Zheng didn’t have Jie carry him the last part of the way. It was not too far off so he wanted to use this opportunity to warm up and stretch his arms and legs. Though any movement of his right arm caused him severe pain. He had to tie his arm to his body. It was painful when he tied it, sweat streamed down like rain. Anyone could easily tell the pain he was experiencing. Lan’s heart clenched as she watched. She could only hold onto his left hand, and that’s when she noticed Zheng couldn’t even move his left hand a bit due to the pain.
Zheng was soaking wet from sweat after tying his right arm. He tried to move his body and forced a smile. “That’s good enough, my right arm won’t be troublesome now. Let’s go, we have to speed up.”
Lan was still holding onto his hand. She hesitated and said, “Can we… can we not go and go back to the control room? I know how to put down the walls. We can stay there until this spacecraft reaches Earth, then let the armies handle them. We don’t have to take this risk, especially since you…”
Zheng was surprised for a bit, then he pulled back his hand without her noticing and pointed to the ground. “Take a look at the ground, aren’t there a lot of holes from corrosion? Those are from the Aliens’ blood, they are an intelligent species. When they feel endangered they will injure themselves to break through the wall. That’s how these three Aliens escaped.”
“If we were to block them off and go back to Earth, they will certainly break through the wall again when they’re hungry. By that time there will be more Aliens. Remember those four people they brought beyond room 15? So we have to kill the Queen before there are four more Aliens. This is our only chance of survival. Otherwise, Xuan wouldn’t take the risk and go to the arsenal. Because he knows this is the only chance.”
Zheng laughed and stroke her hair. “Just follow behind us. Rest assured we won’t give up any comrades. We also won’t put our hope to fate. I will live no matter what!”
Due to Zheng’s determination, the other two had to follow him towards the arsenal. The gunshots were getting clearer and more intense. Zheng tensed his body. His running looked wobbling due to having one arm tied up. But even so, he adapted to this style of running after a while.
“Jie, take this longest steel bar. I don’t know if I can kill them instantly with the grenade and steel bar. If I can’t kill them, then stand behind my back and hold them away with the bar. I will block them, whether it’s their tongues or tails, I will block their attacks. But you will have to hold their body away, don’t let them get near. With my current condition, I can only throw the steel bars and block their attacks, I can’t get into close combat. Jie, no matter what happens, you can’t take a step backward.”
Then Zheng took the steel bars from Lan and handed the one without a grenade on it to Jie. They were now only one corner away from the arsenal. After this turn, they would either see two Aliens or pieces of human flesh.
‘The gunshots are intense. Xuan probably heard the explosion from before. In other words, they’ll kept the Aliens’ attention right now. Two stage three Aliens… The first throw has to hit no matter what! Otherwise we will be dead. Can’t die no matter what! I will live!’
Zheng took a deep breath, then sprinted forward. That speed left the two in shock. He didn’t slow down when he approached the corner and ran straight into the wall.
The air became thick and dense again. Zheng was getting used to this condition as his body reached its limit, but before unlocking the genetic constraint. He could push his physical abilities, vision, and reaction speed to the limit; but those combat instincts, and unlocking the constraint would only appear when he was on the brink of death. He still couldn’t control them.
Zheng made use of his speed and ran up the wall. The moment he stepped on the wall, he could see the back of an Alien on the door of the arsenal. The front half of its body was already inside the room. The other Alien was not in sight. In other words, the other one was probably already inside the room.
As he was still mid air, he pulled the ring of the grenade with his mouth. Then he threw the steel bar. He was not left handed after all though, so this throw wasn’t comparable to when he did it with his right hand, in both power and accuracy. He aimed at the Alien’s belly but it hit just below its waist. The Alien backed out from the arsenal, when it turned around and looked at Zheng, the grenade on its waist exploded!
That grenade was inserted into the Alien’s body. The explosion blew up its waist. Internal organs and yellow blood splashed everywhere. The hall was splashed with acid and the steel started to corrode. Then the hall was filled with white smoke. Zheng could see a faint shadow lying on the ground.
“Is it dead?”
Zheng rolled on the ground as he landed. He couldn’t pay attention to the pain from hitting his right arm. He focused his attention on the shadow on the ground. As he was ready to throw another bar, that shadow jumped from the ground and charged toward him. Its speed was too fast, he couldn’t throw another bar in time. An Alien with a hole on its waist ran out from the smoke then jumped at Zheng.
As he was going to stab the Alien’s head, a hand from behind pushed him away. Jie ran out from behind. He stabbed into the Alien’s mouth as it shot its tongue out. That tongue pierced Jie’s shoulder.
For a moment, blood splashed everywhere, painting Zheng’s world red.
Jie didn’t back off even when the Alien’s tongue pierced his shoulder. He stood in front of Zheng and pushed the steel bar further into the Alien’s head. He didn’t back off when its blood dripped onto his hands. It wasn’t long before all that was left of his hands were bones.
“Ah!!!”
Jie moved forward. He kept pushing the bar into the Alien’s head. The blood corroded more and more of his arm. Until his forearms had became bones. Fortunately, Zheng reacted immediately. He pulled Jie backward. When the steel bar was pulled out from the Alien, most of it had already been corroded. Only a short portion of it was left.
Zheng shouted Lan’s name, at the same time he took fresh water out of his ring and poured it on Jie’s arms. Lan woke up from the shock, she used the hemostasis spray on Jie’s arms.
While they were healing Jie’s injuries, that Alien finally wobbled then fell to the ground. Yellow blood flowed out of the body. Pungent white fog started following up.
Zheng dragged Jie out of the fog to the back of the hall. He finally saw that the corrosion of Jie’s arms had stopped. At this time, both his forearms were gone, not even the bones were left.
Jie had already fainted from the pain. He didn’t wake up until Zheng poured water on his arm again. Then he laughed. “Good god, an Alien is worth 500 points. You’ve been keep this from us, huh? Hehe. A little desert eagle means nothing, I can go straight for an unlimited ammo AK.”
Zheng looked at his arms in silence. Jie continued. “That’s no problem. As long as I can go back to God’s dimension alive, it won’t take many points to repair a body. Just that for the rest of this, I will become your burden… Hoho, when I think about it, it’s better staying with you than Xuan. He would probably discard me by this point.”
Zheng exhaled. “Rest assured, I won’t give up on any comrades… You guys wait here. Don’t come over until I call you. Otherwise… go back to the control room immediately. Then follow Lan’s plan and let fate decide your future!” He picked up a steel bar and went toward the arsenal.
Since the Alien’s blood corroded a big hole in the center, Zheng had to walk along the wall carefully. Halfway through, someone walked out of the other white fog. It was Zero holding a rifle. His left chest was roughly bandaged with cloth. Blood flowing through the cloth made him look horrible.
Zheng and Zero smiled at each other bitterly. They both seemed critically injured. Zero looked at the Alien’s corpse and said, “The other one’s dead? You’re strong. You can kill them even without any guns?”
“You guys aren’t bad either. Didn’t you kill the other one?”
Zero sighed. “Come inside the arsenal, they are both there.”
Zheng shouted at Jie and Lan. Zero looked shocked as they came over. He took a deep breath. “Let’s go inside first… It seems your hemostasis spray and bandage are still effective? Kampa… may not make it.”
The three of them followed Zero into the arsenal. Zheng noticed that this door was thicker than the other doors, it was almost as thick as the wall. In the middle of this door was a hole about one meter tall. Obviously corroded using the Alien’s blood. The other Alien was lying on the left side in pieces.
“It was luck. This Alien tried to get in before the hole was big enough. Then it got stuck on the door. We shot it for several minutes before it died. But we couldn’t deal with the second one. If you were just half a minute late, then the three of us would have died here.”
Zero explained as he walked in front.
Zheng immediately saw Kampa and Xuan inside the arsenal. There was a big hole in Kampa’s chest. Going by the sharp shape of it, it was obviously stabbed by the Alien’s tail, but because it didn’t pierce through his body he didn’t die immediately.
Among the three of them, Xuan looked almost unharmed. Aside from some blood, his outfit looked just like when he first arrived to this world. But one could see the exhaustion in his eyes.
“I didn’t expect the Aliens to be this powerful.”
Xuan spoke before the three of them got a chance. He looked at them silently. “It’s my miscalculation. The Aliens never actually fought humans with guns face to face in the first four movies. So I underestimated their strength. If even the normal Aliens are this powerful, then I don’t know how strong the Queen is. Perhaps we’re really…”
Zheng ignored him and went to bandage Kampa. After a while, Kampa finally stopped bleeding. But he looked so feeble as if he could die from any movement.
“Then let’s ally up. You’re a team, and we’re a team. Neither of us can betray the other, nor is there any way to betray. Of course, you can refuse, but I won’t be controlled by you and become your comrade. Your wisdom and planning are important and I indeed need them. But similarly you also need our ability and knowledge of this world. We hold some value to each other. So you can choose.”
Xuan bit his finger, he looked at Zheng and said, “Okay, I agree with your proposal. But there’s one point you must know… if you can’t keep up with my pace, then I will give you up for the majority!”
“But I will save you!” Zheng smiled coldly. “I will save you for your wisdom!”
Paragraph comment
Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.
Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.
GOT IT