Spain. Salazar Castle.
Moss crept across the cold, damp flagstones, and the soaring towers faded in and out of the fog. The interior of the medieval fortress was eerily quiet.
Ryan walked the castle's labyrinthine corridors in a black coat, hands in his pockets.
His eyes were half-closed, his X-ray perception having already mapped every structure within a hundred meters. Patrolling cultists in red robes, concealed crossbow traps built into the walls, even which floor tiles were loose beneath his feet - he saw it all.
He strolled through the place like it was his own backyard, turning left, looping right, pausing now and then to let a patrol pass before moving on. The entire infiltration was seamless enough that not a single alarm was raised.
Fancy architecture, but the defenses are full of holes. He shook his head.
He rounded an ornate archway into a long gallery. In his X-ray vision, a lone cultist stood with his back turned in front of a carved wooden door.
Ryan planned to slip up behind him and snap his neck without a sound. But the moment he closed the distance, the cultist seemed to sense something and whipped around.
His neck split open with a stomach-turning wet tear of flesh and muscle, and a massive Las Plagas parasite bristling with teeth and tentacles erupted from the stump, lunging straight at Ryan.
God, that's disgusting. I hate bugs.
Ryan's stomach turned. Pure revulsion took over and he raised his right hand, swatting at the writhing mass of tentacles the way someone would bat away a fly.
He honestly just meant to slap the slimy thing aside. But the instant his fist connected with the parasite, he realized the problem.
BOOM.
A deafening concussion ripped through the corridor.
There was no spray of gore, because the tentacled cultist, the carved wooden door behind him, and the half-meter-thick load-bearing stone wall behind that had all been reduced to airborne powder by the sheer kinetic force of a single punch.
The blast wave hurled debris a dozen meters out and punched a two-meter hole clean through the castle wall. Cold wind howled through the gap.
Two seconds of dead silence in the corridor.
Then alarm bells screamed across the entire castle, and a chaos of footsteps converged from every direction.
Ryan stood in place, looked down at his fist - not even a scratch on the skin - then looked at the gaping, wind-blown hole in front of him and sighed. He lowered his perfectly intact right hand and flicked a speck of nonexistent dust from his cuff.
Centuries-old building. Can't touch anything without it falling apart. Someone's going to have to fix that. Well, stealth's blown. Time to do this the loud way.
He shook out his wrist, drew the custom Desert Eagle that Kendo had built for him from under his coat, and walked straight toward the incoming wave of cultists.
...
Meanwhile, in the church behind the village.
Stained glass cast mottled color through the dim light. In a locked room on the second floor, Ashley Graham huddled on a pile of straw in the attic, shaking uncontrollably. As the President's daughter, she'd never imagined her life turning into a waking nightmare.
She'd been held in this godforsaken place for days. The villagers outside weren't human anymore - bloodshot eyes, mouths chanting in some language she couldn't understand.
Muffled gunshots rang out beyond the heavy wooden door, followed by the thud of bodies hitting the floor.
Bang!
The door flew open from a single kick.
Ashley screamed and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Ashley Graham?" A low male voice. "I'm Leon S. Kennedy, agent with the U.S. government. Sent by the President to get you out. You're safe now."
She cracked her eyes open and saw a handsome man in a jacket standing in the doorway, pistol in hand. Behind him were two girls who looked about her age.
Once her nerves settled, Ashley's gaze drifted naturally to Sherry and Becky standing behind Leon.
In this nightmare village full of lunatics and monsters, the sudden sight of two girls her own age kitted out in sharp tactical gear gave her an odd sense of comfort.
The socialite instinct kicked in. She tried to put on a friendly smile and took two steps forward. "Hi... are you here to rescue me too? I'm Ashley. It's so nice to see someone normal in this..."
The moment Ashley started talking, the rusted ventilation grate above the storeroom was silently pushed open.
A bloodshot, raging cultist dropped from the ceiling without a sound, his filthy hands spread wide like a giant bat as he dove for Ashley's shoulders, going for her mouth to drag her away.
Leon had his back to the vent. He caught the shadow in his peripheral vision and started to spin around.
BANG!
Before Ashley could finish her sentence, a deafening gunshot exploded half a meter from her ear. A warm brass casing arced through the air and pinged lightly off her shoulder.
Sherry hadn't so much as blinked. She held the heavy Magnum one-handed, a thin wisp of smoke curling from the barrel.
The ambusher behind Ashley, still mid-air, no longer had a head. It had burst like an overripe melon. The headless corpse slammed onto the floorboards at Ashley's feet with a wet thud, thick dark blood splashing across the soles of her shoes.
Ashley's whole body seized up. Her mouth hung open, her smile frozen solid.
"Right-side blind spot, clear." Becky didn't even glance at the body, just kept her eyes on the doorway and stated it like a weather report.
"Uncle Ryan's quick-draw drill. I practiced that one for ages." Sherry twirled the pistol once and slid the still-hot weapon back into the tactical holster on her thigh.
Then she turned to Ashley, who stood white-faced and petrified, and flashed a bright, perfectly innocent smile.
"What were you saying? You wanted to chat?"
Ashley looked at the headless corpse still twitching by her feet, then at Sherry's sweet smile, and shrank behind Leon, shaking her head like a bobblehead.
"N-nothing... I think I'll just stay quiet." These two girls were definitely scarier than the monsters outside.
Leon watched the whole exchange, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and sighed. "Let's move, Ashley." He tightened his grip on his pistol. "Stay close. We're fighting our way out."