When disaster strikes, everyone flies their own way

Zhan Lan saw Zheng Zha twitching in agony and felt a deep, aching distress. Enduring the pain from the chunk of flesh torn from her shoulder, she walked over to him with a pale face and used a hemostatic spray to stop his bleeding.

"We must leave here immediately!" Chu Xuan walked over, wearing his usual expressionless poker face. His words were as unpleasant as ever: "We have to leave! Since there is more than one Alien, these extraterrestrial creatures—which possess habits similar to ants and swarms—will have their own ways of communicating. If one dies, I fear it will only draw more of them here!"

Although Chu Xuan always wore that indifferent, emotionless mask and spoke like a robot devoid of feeling, one had to admit that honest advice is often hard to swallow; while his words were grating, they were quite useful. Therefore, when he mentioned that more Aliens would be coming, everyone felt a sense of panic. After all, just this single Alien had already left them in shambles, and Zheng Zha, their strongest combatant, had nearly been killed. If not for that sudden burst of power at the last moment, who knows what would have happened.

Having witnessed the combat prowess of the Alien and Zheng Zha firsthand, the three experts—Chu Xuan and his companions—no longer wore their arrogant, know-it-all expressions. With their high IQs, they naturally understood that their professional skills required weapons, equipment, and detailed information to be effective. As it stood, they didn't even have a pistol; fighting an Alien empty-handed was essentially serving themselves up as a side dish! In reality, the three were quite speechless regarding Zheng Zha and the others. How could no one have prepared extra weapons? Zheng Zha was fighting for his life with a Cold Steel Machete, and others like Zhan Lan were just holding a bottle of hemostatic spray?

They didn't need to bring a .38 snub-nose or a Swiss Army knife, but they could have at least worn a bulletproof vest. It was a mystery how they had survived the previous plot world!

Chu Xuan and his group had actually hit the nail on the head!

The previous world, Resident Evil, was the first plot world for the Zhongzhou Team after their total annihilation. Not only was the mission difficulty lowered to the minimum, but there was also that old fox Zhang Jie, who hadn't sought out any side quests. Only Zheng Zha, relying on his protagonist halo, had managed to secure his first pot of gold. People like Zhan Lan and Li Xiaoyi had essentially been along for the ride, participating in no combat whatsoever. Naturally, they hadn't received any extra rewards, only the 1000-point base salary. If Li Xiaoyi hadn't been possessed and reborn by the cheater Wang Zhen, he certainly wouldn't have survived the Alien I plot world!

Consequently, Zhan Lan—a woman evaluated as having rare potential for mental-side talents—lacked the side quests and reward points to strengthen her specialized abilities. Furthermore, she hadn't experienced the baptism of battle or the trials of life and death. To make matters worse, Zhang Jie was an old fox whose information about the Infinite Space was intentionally ambiguous, directly causing Zhan Lan to waste an entire plot world—one that the Main God had specifically provided for talented individuals to farm points and strengthen themselves!

And sometimes, missing an opportunity once means missing it for a lifetime!

Because Zhan Lan missed the optimal window for strengthening, she remained a level behind the others. This applied not only to her mental-side abilities but also to her mindset.

Supported by Zhan Lan, a trembling Zheng Zha stood up with a gray, ashen face. However, a problem arose regarding where they should go, as it is difficult to reach a consensus when there are too many people. For instance, because his physical state was so poor, Zheng Zha could not move quickly—meaning he couldn't run at all. Zhan Lan wanted to find an empty room nearby to hide him, while Chu Xuan and his two companions were thinking about the ship's armory. As professionals without weapons, they naturally didn't want to keep fighting Aliens empty-handed. Whether they could win was one thing, but having weapons to fight with was another.

To put it bluntly, even if they didn't want to be bitten to death by an Alien in the end, they would need a gun just to commit suicide!

In the end, the deadlocked parties took a step back. Zhang Jie would take Zhan Lan and Zheng Zha to find an empty room to hide in, while Chu Xuan and his two companions would follow the memory of the genius with an IQ of 220 to locate the armory and grab some gear. Once the two groups split up, Zhang Jie, Zhan Lan, and Zheng Zha quickly found an empty room and ducked inside. Meanwhile, Chu Xuan, Zero, and Ba Wang quickly took a different corridor, sprinting toward the armory in his memory.

"I feel like those three are actually using us as bait," Zhan Lan said, her face grim as she gritted her teeth and whispered.

"They are high-and-mighty professionals, and we are nothing but upstarts who stepped in dog shit and hit the jackpot, so naturally, they look down on us! But then again, it's not yet certain who will end up being the bait," Zhang Jie said with a meaningful look.

"At the very least, your brother Zhang is a veteran who has been through several plot worlds. Even if I'm a coward with poor skills and haven't earned many reward points, I still have a few old items tucked away at the bottom of my trunk!" As he spoke, Zhang Jie pulled out a silver-white, fabric-like object folded into a perfect square.

"Do you know what this is?" Zhang Jie smiled. "This thing is called a Space Blanket. It can reflect the human body's heat back onto itself, keeping you warm when you wrap yourself in it!"

"Reflect body heat? If we wrap ourselves in this, can we avoid the Alien's infrared visual tracking?" When the topic didn't involve Zheng Zha, Zhan Lan's mind was quite sharp. With just a small hint from Zhang Jie, she immediately understood what he was trying to do.

"Take it, one for each of you!" Zhang Jie handed one to Zhan Lan and one to Zheng Zha, then took one for himself, shook it out, and wrapped himself up tightly.

Zhan Lan and Zheng Zha followed suit, wrapping themselves up securely without leaving a single gap. After all, they had just experienced the terror of the Alien firsthand. In Zheng Zha's current weak state, unless he summoned his VIP "substitute player" again, he would be dead in a bite or two. However, if he really tried to summon that VIP, he would likely drop dead from the strain before the substitute could even hammer the Alien to death!

"Chu Xuan, will the Alien really hunt Zheng Zha and the others? After all, there are three of us as well," Ba Wang asked, looking puzzled.

"When lions, tigers, wolves, or leopards hunt, what do they target first?" Chu Xuan asked in return without looking back.

"The old, the young, and the injured," replied Ba Wang, a mercenary who had spent years carrying out missions in Africa, without hesitation.

"Therefore, the three of them are the most obvious targets, especially since Zheng Zha is severely injured and cannot move quickly, forcing them to hide nearby. Thus, the Alien is closer to them! According to the descriptions in the movie, these extraterrestrial creatures possess infrared vision, so the metal walls of the rooms are essentially useless against them," Chu Xuan continued. "Actually, I am only gambling, because I cannot be certain how the Alien will hunt us. Perhaps it will follow its predatory instincts and hunt them first, or perhaps it will ignore them and come straight for us. In short, I do not have a hundred-percent certainty in predicting the Alien's movements. I can only be sure of one thing: if we remain gathered together, we will undoubtedly die once the Alien attacks."

"So, every man for himself, and may fate decide the rest!"