Wang Zhen leaned against the wall and ate more than a dozen pieces of Dove. After resting for a full ten minutes, he finally managed to calm the slight discomfort caused by overtaxing his brain. The stars no longer danced before his eyes, and his hands and feet were no longer cold and weak. This only made him look forward even more to finishing the story world, returning to the God Hall, and using the reward points he'd earned to contact the Gate of Truth again and milk it for all it was worth. This story world had taught him that only with enough raw materials and enough knowledge could he improve his combat ability.
Actually, Wang Zhen rather hoped the story world would be something like the real world, because what he was best at was dealing with people. He'd been taking jobs to kill people since he was ten, so his greatest strengths weren't weapons or firearms, but disguises and poisons. As a child, he was naturally at a disadvantage physically, so neither weapons nor firearms suited him. But with his innocent, adorable baby face, he could get close to his targets with ease. Humans were so fragile that a light prick from a poisoned needle, or a tiny dose of poison slipped into a drink they were about to have, was enough to kill an ordinary person.
But facing an alien creature like a Xenomorph was completely outside Wang Zhen's area of expertise. Fortunately, he was the sort of person who liked to prepare thoroughly in advance, simulating every possible scenario that might come up during a mission. That good habit could serve him just as well in a story world.
During his break, Wang Zhen began working out how to deal with the upgraded Xenomorphs. These Drone Warriors were larger, stronger, and more ferocious in combat, but they weren't too different from Drones, so the difficulty hadn't increased much. He could still handle them with ease.
The problem was whether he might encounter Xenomorphs of an even higher rank and greater combat ability in the future. For example, the Queen, who must be lurking somewhere at the end and could reproduce, along with the Royal Guards who protected her. Based on the information he'd found online, a Xenomorph Queen was over five meters tall, meaning even the smallest and shortest would be around five meters. The Royal Guards were about the same size, and their combat ability was five times that of a Drone Warrior. A Xenomorph's exoskeleton armor grew tougher in proportion to its size: the larger it was, the stronger its armor. So if Royal Guards and a Queen appeared later, his current methods for dealing with Drones and Drone Warriors would be greatly weakened, or even rendered useless. He might not be able to pierce or completely destroy the Xenomorph's most important armor!
There was also a Xenomorph called a Runner, born from an animal host and therefore possessing animal traits. Though it was the smallest, it was also the fastest and best at stealth. And the female lead aboard the spaceship, Ripley, had a cat!
"If that cat turns into a Runner, it might be the biggest threat to me of all!" The thought of that cat Xenomorph, still in a state of quantum uncertainty, made Wang Zhen's stomach ache. It was simple: right now, he was the classic glass-cannon mage from a video game. His attack power was tremendous, but his body was fragile and flimsy. He wasn't all that afraid of the Drones and Drone Warriors, each over two meters tall, or even the Royal Guards and Queen, who might never appear. Those Xenomorphs were huge and heavily armored, but as long as they were still carbon-based life forms, had yet to enter the supernatural realm of controlling energy and eroding minds, and remained mundane creatures, there would always be a way to deal with them.
But Wang Zhen didn't want to imagine just how fast the cat Xenomorph would be, with the speed and agility of a cat combined with a Xenomorph's. Given the claws and teeth that could tear through steel doors, if he failed to dodge and it so much as touched him, he'd be half-dead even if he survived!
As he munched on Dove, Wang Zhen sifted through his vast store of memories—the knowledge he'd milked from behind the Gate of Truth. It was disorganized, but there was quite a lot of it. He searched for a good while and ate more than a dozen pieces of Dove before finding a few bits of knowledge that could help him deal with these two threats. His mood improved considerably. In a better mood, he popped two Godiva dark chocolates into his mouth for a change of taste, as if to mark the change in his spirits.
Next, he needed to check whether Zheng Zha and the other two were still there. Well, to be more precise, whether Zheng Zha and Zhan Lan were still there!
By Wang Zhen's estimate, even the most powerful Xenomorph Queen couldn't sense Zhang Jie if he wanted to hide himself, let alone a Drone Warrior that had merely grown stronger. So even if that Drone Warrior went looking for them, the only ones it could find would be Zheng Zha and Zhan Lan. And given their abilities—not that Wang Zhen meant to look down on them—even if Zheng Zha unlocked his Gene Lock and let the instincts fused with ancient combat techniques take over, his chances of defeating a Drone Warrior still wouldn't be high!
After all, Zheng Zha hadn't prepared properly. He hadn't even brought a weapon he was comfortable using!
As the saying went, even the cleverest housewife couldn't cook without rice. What chance did anyone have against a near-perfect predator like a Xenomorph?
Still, Wang Zhen didn't rush off to save them. They were all newcomers to Infinite Space; none of them was more important than the others. Why should he be the one to save them?
Because you're the protagonist?
To borrow the words of the great Chen Peisi: Who the protagonist was... remained to be seen!
So Wang Zhen moved toward Zheng Zha and the others at an ordinary pace. But when he tried to sense what was happening there, he "saw" a bizarre scene through his perception...
"What's going on?" Though Wang Zhen was puzzled, he still didn't speed up. The situation was already what it was. Even if he ran over—or went "whoosh" and teleported there—it wouldn't make any difference.
Zheng Zha was in an extremely strange state. His eyes glimmered with a blood-red light, and the nails on his hands had grown longer. It didn't look especially odd, but those hands could easily leave deep gashes in the Drone Warrior's thick armor. They hadn't torn it open yet, but it was only a matter of a few more strikes. Especially now that Zheng Zha was nimble as a bat and supple as a snake, circling and darting around the nearly three-meter-tall Drone Warrior with vicious agility. He dodged every one of its attacks, while each blow he landed left another gash in its armor. A gash struck only once wouldn't leak bodily fluid, but if it was struck a second and third time, the blows would pierce and tear through the thick, tough armor, letting fluid seep from the wound...
As the gashes multiplied and widened, more and more fluid poured out. The Drone Warrior grew increasingly frenzied, but its movements... slowed. And they kept getting slower!
Meanwhile, Zhang Jie was clutching Zhan Lan, who had a gaping hole in her chest, as he cowered in a ball at a distant corner of the wall, watching the fight...
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