In a city fifty miles away from Racoon City.

The chaos from Racoon City hadn’t reached here...yet. In the middle of the night, most of the residents were asleep. They were completely unaware of their terrible fate.

In one of the houses, a figure appeared. As soon as she arrived, her body hit the ground, staining the grey carpet red with blood.

The last blink saved Jean’s life. At that time, her ghost suit was completely gone. Her skin was nearly peeled off. Her celestial energy collapsed in the face of the overwhelming yellow explosions. Death was like a tidal wave that she couldn’t escape. Luckily, she was gone half a second before the explosion did critical damage. No explosion could hurt her if she was no longer in range.

Now Jean seemed battered, but her body was already mending. Burnt flesh fell off and were replaced by new ones. Her skin grew back. When her body was healed, a black suit appeared in Jean’s hands. Her watch wasn’t even grazed from the explosion. Whatever it was made of, it was much stronger than everything Jean had.

After Jean put the suit on, she looked over the gains from the last fight.

The crows might have been the most dangerous enemy she faced, but with great risk came great reward.

Assuming the energy in a red crystal was 1 unit of energy, Jean estimated her original power level to be around 120. This was 20% more than the power a yellow crystal held.

The crows were around 100 units of energy, but that count was constantly lowered as time passed. When Jean killed the first crow, the energy the bird held was around 60. A portion of the energy evaporated before Jean could absorb them. In the end, Jean got around 30 units of energy.

The second gave Jean around 15. Its wound sped up the process. The six more crows gave an average of 20.

The last two crows ignited their energies before they died, not leaving Jean with any reward.

At this point, Jean’s power level was around 265. This was more than twice as powerful as she was when she started this mission. The seemingly endless power flow within her confirmed that.

But the more than doubled power didn’t make Jean satisfied. In fact, the more powerful she became, the more she understood how weak and insignificant she truly was. This was the constant theme of her life ever since she woke up in the haul of the Hyperion. Neither her transformation to zerg, nor her transformation to xel’naga, made her invincible. They merely meant a step closer to the final goal.

Moreover, with the information she gained from the fight, Jean was starting to have a guess on why the Supreme Ones sent the voyagers to different worlds.

If this world was the computer, then Jean was the virus. The Supreme One was the hacker that inserted the virus. Jean suspected just the presence of the voyagers opened up a chance for the Supreme One to get inside the worlds...and steal from them.

Every time upon completing a mission, the voyagers would receive a certain amount of crystals as a reward. Where did the crystals come from? It was unlikely that the Supreme One would give out resources this important for nothing. Thus, the Supreme One must receive some gain by having the voyagers do their missions. This gain was likely crystal energy.

Jean didn’t know what type or what caliber of technology could allow an organization to steal from individual worlds, but she had a guess of why someone would want to do that. Crystal energy could accomplish almost anything. It could strength her celestial power. It could power weapons. It could enhance bodies. At this point Jean couldn’t even find something crystal energy couldn’t do. There was no wonder someone wanted to get more crystals.

Of course, the intention of the Supreme One was way above her level. All she could do with this information was consider how she could use this new knowledge to strengthen herself. Her destination was far away, and she needed everything she could to get there.

First of all, by using foreign power, Jean was exposing herself to the world. As a virus, she was sending out a signal to the computer. Jean suspected the ten crows were some sort of antivirus program. They were powered by the same energy that was in the crystals and were deployed to terminate the virus. The resource that powered the program was, in this case, the yellow energy. This was dangerous because this meant the world itself had some sort of self-examining system. It could actively sense Jean’s foreign presence and deploy countermeasures strong enough to kill her. This time the countermeasure was slightly too weak to get the job done, but the same might not be able to be said if the same thing was to happen again.

Now, on the positive side, when Jean took out the crows, she had an opportunity to directly absorb the yellow energy. The energies evaporated quickly, but if Jean acted quick enough she could still grab some before the world could recycle it. From a certain point of view, she was also stealing energy from this world. And, instead of helping the Supreme One commit the theft and get a share afterward, she was doing it herself, thus gaining the maximum reward.

This was more than beneficial to her. Just look at her now doubled power level. If she could keep doing what she did, her power might grow exponentially. Also, this was a method no other voyager realized, probably because no other voyager lived through the antivirus. If she could pass this news to her fellow sisters, then the lurkers could easily overpower the voyagers when the time comes.

There would be casualties, but the trade would be a worthy one. Ten zealots could never match one Kerrigan.

As for now, as long as she could take calculated risks, she should be fine. The computer/world could only sense her presence when she used power significantly different from this world. That included massive use of celestial energy and probably the purifier and Warden units in her watch but did not include super strength, rapid healing, super reflexes, and psychic power, likely because they were a norm in the Resident Evil universe. As long as she could deal with her enemies with ordinary methods like a normal human being, she should be safe.

Jean wasn’t further punished by using celestial energy and foreign objects in her fight against the crows, but that was likely because she was already being punished. There was no reason of using celestial energy and risking being discovered unless she absolutely needed to.

Making up her mind, Jean casually took out two pistols. Firearms were her primary armament. Combined with her powerful body, the guns should deal with most enemies. If they failed, then her telekinesis psychic power would come into action. Only when she was in a life or death situation would she turn to celestial energy and her fleets.

A sudden growl came from the upper floors. Jean scanned the entire house as soon as she arrived, and she came to the conclusion that the family of four wouldn’t be a threat.

The growl was a familiar one. Jean didn’t know t-virus could be passed on by means other than the teeth of an undead, but what the hell. She was just attacked by ten crows that could destroy the world. It was not surprising the t-virus evolved a bit.

Horrified screams followed the growl. Jean had a guess of what happened, but she merely stood by and did nothing. If she got up there and killed the zombie, she would get 0.1 worth of energy. If she waited a few minutes, she would likely get 0.4

Suddenly, she frowned. A wave of flames swept through the second floor. There was neither gunshots nor explosion.

The flames weren’t a result of anything normal.

Jean drew her pistols and ran up the stairs.