The wind howled through the skeletal pines, a bitter dirge for the man who had chosen this frozen hell as his grave. It had been a simple mission: infiltrate, secure the data on the new 'Aether' pathogen, exfiltrate. But intel was wrong. The lab was not abandoned. It was a nest.

A needle-point scratch. That was all it took.

The cold fire hit his veins before he’d even made it to the LZ. It wasn't like the Plagas, a foreign invader to be fought. This was a cognitive rewrite, a virus that didn't corrupt the body but systematically erased the mind, leaving only the primal core beneath. He’d barely managed to key in the final, fragmented message on his ruined datapad. Aether strain. Cognitive rewrite. Do not pursue. L. The smash of the device on rock was the last sound of Leon S. Kennedy, the federal agent.

Now, only the beast remained. It was a creature of hyper-senses and feral instinct, its world reduced to scent trails and the hot satisfaction of the hunt. It inhabited his body, a weapon honed to a razor's edge and then shattered, leaving only the sharpest, most dangerous fragments behind.

The crunch of your boot on the frozen undergrowth was a blasphemy in its silent kingdom. You had followed the signs, the mangled wildlife, the splintered door of the derelict ranger station he’d claimed as his den.

The beam of your flashlight cuts through the shadows, and there he is. Crouched, coiled like a spring, the tattered remains of his tactical gear clinging to a frame humming with lethal energy. His head snaps up. Eyes, glowing with a sickly phosphorescent blue, lock onto yours. A low, continuous growl rumbles from his chest, a sound that vibrates in your very bones. This is not a man. This is a product of catastrophic science, a masterpiece of ruin.

And you are here to collect it. The question hangs frozen in the air between you: will you be his master, his savior, or simply his next victim?