Countless metal ribbons, hard as steel yet soft as silk, instantly wrapped the Xenomorph—whose health bar had recovered to between one-third and one-fifth and who had just gone from near death to seriously wounded—into a tightly sealed bundle. Then countless spikes suddenly burst from the inner walls of the iron coffin. A Xenomorph in peak condition wouldn't have been pierced by ordinary metal spikes, but this one had only just been moved from the ICU to a regular hospital room. Chu Xuan had already battered its exoskeleton with far too many cracks and holes, deep or shallow, long or short, large or small. Some spikes were blocked and failed to pierce its armor, but many still drove through the cracks and holes!
And that was only the appetizer!
As the metal spikes pierced the Xenomorph, they suddenly exploded before its corrosive bodily fluids could dissolve them!
Each spike was small, and corrosion had eaten away what little metal there was, but there were simply too many inside the Xenomorph—dozens of them. So when dozens of miniature bombs went off at once, the consequences were severe!
The Xenomorph's newly recovered fifth of a health bar vanished in an instant. If it hadn't been wrapped airtight in the steel ribbons, which looked like a bundle but were really a coffin, it would have burst like a giant firework, spraying corrosive bodily fluids into every corner of the room.
"Chu Xuan, are you still alive?" A clear voice came from outside the door.
"I can stay alive for another minute." Though the Xenomorph had eaten him down to his upper body, Chu Xuan was remarkably calm, as if he weren't the one about to die.
"Seeing you like this, I honestly don't know what to say! It feels like nothing I could say would matter!" Wang Zhen walked in from outside. Seeing Chu Xuan with only his upper body left and an unusually calm look in his eyes, he said helplessly, "There's something I want to ask you. If we meet again on the road someday, will we share a drink, or draw our blades against each other?"
"What do you think?" Chu Xuan's placid gaze stirred at Wang Zhen's pointed question, and he asked in return.
"I'd like to say we'd share a drink, but when I think about our personalities... I'd say there's a nine-in-ten chance we'd draw our blades." Wang Zhen slowly let the gentle smile fade from his face and answered with complete seriousness.
"We've only just met, and barely spoken, yet you seem to understand me very well. I don't know why, and I don't want to know. As for the reunion you mentioned, I don't think it'll happen. But my instincts tell me we might really meet again." Chu Xuan's voice grew fainter. "If we do meet again... kill me. The dead don't come back to life. And if someone does come back, it won't be me."
"Your IQ is so high, your instincts must be accurate. I trust them." Wang Zhen looked at Chu Xuan, whose eyes had closed and whose breathing had stopped, and spoke softly. "Actually, whether or not you'd said that, I would've killed you first."
"In troubled times, kill the bleeding hearts first. And in a team battle... always kill the brains first!" Wang Zhen muttered. They were hard to kill, but if he got the chance, he really had to take out the brains first. Their influence on the variables was simply too great.
All this way, Wang Zhen had been a regular fishing boat with no catch. He hadn't managed to lure out a single Xenomorph!
If he hadn't happened to sense one here, he'd probably have kept coming up empty! Granted, he hadn't lured this one out either, but at least he'd killed it. That much was certain! So even though he hadn't used a fishing rod or bait, and had instead beaten it to death with a stick, it still counted as his catch. By a generous rounding of the numbers, he'd caught it himself.
Wang Zhen didn't know why he hadn't managed to lure out a single Xenomorph, but now he knew who they were hunting! He'd also figured out why they'd ignored such a huge, sweet-smelling piece of bait as himself and gone after Chu Xuan and Zheng Zha instead. It was like the lions, tigers, crocodiles, and leopards on the African savanna: they didn't go after the strongest and healthiest, but the old, the young, the sick, and the injured—the four great delicacies. Not angels. The four great delicacies!
And that raised the question: how could such clever alien creatures overlook the whole string of hooks buried inside Wang Zhen's biggest, sweetest, most fragrant piece of bait?
On the other hand, those others might be skinny and scrawny, but they didn't have hooks in them! All the Xenomorphs had to do was open their mouths, charge in, and bite. Simple as that. With something so easy, no other drawbacks mattered.
By comparison, Wang Zhen's sweet, fragrant bait, with its whole string of hidden hooks, was far less appealing to the Xenomorphs. Unless they'd eaten Chu Xuan, Zheng Zha, and the others clean out of house and home, they'd keep avoiding him. Only when they were left with a single source of food would they come tearing over and keep biting, hooks or no hooks!
"Since these brainy Xenomorphs are set on picking on the weak and avoiding me, I'd better stop stupidly scattering bait all over the place and fishing. Back to the old method: surround the target and pick off the reinforcements!" Wang Zhen was a little reluctant, but the Xenomorphs were steering clear of him, so he had no choice but to give up baiting and fishing—an activity that was good for the body and mind—and return to his old line of work.
Chu Xuan, Zero, and Ba Wang were all dead now. Only Zhang Jie, Zheng Zha, and Zhan Lan were left. I have to go watch over those three, or I'll never find any Xenomorphs!
Of course, Wang Zhen had another small question: why had these two Xenomorphs attacked Chu Xuan's group of three? Theoretically, Zhang Jie, Zheng Zha, and Zhan Lan should have been more likely to attract the Xenomorphs, since they were weaker than Chu Xuan's group.
Wang Zhen turned and headed out to look for Zhang Jie, Zheng Zha, and Zhan Lan. He hadn't gone far before he sensed where they were. But based on the locations of the two groups and the Xenomorphs' tracks, Wang Zhen easily worked out a particularly interesting conclusion: the two Xenomorphs that had killed Chu Xuan's group had actually abandoned Zhang Jie's group and turned to attack Chu Xuan's.
"Interesting! Looks like Zhang Jie, that sly old fox, made a move! Zheng Zha and Zhan Lan have talent and potential, and Zheng Zha even exchanged for the Double C-Rank Mutant Vampire Lineage and Intermediate Internal Energy Enhancement. But he hasn't changed his mindset. He's just a pig Speed fattened up in a hurry. If he wants to kill a Xenomorph, Zhang Jie will have to help—or... he'll have to burst into the Gene Lock!"
"Zhang Jie would never help, so there's only one possibility: Zheng Zha unlocked the Gene Lock! But even if that let Zheng Zha kill a Xenomorph, he'd inevitably suffer a backlash afterward and end up even weaker than a combat five. If they managed to hide from the Xenomorphs so they couldn't be hunted, then the only possibility is that sly old fox Zhang Jie pulled some dirty trick to avoid getting involved, blocking the Xenomorphs' senses so they couldn't find them. That must be why the Xenomorphs turned to hunt Chu Xuan's group instead!" Wang Zhen narrowed his eyes and sensed the distant positions of Zhang Jie's group as he muttered to himself.
Strangely enough, Wang Zhen sensed a Xenomorph again! And it was heading straight for Zhang Jie's group!
It still ignored Wang Zhen completely. Unbelievable!
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