Chapter 538: Taking Over the Stronghold
The ground was slightly distorted under the continuous high temperature. Several bodies lay on the ground with their eyes wide open in death. Xu Huo walked over, cut off Gao Peng's head, casually tore off his protective suit to wrap it up, then turned back to find the two children.
Yu Wan poked out his head with bright eyes, while Xue Gao stood behind him, not daring to look up.
Seeing him approach, Yu Wan opened his mouth and babbled something. Xu Huo read his lips and caught the words "You're really amazing." He smiled slightly and told him to go strip the protective suits.
Yu Wan was very clever. When his strength failed, he simply picked up Cen Lu's knife, slashed the protective suit to shreds, and pulled it off.
Xu Huo had them wrap their heads and shoulders with the protective suits, gave each of them a lollipop, and then carried Gao Peng's head toward the stronghold in the commercial building.
The person keeping watch from a distance had long since run back to report, so by the time he led the children over, the main door was tightly shut. Not only did no one come out to avenge Gao Peng and his men, but not a single person even showed their face.
Xu Huo roughly sensed the positions of the people inside and didn't waste time. Just then, the "Life Core" finished cleaning itself. He tucked it into his pocket, walked to the main entrance, and placed his hand on the doorframe. Since he wasn't sure of the item's exact data, he only held it there for two seconds before pulling back. But the moment he withdrew his hand, the metal frame welding the door shut and the reinforced metal door behind it all turned to dust and drifted down, along with part of the floor slab on the other side, which collapsed!
The ceiling suddenly fell, crushing several people to death. The other stronghold members standing behind the door instinctively raised their guns and fired wildly into the air.
Xu Huo stood off to the side, marveling at how useful the "Life Core" was. If he wanted, he could bring the entire building down quickly, because the metal volume could never account for a third of the building's total volume. So while this one-third was an item limit, it was actually enough to destroy everything within the item's range, as well as any subsequent reinforcements.
Guns held in people's hands, of course, weren't counted within that range. But it was an excellent item for large-scale warfare—any landed heavy weaponry fell within its destruction radius.
Moreover, this one-third volume wasn't its daily limit. As long as he moved to a different location, the volume calculation would reset.
When Yu Guo used it on the starship, the total metal volume it destroyed was one-third of the entire ship's volume. In short, the larger the holder's location, the larger the "Life Core's" volume limit—though it capped out at a city's size.
It wasn't a Super Item, but its power rivaled one.
Even now, Xu Huo couldn't help but praise that trip to the starship as worth it.
The shooting inside the building stopped. Someone spoke up, "Is he dead?"
"We didn't even see anyone, how could he be dead?"
"He can even collapse a building. Maybe he can turn invisible. What if he's standing right at the door!"
"You bunch of idiots, invisible? I'd say he's probably using a feint and going up through another entrance!"
The last speaker was the bald man from yesterday. He immediately prepared to lead people upstairs, but Xu Huo stepped out. With a flick of his lighter, the daily necessities piled up in the lobby caught fire. He warned everyone, "You'd better not act rashly. Gao Peng and his men died because they didn't listen."
He raised his hand, and Gao Peng's head rolled across the floor into the building.
"Big brother!" The bald man immediately raised his gun, but the next second, he was engulfed in flames. He screamed and roared as he rolled on the ground.
Xu Huo didn't stop the others from helping him put out the fire. He only said, "I won't repeat what I just said. If you want to live, call the others down."
The protective suits couldn't withstand the flames. In fact, because they were tight-fitting, they were hard to take off. Watching the bald man burn beyond recognition, the remaining people didn't dare to be the first to stand out. Pretending not to hear their comrades buried under the concrete, they used communication devices to contact those upstairs.
After receiving the message, Tu Shi brought the people from upstairs down to the second floor. The vehicles were already prepared, ready to flee at any moment. There was no choice—the dead accounted for half of the stronghold's combat strength, mainly because two of them were players. Now, most of those remaining in the stronghold were ordinary fighters with little combat experience and limited ammunition. Xu Huo had killed Gao Peng and his men in less than five minutes, and he had nearly collapsed the second floor on his first move. Dealing with them would be far too easy.
"What do you want?" Tu Shi came down with his people, glanced at the wreckage, and asked with obvious lack of confidence.
Besides the few young people he had seen upstairs earlier, the unlucky Zhuo Wangsun was already being held by them.
"Fifth brother! These bastards eat people! They brought us here as emergency rations!" Zhuo Wangsun shouted a warning.
"I know." Xu Huo gestured for him to calm down, then said to Tu Shi, "I don't intend to kill everyone. Whether you eat people or not has nothing to do with me. I want to borrow this place for a while."
Tu Shi's expression shifted slightly. "Then we'll leave right away."
"No need." Xu Huo said, "You can all stay. I still need some manpower for a few things."
The young man behind Tu Shi glared at him hatefully. "You killed Brother Gao and the others. Would you really be so kind as to not settle accounts with us? I'm afraid you want to use all of us as food!"
Xu Huo could tell from the group's lack of strong reaction to the "cannibalism" that they had fully accepted the fact and knew what they were doing. There was no regret, guilt, or self-loathing—only worry that they themselves might become someone else's meal, like the Xenomorphs under the rift.
"I have no interest in you." Xu Huo said with a hint of sarcasm. "You rely on Xenomorphs to sustain your lives. How do I know you haven't been infected?"
Hearing this, Tu Shi and the others actually felt relieved, though they hesitated about releasing Zhuo Wangsun.
"Whatever. If I want to make a move, you can use him as a bullet shield." Xu Huo didn't care.
This made Zhuo Wangsun, who had been showing a delighted and moved expression, quickly deflate. Fortunately, Tu Shi and his people had their own calculations and still released him, showing Xu Huo considerable sincerity.
Most of the people stayed on the first floor, while Xu Huo took Yu Wan and Xue Gao to the second floor.
The second floor was piled with boxes that had clearly been packed in a hurry. He noticed that some of them were specially made and asked Tu Shi what they were.
Tu Shi opened the boxes one by one. Inside were test tubes filled with water, blood, and some plants preserved by special means, all marked with dates.
"As you can see, the root of the Cleanup Zone is that this land has undergone a mutation. If the source can't be resolved, this place will never disappear. Even if we kill all the Xenomorphs, we still can't rebuild the city. That's why I collected this data, planning to take it out."
Xu Huo handed the two children to Zhuo Wangsun to watch over, then took out a tube of Xenomorph blood. "There's experimental equipment here, right? What's the difference between Xenomorph blood and normal human blood?"
"The blood shows signs of infection," Tu Shi said. "But the equipment here is incomplete and outdated. My knowledge in this area isn't solid enough, so I can't determine what kind of pathogen it is."
(Chapter End)