Chapter 18: The So-Called Technical Stream

Watching the Tyrant fling Wesker’s corpse aside as if discarding mere trash, the onlookers who had gathered to watch felt a chill run down their spines.

"Wesker... is dead?!" Song Qingfeng stared, utterly dumbfounded.

"Just like that?!" Lin Shao and the others in the crowd were equally stupefied!

To think that a major antagonist pulling the strings from behind the scenes would perish so abruptly at the hands of this monstrosity. It brought a profound sigh of lament, and even more so, an indescribable sense of oppression.

At this moment, however, Fang Qi had no time to explain the lore of Wesker to them. Without a second thought, he swapped directly to the shotgun!

Seizing the fleeting moment while the Tyrant was preoccupied with killing Wesker, Fang Qi had already lined up his sights and fired several consecutive shots at the beast!

Yet, to Fang Qi’s dismay, only a single shot found its mark before the Tyrant swiftly raised its massive claw to shield its chest. The tremendously powerful shotgun pellets struck the talon, leaving behind nothing more than a few shallow scratch marks!

Guarding its vital spots with that colossal claw, it advanced forward with slow, deliberate steps. Even with a shotgun, a single blast was nowhere near enough to inflict substantial damage upon it!

The Tyrant before them resembled a heavily armored tank, pressing onward at a steady pace. Even without launching an attack, it exuded a crushing weight of pure intimidation!

A standard handgun was practically useless against the Tyrant, whereas the shotgun demanded close proximity to guarantee its efficacy, making its utilization against the creature exceedingly perilous!

Fang Qi crouched low, keeping his eyes locked onto its every movement.

Right then, Fang Qi noticed the Tyrant’s arm lift ever so slightly.

Reflexively, Fang Qi threw himself backward into a roll! Instantly, he felt a violent gust of wind scrape fiercely past his spine! Turning to look, the spot where he had stood a mere heartbeat ago had already been reduced to absolute ruin!

A vast array of machinery and equipment had collapsed in a heap, and upon the exposed metal, three massive claw gashes were vividly engraved!

In the original version of the game, the environment was indestructible, allowing players to engage in a carousel-like kite strategy around the rows of nutrient tanks in the center of the laboratory.

But now, with a single swipe of its claw, the Tyrant had shattered more than half of those tanks! A torrential flood of pale green nutrient fluid spilled across the floor, rendering the already smooth ground slick beyond measure.

Circling the pillars was now completely out of the question!

"Hiss—!"

A sharp intake of breath immediately sounded from behind Fang Qi.

"What a terrifying attack!"

"A strike of that caliber could surely rival a Grand Martial Master, couldn't it?!"

"That was just a casual swipe, yet it possessed such might. If it were a fraction more agile, I fear even a Grand Martial Master would find it a massive headache!"

"Challenging a Grand Martial Master with the body of an ordinary mortal?!" Behind Fang Qi, the crowd grew denser. Even a few who had been actively playing, such as Xu Zixin and Liang Shi, had logged out of their games and huddled behind him. "Though the boss possesses high-powered firearms, isn't he being a bit too reckless?"

One did not need to think to know what the consequences would be if such an attack connected with a human body!

Fang Qi exhaled a long breath. Had he not evaded so swiftly just now, that single blow would have likely obliterated him instantly!

It appeared this creature was a fair bit stronger than he had anticipated.

The Tyrant’s stature was immensely towering. With but a single large stride, it caught up to Fang Qi once more, and immediately brought another claw crashing down with brutal force!

Not daring to slacken for an instant, Fang Qi hastily widened the distance between them. Without even taking proper aim, he pulled the trigger!

Though the shotgun’s power at mid-range was far from ideal—failing even to impede the Tyrant's forward momentum—the beast pressed on, closing the gap once more!

"Time to kite it!" Fang Qi’s eyes narrowed into slits. Having witnessed the Tyrant’s melee prowess, he had no choice but to maintain a safe distance at all times, employing hit-and-run tactics to avoid sustaining injury.

In the original game, a seasoned player could comfortably kite the Tyrant to death. However, after undergoing virtual reality adaptation, though it seemed a touch more cumbersome, the sheer variety of actions it could perform had multiplied drastically! It was no longer confined to monotonous, predictable attacks!

The Tyrant once more shielded its vitals with its claw, looming closer toward Fang Qi at a steady pace!

Had the terrain been wide and open, it would have been manageable. Unfortunately, the space available for combat within the laboratory was exceptionally narrow. If the Tyrant continued to close in like this, it would sooner or later corner Fang Qi against the wall!

"The boss is in danger!" Song Qingfeng’s eyes narrowed as he analyzed the situation clearly. "This place is far too cramped; there's simply nowhere to hide! And as for meeting this thing head-on, I reckon a genuine Grand Martial Master wouldn't dare attempt it either! The disadvantage is just too great!"

"This thing has skin as thick as iron hide. Anyone who tries to trade blows with it is a fool!" Lin Shao chimed in agreement.

Wu Shan and the middle-aged man with the goatee were clearly the ones with the highest cultivation levels among the group. They exchanged a glance, but both shook their heads in tandem: "With a physique like that, whoever tries to match it in brute force will absolutely be the first to die!"

"Not to mention he chose Chris, meaning he can't even utilize Martial Qi!"

"As formidable as the boss is, this final demon-beast is indeed far too powerful!"

For a moment, the onlookers had practically passed a death sentence upon Fang Qi.

Right at that juncture, the Tyrant slowly hoisted its gargantuan claw. Given Chris’s robust physique, surviving under this impending strike was an absolute impossibility!

In this hair-raising instant of life and death, the crowd watched as Fang Qi utilized the brief window to feed shells into his shotgun one by one, before charging directly toward the Tyrant!

This maneuver of Fang Qi’s struck a chord of shock into everyone’s hearts!

Was this not simply courting death?!

Seeing Fang Qi rushing forward to meet it, a bloodthirsty gleam flickered within the Tyrant's eyes, and its massive claw swept violently toward Fang Qi’s upper body!

"Now!" A brilliant light flashed across Fang Qi’s eyes. In the next heartbeat, he lowered his frame, and his entire body actually slid right underneath the Tyrant!

With a clean, decisive pivot, he turned and fired!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Having slid directly to the Tyrant’s rear, Fang Qi discharged several consecutive blasts from his shotgun, every single pellet striking the creature’s vital vulnerabilities!

"He actually evaded it?!"

Having been pushed to the absolute brink, Fang Qi had managed to alleviate the deadlock using such an ingenious method, leaving no small number of people thoroughly astonished.

Many understood clearly that Fang Qi’s success did not rely on any martial techniques, but rather on a masterful grasp of timing, coupled with a exquisite calculation of both enemy and self, as well as the terrain!

Simply put, this was technique!

Combat technique!

"How is that even possible?!"

"The boss is amazing!"

"Xiaoyun, this boss is so strong, far more capable than your brother!" a young girl who had been watching from behind remarked softly.

"Zixin, how is it that the boss plays so differently from you?" Shen Qingqing had also arrived behind Fang Qi’s seat at some unknown point.

"The boss truly is incredibly skilled!" Xu Zixin’s eyes shone with continuous brilliance. She had not expected the boss to be this formidable; it seemed she had previously underestimated him!

"What does a feat like that even amount to? I could do that too!" Seeing Xu Zixin join in the praise, Xue Ming muttered under his breath.

"What do you know?" Xu Zixin cast a sidelong glance at Xue Ming. "Choosing Chris means you cannot use Martial Qi. Why don't you try doing that without using your Martial Qi?!"

"No... No Martial Qi allowed?" Xue Ming stared open-mouthed at the screen. "But to achieve such a level based solely on the capabilities of an ordinary person?"

Though firearms were involved, one had to realize that no matter how fast an ordinary person’s reflexes were, their intrinsic speed and strength could fundamentally never sustain a battle of this caliber!

This demanded a meticulously precise level of calculation; otherwise, a single touch would yield unimaginable consequences!

"What else did you think?" Xu Zixin finally retorted with irritation.

"Er... this young master is a celestial genius. It won't be long before I reach this step myself!" Xue Ming immediately declared with absolute confidence.

"...Keep dreaming!"

Right at that moment, however, a collective gasp of horror echoed through the room!

For they witnessed that although the Tyrant’s burly frame had collapsed to its knees, the wounds tearing across its flesh had begun to writhe and squirm continuously!

"What is going on!"

Evidently, Fang Qi’s assault had triggered a sinister mutation within this Tyrant!

Such a sudden turn of events struck the onlookers with utter astonishment!

Their hearts, which had just begun to ease, leaped back into their throats!

"Could it be that it's still alive?!"

To be blasted repeatedly in its vital spots by a shotgun at point-blank range, and yet survive?! What manner of vitality was this?!

It was simply too terrifying!

Staring at the Tyrant's current state, everyone felt a dark, ominous foreboding gradually creeping into their hearts!

Fang Qi, naturally, knew exactly what this transformation signified!

The second phase!

In the original game, the Tyrant would only evolve into its second phase after being beaten into a state of suspended animation on the ground. Fang Qi had initially wondered if he could just blow its head off while it was playing dead, but now, it seemed...

Fang Qi had no choice but to close the distance, biting the bullet to test his luck.

He fired several shots in rapid succession at close range, only to discover that far from being killed, the creature's wounds were actually writhing with increasing violence! Granulation tissue had even begun sprouting from the gashes!

In this state, the Tyrant's defenses and regenerative capabilities became immensely formidable. Without a shred of hesitation, Fang Qi emptied his entire cache of shotgun shells, yet it still yielded little effect against the beast, let alone killing it under such conditions!

It appeared that while the system's remastered version had altered it to be more logical, it had also made it vastly more powerful!

It had left no such simple weakness for Fang Qi to exploit!

Fang Qi's expression darkened slightly. He had known all along that this Tyrant would not perish so easily; at the very least, with his current strength and weaponry, he absolutely lacked the capability to slay it before it shifted into its second form.

Move!

He could only escape first!

Fang Qi hesitated no longer, seizing the window before the Tyrant fully evolved into its second phase to immediately flee the laboratory.

Otherwise, if he waited to escape until it entered the second phase, he might not even stand a ghost of a chance!

"He's stopping the fight?!"

The crowd watched as Fang Qi led his teammates in a frantic dash outward! He had absolutely no intention of lingering!

Right at that moment, a deafening roar erupted from the laboratory Fang Qi had just vacated!

The roar was so colossal that the very ground beneath them shuddered violently!

This sent a jolt of dread through the hearts of everyone present!

They had underestimated this Tyrant!

Immediately after, a flurry of rapid, heavy footsteps echoed from behind, and the Tyrant actually came pursuing them from the rear! This time, its speed completely surpassed anything it had shown before!

"Move fast!" Fang Qi's face fell, and while urging his teammates forward, he took the lead and sprinted toward the elevator!

This was not the original game, so the Tyrant's actions were far closer to reality; the things it could do were simply too numerous!

Those present were all members of a special operations squad, so naturally, not a single soul dragged their feet. The group entered the elevator at their absolute maximum speed, and the lift instantly activated!

The research lab housing the Tyrant was located on the fourth subterranean floor. By taking the elevator, the group managed to escape back to the surface with relative ease.

"Look at what the boss is doing!"

Fang Qi fetched a small case, pressed one of the yellow buttons, and very quickly, a flare soared up into the sky!

Originally, this segment was displayed through a cutscene, but now, Fang Qi had to perform it all manually!

Fang Qi had come well-prepared; every motion was as smooth and fluid as flowing water, without the slightest hesitation or pause, as if he knew he could not afford to waste a single fraction of a second.

Simultaneously, the earth beneath Fang Qi's feet shuddered violently!

The ground beside them was suddenly blasted open, revealing a massive crater!

"Is it the Tyrant?!"

"It chased us all the way up here?!"

"That's impossible! Four floors?!"

Then, as if in direct response to them, beneath the incredulous gazes of everyone, a terrifyingly horrific figure leapt out from the gaping hole!

Everyone stood frozen, utterly dumbfounded.