Chapter 533: Mass Xenomorphization
"I can't take it anymore!" Zhuo Wangsun jumped up from the ground and pulled open his protective suit. "The ground isn't any better either. With such tall rocks blocking the sun, the temperature hasn't dropped at all!"
"The extreme heat in the Stone Forest Maze isn't caused by sunlight either," Xu Huo said, glancing at the sky before reaching down to touch the ground. He paused for a moment before brushing the dust off his hand.
The extreme heat made sleep impossible, so after resting for a while, the three of them continued on their way.
They encountered a few people along the path, all dragging their weary feet in silence without any conversation.
By midnight, Xu Huo's group had been joined by over a dozen warriors, nearly all of whom had removed their protective suits and were trudging forward with their feet barely leaving the ground.
Xu Huo had also reached his limit. His protective suit was almost entirely soaked with sweat. Just as he took it off and shook out the water, a dense burst of gunfire suddenly erupted ahead.
Before anyone could react, a thunderous rumble of footsteps surged from the front. In the blink of an eye, countless Split-Head Xenomorphs appeared, clinging to stone pillars, leaping up and down, and charging ferociously toward the exhausted crowd.
"Fire!" someone shouted in panic, but the xenomorphs surged like a tidal wave, reaching them in an instant. Those who raised their guns and those who didn't all collided, and the bullets fired in chaos only killed a few xenomorphs.
The people behind began scattering in all directions. Xu Huo grabbed his zither string just in time to see Zhuo Wangsun and Jin Dong fleeing in another direction. He drew his sword, killed the two xenomorphs chasing them, and followed.
Perhaps due to some bodily mutation, Jin Dong climbed the stone pillars with surprising speed, leaving the physically enhanced Zhuo Wangsun behind below.
"Give me a hand!" Zhuo Wangsun kicked away a xenomorph lunging at him and shouted up to Jin Dong.
Jin Dong, who had been climbing rapidly, stopped at the sound, then turned and quickly descended.
Zhuo Wangsun's face lit up with surprise. Just as he jumped up to grab Jin Dong's hand, a force suddenly wrapped around his waist, yanking him backward, causing him to miss Jin Dong entirely!
"Who is it!" Zhuo Wangsun turned his head and saw Xu Huo. Furious and alarmed, he slashed at a few xenomorphs before trying to pull at the line around his waist, but the next second, he was lifted into the air.
Xu Huo pointed his chin toward Jin Dong. "Take a closer look."
Over there, Jin Dong, who was clinging to a stone pillar in a difficult frog-crouch position, had already torn off his hood. As soon as his body was exposed, his head under the holographic glasses turned into a thermal image.
"He's turning into a xenomorph!" Zhuo Wangsun exclaimed in shock.
Now, not only that, but from Xu Huo's perspective, Jin Dong's appearance had also undergone a drastic change. His face began to turn white, cracks appeared on his forehead's skin, and when he scratched his head with his hand, large clumps of hair fell out.
Xu Huo threw a bottle of potion at his face from a distance.
When the bottle broke, Jin Dong licked up the spilled potion, then climbed higher up the stone pillar. Only after reaching a certain height did he stop, turning his head to stare fixedly at Xu Huo and Zhuo Wangsun, who were suspended in midair.
"He's not going to jump over here, is he..." Before Zhuo Wangsun could finish his worried words, Jin Dong indeed lunged at them!
Even from such a distance, Jin Dong's leaping ability after turning into a xenomorph was astonishing. Xu Huo pulled out his water blade gun and shot him in the shoulder.
Jin Dong fell, was kicked and had his spine broken by the stampede of xenomorphs, and crashed into a nearby rock, where he lay motionless.
By then, the gunfire hadn't stopped. Some of those who had been closer to Xu Huo earlier were dead, while others had run far away. This time, the gunfire came from the front.
Xu Huo looked back and saw several warriors with signs of whitening on their faces firing their guns in panic as they fled.
"Are these people turning into xenomorphs too?" Zhuo Wangsun, who could only see thermal images, looked up to ask him.
"They're injured," Xu Huo said with a frown.
Those running back from the front saw the two people in the air and desperately called for help, but their somewhat ferocious faces looked no different from the xenomorphs chasing them.
Xu Huo tossed Zhuo Wangsun onto a nearby high stone platform, then used his kite string to pull one person up.
"Help! Help!" The rescued person grabbed the line and kept climbing, shouting all the while.
Zhuo Wangsun warned Xu Huo to be careful from a distance, but Xu Huo didn't move. He simply observed the physical details of the person below.
Jin Dong had been infected for over a year. After drinking the potion, he briefly regained his senses, but once he entered the Stone Forest area, he turned into a Split-Head Xenomorph. This group, in less than ten minutes, had developed the same symptoms.
Jin Dong had been infected long ago and suddenly degenerated here, but he hadn't been injured.
The other injured warriors, however, began degenerating rapidly.
The common factor between the two was the soil and air. That is, aside from direct infection by the xenomorph virus, certain elements in the air or soil could also trigger xenomorphization.
The person holding the rope below gradually stopped making sounds, but he still struggled to climb. Just as he was about to grab Xu Huo's foot, someone suddenly jumped down from above the stone pillar!
Xu Huo retracted his kite string and moved back. The jumper didn't linger. He flipped in midair, used a prop to grab onto the stone pillar, then aimed his gun one-handed at the xenomorph swarm below, firing indiscriminately, even killing the xenomorphized humans mixed in.
"Hey! Those people are still alive!" Zhuo Wangsun couldn't help shouting.
Unfortunately, no one paid him any attention. Then, two more people above grabbed ropes and leaped down, hanging in midair to crossfire at the xenomorph swarm.
The fierce xenomorph swarm quickly fell dead in droves, with the rest scattering in all directions. But a bright light flared in the distance, and the xenomorphs seemed to fear it, retreating back only to be nearly all killed by the three armed warriors.
A few minutes later, the Stone Forest fell silent again. A total of eight warriors had appeared, and they began gathering to clean up the battlefield.
Xu Huo collected the communicator and protective suit from Jin Dong's corpse. He casually touched Jin Dong's head, and where it should have been bald, it was actually a bit prickly.
"What are you touching it for!" A female warrior rushed over and slapped his hand away, then quickly poured water from her canteen over his glove before saying, "If you had any wounds on you, just that action alone would get you executed!"
"Don't you know that xenomorphs carry germs and can't be touched casually?"
After saying this, the female warrior used a grappling hook to drag Jin Dong's corpse away.
"Who are these people?" Zhuo Wangsun moved closer and whispered.
The piles of corpses had already been doused with fuel. As the fire blazed, a tall man walked over and shook hands with them. "My name is Gao Peng. This is my comrade, Cen Lu. We're both from the 809th batch. We've been in the Cleanup Zone since we entered and never left."
Cen Lu was the female warrior who had dragged away Jin Dong's corpse.
Zhuo Wangsun looked at them in surprise. "You've been here for almost half a year. Where did you get your supplies?"
Gao Peng laughed heartily. "There are still clean places in the Cleanup Zone. Since you're here, we're all comrades now. Welcome to the team!"
(Chapter End)