Chapter 1859: Kill and You'll Know
The person died a bit suddenly; the props Xu Huo had prepared were still unused.
"Broke the neck cleanly." The injured player, while keeping an eye on Xu Huo, checked the body. "Extremely bad luck. Normally, even a hit like that wouldn't be fatal."
Xu Huo picked up the props from the corpse, flipping through the belongings as he asked the injured player, "You're really in the White faction?"
"Genuine, no fake." The injured player quickly said, "You're in the White faction too, right?"
Xu Huo nodded and then asked, "Do you have any leads? Judging from the Black faction's mission, the White faction probably won't have an easy time clearing this instance."
After introducing himself, the injured player added, "I really don't understand what 'send Melissa home' means. Isn't Zone 010 her home? Can't she stay there? Or do we have to send her to the CK12 Safe Zone?"
He paused to explain why he knew Melissa came from the CK12 Safe Zone. "I joined the convoy from the Sand Sea Safe Zone halfway. There were a few players on board who knew about CK12. They mentioned the newborn during the trip. Their goal was also to take the newborn back, but none of them were very optimistic about the child."
Zeng Zhao had also seen what "Melissa" looked like—she appeared almost no different from a Xenomorph. If this child had been degenerating since birth, how could she be considered hope for the people of Zone 010? Moreover, the Black faction's clearance mission had already indicated that this newborn was extremely dangerous.
"Based on the background description of the Black faction, it actually suggests that Melissa is a normal person," Xu Huo said. If she were truly a Xenomorph, how could she pass on her genes in an environment like Zone 010?
What he was concerned about now was whether there really was a child named "Melissa" who had been taken away by the CK12 Safe Zone.
"Are there any players from CK12 Safe Zone here?" Xu Huo asked Zeng Zhao to point them out.
"I suspected the child might be hidden by them," Zeng Zhao said. "But from their conversations with the Sand Sea players along the way, it doesn't seem likely. They were even a bit puzzled about why a newborn suddenly appeared."
"Their relationship with the Sand Sea Safe Zone players isn't great, and they've been watched the whole time, so what they said should be true."
The Sand Sea Safe Zone people would verify it themselves.
"Did they mention who was in charge of the newborn experiment?" Xu Huo asked while keeping an eye on the commotion near the Pink Hair group.
"No," Zeng Zhao replied. "But I heard them say that most of CK12's players had gradually given up on Zone 010 over the past two years and settled in other districts."
"That doesn't prove that none of them took the child and left," Xu Huo said.
Zeng Zhao felt a headache coming on. "That's true, but if no one is in Zone 010, where are we supposed to complete the mission?" Just then, a change occurred near the Pink Hair group. The short player named Liu Chen suddenly flashed to the top of a building, reaching for the Little Pink Hat that Pink Hair had been clutching. Lu He and Ban Yan flanked him, drawing fire.
Pink Hair was no pushover, and he had no intention of fighting these people to the death. He raised his hand and hurled the Little Pink Hat with force.
The cloth-wrapped Little Pink Hat flew a short distance before plummeting. On the Zone 010 side, players rushed to rescue her, but as their defense loosened, players from other zones and the Sand Sea Safe Zone mixed in. During the scramble, the Little Pink Hat changed hands frequently until finally, the young player caught her.
The two who had been hiding with Xu Huo earlier had been waiting for their chance. The "essential idol drama skill" belonged to the young player, and now, with the help of the middle-aged player and the Zone 010 players distracting the others, he successfully grabbed the child.
He ran ahead while the middle-aged player covered his retreat. Seeing that the large group of Zone 010 players was closing in, the middle-aged player urged him to confirm whether the bundle really contained the newborn.
The young player reached out and flipped open the cloth, revealing a face almost indistinguishable from a Xenomorph. He froze in shock, and at that moment, the "Xenomorph face" lunged at him. He instinctively threw the bundle away.
By then, the cloth wrapping the Little Pink Hat had completely fallen off. Even from a distance, her full appearance was visible. Everyone stared at the "object" that was crawling on the ground like an animal, sprinting at an incredible speed across the open spaces between buildings. For a moment, it was hard to accept. If not for the occasional patch of human-like skin visible on her, no one would believe she was a newborn.
However, her limbs hadn't fully mutated. Even though she moved on all fours like a Xenomorph, she ran quite fast, though not as agile as a fully degenerated Xenomorph. She sometimes instinctively used her hands.
At this point, the thoughts of the various groups chasing the "newborn" diverged.
The Zone 010 safe zone players, represented by Mr. Yuan and Liao Xiaoyi, saw a glimmer of hope. After all, they knew about the newborn instance. For that instance to exist, the newborn must be real, right? Even if the child had Xenomorph-like features, she at least represented hope.
The Sand Sea Safe Zone players, on the other hand, were determined to keep her alive. While they also wanted the Zone 010 people to reproduce, they didn't want the Blackthorn Disease to disappear from Zone 010. So, regardless of the newborn's condition, it was best to keep her under their control.
The clearance players were split. Many were disappointed, as they were unaware of Dr. Joyce's existence and the human-Xenomorph breeding experiments. They naturally assumed that this eight-tenths Xenomorph-like thing was just an incompletely degenerated creature, not a human.
The other group, including the middle-aged man who had been with the young player, believed this was more consistent with the instance's reality. Even if they hadn't seen the White faction's clearance content, they could guess it was the opposite of theirs. Since the mission target was full of contradictions—capable of bringing hope to Zone 010 or disaster—clearance players didn't need to verify it. Kill and you'll know.
So, when the Little Pink Hat "escaped," the nearest middle-aged player tossed an umbrella-rib-shaped prop high into the air. As it ascended, countless arc-shaped rays shot down from it, piercing everything they hit. Trapped in the center of these rays, the Little Pink Hat could only spin in place. Before she could run a few steps, a ray struck the ground right in front of her forehead!
The Little Pink Hat shrank back, then burrowed frantically into the ground. Just as she was fully buried with only her back exposed, the Zone 010 players shot down the umbrella-rib prop and moved to protect her. But at that moment, the arc-shaped rays suddenly rebounded from underground, and one of them pierced straight through the Little Pink Hat's back!