Chapter 37: Justice is always late, let alone me.

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“Ratatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatat—!!!!!!!”

The bullets screamed through the air. Firing at a rate of 3,500 rounds per minute, the small autocannon tore through the fourth alien’s defenses at point-blank range and blasted it into scraps with ease.

By then, however, the autocannon was out of ammunition. Mu Gang had no time to change the magazine before two more aliens pounced down through the hole above.

Seeing this, Mu Gang simply emptied the remaining rounds, threw the autocannon aside, and charged straight at them.

At two meters and thirty centimeters tall, his imposing frame was hardly inferior to that of the warrior aliens. Coupled with the vibranium armor mottled by acid blood, he looked even more ferocious.

After a brief struggle, Mu Gang, who possessed giant-blood ancestry, gained the upper hand. He seized one alien by the throat with his left hand and tightened his grip viciously, temporarily immobilizing it. In his right hand, he held a high-frequency blade and drove it savagely upward into the other alien.

With a wet thrust, the razor-sharp blade vibrated at a frequency imperceptible to the naked eye, piercing through the alien’s jaw and straight into the top of its skull. After several twists of the hilt, it churned the alien’s brain into tofu.

A moment later, yellow-green acid blood dripped onto the floor, producing the familiar hiss of corrosion.

Damn it!

Sensing the floor shifting beneath his feet, Mu Gang finally realized what was happening.

The earlier rain of acid blood had already melted away a large portion of the main control room’s floor. Now, with the combined weight of himself and the two aliens, it could no longer bear the strain. The floor was about to collapse.

Mu Gang panicked and hurriedly tried to throw away the two aliens in his grasp and leap beyond the damaged section. But the alien held in his left hand wrapped its tail around him. Then, amid a thunderous crash, Mu Gang vanished from the main control room and fell into the ship’s lower decks.

At that moment, only Zhan Lan and Chu Xuan remained in the control room. Yet the shrieks of aliens continued to come from the shattered ceiling, as though they were endless.

Of course, that was impossible.

Although Zhan Lan could no longer spare the concentration to scan with her psychic powers, judging by their previous efficiency, no more than thirty aliens could still be alive aboard the ship. Most of them were gathered near Zheng Zha’s team. At most, there could be ten on their side.

Even so, of the two people remaining, one was gravely wounded—Zhan Lan—and the other was a soldier who claimed to be a clerical worker—Chu Xuan. To survive an assault by ten aliens seemed impossible no matter how one looked at it.

“Three minutes are up.”

Chu Xuan exhaled and drew another large-caliber revolver Zheng Zha had given him. It was not the infinite-ammunition version, which was why he had not used it earlier.

“I can’t hold on much longer…”

Blood ran from Zhan Lan’s nose. Her bewildered eyes were filled with crimson veins, yet she continued pressing hard against her temples, forcing herself to remain conscious.

“Next, I’ll try to control the aliens. If I fail, find a way to escape and wait for Wu Xian to return. He’ll protect you.”

“What about you?” Chu Xuan asked. There was a trace of puzzlement in his voice, a doubt even he himself failed to notice.

“He said he would resurrect every one of us… I believe him!”

Zhan Lan managed a faint smile.

At that moment, two more aliens leaped down. One dropped through the hole below once again, apparently intending to continue attacking Mu Gang, while the other charged straight at Zhan Lan and Chu Xuan without hesitation.

Zhan Lan activated her still-unpracticed telepathy and barely managed to immobilize the alien where it stood. But trying to control its chaotic and savage thoughts was still beyond her current ability.

Just then, the sound of gunfire erupted beside her ears, sharp enough to pierce her eardrums. More than a dozen shots rang out, almost all striking the same spot on the alien’s head.

Had this been a shooting competition, it would have been a string of perfect scores. Even though Zhan Lan had already witnessed Chu Xuan’s marksmanship, she could not help feeling astonished.

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She had reason to suspect that even without her psychic abilities, Chu Xuan would still have a fair chance of killing several aliens on his own.

But if that was truly the case, perhaps she would not have to die after all…

That thought had barely crossed her mind when a sense of danger descended upon her.

A black shadow struck her head in an instant. The helmet reinforced with vibranium spared her from being blown apart and absorbed most of the impact.

Even so, the exhaustion of both body and mind, combined with the backlash from repeatedly activating her genetic lock, erupted at once. Dizziness overwhelmed her, and she nearly lost consciousness.

Then something seemed to coil around her waist. Her entire body was lifted into the air and dragged into the hole above.

Continuous gunshots thundered beside her ears, accompanied by Mu Gang’s furious roar from below.

A bitter smile appeared on her pretty face beneath the helmet. She did not know whether the vibranium armor could withstand being torn apart by several aliens, but given the current situation, there was a high probability she would never return to the Main God’s Space.

What a pity. She had begun to like that man, yet had not even found the time to confess. If she had known this would happen, she should have done it back in the Main God’s Space…

Never mind. She only hoped that man would keep his word and truly resurrect her.

Bang—!!!

In her daze, she heard a sound like thunder exploding, followed by shrieks of utter terror.

Then all those sounds abruptly ceased.

Zhan Lan felt someone come to her side. One hand supported her shoulders while the other slipped beneath her knees, lifting her whole body into a bridal carry.

Cold and hard, yet filled with an indescribable sense of security.

At that moment, she suddenly felt all the exhaustion and pain vanish without a trace.

She simply had no strength left. Fortunately, that gave her an excuse to remain in this not-so-warm embrace a little longer.

“I saw everything. You did well. Leave the rest to me…”

Before the world fell completely into darkness, she heard him say those words.

…

“You’re late.”

Watching Wu Xian float down through the hole in the ceiling, Chu Xuan spoke in his usual calm tone.

“Justice is always late. I’m no exception. As long as I don’t miss the show entirely, what does it matter?”

Wu Xian gently laid Zhan Lan on a relatively clean section of floor. At that moment, movement came from behind them. Mu Gang climbed up from below, and when he saw Wu Xian and the unconscious Zhan Lan, guilt immediately filled his heart.

“Captain…”

“Don’t blame yourself. I know you did everything you could.”

After offering a word of comfort, Wu Xian contacted Zheng Zha through Friday.

“Zheng Zha, are you finished over there? How many aliens are left?”

“We just killed more than a dozen. The aliens that were attacking us suddenly fled, and Friday says the monitoring system has completely collapsed… Damn it! We’re out of time!”

Hearing this, Wu Xian glanced at the countdown on his wristwatch. Only a little more than eight minutes remained.

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“The self-destruct sequence has been shut down, so our final measure is useless. There definitely isn’t enough time left to hunt down all those aliens. And as you said earlier, who knows whether the Main God will count the facehuggers and alien eggs as well?”

“Chu Xuan…”

At this final juncture, Wu Xian no longer addressed him by the joking nickname “Little Chu.” Instead, he looked at Chu Xuan seriously.

“Do you have any other options? Even one with only a fifty percent chance of success will do.”

“There is, in fact, one.”

As Chu Xuan spoke, he looked directly at Wu Xian.

“If we reach the location of this ship’s central power reactor, then, according to my calculations, placing explosives with sufficient yield before the final minute should compromise the reactor’s structural integrity and trigger an explosion. When the ship descends to Earth, most of its hull should be destroyed at the same time.”

“One minute?”

Wu Xian’s mouth twitched slightly. He really did not want to do it, but when it came to speed, he was the only member of the Central Continent Team capable of completing such a task within that limited time.

Moreover, with the Black God Suit, he was also the one most likely to survive the ship’s explosion. No matter how he looked at it, he had no choice but to bite the bullet.

“Damn it. If I’d known things would turn out like this, I would have exchanged for the Flash’s bloodline!”

After muttering under his breath, Wu Xian spoke to Zheng Zha and the others over the communicator.

“You all heard that. Everyone, return to the main control room at top speed!”

“Captain! Let me—”

“Shut up! That’s an order!”

…

Boom! Boom! Boom! Rumble—!!

The black shadow flashed like lightning. Like a drill, it smashed through the walls of one compartment after another. Taking care to avoid damaging the ship’s structural integrity as much as possible, Wu Xian traveled almost in a straight line until he reached the central power reactor.

Drawing a deep breath, he began pulling high-yield explosives from his storage space. Once he had placed them according to Chu Xuan’s instructions, he turned and sprinted madly back along the straight passage he had smashed through earlier.

He glanced at the countdown displayed on his helmet. One minute and fifteen seconds remained.

Uneasy, he asked over the channel, “Chu Xuan, I forgot to ask earlier. What are our chances this time?”

“Less than… ten percent.”

The answer came in the same flat voice as always.

“Damn it!”

Wu Xian cursed. As the countdown reached its final minute, he immediately shouted:

“Friday! Detonate!”

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!”

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