Gun.
There were plenty of guns in this town, because this was the United States, where everyone had the freedom to own firearms.
But there were many kinds of guns. BB guns were one kind, classic AKs another, and Anti-Material Sniper Rifles yet another. For Si Ming, what he needed right now was undoubtedly the most powerful kind.
Ordinary gun stores could no longer satisfy his needs. It was also hard to say whether any advanced shooting ranges were still operating in this town. But he could at least be certain of one thing: there was indeed a National Guard armory in town.
There were armored vehicles.
Armored vehicles mounted with Heavy Machine Guns.
The exact model was unknown. He knew no more about firearms than an entry-level enthusiast. He only knew that the United States military was flooded with an endless supply of old M2 Browning machine guns. So at the very least, he could fight with one of those machine guns in hand.
"The M2 weighs about forty kilograms, if I remember right? Hmm, does that include the ammunition?"
Si Ming thought as he cut off a Xenomorph's cranial shell. He casually drained and wiped away the flesh on the inside. This piece of Polarized Silicon looked like an unusually shaped oversized handguard. In this form, it would not alarm ordinary people, and in the first film, the protagonist had used one as a shield.
It felt fairly good in his hand. Its weight and structure were both well suited for gripping. But Si Ming had other plans for it, and he was not particularly used to fighting with a shield.
Good.
His gaze swept across the underpass stronghold that had been turned into a complete mess by corrosive blood.
There was no longer any movement nearby, nor were there any living things moving beneath the shafts. The three objects on which he had placed Battle Qi Beacons were being dragged rapidly through the sewers. Clearly, the three gang thugs used as bait were about to meet an undignified end.
Si Ming shrugged and withdrew his attention from the area. The instant he stepped toward the outer streets, the last trace of sunlight beyond the sky vanished behind the horizon.
Night was coming.
Shadows covered every corner of the town, only to be pushed back slightly by isolated, feeble lights. If one could look down from above, one would see a dark, restless atmosphere churning through the town. People hurried about, fretted, argued uneasily, or buried themselves in work. Like an anthill before a flood, everyone vaguely sensed that something was about to happen, yet no one knew what they were supposed to do.
Night had arrived.
A dim Night Battle Qi Veil spread over Si Ming's body, concealing his movements. His figure flickered unpredictably through the shadows. Then he gave a slight nod to the environment that allowed his abilities to reach their limit.
He appeared again, then stepped into the brightness beneath a streetlamp.
The distance from the underpass near the hospital to the National Guard base was roughly five kilometers. Yet even by taxi, the trip would take more than forty minutes.
Traffic was jammed everywhere.
Arguments and shouting erupted everywhere. People suddenly started fighting in the streets, both sides ending up bloodied and battered. Occasionally, piercing police sirens rang out, but when the brawlers stopped, they found that the speeding police cars merely passed them by before vanishing into the distant night.
A strange smell hung in the air.
It seemed like blood, yet also like some sort of decay.
It poured out of the sewers, then flowed into countless windows and chimneys.
Si Ming revealed himself.
He appeared outside the National Guard base.
His gaze swept the surroundings, observing the movement of personnel within the base. From time to time, Guardsmen arrived by vehicle or on foot and hurried inside, accompanied by the roaring operation of numerous vehicles and machines.
This was not strange. The National Guard was essentially the United States' militia. They were not elite professional soldiers, but they also bore responsibilities for maintaining public order, disaster relief and evacuation, civil defense, and more. In this town surrounded by mountains and forests, several connected cases of disappearance and death were enough to put this long-idle group on edge.
After all, this was the United States in 2007. The country's grassroots institutions had not yet rotted beyond use. Perhaps they would still follow the original film and only officially deploy after receiving a request for help from the police station at ten o'clock that night. But that did not prevent them from entering a state of alert and readiness beforehand.
Then...
His body swayed.
A dozen seconds of observation had been enough for Si Ming to identify the sentries' positions, as well as the surveillance cameras that had yet to become widespread in this era—he slipped lightly and silently into the night. With a burst of strength from his legs, he leaped over the middle of the outer wall, a place the sentries could neither see nor think to watch—no one would believe that someone could scale a four-meter wall lined with electrified wire barehanded and without tools. But for him, it was easy.
His toes touched down.
Someone nearby was walking in this direction.
His senses extended sharply in all directions. In an instant, Si Ming had shifted behind a colonnade.
Several men who looked like officers passed by quickly, their steps swift and their words equally rapid.
"Something's not right tonight. Get everyone ready. Recall all the boys on leave; we may be mobilizing soon..."
The man issuing orders entered Si Ming's sight.
Si Ming memorized his appearance and destination. But now was not the time to approach him. Once the officers had passed, he silently departed, moving through the well-equipped military base.
Night Battle Qi wrapped around him, concealing his presence and outline.
Several police dogs with particularly sharp senses raised their heads and let out a couple of low whines, but naturally found nothing.
Si Ming passed them by—he even patted one police dog on the head. The startled animal immediately barked warily, drawing the attention of quite a few nearby soldiers.
The effect was good.
Their attention was drawn away, clearing a path for Si Ming. The route leading to the armory now appeared clearly before his eyes.
Good.
Captain Anderson suddenly shivered. A strange sensation ran through his entire body like an electric current. He instinctively rose from his chair, swept his gaze across his otherwise empty office, then looked out the window—the night was dark, and an oppressive feeling lingered in the air. He knew it was high atmospheric pressure, which meant rain would soon arrive.
This was not good. The rain had come at a terribly inopportune time.
He still remembered the missing-person case that had caused such an uproar in town—the hunter and his son had vanished, and a homeless man's dog had brought back a severed hand wearing a watch. Yet there was another matter unknown to the public: during last night's search-and-rescue operation, an isolated police officer had been killed, skinned, and hung upside down from a large tree.
That meant there was one, or perhaps a group, of brutal killers—and a sudden downpour might very well give them another opportunity to strike.
"I hope those cops can be of some use..."
He turned around.
The instant he turned, Anderson's right hand instinctively went to the holster at his waist—the closed door had somehow become slightly ajar, and a stranger entirely shrouded in shadow, whose face could not be seen even beneath the lights, was sitting in the visitor's chair.
"Relax, Captain." He did not seem to be speaking English, yet the captain could understand him. A faint sting came from the fingers about to touch the holster. Though he had not been attacked, he saw a line of blood slowly emerge across the back of his hand!
Was it... some kind of wire assassination tool?
"...Who are you? What do you want?" He instinctively raised his voice slightly.
"This town is about to be destroyed. A kind of... thing you can consider an out-of-control biological weapon has arrived here, and it will soon unleash a slaughter. They move quickly and react faster than cheetahs. Their defenses are tough enough that their shells can withstand close-range fire from small-caliber bullets. Their intelligence is comparable to that of a ten-year-old child, and most importantly, they use humans as hosts to expand their population and reproduce extremely quickly."
A sketch had somehow appeared on the desk. The dark monster, full of streamlined structures and curves, like an upright giant serpent, made Anderson tremble inwardly—it seemed like the embodiment and manifestation of some evil force. Merely seeing it made his back tense and his blood surge like a threatened feline.
"...What are you talking about? What biological weapon?" He already believed five-tenths of it. He knew how obsessed the higher-ups in the United States were with biological research.
"The truth." The stranger merely answered calmly. "These monsters are filled with highly poisonous acidic blood. They can easily dissolve concrete, metal, and flesh. Do not try to fight them in confined spaces."
A jointed limb appeared in his hand. That thick, black appendage clearly did not look like a natural product. Green viscous fluid remained at its severed end, and with a light swipe, the captain's desk was cut open at a neat corner amid the smoke of intense acid corrosion.
The captain sucked in a breath. The severed limb, which resembled a finger bone, was also left atop the desk. Now, he believed more than seventy percent of it.
"But they also have weaknesses. Among them is a massive Xenomorph Queen. And the place where the Queen has built her nest should be..."
The stranger tilted his head, seemingly sensing and calculating something.
"Using this desk's orientation as zero, it is underground, 2,400 meters away, at the ten-twenty-five direction. And once you attack that location, all the Xenomorphs in this town will react to the provocation and begin moving."
He spoke, then rose to his feet.
"If you still do not believe me, contact the highest-ranking superior you can reach. Ask him about the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, about the pyramid beneath Antarctica. Ask where the famous explorer Lex Woods is right now. Then you will obtain more intelligence than what I have told you."
The captain suddenly asked.
"That police officer... did you kill him?"
"Sharp, but that was not me." The stranger who was about to leave seemed to smile. "That was another powerful Predator. Perhaps you will have to fight it as well—do your best, Captain. Even if you do not intend to save this town, you should at least consider what will happen to those of you who fail to evacuate once these biological weapons completely lose control."
Darkness suddenly burst forth, blocking the captain's eyes as he raised his guard.
When brightness returned to his vision, a massive curved shell lay before him on the floor, its center covered in dents and breaches as it swayed slightly.
"And use armor-piercing shotgun shells or 12.7mm machine-gun ammunition. They work best."
Before you continue