Escape

"Unless we destroy it completely, we can't clear out the base. Don't forget, the Species can hide in the Ventilation Duct."

"We can search for them... aren't the Species afraid of us? There's no time limit, either..."

"We don't have enough oxygen."

Ye Lin raised his left arm. The oxygen gauge on it had already dropped by a small notch.

Hu Jia's expression froze. Only then did he realize that their time in safety wasn't unlimited.

The moment they took off these suits, those monsters would swarm them and tear them to pieces.

"Then... Lin... Ye Lin, where do we hide? Once we open the Airlock, the air here will blast out at supersonic speed. One wrong move, and even our spacesuits could be damaged."

"And I've thought about it. Even tethering ourselves outside won't work. When the base breaks apart, it'll produce huge amounts of debris. We'd be in even more danger floating out there!"

Staying inside meant death, but outside was terribly dangerous too.

Hu Jia mustered his courage and stammered out his concerns.

Although he was terrified that Ye Lin might get angry at him for pointing this out, their lives were at stake. He couldn't keep quiet.

"Fuck! I knew it couldn't be that easy!"

At the doorway, He Zheng, who had been fantasizing about farming points indefinitely, turned around with a glare.

The others stopped what they were doing and looked at Ye Lin too. They had thought they were completely safe.

Only after Hu Jia asked did they realize things were nowhere near that simple.

Yet unlike the panic Hu Jia had imagined, Ye Lin merely nodded after hearing him out.

"It's simple. We just need to..."

"Hm?"

Ye Lin's gaze sharpened. He suddenly drew his gun and aimed at the Species outside the door.

"Quick! Kill all these Species!"

Bang!

A gunshot rang out, instantly blowing apart the head of the Species behind He Zheng.

Splattered with blood, He Zheng gaped in shock and instinctively wiped his face.

What the hell was going on?!

Even if they didn't have enough oxygen to keep farming points, these Species wouldn't fight back. There was no need to rush!

"Ye Lin, what happened?! Is it...?!"

Before He Zheng could finish, Ye Lin spoke urgently and tossed his gun straight to Zhang Tie.

"If we don't kill them now, there won't be time later! 'They' are here early!"

"Who?!"

He Zheng hurriedly turned around. A flurry of footsteps rang out, and two figures appeared behind the Species, struggling to run toward them.

"Watch out! Something's seriously wrong with one of the Gods! He's been following us!"

Running with Wang Yuanyang propped against him, Huang Liang shouted a warning, his eyes constantly darting behind him.

At the end of the passage, a God holding a "baby" was striding toward them.

And on that baby's head was a bloodstained helmet.

Though the baby hadn't attacked Huang Liang, the moment the baby opened its mouth wide, something happened.

A piercing scream, so shrill it seemed to puncture their eardrums, swept through the entire area.

"Aaaaaaah!!"

Their eardrums bled.

As if receiving orders, the Species closest to the baby grew frenzied again under the stimulation of the sound, screeching toward He Zheng.

Damn it!

Ye Lin didn't need to explain anything else. He Zheng's expression changed drastically, and he opened fire on the Species that hadn't yet been controlled.

He knew why now!

Although these Species weren't completely under control yet, even an idiot could see that if the monstrous baby kept screaming, they would eventually go berserk!

Bang, bang! Bang! Bang!

Gunfire erupted in a deafening barrage. Before the surrounding Species could react, the group slaughtered them for all they were worth.

In his desperation, even the unarmed Hu Jia grabbed a screwdriver with a scream and stabbed madly at the nearest Species.

"Aaaah! Hurry! Hurry!"

"Huang Liang! Hurry!!"

The entire passage was packed solid.

Seeing the Species behind them lurch toward Huang Liang like malfunctioning machines under the monstrous baby's command, Zhang Tie made his move.

He gritted his teeth and grabbed an axe, intending to hack a bloody path through for him.

"Hurry! Don't just shoot! Hurry the fuck up and throw grenades!"

Unable to run fast with his injured foot, Wang Yuanyang watched the Species lunging at him from behind and nearly lost his mind with terror. He couldn't help cursing.

Idiots! A bunch of idiots!

He had no idea what He Zheng and these other idiots were hesitating for. If they couldn't kill them fast enough with guns, they should throw grenades!

He Zheng glared furiously at him, wishing he could shoot Wang Yuanyang dead.

With a knife in one hand and a gun in the other, they were already killing as fast as they could! Throw grenades?! This moron hadn't even considered that if the shrapnel tore their spacesuits, they would all die here!

Fortunately, the Species blocking the doorway were less affected. After barely carving out a bloody path, the group frantically hauled the two men inside.

Bang!

The door slammed shut.

Before anyone could catch their breath, the monstrous baby in the God's arms seemed to become utterly enraged and screamed again.

"Aaaaaaah!!"

The shrill scream instantly pierced their eardrums, drawing blood.

Thud, thud, thud! Thud, thud!

Stimulated once more, the controlled Species outside hurled themselves at the door like cannonballs.

"Fuck!"

The door shook incessantly, and mangled flesh nearly covered the glass in it.

He Zheng hurriedly steadied himself. His expression changed drastically as he looked at the Species outside, now berserk again.

The monstrous baby's control seemed to depend on distance. Even the Species that had previously been unaffected were now under its control.

"Ye Lin?! What do we do?! Open the Airlock now?!"

He Zheng asked urgently.

Though the Maintenance Room door was fairly sturdy and the Species couldn't break through that quickly, once the God carrying the monstrous baby approached, it would only take seconds!

Not to mention the potbellied Maitreya outside, and who knew how many other Gods!

"No! No! We can't open the Airlock!"

Hu Jia screamed and spread his arms in panic, trying to stop He Zheng from opening it.

"We can't! If we open it now, we'll get sucked out too! I've calculated it. Once we're sucked out, the airflow will carry us at least several kilometers away!"

"It'll take at least twenty minutes for the base to collapse under the pressure. Our spacesuits definitely won't last that long!"

Hu Jia finished and gasped for breath, no longer caring whether anyone had listened.

"Then tell us what we should do!"

Faced with He Zheng's demand, the courage he had finally scraped together vanished in an instant.

What should they do? He didn't know either! He'd only had time to think of that one problem. As for anything else...

Bang!!

The door suddenly caved inward.

Seeing the dent, as tall as a person, everyone's heart lurched. They realized the God outside had begun breaking down the door!

They barely had time to react. A moment later, amid the violent screech of twisting metal, a giant hand smashed the door open, splitting it with a gap half a person's width.

The Species roared and tried to squeeze through. Their wildly clawing arms nearly dragged Wang Yuanyang, who stood closest, into their grasp.

"Get away! Get the hell away from me!!"

Desperately breaking free of the Species, Wang Yuanyang scrambled to the corner farthest from the door.

Seeing everyone standing motionless as if scared witless, he couldn't stop himself from cursing at them in his utter terror.

"You idiots! You've killed me! You're going to get me killed! That brat fooled every last one of you! I would've been better off not coming back! At least if I hadn't come back..."

"Shut the fuck up!"

He Zheng kicked Wang Yuanyang, sending him flying.

"Ye Lin!!"

He Zheng whipped around and shouted at Ye Lin.

Clinging to his last hope, he didn't know whether Ye Lin had come up with a solution, but he remembered that Ye Lin had seemed about to say something earlier!

"Move! Open the Airlock!"

"No, Ye Lin! We'll die! We'll get sucked out!"

"We won't!"

As if he had been waiting for this very moment, Ye Lin shoved Hu Jia aside and walked straight toward the Airlock.

Hu Jia covered his head in terror. Yet contrary to what he-and everyone else-had imagined, opening the Airlock didn't produce a powerful suction.

As the sealed door opened, everyone froze on the spot, their eyes filled with indescribable shock.

The second airtight chamber was enormous. A massive, silver-white vessel, twenty meters long, sat silently in its center.

Was that...?!

"A spaceship?!"

"Move!"

Ye Lin barked the order and charged straight into the open cargo hold at the ship's stern.

The ship's interior was enormous. Standing beneath it, a person seemed as tiny as an ant.

Ye Lin pulled down the lever beside the hatch, and the rear loading ramp began to rise slowly, preparing to close.

"Hurry!"

Bang!!

The Maintenance Room door finally gave way.

Seeing the dense mass of screeching Species charging after them, the group had no time to dwell on their shock and sprinted inside for their lives.

Though they didn't understand how Ye Lin had known there was a transport ship behind the Airlock, they realized this spaceship could save them!

"Close it! Close it now! Huang Liang! Throw a grenade!"

"Do you have any of that drug left?!"

Once inside the cargo hold, He Zheng turned and fired at the pursuing Species, shouting urgently for Huang Liang to throw a grenade.

They couldn't let the Species follow them inside, or they would all die here.

"Yes!"

"Get down!"

Knowing they had to hold out until the hatch closed, Huang Liang gave a low shout, then unhesitatingly unhooked the grenade from his chest and hurled it into the middle of the Species.

The last two vials of the drug he carried followed it, smashing down in front of the hatch.

Ratatatat!

Flames spat from the muzzle as bullets poured into Maitreya, who came charging toward them in great strides.

Though they couldn't possibly kill this monster, delaying him for even a few seconds would be enough.

Boom!!

With a deafening explosion, the Species struck by the shrapnel fell like harvested wheat, shrieking as they were blasted to the ground.

Combined with the drug's anesthetic effect, the fallen Species actually blocked the pursuing, potbellied Maitreya's path.

Before he could grab a Species and hurl it at them in rage, a pneumatic hiss sounded, and the cargo hatch closed completely.

They had survived.

Everyone lay on the cargo hold floor, gasping for breath.

They were alive. They had made it!

Though they didn't know how Ye Lin had known there was a ship here, this thing could clearly save their lives.

"Ye... Ye Lin... what do we do next?"

Climbing off the floor, He Zheng had no strength left at all.

It was fucking unbearable. With one sudden crisis after another, his heart felt like it was on a roller coaster. He hadn't even had a chance to catch his breath. He'd thought it was over, only for that monstrous baby to appear out of nowhere.

"Break through the Airlock and leave."

"Huh?! You know how to pilot this?"

Before He Zheng could recover from his surprise and ask instinctively, An Ke suddenly spoke from beside him, her eyes fixed intently on Ye Lin.

"What exactly are you hiding from us?"

"How could you possibly know there was a ship here?"

Unlike the others, who hadn't yet recognized the significance of this, An Ke felt a powerful unease rise inside her as she spoke.

The ship's presence was certainly surprising, but what truly unsettled her was how Ye Lin had known about it! It was as if he could foresee the future, as if he had been waiting for the Species to break down the door!

She was the one who had found the Repair Zone, and she hadn't seen a single sign indicating a spaceship here. Besides, unless someone was absolutely certain a spaceship lay behind the door, who would dare open an airtight chamber like that?

"It's perfectly normal for the Repair Zone to have a ship."

Ye Lin answered coldly, then began checking the rifle in his hands.

An Ke froze. Before she could ask anything else, the ship suddenly began shaking violently.

The group hurriedly turned toward the surveillance screen inside the hold. In just a few seconds, huge numbers of Species had surrounded the ship, while the two Gods had climbed directly onto the hull and were pounding it furiously.

After crawling off the God, the monstrous baby pressed its entire face against one of the surveillance cameras and began gnawing at it like a wild beast.

"Warnung! Warnung! Das Schiff wird angegriffen. Bitte umgehend Sicherheitsrisiken prüfen.!"

"(Warning! Warning! The ship is under attack. Please check for safety risks immediately!)"

The alarm blared, and the rotating red warning lights on the cargo hold's ceiling shone painfully bright.

Zhao Cheng reeled in alarm. The violent shaking forced him to hastily grab the black strap overhead.

Before he could say anything, a tall, thin monster, deathly pale all over, suddenly appeared nearby on a monitor showing another angle.

It crouched and hunched forward, as though taking a sprinter's starting stance.

The next second, the monster shot toward them like lightning, closing the distance at incredible speed!

"BOOM!!"

The impact felt like a collision with a heavy truck, knocking them to the floor.

Seeing the monster dent the spaceship's hatch with nothing but its flesh-and-blood body filled them with horror!

At this rate, if a few more appeared, even the spaceship might not be able to protect them!

"THUD, THUD, THUD! THUD!"

Things always seemed to take a turn for the worst. Outside the hatch, the "female corpse" battered it frantically with her head, while behind her, four "Gods" of different shapes appeared with a roar.

It was as though evil spirits had surrounded them, ready to tear the spaceship apart at any moment, drag them out, and eat them alive.

"Ye Lin! Get us moving! Hurry!"

They couldn't afford to wait any longer.

He Zheng turned and shouted, only to find Ye Lin staring coldly at the monitor, as though confirming something.

Only when the ship shook violently again did Ye Lin turn and rush toward the cockpit.

He didn't know how to pilot a spaceship, but he knew that once he started it, the ship would automatically head for its preset coordinates!

Rushing into the cockpit, Ye Lin pressed the red button in the very center.

"[RAUMSCHIFF STARTEN]!"

"Hold on tight!!"

"HUM!!"

With the spaceship activated at the press of a button, deep-blue indicator lights instantly lit up on the three propulsion engines at its stern.

"BOOM!!"

The hull shuddered. In an instant, raging plasma blasted out, its brilliant white exhaust erupting like an explosion and vaporizing the surrounding Species.

Ten billion lumens blazed as though a sun had risen inside the airtight chamber, overwhelming everything with blinding light and heat.

The exhaust shot out, instantly reducing the "Gods" behind the ship to charred husks.

Under the tremendous thrust, the entire spaceship streaked half a kilometer like a silver-white sword, slamming violently into the final airtight door.

"BANG!!!"

The door burst open, and the Airlock ruptured.

Within a hundredth of a second, the air turned to mist as though boiling. Driven by the immense pressure difference between inside and outside, it blasted outward at supersonic speed like a ribbon of white silk.

Caught in the supersonic airflow, the unprotected Species and "Gods" were sucked outside as well. Almost instantly, they burst apart in Venus's atmosphere, becoming clouds of yellow-red blood mist.

Inside the spaceship, everyone was utterly stunned by the horrific sight.

But even more shocking was the footage appearing on the monitor above their heads.