Flipping up from that corroded hole, the action nonetheless startled the alien that turned back. The lead alien was immediately struck midsection by Zheng Zha, sent careening directly into the other three aliens. As Zheng Zha sprang up, he had already entered the second stage of unlocking his Gene Lock, his muscles rapidly swelling. Then, he finally saw the alien extend its tongue.

The alien he struck turned its head, aiming its mouth at his. Then, as if played out in slow motion, its saliva-dripping jaws slowly opened, shooting out a tongue fully extended with razor-sharp teeth. This tongue then launched forth like a cannonball—a single strike powerful enough to punch a massive hole in a human skull! Zheng Zha, too, was descending into madness. This state had surfaced once before, during his confrontation with the captain of the Indo Team. Because his close brother was killed, because the newcomers were brutally slaughtered, fueled by a deep, bone-gnawing hatred, Zheng Zha had nearly devoured the little monk whole. Now, those four aliens attempting to enter the quarantine room threatened Lori's life—a frenzy no less intense than that past occasion! With a sudden lunge, Zheng Zha thrust his hand straight into the maw of the alien as it gaped open. Before the alien could clamp its jaws, he roared wildly and shoved his entire hand inside, activating his Vampire energy. Blood-red flames erupted within the alien’s mouth, so fierce that in an instant, they burst forth from the creature's head. Zheng Zha then viciously ripped out the tongue, which was already cooked.

The flames flared violently once more, instantly incinerating the tongue to ash.

Aliens were not terrifying creatures; they possessed considerable intelligence, though it was mostly channeled into instinctual killing. Thus, seeing Zheng Zha dispatch one of their kind, they all lunged forward. As one alien lunged, it spat its tongue toward Zheng Zha’s head. Another bent low, whipping its tail like a spear aimed directly at Zheng Zha’s chest. Only the farthest alien, which had been busy corroding the steel wall, was still some distance away.

Zheng Zha was now in the second stage of the Gene Lock: not only was his strength rapidly increasing, but his nerve reaction time, speed, and attack precision had all been vastly enhanced.

So, as two aliens attacked him front and back.

He clearly discerned the trajectory of the tongue strike and the direction of the tail thrust. With a soft whump, he channeled his Qinggong (Lightness Skill), pushing off with his feet.

He instantly leaped back half a meter. As both attacks missed by a hair, he flipped upwards, sharply kicking off the wall behind him. He shot forward like a shell breaking the void, grabbing the alien's grotesque tongue, and yanked hard, pulling the entire thing out again. He channeled corrosive inner force into his left fist, using the opportunity while pulling the tongue to wrench the alien’s head down, smashing a punch deep into its skull. Relying on the corrosive nature of his inner force, he bored straight through the center of the alien's forehead, driving his arm halfway in. This alien was clearly finished.

Simultaneously, the alien that had attacked with its tail was now upon him, its swift tongue snapping out. Zheng Zha had no room to dodge, so he used his left arm to directly block the tongue strike. Immense force shot through the limb. Fortunately, Zheng Zha instinctively stepped back slightly, allowing the alien's tongue to retract after expending its momentum; otherwise, his left arm would surely have been completely shattered.

Even so, the wound on his arm was deep enough to expose bone. However, being in the unlocked Gene Lock state, all sense of pain had been suppressed. He simply raised his combat knife and slashed, severing the tongue in two. But before he could make another move, the floor beneath his feet suddenly gave way. He, the alien with the severed tongue, and the one about to pounce on him—three lives—plummeted directly through the ceiling cavity. The steel they had been standing on had been completely eaten away by the alien's acid, finally unable to bear their combined weight, sending them falling down.

Both Zheng Zha and the aliens moved with incredible speed, but Zheng Zha, having unlocked the second stage of the Gene Lock, was clearly faster. While still airborne, he activated his Qinggong, planting both feet forcefully onto the body of one of the aliens. Using that leverage, he landed ahead of the other two aliens. Then, raising his combat knife, he flicked it upward. The alien whose tongue he had cut was bisected mid-air before it even hit the ground. A sizzling hiss erupted from the ground as corrosive fluids poured from the corpse. The steel floor here began to corrode anew, dripping down toward the floor below.

The other alien, upon landing, did not immediately rush Zheng Zha. It seemed to notice the man performing surgery and the Queen behind him, mouth agape as if screaming. It let out a loud shriek and strode toward the surgeon. But it had only taken a few steps when its tail was seized by a massive force, and its entire body was hurled into the air, slamming violently into a corner of the medical bay. Zheng Zha immediately followed, bringing his combat knife down in a frenzy of slashes. The alien struggled somewhat during the first few cuts, but after several more blows, it was hacked into pieces. The corner where the "gentleman of integrity" stood was already terribly corroded, and Zheng Zha himself was almost completely stripped bare—not only his body but even his shoes and clothes had been dissolved by the acid.

"Hah, hah." When Zheng Zha snapped back to reality, he had single-handedly finished off all four aliens in close combat. While the Gene Lock played a part, Zheng Zha was nonetheless terrified by his own actions. In that frenzy, his close-combat instincts and the sharpness of his attacks were almost unimaginable. Compared to his fight with the Little Monk last time, this solo challenge against four aliens made Zheng Zha realize the sheer extent of his newfound power. He had grown stronger step by step, yet he had no idea how he had reached this level. The scene from Alien I seemed to play before his eyes. "Back then, back then... 'Hah, Zhan Lan, do you still remember Alien I? If only I had this much strength back then, Zhan Lan?'" Zheng Zha gasped a few times, then spoke behind him. But the reply he expected never came. Curious, he turned around. Besides the scientist intensely focused on the surgery, Zhan Lan was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished completely. In that instant, a sharp pain pierced Zheng Zha's heart, a feeling as if he had lost something vital. He immediately rushed toward the heavy steel door of the operating room.

The moment his hand touched the thick steel door, he abruptly stopped. Behind him was the utterly absorbed scientific researcher, who possessed virtually no combat power—at least against the aliens. Simultaneously, this man was operating on Lori. If he left, the arrival of even a single additional alien would be enough to kill the doctor and Lori mid-surgery. This was something he absolutely could not accept.

"Almost there, one or two more minutes at most, Zhan Lan, don't die!" Zheng Zha stood there, torn between two impossible choices. After a moment of hesitation, he finally gritted his teeth and moved to the doctor's side, silently watching the surgery unfold. The alien larva was almost ready to be extracted.

When Zheng Zha had flipped into the ceiling space, Zhan Lan had been monitoring him constantly, scanning the surroundings as well. But before the battle could be resolved, Zhan Lan suddenly scanned a massive humanoid approaching—no, two massive humanoids. According to her scans, these creatures were about five meters tall, looking like a fusion of Alien and Human, possessing some human characteristics blended with the facial structure of an Alien. In short, scanning these beings felt deeply unsettling. Anyone who had seen the film Alien 4 would know: these were the Evolved lifeforms, the Alien Evolved.

When the military personnel cloned the remains of the Queen, they had cloned her genes alongside Alien genes, resulting in the Alien physiology containing human genetic cells. Since the Alien species naturally evolves, once the Queen manufactured enough standard Aliens for defense, she began to give birth as humans do—birthing the Evolved, creatures carrying both Alien and Human genes. These were worth five thousand Reward Points, a B-Rank side mission, far surpassing the highest-level Aliens in the Alien universe, including the Queen herself.

Zhan Lan didn't know what to do. Given the incredible speed of the two Alien Evolved, they would arrive in about twenty seconds. Meanwhile, Zheng Zha was still fighting the four standard Aliens. If two of these super Evolved creatures arrived now, there was no point struggling; they might as well commit suicide to avoid the horror of being eaten alive.

"No, Lori cannot die. They are meant to be together; yes, they must always be together, living happily forever. If someone must be abandoned, it has to be me, right, Zheng Zha?" Zhan Lan felt a crushing sorrow. She longed to cry out loud, but the circumstances robbed her even of the right to weep. So, she quietly opened the heavy steel door of the medical bay and resolutely stepped out, jumping toward—