Fight! For Your Life! (3)

Zheng Zha could no longer feel pain anywhere in his body. He clenched the Alien Queen's claw tightly between his teeth, terrified that if he loosened his grip, he would fall to the ground. He did not even have legs anymore. If he fell, he would definitely die. Even holding the Spiral Thorn bomb would be useless—he could hardly float up at will and stab the Alien Queen, could he? This was his last chance!

His consciousness was beginning to blur. Zheng Zha only felt an icy cold spreading through his body. He knew this was a sign that death was approaching. Legend had it that some people could struggle for several minutes after being cut in half. In freezing conditions, some could even struggle for dozens of minutes. But he had already suffered severe injuries before being severed at the waist. Saying he still had half a life left would be giving him too much credit. He could die at any moment.

He could not loosen his bite. Zheng Zha struggled to loop the bomb's clasp around the Alien Queen's claw, then yanked hard, pulling the clasp off the Spiral Thorn bomb. But before he could make his next move, a gust of wind rushed straight at him. He did not need to look to know it was either a claw or the Alien Queen's tongue. In any case, it was aimed directly at his head.

Bang! Bang!

The gunshots came from nearby. Beside another cargo container not far from the Alien Queen and Zheng Zha, Chu Xuan stood there trembling. One of his arms had snapped in two, with only a few strands of flesh connecting the severed portion to the bone. One side of his waist was bent at a grotesque angle. He was probably badly injured as well; from the look of it, even his spine had been deformed.

Those shots had been fired by Chu Xuan with his remaining hand. Several bullets struck the Alien's tongue with perfect accuracy, once again proving Chu Xuan's exceptional close-range shooting ability. The handgun he had chosen was also extremely powerful. The bullets forcibly blasted off the front end of the Alien Queen's tongue, knocking the remaining section off course. At that critical moment, it scraped past Zheng Zha's head.

"Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly! I can barely see anymore!"

Chu Xuan shouted as the pistol in his hand fired repeatedly, punching several more yellow bloody holes into the Alien Queen's tongue.

Zheng Zha braced his left hand fiercely against the Alien Queen's claw and finally released it from his mouth. Then he clenched his teeth again. Gathering every last bit of strength, he shoved hard and launched himself nearly two meters into the air, shooting straight toward the Alien Queen's head.

With a sharp hiss, the Spiral Thorn on Zheng Zha's left hand plunged viciously into the side of the Alien Queen's head, piercing straight through into its mouth. In that instant, the Alien Queen's other claw had only risen halfway and had not yet struck Zheng Zha, who was hanging from its head, when BOOM! Zheng Zha's left hand and the Alien Queen's head were blown to pieces together. Shrapnel, fragments of the Spiral Thorn, and shards of the Alien Queen's shell densely pelted Zheng Zha's entire body. His left hand was blown apart as well. But with so many wounds already, what did a few more fragments matter? His injuries had already been severe enough to kill him. Compared to that, these were merely minor wounds. He simply closed his eyes and slowly fell toward the ground.

His Internal Force had been completely depleted. His Vampire energy was nearly exhausted. The unlocked Gene lock state had reached its limit. He had lost more than half his blood. His injuries were enough to kill a strong man instantly... Zheng Zha truly no longer had the strength to move even a finger. Even closing his eyelids left him utterly exhausted. He was so tired. He wanted to find somewhere and sleep deeply, but it felt as though something still remained unfinished in his heart...

"Fuck you, Main God! Hurry up and repair our bodies... Take however many Repair Points you need..."

Through the haze, Zheng Zha seemed to hear Zhang Jie's incoherent shout. Then came the sound of a girl crying, a sound that was strangely familiar. It made him want to force his eyes open, but he was simply too tired. If that crying had not reached him in time, perhaps he would have fallen into a deep sleep already.

Fortunately, a warm presence suddenly enveloped his entire body. The warm feeling was like soaking in heated water, indescribably comfortable from head to toe. But that comfort did not last long. It was immediately followed by agonizing pain. Truly agonizing pain—words like heart-rending and gut-wrenching were nowhere near enough to describe it. Zheng Zha hurt so badly that he wanted to kill someone, yet the pain gradually stimulated his mind back to clarity.

The moment his mind cleared, Zheng Zha was chilled to the bone. Recalling his direct clash with the Alien Queen, his heart went cold. That was a monstrous creature seven or eight meters tall and nearly twenty meters long. Let alone him, even an elephant would only need a few tail strikes to be killed. Yet he had actually dared to fight that monster at close range. Just thinking about it made him shudder with lingering fear.

Only then did Zheng Zha clearly see his surroundings. He was already back in the Main God's space: a vast plaza, a floating orb of light, and endless darkness all around. This was the only safe place in the Horror Movie reincarnation cycle—the Main God's space.

A beam of light descended from the glowing sphere at the center of the plaza, and he was floating in the middle of it. Besides his own, there were four other beams of varying brightness beside him. Chu Xuan, whose injuries were the lightest, floated in the dimmest beam. Next came Zero Point and Zhang Jie. The beam containing Zhan Lan was second only to his in brightness.

Four? Zheng Zha counted again carefully. Yes, there were only four people. Overlord was not present in the plaza. That sturdy Russian mercenary had apparently died. A wave of sadness rose in his heart. As expected, only those who survived could return to this Main God's space.

Zheng Zha looked down at his own body. The pain had lessened considerably from before, but it was still nearly unbearable. There was not a single intact spot on his body. His entire lower body had been pulverized and was gone. Both arms had disappeared as well, while his upper body was covered in shrapnel. Thankfully, aside from a few scratches on his face, no fragments had struck his head. That was at least a blessing amid disaster.

The muscles across his body writhed continuously as though they possessed lives of their own. Under the beam's illumination, flesh and bone regrew at a speed visible to the naked eye. His spine extended downward without pause until it reached the tailbone, where it gradually stopped. Then bones and nerves grew outward from the spine, followed by blood and internal organs...

Zheng Zha no longer wanted to look at his body. Seeing it regenerate at such a visible speed was simply nauseating. He looked past his own flesh toward the ground below. Two girls were gazing up at them through tear-filled eyes. One was the classical Beauty Zhang Jie had created, silently weeping as she looked at Zhang Jie. The other was Loli, the girl in Zheng Zha's heart. The fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl was crying so hard that, if the classical Beauty had not been silently supporting her, she looked as though she might have cried herself unconscious.

Zheng Zha still could not speak. His throat had been cut by shrapnel earlier, and whenever he tried to talk, air seemed to leak straight out of his lungs. He could only part his lips slightly toward Loli, shaping the words he wanted to say. He did not know whether Loli could understand what he was saying with his lips.

I came back alive... Loli, I kept my promise. I came back alive!