Rebelled!

Rebellion! Utter rebellion!

Li Wei climbed out of a pile of rubble and debris, his face twisted in a scowl, radiating a fury that bordered on humiliation.

Being kicked a hundred meters through the air would piss anyone off.

His vicious glare fixed on the direction of the core Hive, where he spotted a three-meter-tall Supreme Hunter emerging through the hole he'd smashed open. It kicked off the wall and leaped out, and his mind screamed a string of curses!

Even though he hadn't been on full guard just now, his eyes had caught it clearly—that little bastard had ambushed him.

"I'm basically your dad by proxy, and you turn on me this fast?!"

Jumping down from the rubble pile, Li Wei made the snap decision to go head-to-head with the Supreme Hunter, which was charging at him from nearly a hundred meters away.

On the outskirts of the core Hive, the Blackwatch joint forces locked in battle with the infected spotted two glaringly obvious targets—the Supreme Hunter and Li Wei—and unleashed a torrent of heavy fire.

The tank barrels couldn't adjust in time, but machine guns and rocket launchers rained down on both of them like a hailstorm.

The core Hive sat at the center of the Infected Zone. The joint forces encircling the infected had ground through a meat-grinder of combat, trailing smoke and fire as they steadily joined the central battlefield.

The small plaza outside the core Hive was packed with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and soldiers.

With combat power equivalent to two mechanized infantry regiments, they could crush any infected—including Li Wei, Alex, and the Supreme Hunter.

All of them had limits to the damage they could absorb. The dense hail of bullets and the explosive flames from rocket launchers would gradually drain their stored biomass. Once the consumption rate outpaced regeneration, they'd be slowly ground down.

That is, if all three of them were willing to sit still as target dummies...

The Supreme Hunter's multi-ton frame landed on a tank, sending out a heavy shockwave that flung several nearby infected into the air.

Then, its tree-trunk-thick legs pounded the ground in a full sprint toward Li Wei, charging like an enraged rhinoceros!

Armored vehicles, soldiers, Super Soldiers trying to block it, tanks, infected—all were tossed aside by its massive arms. The rain of bullets only slightly slowed its charge.

Landing back on the ground from the rubble, Li Wei dodged the incoming bullets with a few agile, serpentine sidesteps. Dark red tendrils of flesh wove and flowed across his body, and his frame abruptly swelled to match the Supreme Hunter's size.

A layer of black bio-armor, formed from condensed biomass, coated his skin—the Armor Form from the Prototype game.

After assimilating Elizabeth Greene, Li Wei had a direct view of the Blacklight Virus's limitless potential. Though the virus couldn't turn into a shapeless slime and move freely—it required precise limb mimicry to generate tangible combat power—

Once Blacklight mimicked and stabilized a structure, the strength it unleashed exceeded anyone's imagination!

The Armor Form, which had been fairly useless in the game, saw a comprehensive boost in all stats after becoming larger and taller.

The high-density mimicked muscles within his body could generate nearly a thousand tons of force. Countless viruses, accumulated through endless consumption and self-replication, were packed into a small frame. After mimicry, the soft, water-like biomass rapidly solidified into a special substance denser than any material on Blue Star.

Compared to the Supreme Hunter, Li Wei in his mimicked form was far stronger.

Beneath the relentless rain of bullets, he only ran faster, each footfall leaving a shallow crater a dozen centimeters deep.

Alex shook his hands, forming claws, and leaped to the hole Li Wei had smashed open. His face was twisted with rage as his eyes scanned the blurry battlefield, spotting the Supreme Hunter and another black humanoid monster charging at each other.

A suffocating sense of frustration and resentment clung to him!

He'd been searching for the truth, but the more he learned, the more lost and pained he became. He'd been just one step away from the truth moments ago, only for Li Wei to snatch it away.

The chance to obtain the most complete truth had been stolen by the very person he'd called in—a betrayal worthy of a teammate!

He hated betrayal. He hated the feeling of having his prey taken from him!

He would assimilate Li Wei, take everything from him, and uncover the truth behind it all!

Boom!

Li Wei collided with the Supreme Hunter. The seemingly powerful Supreme Hunter was like a hollow bowling ball—when struck by Li Wei, who hit like a high-speed train, its body cracked, and the sheer force accelerated it to nearly supersonic speeds.

A shockwave rippled from the point of impact. The Supreme Hunter's three-meter-tall, burly frame spun out like a discus, slamming into a corner of the core Hive building before crashing, with undiminished momentum, into the building behind it.

Alex peeked out and glanced around—something had just flown past, hadn't it... His claws "wisely" reverted back to human hands.

He thought it over. There were plenty of ways to resolve things, and violence was the worst of them. Wouldn't it be better to sit down and have a proper talk with Li Wei?

Communication and negotiation were the best methods for solving problems. Resist violence!

Having come to that realization, Alex decided to find his sister first. Once Dana was settled, he'd come back for Li Wei.

At the center of the impact, Li Wei took half a step back. Enduring the relentless barrage of fire hammering his body, he leaped with all his might, like the Hulk, toward the building where the Supreme Hunter had crashed in disgrace.

Landing on the building, he didn't need his eyes—Pulse Sensing had already detected the Supreme Hunter trying to turn and flee.

Even though the Key's energy was sufficient, Li Wei had no intention of letting the bastard who'd ambushed him get away!

The Supreme Hunter looked back, saw the black monster closing in, and sped up.

It barreled straight ahead, smashing through walls to escape.

Li Wei chased from behind, far faster than the Supreme Hunter. In just a few strides, he caught up, grabbed the Supreme Hunter's head mid-leap, and slammed it down toward the building below.

The two massive figures didn't stop until they'd punched through three floors. Li Wei's arm morphed into a claw and stabbed into the Supreme Hunter's chest, eliciting a foul, agonized scream.

Blood-red tendrils spread across the Supreme Hunter's body. In an instant, the three-meter-tall Supreme Hunter was completely absorbed by Li Wei, leaving no trace of its existence behind.

With the Supreme Hunter dealt with, Li Wei finally let out a breath. His body reverted to its original form. He glanced around, then leaped out through the hole above and left the building.

Standing on the rooftop, he gazed at the war-torn Manhattan, its skyline lit by explosions and gunfire, and felt a wave of emotion wash over him.

What kind of terrible karma had landed him in this godforsaken place?

The sky was stained an unsettling dark red by viral dust and gunpowder smoke. Countless helicopters circled overhead, their cannons spitting tongues of fire, the metallic symphony never ceasing.

This was the largest-scale battle he had ever witnessed—it would be a lie to say he wasn't shaken.

"Should I say goodbye to Alex before I leave? Forget it, who cares if he lives or..." Before he could finish his muttering, a flickering point of light appeared in the sky above.

The tearing sound of a missile cutting through the air drowned out even the countless gunshots, utterly shattering the last vestiges of silence in Manhattan.

Relying on his superhuman vision, Li Wei caught a glimpse of the object's shape up there—quite distinctive... Time to go!

Those politicians' dog-brained schemes—that thing was a nuke, wasn't it!

His face drastically changing, Li Wei reverted to his armored form, leaped back into the large hole in the nearby building, and locked his gaze on the door inside the room.

He reached his hand toward the key icon before him. The transparent key was grasped into solid form by his large hand, brought to the wooden door in the room, and inserted into the lock like a toy key.

The Master Key opened this door. Pushing it open, what lay beyond was no longer a hallway or a room, but a stretch of azure scenery.

The terrifying aura behind him constantly stimulated Li Wei's nerves. Without time to observe, he jumped straight into the world beyond the door.

BOOM!

The nuclear bomb detonated fifty meters above the core Hive. A 2.2-megaton warhead fissioned, unleashing a terrifying heat capable of destroying everything.

When Li Wei escaped the nuclear crisis and finally saw where he was, he was stunned!

Because he saw the outline of Earth...

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