Gate of Apocalypse

"Thank you."

Nicole sat against a tree, her face still a little pale at the moment despite having swallowed a large amount of healing beast blood.

Tian Lie's condition, however, looked a lot better than hers. Although his body was still crippled, with only a head and half of his body left, plus a right arm, and he could only lean against the tree, his face had taken on the original untamed expression.

"I never thought that I would be saved by you guys this time." Tian Lie touched his smooth head with his only remaining hand and grinned at the tires, "By all means, I should say thank you to you. But thinking that I've helped you guys a lot before, so let's call it even."

"Does working for us as security ...... count as helping?" Qiao Qiao looked at Tian Lie with a smile on his face. The last time I saw Tian Lie in this state was when he was fighting to the death in the Tokyo replica. But since Chen Xiaolian had said that Tian Lie was Dagon, he was at least feeling a bit more affectionate when he looked at Tian Lie right now.

"King Arthur's copy as well as the Jerusalem copy, both of which I have participated in." Heavenly Lie smiled, "Do you remember the leader of that group of religious lunatics, Mene? He didn't show up until the final battle. Do you think he went fishing for fun? If I hadn't held him back and let him join the war, I'm afraid you would all have died."

Everyone was stunned, except for Nicole.

Although he had heard from Chen Xiaolian a long time ago that both Tian Lie and Nicole had been resurrected as Loopholes, no one still thought that they had been resurrected so early.

"You guys ...... have formed a team?" JoJo asked the question verbally, but her eyes didn't move in the direction of Rody.

The question, of course, was not for herself.

"We don't have the personal system option to create a team." Tian Lie shook his head, "Since you are also Vulnerability, you should be well aware that our functionality is disabled."

"Then ...... how did you all end up here together? Could it be that the two of you have been drawn together in this copy?" Qiao Qiao smiled, "It can't be that coincidental, can it?"

"Just going into the copy with him for fun." Nicole shrugged her shoulders and replied lightly for Skylie, "I lived in Los Angeles for a while, and I'm familiar with the area."

JoJo didn't say anything, her face still smiling, but she sighed inwardly for Roddy.

Even if it was the same team, the head of the team had to have a lot of discretion in designating members to enter the copy. To be able to have immunity to enter the replica was the greatest pursuit of all Awakened ones.

Otherwise, how could the qualification of the outer teams of Zero City be so sought-after that almost all the teams would break their heads to grab it?

After all, to enter the copy means to be in a precarious situation, and you may die at any time.

And if you take the initiative to accompany other people to enter the replica, then it's a real, life-long friendship.

Nicole and Tianlie, the two look ......

"Well, this isn't the time to ask all this nonsense." Roddy looked a little irritated and interrupted JoJo's question, "All the American troops here have been killed by the Thorn Flower Regiment, and the follow up troops should arrive soon. We don't have that much time to tarry here now if we don't want to fight another battle with the American troops for nothing. Besides, that alien meteorite has already been taken away, we have to retrieve it in order to complete our mission ......"

Roddy was saying this and suddenly jumped up.

The expressions on everyone else's faces also changed.

Just now, in everyone's personal radar, it had been showing that the alien meteorite was tens of kilometers away in the northwest, but now, the meteorite suddenly disappeared from the radar interface.

What the fuck is this ...... situation!

Everyone in the Meteorite Squad looked at JoJo.

"Why are you looking at me? It's not like I know what's going on." JoJo smiled and shook her head, "Let's go to the last location shown on the radar first."

......

The small motel room where Adric and Dodoro had stayed.

Nine people crowded the small room, almost all of them with furrowed brows and tightly pinched noses.

Only Xia Xiaolei had his face covered with parasite armor, while Tian Lie looked like his usual self.

On the table, the meteorite had been cut in half, exposing the cavity in the middle, around which flowed a yellowish, sticky liquid.

Nicole held her nose and whispered, "What the hell is this ......!"

"It's the meteorite." The tire looked very bad: "It had an alien embryo in it. And now ...... it's been taken out."

"An alien pup? How do you know that?" Tian Lie swaggered over to the table and took a look down at the two pieces of meteorite shell, "Hey, it looks like an egg that was opened. It's not like they were scrambled and eaten, right?"

"It smells so bad, it's not even like an egg! Aren't you disgusting!" Nicole turned pale and stared at Tian Lie viciously.

"My body is a metal datastream, so ......" Tian Lie shrugged his shoulders and smiled proudly, "I can close my sense of smell."

"Then you better close your mouth too." Nicole rolled her eyes in no good humor.

Roddy looked up at Nicole with dark eyes and lowered his head again.

"We ...... have gathered some information about this meteorite. It's filled with alien embryos." Tire slowed. Although he had been together for a while, he still didn't dare to feel completely at ease with Tian Lie and Nicole at the moment. The Raider book bug that Qiao Qiao carried with him was the biggest secret of the Meteorite Team, and it must not be casually revealed.

"Is it?" Tian Lie took a deep look at the spare tire and nodded, "So what should we do next? What do you guys think?"

At the moment in several people's personal system, the mission hint is still to kill the meteorite holder, but the coordinates of the hint location are lost.

This is a replica of Los Angeles, but it is actually much larger than just the city of Los Angeles, spanning almost half of California, right up to Arizona. In such a large area, without any system hints, trying to find the target is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

"Let's just wait and see," Tire thought, shook his head, and looked at Tian Lie, "I propose that we act together in this mission. I am now temporarily acting as Chen Xiaolian's captain, so I can establish a temporary contract with you guys to settle the mission objectives together. What do you guys think?"

"Of course." Nicole nodded without hesitation.

"Yes." Tian Lie dug his ears, lazily.

Although this copy didn't explicitly say the penalty for failing the mission, no matter what angle one was coming from, acting together was the better option at the moment.

"The enemy is strong." Tire sat down on the bed with a grim expression, "This captain of the Thorn Flower Crew is quite strong. Even though they fought us for a while, Xia Xiaolei and Flagsmusi only held him back, not causing him much damage. That guy was able to kill him with a single blow, and according to my guess, it's probably ......S class."

"It's not possible, it's certain." Heavenly Lie shook his head with cold eyes, "I've been in the Thorn Flower Crew before, and the captain of this team, Gaza ...... I'm very familiar with. That magic armor of his is not a system redemption item, but a copy of the reward, a proper A+ grade. The only person who could kill him in one hit would be an S-rank. And ...... is a senior S-rank expert."

Nicole's expression suddenly changed, but no one but Roddy noticed this.

"Shit." Before, her heart was just suspicious, but after being so confirmed by Tian Lie, Tire couldn't help but curse a swear word.

An S-ranked expert who was now his enemy?

And if his own speculation was correct, the S-class expert who had taken the meteorite had opened a branch of the hidden mission after touching the meteorite.

Now, he must have taken the route of devouring the embryo to avoid showing his position on the radar.

He has become the master of alien life, and for 100 hours he can suck in as many genes as he wants for his own growth.

And after 100 hours, how much stronger should he be, who was already an S-class master!

......

Griffith Park.

The largest urban park in North America and home to Los Angeles' wildlife, Griffith Park contains a zoo, golf course, museum, observatory, hiking and horseback riding trails, and train excursions.

It was nighttime and the zoo was empty, with no visitors in sight.

The roaring stopped abruptly as a tiger growled and a figure emerged from the shadows of the cage.

In front of the tiger standing up, there stood a figure with his left hand at the tiger's throat.

A few tentacles extended from his fingertips and inserted themselves under the tiger's skin.

In an instant, the roar was gone, and the tiger shook its fur, took two steps backward, and crouched down.

Adric's body plunged into the shadows beneath his feet, and immediately appeared in the next cage, not far away.

The brown bear in the cage seemed to sense the danger, and crawled up, staring at Adric in front of him with deadly eyes.

In the next moment, its paws just lifted high and then slumped down, and soon it was on the ground, just like the tiger.

Soon, Adric was walking past every cage in the beast's quarters.

Behind him, the beasts in each cage were lying on the ground, asleep.

"Your Excellency the Captain, is that all?" Dodoro followed closely behind Adric and looked surprised: "I thought they would be devoured, or ......"

"It doesn't need to be that way, and it can't be that way now." Adric shook his head, "Let's go, there's still the Insectarium and the Oceanarium, better even go to the Botanical Museum."

Three hours later, the two figures lifted off into the air and disappeared into the night.

......

"Captain, I still don't quite understand what we're doing."

In La Kenyatta Flinchucci, a small town a few miles northeast of Los Angeles, Dodoro and Adric sat in a corner of the town's small bar, listening to the country music coming from the stereo.

"There wasn't enough time just now, so let me explain to you what the embryo in the core of this meteorite is supposed to do." Adric took a small sip of the beer in front of him.

Dodoro immediately nodded. Having been in a hurry to leave the alert area before, Adric hadn't had time to explain it to him in detail, and he was equally curious as to what state Adric was in now.

"Although it was consumed by me, this embryo is not considered to be fused in my body, but more like ...... symbiotic." Adric opened his mouth, and in the dim light of the bar, Dodoro saw a lump of flesh in his head's mouth near his throat, beating slowly like a heart, with dozens of tentacles sticking out all around and deeply embedded in the walls of Adric's mouth.

"This ......" Despite being a senior awakened, Dodoro's heart was still nauseated, and he even gulped down a large mouthful of beer.

Adric ignored the look of nausea on Duo Duo's face and continued: "Now, it and I are a symbiote, sharing a gene pool. Just now in the zoo, I have collected the genes of all the animals and plants I came in contact with, and also injected the embryo's genes into their bodies."

"Injected?" Dodoro wondered, "And what state are they in now?"

"The alien genes lurk inside them, and once triggered, they combine with the host's own genes to create a mutational enhancement." Adric paused, "But I just let those genes stay in those animals for now, and didn't stimulate them right away. Because we can't show too much glare yet."

"We ...... have to wait?" Dodoro was surprised: "Didn't you get enough genes already?"

"First, the genes acquired need to be integrated. Second, there are many other participants in this copy, and we shouldn't expose ourselves so early before we gain overwhelming power."

"You are S-class!" Dodoro laughed, "That's not overwhelming power? That guy from the Thorn Flower Group should be about the same strength as me, but you killed him with a single sword."

Adric shook his head, "That was a surprise attack we were waiting for. If it wasn't, I could have killed him, but I wouldn't have been able to do it so easily. Besides, the candle was already burning out and I didn't have enough time to kill everyone there. Tian Lie survived, and he was a big problem.

My current strength might be enough to kill any possible opponents in this copy in a frontal battle, but with the way I'm fighting now, it's impossible for me not to show up. I wasn't sure if they would be able to leave no fish untouched if they escaped. After all, after the protection period, we only have three days to kill all the participants of this copy. After three days, if we fail to do so, we will also be judged as failures and be punished."

With a serious face, Adric continued, "Punishment is just fine, but the most important thing is that we must not leak out any information, letting anyone out will be a disaster for Zero City."

"Then how long do you need?"

"About ...... three days or so," Adric thought, "Then I'll begin to enter a state of deep sleep, integrating the drawn genes with the embryo in my body."

"And after three days?" There was excitement in Dodoro's eyes: "You will become even stronger than you are now?"

"Of course, as long as the more genes you absorb, the more time you have to evolve." Adric smiled slightly, "Since the system has prompted that the genetic enhancements obtained in this copy can be taken out of the copy, I certainly want to make the most of this opportunity."

"I'm really ...... looking forward to seeing what you look like then!" Dodoro clenched his fists in excitement, "So, do we start in this town now?"

"Of course not." Adric shook his head, "If we've rested enough, let's go."

"Departure? Isn't this the end?" Dodoro froze.

"Continue to the northeast." Adric stood up, "Rosemont Nature Reserve. There's plenty of area, dense vegetation, and most importantly ...... almost no people."