Chapter 52

Zhang Heng found himself in a wasteland when he opened his eyes.

The sky was dark and gloomy as if the blue sky was covered with a grey sheet. Countless withered plants messily dotted the landscape. Ruins from all manner of buildings were found on the glassed soil. A greyish gale blew through the air like a sandstorm, churning up yellow sand in every direction.

The surrounding temperature was about negative 45 degrees Celsius. The radiated clouds in the aftermath of a nuclear war blocked out the atmosphere and sunlight, turning the place into a dreaded nuclear winter.

“Corona, are you sure that this is the Earth after the xenomorphs rampaged?” Zheng Heng asked the void before him.

“The chances of this being the correct plane are above 80 percent.” Corona appeared before Zhang Heng when he asked his question. She pulled her jet-black hair back a little after it was messed up by the gale blowing about and continued, “Commander, according to my calculated simulations, the eggs of the xenomorphs were brought to Earth for a couple of reasons. The outbreak was limited at first, but when the first queen rose, the spread worsened and the first city suffered devastating attacks. The Earth’s forces sent their troops to battle the xenomorph queen and ultimately failed in eliminating her, which left the humans no choice but to deploy a nuclear bomb, and even that failed to contain the spread of the xenomorphs. That was because humans were not the only species affected by the spread. Just about any living creature could be latched onto the xenomorphs after reaching a certain size, enabling the xenomorphs to quickly spread on land, in the skies, and the seas at a rate comparable to the T-Virus. There were even flying and deep-sea xenomorphs. In the end, humans had no choice but to give up Earth, holing up on the moon or even in the Mars colonies. As such, the entire planet was rendered a wasteland. Then again, humans would not have been wiped out if that was all, because humans in the Alien plane had become fully capable of interstellar travel and setting up extraterrestrial colonies. The destruction of planet Earth alone wouldn’t have brought about the destruction of humanity. As such, two possibilities led to the destruction of human civilization.”

As Zhang Heng listened to Corona’s elaboration, the corner of his mouth began to twitch. He had been paying attention to the xenomorph’s combat prowess and had never given any thought about their reproduction abilities. A chill was running down his spine after hearing what Corona told him.

“What would be the two possibilities?” Zhang Heng asked in a probing fashion.

“The first being that the xenomorph eggs were not only found on Earth. The spread of xenomorphs happened on the moon, Mars, and all other human colonies simultaneously. Human civilization as a whole would have ended up destroyed due to this possibility,” Corona said.

“That can’t be, the human fighting forces aren’t a bunch of idiots. Even if they were to find hundreds or even thousands of eggs, there’s no way the xenomorphs could spread when the humans put up their guard, let alone just a handful of eggs found instead.” Zhang Heng voiced his speculations.

“That is correct. The possibility of the first scenario taking place is not high. With that said, there could only be one other possibility.” Corona bit her lip a little and she wore a sinister look on her face. “The possibility that the Alien plane developed a type of space xenomorphs that could live and fight in space.”

Zhang Heng’s pupils contracted slightly. That possibility put him on high alert and made him very uncomfortable. He reflexively wanted to deny such a possibility yet found himself unable to say anything at all.

It was known that the xenomorphs could further their evolution by incorporating all manner of genes deemed excellent from countless different species. The rate of their evolution was so frightening that it was well within reason that they eventually managed to spawn something among them that could travel in space.

If things really happened as Corona speculated, humans were doomed one way or another.

“According to data found on the internet about the rate of evolution the xenomorphs could achieve, it would seem that they are almost destined to eventually evolve into something that could survive in space. Humans may have ended up having to fight a massive army of space xenomorphs before they were prepared to do so. They would be able to ravage any part of the Milky Way, collecting DNA from lifeforms from all manner of planets like some sort of space nomads. Their spread may not have been limited to just carbon-based lifeforms alone, as it would seem that even silicon-based lifeforms were on their menu as well. That would explain why they have developed silicate-structured exoskeletons and their highly acidic blood.” Corona continued her analysis. “I’ve searched the internet for all knowledge regarding the xenomorphs, even including speculations and additional information from humans, analyzing all of them before generating the Earth’s environment found in the Alien plane. What you’ll need to do now would be to survive in this simulated battlefield for 36 hours.”

“No problem. Let’s begin.” Zhang Heng took a deep breath and nodded.

Corona disappeared in the very next second. A cold, mechanical female voice was heard resounding in the air at the same time. “30 seconds before the enemy reaches the battlefield. Crush them all!”

Zhang Heng immediately opened his backpack after hearing that. He found two Desert Eagles, eight magazines, two triangular bayonets, pieces of compressed ration biscuits, and two bottles of mineral water in the backpack. That was everything he owned at the moment.

He was currently wearing the security suit he brought back from the Dead Space. He strapped the bayonets to the outer side of his thighs and checked the magazines for the Desert Eagle pistols, finding all of them loaded with yellow rounds before loading the magazines into the guns, cocking both guns with satisfying clicks being heard.

Zhang Heng put the backpack on his back after he was finished checking his supplies and loading his weapons. He saw the ruins of a city far away that looked like the carcass of a huge dead beast out in the wild. He made his way there without any hesitation.

He caught a black shadow zipping past in the ruins on the left side closest to him before he was able to walk far from his starting point. Zhang Heng chose to keep walking instead of checking out what was there. However, he was surrounded by seven or eight of those shadows before he walked for barely three minutes. The dimmed lighting of his surroundings resulted in very poor visibility. He was only able to vaguely make out the black shadows were about two meters in length each. They were all warrior xenomorphs with lithe bodies and they were considered scouts among the xenomorphs.

Zhang Heng stopped walking and held onto his handguns while looking at the sky. He closed his eyes at the same time, waiting for those pack of sly, vicious beings to come to him.

A minute passed and none of them made any further moves. A slight shuffling sound was heard from behind him just when Zhang Heng thought that the xenomorphs were an unbelievably patient bunch.

The pores all over Zhang Heng’s body were opened immediately as the shuffling noise was heard. He turned around at blinding speeds and flung his right arm out before he locked onto his target and pulled the trigger at a speed that humans would have found impossible to execute.

“Boom!”

A yellowish golden bullet shot out of the muzzle and was spinning at high speeds as it traveled and sliced through the air at a speed of 390 meters per second. The bullet covered the distance of tens of meters in an instant and blew a huge bloody hole on the smooth forehead of its target, immediately rendering the internal organs of that being into mush.

The Desert Eagle wasn’t known as ‘the king of handguns’ for nothing. The .50 BMG caliber bullet packed a punch reaching 2200 Joules, which meant that it could punch right through the hard skull of the xenomorph instantly. If Zhang Heng were to use the Beretta M9 instead, the measly 450 Joules of the rounds it fired would be unable to even penetrate the exoskeleton of the xenomorph.

Then again, the shortcomings of the Desert Eagle were just as well-known—the massive recoil and abhorrent magazine capacity. As such, it was unable to become a common, mainstream weapon. However, the recoil wasn’t an issue for Zhang Heng, who was four times stronger than the average human. Additionally, he was currently wearing the security suit from the Dead Space plane. The hydraulic support equipment installed within would allow him to completely ignore recoil from any firearms.

Zhang Heng felt confident seeing how effective the Desert Eagle was at killing xenomorphs. His action of killing a warrior xenomorph with a single shot served as some kind of signal. Countless xenomorphs charged at him from all sides at a speed of around 60 to 70 kilometers per hour after a shriek from one of them was heard.