thrust his waist and abdomen forward.
He leaped upwards like a fish out of water.
His hands successfully grabbed the edge of the bridge, then with a graceful pull-up, he flipped over and rolled onto the safe bridge surface.
The moment he landed.
"Boom—rumble—"
The main load-bearing steel cable they had just used to swing across finally gave way under the strain and snapped.
Along with the small section of the dilapidated bridge surface they had just stood on, it plummeted into the bottomless abyss.
The silence after their narrow escape did not last long.
The end of the bridge was not flat ground.
Instead, it was a gigantic iron spiral staircase built against the steep cliff face.
The staircase was heavily rusted, as if it had stood there for centuries.
Like a colossal steel python, it coiled and wound upwards, eventually disappearing into the dark clouds shrouded by firelight and night.
"God, the designer of this damn place must be a sadistic bastard," Leon complained sincerely, rubbing his chafed wrists and looking up at the endless staircase.
Complaints aside, they still had to go.
The four of them stepped onto the shaky spiral staircase one by one.
With each step, the iron treads beneath their feet let out a groaning "creak, creak," as if they could fall apart at any moment.
The biting sea wind poured in from all directions, making it almost impossible to stand steady.
They climbed for an unknown amount of time.
When Leon felt his legs had turned into lead-filled noodles, they finally saw the end of the staircase.
It was a wide platform.
As they stepped onto solid ground, the sight before them made everyone gasp.
This place was once a large-scale military training base.
Now, it had become a complete wasteland of scorched earth and ruins.
Huge shell craters, one after another, dotted the surface like the moon.
Barracks, firing ranges, and obstacle courses, burned down to charred skeletons, stood crookedly amidst the ruins.
The air was filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder and molten metal.
The entire base occupied almost half the island's area.
And now, this vast area had been completely reduced to ruins.
"This prison's security measures are really something," Leon remarked with a complex sigh, looking around.
"Even if a prisoner managed to escape from their cell, cross that damn broken bridge, and climb this deadly spiral staircase, they would still have to face an entire military base armed to the teeth."
"With such layered defenses and an 'absolute isolation' design, escape is simply impossible."
Ada stood by, adding coldly.
"Unless, the entire base is blown up."
Apparently, Wesker thought so too.
They opened Noah's ThinkPad laptop.
On the map, this area was labeled as the "U.S.S. Special Forces Training Ground."
Their final destination, the Ashford Family Mansion, was located directly north of this ruin.
There was no path ahead.
They had to trek through this hellish death zone.
The ground was covered with sharp metal fragments and potholes of varying depths.
(In the game, you just walk through a few scenes to get to the mansion's front yard...)
Twisted rebar lay hidden beneath the rubble like traps.
They walked with extreme difficulty.
Noah and Claire, with their superhuman Physique and strength, walked at the front, responsible for scouting and clearing obstacles.
Noah could even single-handedly push down a half-collapsed wall blocking their path.
Leon and Ada followed behind, looking somewhat disheveled.
Several times, Leon nearly slipped into a deep pit beside them due to unsteady footing.
And each time, Ada was quick to wrap her grappling hook gun around his waist or simply grab his tactical vest and pull him back.
"Hey, Ada, are you falling for me?" Leon quipped once, after Ada pulled him out of a pit filled with sharp rebar.
"Otherwise, why are you always 'pulling and tugging' at me like this?"
His response was a cold glare from Ada and a concise remark.
"Shut up, idiot."
Although she said that, her tightly clenched grappling hook gun and slightly pale fingers betrayed a hint of nervousness within her.
This arduous trek through the ruins lasted for nearly an hour.
When they finally rounded the last massive obstacle, made of tank wreckage and architectural rubble.
The scene before them suddenly opened up.
The pervasive smoke seemed to be separated here by an invisible barrier.
The pungent smell of gunpowder in the air gradually gave way to the scent of damp earth and decaying vegetation.
A tall black wrought-iron fence, carved with intricate patterns, appeared before them.
Although the fence was twisted and broken in many places by the blast, it stubbornly outlined an area distinctly different from the apocalyptic ruins behind it.
Beyond the fence was a large expanse of English lawn, now overgrown but still showing signs of having once been meticulously manicured.
A winding path paved with round cobblestones cut through the lawn, disappearing into a dense grove of trees in the distance.
And at the end of that grove, dimly visible against the swirling island night mist and the flickering distant firelight, was the black silhouette of a huge and magnificent Gothic building.