Chapter 72 - Triangle

The Monkey Monster leaped up and caught the falling Driver, gently setting him down on the ground.

Su Jie immediately stepped forward, administering injections and casting Healing Skills, while the Driver himself lifted his visor and gulped down the Healing Potion provided by the Thousand Throats Beast Guild (not Healing Potion).

Li Cheng then took some electrical tape from his Backpack and wrapped it around and around the Mysterious Box until it almost formed into a ball shape before he finally took a breath of relief and turned to Felix Taylor.

Or rather, to what had once been Felix Taylor.

The Alien, from the classic 1982 Hollywood movie of the same name, is essentially an extraterrestrial lifeform, capable of infecting and parasitizing other living beings, gradually corroding and replacing them.

Once the replacement is complete, the Alien perfectly inherits the host’s memories and Intelligence, mimicking their behavior and mannerisms.

The non-human form of Taylor was crawling on the ground with its limbs, as the two halves of its head struggled to fuse, trying to stick together.

Seeing Li Cheng approaching, he mumbled unclearly, “Sorry for hiding this from you, I didn’t want to hurt anyone…”

“I know, otherwise you’d be dead by now.”

Li Cheng waved his hand nonchalantly, and called out to the Driver, “Can you still move?”

*Cough cough*, “I should be able to.” The Driver, still emitting smoke from his body, sat on the ground, leaning against the console, continually coughing up blood.

“Forget it, you lie down.

There is still some distance to the Command Center, Su Jie and I will go and open the sluice gate, you and Taylor stay here to watch the surveillance footage.

Guide us through the walkie-talkie.”

After taking a glance at the Driver’s injuries, Li Cheng knew his lung bullae had burst, and that any more vigorous movement could potentially lead to a circulatory disturbance in the lungs and heart arrest, so he immediately made a decision, moved him to a stool, and passed him a walkie-talkie.

The Driver nodded, “Okay, I’ll let the Fireball Mouse and Pichu follow you.”

Li Cheng shook his head, “No need for the Fireball Mouse, just Walking Grass and Pichu will do.”

The Driver was stunned for a moment, and then understood—though the Alien looks fierce and scary, it’s still essentially a soft carbon-based organism, easily eradicated by flames.

Keeping the Fireball Mouse here would protect him, and prevent Taylor from betraying them.

Next to them, Su Jie took out two automated sentry gun turrets, aiming them to the left and right towards the main entrance of the Command Center; they would automatically start Shooting if any monsters rushed in.

After setting up everything, Su Jie turned and said, “Ready to go.”

“Just a second, one last thing.”

Li Cheng pressed a few buttons on the control panel, activating the broadcasting system for some areas of the Bunker, cleared his throat, and in a deep voice into the microphone said, “Bibi babi, bibi bop?”

“Advising everyone not to buy the iPhone 15, so you can save a few thousand, then take the few thousand you saved to buy an iPhone 15, which means you’ve practically gotten an iPhone 15 for free.”

“To tell the truth, those who understand know, those who don’t, wouldn’t even if I explained.

Better left unsaid.

And don’t come asking me what happened, the stakes are too high, speaking of it wouldn’t benefit you…”

Among the puzzled expressions of his companions, Li Cheng was like a nonsense-making machine, uttering a bunch of incomprehensible words.

But the effect was immediate; wandering monsters blocking the path to the Command Center, upon hearing the noisy broadcast, moved towards the source.

Their density noticeably decreased.

Did that actually work?

The Driver and Su Jie widened their eyes, even Taylor’s daughter, lying on the ground, was confusedly awoken by the noise—then, seeing the Alien with Taylor’s face, she fainted once again.

“That should do it.” Li Cheng let go of the microphone, imitated the way they chopped off the Bunker Director’s hands, called Su Jie, and with Walking Grass and Pichu, they rushed out of the Command Center, hopped on the off-road motorcycle, and sped towards the Command Center located at the upper part of the Bunker.

This road was relatively wide and straight, no need for much turning or slowing down; Li Cheng held the handlebars with one hand, and with the other, he took out a Shotgun, looking like the Governor from “Terminator”.

Su Jie was still thinking about the scene in the Command Center, hesitatingly saying, “Mr.

Chu, he really is…

kindhearted.”

It had been over a dozen hours since the disaster occurred, and there may still be ordinary survivors like Taylor’s daughter hiding in some corner of the Bunker.

If we were to follow Li Cheng’s plan to “start the broadcast and lure the monsters away,” a darker approach would actually be to pretend to be the Bunker Director, informing survivors of a so-called “safe area” and luring them out of their hiding spots.

Use these ordinary people as bait to draw the monsters away.

The original “Chu Xuan” character might not find it impossible to do.

“Kindheartedness is just a relative concept, based in the context of societal environment and norms.

Xiao Honglu, you’re again using imprecise language.”

Li Cheng said without turning his head, firing his gun and shattering the zombies and other low-level monsters that appeared along the way.

In a killing field where you need to find all ways to become stronger or die, maintaining one’s kindness requires more courage, ability, and even willpower compared to resigning oneself to degradation.

Take, for instance, the famous Demon Scientist Alliance guild; they aim to decode supernatural elements with scientific rationality, stopping at nothing in their quest for truth.

Their deeds include but are not limited to, mass sacrificing ordinary people from script worlds to Evil Gods for the blessing of Intelligence;

Provoking wars in script worlds to harvest soul fragments;

Luring demons from Hell with soul contracts, then breaching the contracts and ganging up to beat the demons, saddling them with Spiritual Control collars;

Transporting stinky goblins from Otherworld, using bioengineering to turn them into handsome men and beautiful women, and running nightclubs in backstreets to earn Game Coin;

Their bottom line is that there is no bottom line — executing them all might catch some innocents, but executing every other one ensures none slip through the net.

Including the Special Affairs Bureau, nations’ authorities deeply detest this guild, but have never braced themselves to eradicate them — aside from their somewhat passable bottom line of not engaging in terrorist attacks on the actual Earth, one other thing is, this guild is too powerful.

Even superpowers hesitate to provoke them recklessly.

After completely abandoning humanity and even human bodies, an extreme lack of scruples equals a remarkably fast pace of progression.

On some level, Li Cheng is also increasingly moving down the path of no longer being human…

Er, speaking of which, that day when I first went to the backstreet, the pretty girl who waved me into the salon to get my hair done, she couldn’t have been one of the goblins modified by the Demon Scientist Alliance, could she?

“Be careful!

There’s a monster on the right-hand side of the corridor twenty meters ahead!”

The driver’s voice from the walkie-talkie interrupted Li Cheng’s jumbled thoughts.

Three heads were thrown out from the cross-shaped corridor on the right, rolling on the ground.

The three heads belonged to Jason Voorhees from “Friday the 13th,” Jed from “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and Michael Myers from “Halloween.”

The three iconic murderers from movie history were simply beheaded and discarded on the ground—although Jason might not be dead, given that he can resurrect infinitely.

The figure who threw the three heads was a muscular humanoid creature nearly two and a half meters tall, wearing a filthy white butcher’s apron and holding a broad cleaver as thick as a door.

Instead of a human brain, a pyramidal metal object sat on its shoulders.

It stepped around the corner and stood in the middle of the cross-shaped corridor.

It was the infamous monster Pyramid Head from the video game “Silent Hill,” symbolizing pure strength and brutality.

And hanging from its body were numerous viscera and limbs from various creatures including zombies, mutated corpses, undead, and mutants.

Clearly, Pyramid Head had eradicated every monster, including the three murderers, all by itself, standing victorious at the end.

Hum—

It easily lifted the giant cleaver, heavier than a person, as if it were a feather, pointing it towards Li Cheng and his companion.