Chapter 35: Zhan Lan: I Am Going to Lock Horns with You All!
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“Die!”
A flash of red light.
As the metal battle-axe came crashing down, crimson flames surged around it. In a single blow, a massive gash appeared across the body of a warrior alien, spraying acidic blood in every direction.
The vibranium armor was drenched in the acid, wisps of white vapor rising from its surface, but in the end, it was not corroded through.
Zheng Zha kicked the gravely wounded alien warrior away. Before it could recover, he followed up with another slash, and the reward notification from the Main God rang in his ears once more.
As the view pulled back, four or five alien corpses could be seen lying on the ground around Zheng Zha. Every one of them had been brutally hacked to death by the alloy battle-axe empowered with his Crimson Flame ability.
“Friday! How many are left? Has the captain dealt with the Alien Queen yet?”
Zheng Zha drew two shallow breaths and withdrew from his Second-Stage Gene Lock state. He first glanced at Li Xiaoyi and Zero, who were working together in the distance as they battled two aliens. Only after confirming that the pair had the upper hand did he speak into the computer terminal inside his helmet.
“There are forty-eight left... Also, Wu Xian has already dealt with the Alien Queen. However, a particularly powerful evolved alien appeared afterward. He is currently locked in combat with it, so he may be unable to come help you for the time being.”
The voice answering Zheng Zha was not Friday’s sweet, cool feminine voice, but that of a deeper, indifferent man.
Chu Xuan!
“An evolved alien?! You mean the one from Alien 4?!”
Zheng Zha froze for a moment before speaking in utter disbelief. “Why would a monster from Alien 4 show up in the plot of Alien 1? The Main God really has no sense of limits anymore... Captain! How are you doing? If you’re still alive, make some kind of noise!”
“Get lost!”
Wu Xian’s “courteous” reply came through the communication channel. Faintly in the background, one could hear roars filled with both fury and pain.
“Zheng Zha, this is not the time to worry about anything else. There are less than twenty minutes left. You still need to find forty-eight—”
“Bang!”
At that moment, a gunshot rang out in the distance. It was Zero’s sniper rifle. With Li Xiaoyi’s Demon Gunplay covering him, the Barrett had once again achieved a double kill with a single shot, reducing the number of remaining aliens by two.
“...Forty-six aliens. Only then will we have any chance of completing the main mission. Otherwise, according to what you said, Mu Gang, Lan, and the other newcomers—including me—will still be given negative points by the Main God and executed for failing the mission.”
At the final sentence, Zheng Zha’s expression instantly became grave.
He drew a deep breath, then picked up his alloy battle-axe again and said solemnly to the two men approaching him, “You’ve worked hard. But from here on, I’m afraid we’ll have to move even faster!”
“No matter what, I have to return to the Main God’s Space. Someone is waiting for me there. The same goes for all of you... I’ll take everyone back alive!”
...
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Meanwhile, inside the Nostromo’s main control room.
Mu Gang stood guard at the entrance like an ironclad warrior. In his left hand, he held a miniature autocannon; in his right, a high-frequency blade worth six hundred points. He watched his surroundings warily, prepared to fight at any moment.
Behind him stood all the surviving newcomers, including Li Shuaixi.
At that moment, each of them held firearms issued by the China Team, yet their faces remained filled with unease and tension.
In a partition of the main control room, Chu Xuan stood before a workbench, staring at more than a hundred surveillance screens, some bright and some dark. He manipulated the opening of the isolation walls, helping Zheng Zha and the others locate the hidden aliens more quickly and exterminate them with maximum efficiency.
“Unh!”
Suddenly, a muffled groan came from nearby. Lan had once again withdrawn from her Gene Lock state.
This was already the third time. Trembling all over, she knelt on the floor and forced herself to endure with mental strength that had expanded to more than twice its original level.
Still shaking, Lan injected herself with one of the gene-recovery agents Wu Xian had left behind before setting out. Combined with her own self-healing ability, which had already reached Class C, it did not take long for the side effects of the Gene Lock to fade once more.
“Can you keep going? I’ve memorized the locations you mentioned earlier. It won’t be a problem if you rest for a while.”
Chu Xuan asked the question in a calm voice. Although he claimed to be an emotionless genetically modified human, that did not mean he lacked social intelligence. Or rather, he knew how to pretend to be socially adept and understood what ought to be said at what moment.
Lan shook her head. Looking at the screens before her, where the members of the China Team were running from place to place in search of the aliens, a stubborn expression appeared on her pale face.
Everyone was doing their best. Naturally, she could not become a burden to them.
So what if overusing her ability damaged her genes? Once they returned, the Main God would repair her. What did she have to fear?
So you want to play hide-and-seek, do you? Fine! I’m going to fight you to the bitter end!
Gritting her teeth, Lan’s eyes gradually lost their focus. She had entered the Gene Lock state yet again.
Her telepathic senses began operating beyond their limits, causing the range of her mental scan to expand wildly.
“Hm?!”
At that moment, the expression on Lan’s face shifted slightly. At the same time, the surveillance screens in the control room began going black one after another.
Chu Xuan showed no surprise.
Aliens were intelligent and highly sensitive creatures. They had already destroyed surveillance equipment before. Otherwise, the team would have located the Alien Queen’s hiding place right from the beginning...
Wait!
Chu Xuan’s eyes narrowed slightly behind his lenses.
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Why had it happened at such a precise moment—and during the brief interval just after Lan had withdrawn from the Gene Lock state? Could it be...
“Mu Gang! Above you!”
Lan’s scream confirmed Chu Xuan’s suspicion.
The next second, he slapped a button on the workbench, then turned and pulled Lan toward the corner of the control room.
At almost the same moment, the alloy ceiling above the main control room suddenly exploded. A vast quantity of yellow-green liquid came pouring down from above.
It was the acid blood inside an alien.
The members of the China Team did not know that, just before dying, the Alien Queen had released a burst of pheromones. Its precise content was unknown, but afterward, every alien aboard the spaceship had fallen into a frenzy. They were determined to fight the China Team to the death, regardless of the cost.
The mass of acid blood raining down now had been produced by a warrior alien detonating itself. Its entire strategy was based on catching them off guard.
As the ceiling collapsed, the acid blood poured down like a torrential rain. Mu Gang was naturally the primary target, but the vibranium armor he wore protected him from the acid to the greatest extent possible.
Lan was in a similar situation. However, in order to protect Chu Xuan, she still forced open a layer of psychic force and spread it through the air above them as a protective barrier.
Unfortunately, the four newcomers inside the control room were not so lucky.
“Aaaahhh!”
The screams rose one after another. Li Shuaixi, a middle-aged man, and a white-collar couple were all covered in acid. The flesh on their bodies and faces was corroded and burned almost instantly, leaving them in a horrifying state.
At that moment, Li Shuaixi—the fanfiction protagonist from another divergent timeline—suddenly let out a despairing roar. He raised the HK416 assault rifle in his hands and unleashed a burst of fire at the ceiling, clearly determined to take an alien down with him even in death.
But in the next second, Li Shuaixi felt a sharp pain in his chest. An alien had shot out its tongue and pierced straight through him, ending his life.
Yet Li Shuaixi’s “sacrifice” was not in vain. At the instant he suffered the fatal blow, Mu Gang, guided by Friday’s prompt, seized the opportunity to step forward.
First, he used the high-frequency blade to slice through the alien’s tongue with ease. Then he shoved the miniature autocannon into its mouth. As high-velocity rounds roared through the barrel, five hundred reward points were instantly credited.
“Roar!”
Amid another furious bellow, two more aliens leapt down through the molten ceiling.
There were fifteen minutes and forty-eight seconds remaining before the countdown ended.
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