Zheng Zha's eyes were bloodred. He didn't know whether it was from grief and fury or because Zhan Lan's blood had stained them. As the girl was dragged through the passage and disappeared from sight, he roared and charged after her. He had pushed off so hard that he even raced straight through the passage and slammed into the wall.
His Nerve Reaction Speed, three times that of an ordinary person, saved him. Everything around him slowed down. He felt as if every movement required immense strength. Even with his current physical condition, it was difficult, and his body seemed on the verge of tearing apart with every motion. The ground, the air, even the wall drawing closer—all of it seemed to pull at him, holding him back and preventing him from moving too fast. He had never experienced anything like this before.
When he came closest to the wall, the air around him had grown so thick it seemed almost liquid. He even stepped on the air as he leaped toward the wall. Then he kicked off it with both feet and finally managed to turn himself around. The first thing he saw was an Alien dragging Zhan Lan away. This Alien was clearly a little smaller than the one he had encountered earlier, but it still stood two meters tall and was more than three meters long. It was dragging Zhan Lan deeper into the corridor. The girl's left shoulder had been nearly smashed to pieces. Her frail body was covered in blood, and her eyes held nothing but despair and a strange longing.
Zheng Zha suddenly understood the longing in her eyes. It was hope for life, for the future. He had never seen his own eyes, but he knew that at several desperate moments, that same longing must have flashed in them... He was absolutely certain!
In Zheng Zha's eyes, Zhan Lan in the Alien's jaws seemed to turn into Li Xiaoyi, about to be torn apart and reduced to a pile of worthless flesh. Then she seemed to turn into himself. If an Alien had seized him and dragged him away, despair and that same longing would surely have flashed in his eyes too, before he was torn apart and devoured... He wouldn't let that happen! No matter what, he had to save this strong woman. No matter what, he had to keep her alive!
"Ah!"
Zheng Zha roared frantically. With everything around him moving slowly, he could almost see every movement the Alien made. The air had grown so thick that the force of his kick had sent him flying several meters, straight toward the Alien.
It all happened in an instant. From Zhan Lan's perspective, Zheng Zha charged wildly at the wall, then kicked off it with an odd burst of speed. The steel wall he had kicked gave a muffled thud, and the solid metal had even been dented by two deep footprints. Then Zheng Zha shot away like a cannonball, vanishing from the girl's moving field of vision. He was already moving too fast for her to follow.
Zheng Zha had reached the Alien. He could even clearly see saliva spraying from its mouth and its long, sharp inner jaw. As he leaped over it, he gripped the steel rod and struck the Alien's tongue with pinpoint accuracy. There was a muffled thud. Zhan Lan fell to the ground, and the Alien let out a frenzied shriek. Highly corrosive fluid sprayed from its severed tongue. Zheng Zha had hacked more than half of it clean in two.
"Ah!"
It wasn't over. Zheng Zha roared as wildly as the Alien. Not a trace of reason remained in his eyes. There was nothing but madness and a wash of bloodred. He couldn't tell whether they had been stained by Zhan Lan's blood or had simply turned red.
As Zheng Zha landed, he swung the steel rod in his hand hard at the Alien's back. Metal clanged against metal, and the arm-thick rod bent completely out of shape. But the Alien seemed to be in pain too: its back armor had cracked, and corrosive fluid was oozing from inside. The floor of the corridor was already pitted and scarred from the fluid.
The Alien was incredibly fast too. Even with everything around him moving slowly and the air growing thick, Zheng Zha could barely match its speed. When the Alien's enormous claw swept sideways, all he could do was raise his arm to block it. A muffled thud rang out, and the immense force knocked him to the ground. The whole corridor seemed to shudder, and Zheng Zha's head struck the floor, gushing blood.
By now, Zheng Zha was fighting for his life. He didn't have the Alien's iron-hard armor. When he blocked that blow, it left several bloody holes in his arm. And the Alien's strength was terrifying. His head had slammed into the floor so hard that he nearly blacked out. Luckily, at the crucial moment, he bit down hard on his tongue. The pain kept him conscious.
He didn't even try to get up. Instead, he drew another steel rod from behind his back and swept it hard along the ground at the Alien's legs. With the force of the blow and the sudden burst of Internal Force, he managed to knock the Alien—whose body was as large as two or three people—onto its side. But as it fell, the Alien drove the sharp tip of its tail into his thigh. It truly was a creature evolved specifically to kill and survive. Its combat instincts were astonishing.
Zheng Zha's mind was blank. He felt as though his body were moving on its own, and countless fighting instincts surfaced in his mind. He twisted his body and rolled backward. The sharp tip of the tail that had pierced his thigh slipped out of the wound as he rolled. Then he pushed off with both feet and lunged again, driving the steel rod in his hand deep into the Alien's mouth.
He let go of the rod and drew another from behind his back, stabbing it again and again into the Alien's head. He didn't even notice the highly corrosive fluid spraying all over him. He looked as if he wanted to tear the Alien apart with his bare hands. Luckily, Zhan Lan reacted in time. Though she was badly wounded herself, the girl leaped up and threw herself at Zheng Zha. She collided with him, and the two of them rolled several meters away. Only then did Zheng Zha slowly come back to his senses.
The front of his body burned and stung as if it were on fire. He hurriedly tore off all his clothes and wiped the fluid from his body. But the moment it fell onto the steel floor, it hissed. The metal melted away like ice. Other than turning a little black, his skin hadn't suffered even the slightest burn. The sight left Zhan Lan astonished.
Zhan Lan was using a hemostatic spray to stop the bleeding in her shoulder. She said softly, "I'm so glad we made it through. Thank you... But why isn't your skin hurt at all? The Alien's blood is a powerful acid. Even a drop can melt you down to the bone."
Zheng Zha wiped the corrosive fluid from his body. His mind was still blank. Everything that had just happened seemed like a nightmare. He had been fighting purely on instinct. Especially when the Alien's tail had pierced his thigh—he had felt as though something inside him had come unlocked.
"Maybe my Cell Vitality and immunity are strong. And it's not like I'm completely unharmed. At least my skin's been burned black by the acid..." Zheng Zha said with a bitter smile.
He was about to take a hemostatic spray out of his Storage Ring when his whole body suddenly convulsed violently. A numb, aching paralysis began in his internal organs, as if countless little insects were crawling around inside him. The pain burrowed into his bones, then seemed to travel with his blood to the surface of his skin. Soon his whole body was wracked with a pain worse than death. Gradually, his vision went white, and he felt as if he were about to die.
"You can imagine it for yourselves. After monkeys pushed themselves to this limit, they became human beings. So what would a human become if he pushed himself to this limit?"
"It requires a substance similar to adrenaline. The human body can only produce it on its own, and the most important thing is... it's poisonous. You've probably heard the story about the old woman who lifted a car with one hand and rescued her grandson trapped beneath the wheel. That really happened, but the old woman died soon afterward. A scientist found a tiny trace of this substance in her blood..."
"...Gene lock..."
Zheng Zha recalled Chu Xuan's explanation of the Gene lock. He didn't know whether he had unlocked it by accident, but he knew he was struggling on the verge of death. The spasms in his internal organs grew more violent, and blood poured from his mouth and nose. Then his lungs began to spasm too, and he could hardly breathe. All he could do was open his mouth and struggle desperately for air.
Zhan Lan reacted first. She clung desperately to Zheng Zha as his body convulsed, then pressed her mouth to his and breathed air into his lungs again and again. After more than ten seconds, the spasms in Zheng Zha's internal organs finally began to subside. His lungs started breathing again, and the pain in his skin gradually eased. But Zhan Lan didn't know that. She kept breathing into his mouth, weeping as she did. Zheng Zha could barely make out her soft murmurs.
"Don't die. Please, don't leave me alone again. I'm begging you, stay with me and let's live on together..."
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