A Humiliating and Utterly Unpeaceful Death

Wang Zhen saw the Xenomorph Queen's head twitch slightly and realized that because the Zerg base she was halfway through transforming into had been scorched to charcoal by his Lightning Transmutation Circle, she had been forced out of her evolutionary state.

But what was the point of returning now?

It was nothing more than experiencing the sensation of being sent to heaven in an electric chair!

It would have been far better to drift into eternal slumber amidst the great joy and bliss of evolution; that would have been a rare moment of comfort and peace in a Xenomorph's life.

It was just a pity that the Xenomorph Queen lacked such fortune.

She had actually woken up at a time like this!

Noticing the signs of the Xenomorph Queen regaining consciousness, Wang Zhen immediately pushed the Lightning Transmutation Circle to its limit. Blinding white arcs of electricity, thicker and more ferocious than before, roared from her charred, carbonized lower body and surged toward her upper torso.

Since the lower half of the Xenomorph Queen no longer possessed the scent of flesh and blood, it could not attract the white-hot lightning. Consequently, the arcs scrambled to burrow into her upper torso, which still retained the rich aroma of living tissue. Wherever the 30,000-degree plasma lightning passed, flesh rapidly dehydrated, withered, and carbonized, as if the bolts were voraciously devouring the Queen's abundant body.

"Aoooo..."

It was an excruciating process. Although it happened quickly, the sensation of her own flesh being rapidly consumed and converted into charred, dead matter forced the newly conscious Xenomorph Queen to let out a miserable, irrepressible shriek.

Yet, the Xenomorph Queen was helpless. Having been forced out of her evolutionary metamorphosis, she had regained consciousness first, but her body could not quickly revert from that state.

Thus, she could only watch with her own eyes as her body repeated the process of dehydration, withering, scorching, and carbonization.

A few minutes later, the Xenomorph Queen, who had embarked on a journey of evolution, had been unable to put up any resistance due to the ill-timed interruption. Wang Zhen had easily refined her into a charred, withered statue, as if he were simply hammering a wooden stake.

Moreover, because the Xenomorph Queen had been in the process of evolving into a Zerg base—with her lower half as the base and her upper half still in her original form—one could clearly sense the intense, overwhelming negative emotions radiating from her: frustration, unwillingness, regret, anger, fear, and agony.

If judged as a work of art, this statue of the Xenomorph Queen was an exceptionally rare masterpiece.

It was a pity that although Wang Zhen was a "hacker" of sorts, he was too poor to even own a storage space. He would have loved to transport this statue back to his private quarters as a trophy to witness his growth (and show off), placing it right at the entrance of his courtyard.

Only after sensing the final trace of the Xenomorph Queen's life force dissipate did Wang Zhen pull his trembling hands away from the charred, withered remains.

"Finally over."

"Damn it! When I get back, I'm going to milk the 'Gate of Truth' for everything it's worth! I've realized it now: the more knowledge I gain from the 'Gate of Truth,' the higher the success rate and power of my transmutation circles."

"As expected, milking the system is the way to go!"

Wang Zhen's arms ached as if they were being pricked by needles. He slowly raised his still-trembling hands and could clearly see fork-shaped lightning patterns formed by the current flickering with faint electric light from his arms down to his fingertips.

This was the Lightning Transmutation Circle he had developed based on his memories. It was clearly still incomplete; while it could be used normally, he would inevitably suffer some backlash.

Gritting his teeth to endure the persistent electric pain in his arms, Wang Zhen tapped his hands together. A metal rod as thick as his arm rose from the floor, and he gripped it tightly with his shaking hands.

At the same time, the metal rod lit up instantly. Hair-thin currents surged out from Wang Zhen's arms, flowed along the dense patterns on the metal rod, and poured downward, quickly dissipating into the metal floor beneath his feet.

"Damn it! The Lightning Transmutation Circle really is still incomplete! But it's a good thing I used it, otherwise, I wouldn't have discovered this for a while. Better to find it early and fix it! Even if it hurts a bit, it's worth it!" Wang Zhen felt the bone-chilling pain vanish along with the current. Despite the lingering fear, he was quite pleased.

After all, he had the Fullmetal Alchemist anime as a model for his Flame, Ice, Metal, and Explosion Transmutation Circles, so they weren't difficult to use—at most, he just needed to refine his technique. But the Lightning Transmutation Circle was something he had developed himself, with no anime to guide him; it was truly his own creation.

In terms of a sense of achievement, even though Wang Zhen had suffered his most serious injury since becoming a State Alchemist, he was still incredibly happy.

Wang Zhen clapped his hands casually, then folded his arms across his chest. The metal floor beneath his feet slowly rose and extended diagonally upward. As he stepped forward, stairs appeared perfectly beneath his feet, as if an invisible pair of hands were building a staircase in the air, allowing him to ascend into the clouds.

"Magneto really is a man of style! If you ask who has the best show-off skills, Magneto is in a league of his own!"

"It's decided! I'll take Magneto as my master and learn his ability to brand 'showing off' into his very bones, allowing him to do it smoothly and naturally anytime, anywhere!" In a great mood, Wang Zhen cosplayed Magneto's style, finding it immensely satisfying.

The only regret was that there was no audience—no audience to scream "666" for him.

Therefore, Wang Zhen decided this performance was only a nine out of ten.

Once he was out of the Xenomorph nest, Wang Zhen didn't want to go find Zheng Zha and Zhang Jie. With Zheng Zha's protagonist halo, the mission to save Ellen Ripley wouldn't be difficult. After all, he felt the greatest challenge of this mission was just finding Ripley within an hour inside the labyrinthine spaceship.

Wang Zhen found a clean spot and used a transmutation circle to craft a lounge chair perfectly suited to his build. He lay down in a comfortable position, picked up a piece of metal debris he had found in the Xenomorph nest, and began to analyze it with alchemy.

Wang Zhen was just killing time. Since he didn't want to help Zheng Zha and Zhang Jie, he had to find something to do for himself.

"These metal fragments feel a bit strange. They are also alloys formed from multiple metal elements, but they are clearly different from Earth's alloys." The metal fragment wasn't hard to analyze; it took Wang Zhen only a few minutes to determine the composition ratio, but the result exceeded his expectations.