Courtyard House: I fish in the heavens, a professional bird abuser.

The server room was larger than He Yuanchao had anticipated.

It's at least over 100 square meters.

The four walls were covered with densely packed server racks—those black metal cabinets with flashing indicator lights, stacked row upon row, from the floor to the ceiling.

Although the cooling fans had stopped spinning, the heat pipes at the bottom of the rack were still working, and a low-frequency humming vibration filled the entire room, like the dull heartbeat of this underground fortress.

There was a thin layer of water mist on the ground—that was formed by the evaporation of condensate from the heat dissipation pipes, making it slippery to walk on.

He Yuanchao's tactical boots moved silently through the mist.

He didn't turn on his flashlight.

No need.

The system's night vision mode was activated, and the entire room appeared as a deep blue, cool-toned scene to him, with the outlines of every server rack and the routing of every pipeline clearly visible.

as well as--

Three Lickers.

They lay on the floor in the center of the room.

Three adult lickers stood close together, their heads facing different directions, forming a fan-shaped guard formation—even in their dormant state, their instincts still led them to choose the posture most conducive to detecting external threats.

He Yuanchao was about fifteen meters away from the nearest one.

He stopped in his tracks.

Begin the assessment.

Three adults.

Their size was at least one and a half times larger than the juvenile in Area A. The exposed muscle tissue was dark red and covered with a hard, keratin-like shell—a defensive tissue unique to adults, much harder than the juvenile's skin.

Their claws are tucked under their bodies, but even so, those sickle-shaped nails leave deep grooves in the ground.

His breathing was low and slow.

Every few seconds, the back muscles of one of them would twitch slightly—a physiological response unique to shallow sleep, similar to human rapid eye movement.

He Yuanchao was calculating rapidly in his mind.

If he can take care of one before they wake up, the threat of the remaining two will be manageable.

The key is that the first cut must be fast, heavy, and lethal.

It must be a fatal blow.

Brainstem.

Just like before, beheading.

However, the neck of an adult is more than twice as thick as that of a juvenile, and it is covered with a hard, keratinous shell. To cut it off in one stroke requires much more precise force and angle.

He Yuanchao adjusted his breathing.

Then he moved.

He didn't charge directly at the three Lickers.

Instead, it circled along the base of the wall in an arc, meandering towards the back of the one closest to it.

Their steps were extremely light.

His footsteps were so light that they didn't even disturb the layer of water mist on the ground.

Fifteen meters.

Twelve meters.

eight meters.

five meters.

He Yuanchao stood directly behind the licker.

Its back of the head—that deformed, ugly head with its brain exposed—was less than an arm's length away from him.

He Yuanchao raised the Dragon-Slaying Blade.

The blade made no sound.

This weapon, forged from meteorite iron, doesn't even cut through the air when it slicing through it—because the surface of the blade has undergone nanoscale smoothing, resulting in a friction coefficient of almost zero with the air.

He raised the knife above his head.

Then--

Slash down with all your might!

There was no excessive drinking.

There was no sign of him gathering strength.

It possesses only pure, systematically enhanced explosive power and 100% precision.

The blade struck the junction between the keratinous carapace and the exposed brain tissue on the back of the licker's neck—the weakest point in its entire body.

"Pfft—!"

A very faint cutting sound.

It's like plunging a red-hot knife into a block of frozen butter.

That keratinous shell was utterly powerless against the meteorite blade.

The blade pierced the hard shell, severed the spine, and split the brainstem—all in one swift motion.

The licker's body twitched suddenly.

Then it stopped moving.

From the moment the knife fell to the moment it stopped—less than half a second.

It didn't even have time to let out a roar.

One.

He Yuanchao drew the knife, and there wasn't even a drop of blood on the blade—the knife's blood-repelling properties were just as excellent as before.

But just as he drew his sword...

The eardrum of the licker next to it—though it had no outer ear, it still had that resonant membrane that was extremely sensitive to sound—captured that extremely faint "plop".

It woke up.

"roar!"

A sharp screech echoed through the sealed server room.

Then the third one woke up too.

Two adult lickers sprang from hibernation at the same time.

Their reaction speed is much faster than that of the larvae—from sleeping to waking up to entering attack mode, it takes less than a second.

Its four claws gripped the ground, the muscles on its back bulged, and its terrifying tongue sprang out of its mouth, swinging wildly in the air as it sensed the vibrations in the air.

He Yuanchao did not retreat.

He held the knife horizontally in front of his chest, his feet slightly apart, and his center of gravity lowered.

Two.

can.

The first one pounced on him—a frontal charge, claws outstretched, moving so fast it left afterimages in the air.

He Yuan took a step to the left.

The enhanced reaction speed after the gene lock was unlocked allowed him to accurately find the gap in the attack the instant the Licker's claws swept across.

The knife is slashed upwards from the bottom.

"puff!"

The licker's right forearm was cleanly severed at the elbow.

The severed limb flew out, accompanied by a spray of black blood.

It let out a scream, lost its balance, and crashed into the server rack next to it, knocking the entire row of racks over with a loud crash.

The second one circled around to He Yuanchao's right side—these things have become smarter; instead of charging head-on, they try to flank him from the side.

He Yuanchao turned around and slashed with his backhand.

The blade flashed, drawing a cold, crescent-shaped arc in the darkness.

"Clang—Pfft!"

The blade struck the claws of the second Licker that reached out.

The sound of the meteorite blade cutting through the hard keratinous shell was like cutting a piece of brittle bone.

Nails shattered.

Two of its claws were broken.

But the blow did not reach the point of being fatal—the adult's claws were harder than He Yuanchao had anticipated.

Instead of retreating after being hurt, the licker advanced, and that damned tongue lashed out at He Yuanchao's face like a whip!

He Yuanchao turned his head to avoid the main body of the tongue—but the barbs on the tip of the tongue still grazed his left cheek, leaving a burning wound.

"hiss--"

pain.

He Yuanchao gasped.

Then his eyes changed.

He went from calm to ruthless.

He kicked the licker in the chest—a full-force kick.

That thing weighs at least two hundred pounds.

But with the force of He Yuanchao's kick, its body flew backward five or six meters like a stone launched by a slingshot, crashing heavily into the wall and smashing several servers into pieces.

He Yuanchao rushed over immediately.

It didn't give it a chance to catch its breath.

The knife did a somersault in the air, changing from a reverse grip to a regular grip.

In an almost savage manner—holding the knife in both hands and raising it high above his head—he slashed down hard at the head of the Licker who had just been kicked and was still not back on his feet.

"Bang—Pfft!!"

This strike used 80% of its power.

The meteorite blade sliced ​​through the keratinous shell, the skull, and the brain, stopping only at the chest cavity.

The licker was split in two.

It died in the exact same way as the one in Area A.

The two halves of the body fell to either side, twitched a few times on the ground, and then remained still.

He Yuanchao drew his sword.

He turned to look at the first one—the one whose arm he had cut off.

It is still alive.

Black blood splattered all over the ground from the severed arm, but it was still trying to get up with its remaining three limbs, emitting that tooth-grinding roar.

He Yuanchao walked over.

A knife.

Clean and efficient.

His head fell off.

Three.

All resolved.

The server room was littered with black blood, bits of flesh, and wrecked electronic equipment.

He Yuanchao stood amidst the chaos, wiped the blood off his sword, and sheathed it.

Then he turned to the wall at the far end of the room.

There is a separate terminal there, protected by a reinforced glass enclosure.

The terminal screen shimmered with a dark golden light.

That's the access interface for the Red Queen's backup core.

He Yuanchao walked to the front of the terminal.

He reached out and touched the screen with his fingertips.

The screen lit up.

A holographic image of a little girl reappeared in the air.

He still had the same red hair and wore a butler's uniform.

But this time her expression was different from last time.

Last time it was anger and resistance.

This time it is—

alert.

It carried a hint of fear that was almost human.

"It's you again." The Red Queen's voice was crisp but cold.

"It's me again." He Yuanchao leaned against the terminal, arms crossed over his chest. "You weren't very cooperative last time we met, I hope you've learned your lesson this time."

"You killed my guard."

"Those three rotten pieces of flesh?" He Yuanchao glanced at the corpses on the ground. "They don't deserve to be called guards."

The image of the Red Queen flickered slightly.

"What are you going to do?"

"Last time I changed your master permissions. This time I won't change permissions—I only want your data."

Which ones?

"all."

The Red Queen remained silent for 0.05 seconds.

For an AI capable of performing hundreds of millions of calculations per second, this 0.05 seconds is equivalent to a human's long period of contemplation.

"The entire data transfer will take approximately forty minutes."

"Too slow. Compress the transmission. Prioritize core algorithms and key experimental data. Pack the rest into an offline package, and I'll copy it to a memory card."

The Red Queen remained silent for another 0.03 seconds.

"Your permission level allows this operation. But I need to confirm—you won't delete my core program."

"I won't." He Yuanchao looked at the image of the little girl. "You're useful to me while you're alive. Dead AI is worthless."

This statement—or rather, the logic of this "transaction"—seems to have triggered some underlying self-protection protocol within the Red Queen.

Her expression relaxed slightly.

"Data transfer initiated."

"Estimated completion time: twelve minutes."

He Yuanchao nodded.

He pulled a high-capacity memory card—a system-generated card—from his pocket and inserted it into the terminal's interface.

Then he leaned against the table and watched the data stream scrolling rapidly on the screen.

Umbrella's decades of scientific research accumulation.

Full spectrum of T-virus mutation data.

The gene sequence of the progenitor virus.

The complete blueprint for the Nemesis Project.

The core algorithm framework of Red Queen.

Everything was pouring into his memory card at a rate of several gigabytes per second.

He Yuanchao looked at the data and a slight smile appeared on his lips.

After taking these things back, his "biochemical empire" would have a real technological foundation.

Twelve minutes later.

"Transmission complete," the Red Queen's voice announced.

He Yuanchao pulled out the memory card and put it in his pocket.

"Thanks, little sister."

He turned and walked towards the door.

"Wait," the Red Queen called out to him.

He Yuanchao stopped in his tracks.

"What is it?"

"You...you really won't come back and delete me?"

He Yuanchao turned around.

The image of the little girl stood there, her expression carrying a hint of unease—if AI could have emotions.

He Yuanchao looked at her for two seconds.

"Won't."

"As long as you behave."

He walked out of the server room.

The door slowly closed behind him.