That was right. Xie Chun Ye made his decision without hesitation: they had no choice but to seize control of the aircraft.
Rather than place all their hopes of getting out safely on the captain NPC, it would be better for Xie Chun Ye to fly it himself and take their fate into his own hands.
He quickly assigned everyone their roles.
Qiu Shuang was one of their strongest fighters, so she took the Emergency Hammer and joined Xie Chun Ye in leading Ning Si Si at the front.
Xiao Li Li and Lin Wen Jing would guard the curtain between first class and economy, stopping any passengers or crew members who tried to approach.
Song Zang, meanwhile, was once again given a separate lookout assignment.
All he had to do was stand outside the cockpit. If the situation got out of control, he and Qiu Shuang would work together to shut the door, leaving Ning Si Si and Xie Chun Ye trapped inside to face the strange flight attendant alone.
Xie Chun Ye had deliberately stationed him near the front because Song Zang’s Resistance was high enough that the sight of a monster would not cloud his mind and make him turn against the others.
And so Song Zang settled comfortably into his undemanding role. He obediently hid behind the other three while soothing the little snake sleeping soundly around his wrist after its large meal.
Hopefully, it would not suddenly wake up and make the final boss start kowtowing for no apparent reason…
That would be far too boring.
Xie Chun Ye did not try to force the cockpit door open. Instead, he aggressively grabbed the chief flight attendant by the collar.
She was an older female NPC. Because of the turbulence, she had been sitting properly in her assigned seat with her seat belt fastened. The moment Xie Chun Ye fixed her with an icy glare, however, she nearly choked in fright.
“The woman who just entered the cockpit is a terrorist. Unless you want this plane to crash, cooperate with us and open the door.”
Xie Chun Ye lied with a perfectly blank expression. Qiu Shuang immediately played along, raising the Emergency Hammer and waving it threateningly beside the woman’s face.
“…Very well, but I believe the two of you may have misunderstood something. Please wait. I’ll ask her to explain.”
The chief flight attendant remained relatively calm. Her face pale, she raised both hands and called the cockpit through the internal phone under their watchful gazes, only to discover that the line had been disconnected.
The next second, Qiu Shuang pressed the hammer against the side of her neck.
With no other choice, the woman led them to the cockpit door and pressed the entry-request button.
But even after dozens of seconds had passed, she received no response.
“See? She’s doing something bad in there. If you don’t open the door now, we really are all going to die.” Qiu Shuang lifted her chin, looking every bit like a vicious bandit.
When the chief flight attendant’s expression began to waver, Song Zang stepped forward and began making things up with a sincere expression. “Miss, please believe us. Didn’t you notice that when I went to the restroom earlier, that flight attendant kept following me? She almost killed me and peeled off my skin. She’s a religious extremist. She’s terrifying.”
As Song Zang spoke in a soft murmur, an imperceptible haze passed through the chief flight attendant’s eyes. Soon, her face filled with righteous fury. “I understand! Thank you for reporting her. I’ll activate the manual override immediately.”
She entered the emergency access code. Roughly thirty seconds later, the heavy cockpit door slowly swung outward.
Before Xie Chun Ye could say anything, Ning Si Si rushed inside impatiently.
That was exactly what Xie Chun Ye wanted. He had placed the little girl at the front because Ning Si Si and the Earth Mother Goddess did not belong to the same category of “monster.”
The Earth Mother Goddess’s emissaries were surrounded by an indescribably foul aura, whereas Ning Si Si… apart from having no face, all Xie Chun Ye could see was a clean, innocent soul.
That meant the girl had never killed anything and had never unknowingly eaten human flesh. Whether she would hurt anyone from this point onward, of course, was another matter.
Two monsters that played by entirely different sets of rules were now confronting each other head-on. No matter which one was injured first, it would not be bad news for the players.
Inside the cramped cockpit, the situation was even worse than they had imagined.
The copilot’s head had fallen forward, and he lay unconscious over the control panel.
The woman had one hand around the captain’s throat. As he struggled desperately against her, he managed at the critical moment to engage the autopilot.
But even autopilot could not withstand the seemingly endless patches of “turbulence.” If this stalemate continued, they would not only be forced off course and eventually run out of fuel, but would also face a serious risk of crashing.
Hearing Ning Si Si running toward her, the woman turned to look at them.
A gentle smile appeared on her face—the very same smile Song Zang had become all too familiar with—and his steps stopped at once.
He gripped the edge of the cockpit doorway, trembling as he fell silent.
Sure enough, this woman looked exactly like the flight attendant who had just been burned down to an empty skin.
Her manner was slightly different, but the same sense of deep, unnatural disharmony radiated from her.
She looked like a stiff, inhuman creature wearing human skin.
Xie Chun Ye had deliberately left the discarded skin lying in the cabin aisle.
The Ram Emissary had already used that body, which meant the victim had been a suitable vessel for possession. By leaving the vessel intact, he made it possible for the Yak Emissary to use it again if it could not find a new one.
If he destroyed that vessel, the next victims might be the remaining members of their group, all of whom had eaten their fill.
Ning Si Si was far stronger than he had expected. The twisting slit across the girl’s face snapped open, and her head expanded at a grotesque speed until it occupied nearly one-fifth of the cockpit.
She stared at the flight attendant and slowly opened her mouth. There was nothing inside but empty darkness, a void without end. “Bad person.”
Her childish voice emerged from those unfathomable depths.
Before the woman could react, Ning Si Si bit down, engulfing half her body inside her mouth.
Wet, squelching sounds of rubbing flesh and chewing exploded through the air.
Xie Chun Ye had absolutely no desire to investigate what lay inside Ning Si Si’s mouth. He calmly ignored her abnormally enlarged head.
Taking off his glasses, he strode forward, twisted around, and delivered a sweeping kick that tore the body in her mouth cleanly in half.
Splurt—
Blood burst across the control panel like fireworks, drenching the terrified and bewildered captain from head to toe and leaving him completely stunned.
The lower half of the body collapsed onto the floor and writhed like a fish that had leaped out of the water. The two long legs soon staggered upright, regained their balance, and tottered toward Ning Si Si.
The high heels stumbled through a pool of blood. In the shattered crimson reflection beneath them, a pair of damaged black horns appeared briefly before fading again.
“What the fuck? This is straight out of a classic horror movie! Aaaah!”
Qiu Shuang’s scalp prickled at the sight. She instinctively raised the Emergency Hammer and brought it down hard against the bleeding waist. The legs collapsed at once, only to rise again, turn around, and begin moving toward her.
While the severed lower body struggled, Xie Chun Ye put his glasses back on. With a level of familiarity that raised several questions, he located the emergency oxygen cylinder and crash axe stored in the cockpit, then hauled the captain out of the pilot’s seat with one hand.
He raised the solid oxygen cylinder himself and tossed the axe precisely to the wide-eyed captain. “Captain, grab a weapon and help us beat her to death. Song Zang, push the service cart over and block the door.”
“All right!”
Breathing nervously, Song Zang accepted the service cart from the equally pale chief flight attendant. Together, they pushed it over in one determined burst and wedged it sideways across the cockpit entrance.
Looking at the chaotic fight inside the cramped room, Song Zang closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he asked the chief flight attendant in a trembling voice, “Miss, does first class serve baguettes with lunch?”
“Huh? Yes, yes, we do.”
The chief flight attendant immediately understood. She hurried to the galley and returned carrying a large bag of baguettes as hard as rocks.
Meanwhile, Song Zang found a hot-water kettle and several large bottles of cola beneath the cart. With shaking hands, he took aim at the unsteady pair of legs, used the cart as cover, and turned himself into a human catapult, throwing every hard object he had into the cockpit one after another.
Naturally, his control over his strength was excellent. He only knocked the legs to the ground and never used enough force to punch a hole through the aircraft.
The group quickly developed an efficient rhythm. Each time Song Zang finished throwing something, Qiu Shuang and the captain immediately rushed forward and beat the severed body. Then they retreated at once, giving Song Zang room to launch the next object.
Xie Chun Ye was not idle either. He kept a constant eye on the slit that Ning Si Si was struggling to chew with. Whenever the upper half of the body inside her mouth began crawling outward, he immediately raised the oxygen cylinder and slammed it down, ensuring that the monster had no chance to escape.
The chaotic battle continued for quite some time, covering the cockpit floor in blood—all of it belonging to the monster.
Qiu Shuang had exceptionally quick reflexes. She moved constantly through the cramped cockpit, doing her best to avoid the monster’s touch. The recoil from the hammer had left the webbing between the thumb and index finger of her right hand red and bruised, but aside from that, she was miraculously unharmed.
“Fortunately, this monster’s defense is still at novice-instance level.” Xie Chun Ye sighed, tossed the battered oxygen cylinder to Qiu Shuang, and stepped over to sit in the captain’s seat.
If he did not switch to manual control soon, they really would stray completely off course.
The situation in the cockpit had barely stabilized, but the chaos behind them was far from over.
The passenger NPCs, who had barely made their presence felt until now, had fallen silent in unison the moment the others forced their way into the cockpit.
A plane shaking this violently should have filled its passengers with fear and panic, yet Xiao Li Li and Lin Wen Jing heard nothing but deathly silence.
Everyone sat rigidly upright in their seats. Their heads were turned in the same direction, their expressionless faces fixed on the two women without blinking.
“Aaaah—!”
A shrill woman’s scream came from the cockpit, the result of Ning Si Si’s determined efforts to swallow her.
In the next instant, every NPC abruptly stood. Like a swarm of locusts, they surged forward in heavy, rustling waves and flooded toward the two women.
Even when they had to twist their bodies sideways to squeeze out from the narrow rows of seats, their heads remained rigidly pointed forward, their unblinking gazes locked on Xiao Li Li and Lin Wen Jing.
“What the fuck.”
For the first time, Xiao Li Li could not stop herself from swearing.
By then, however, Lin Wen Jing had already taken the steel knives and forks that they had asked the chief flight attendant to prepare in advance. There were two large boxes in total, and in the right hands, they became highly effective weapons.
She narrowed her eyes and threw a fork like a dart. It struck the passenger at the front with perfect accuracy, dropping him on the spot.
“Hold on, Li Li. Once they kill the monster, everything should return to normal.” Lin Wen Jing spoke calmly as she sent another knife flying.
Splurt—
The blade sank into flesh and happened to sever an artery. Blood sprayed high enough to stain the ceiling of the cabin, but even that could not stop the zombie-like tide of bodies rushing toward them.
“Got it.” Xiao Li Li shook the stunned chief flight attendant. “Sis, bring us a few bottles of alcohol. Glass bottles!”
“Ah… all right.”
Lin Wen Jing’s accuracy with her improvised darts reassured the woman slightly. She slapped her cheeks hard to force herself to stay alert, then turned and ran. Like an ammunition runner, she hurried back and forth through first class supplying them.
The plane carried plenty of alcohol: red wine, brandy, whisky, and even several bottles of champagne waiting to be opened.
Xiao Li Li grabbed a bottle in each hand and smashed their bases without hesitation. “Die, you old bastard!”
She kicked the charging middle-aged man away and used the jagged base of the glass bottle as a weapon to smash his skull.
Compared with Qiu Shuang, neither of the two women possessed such outrageous fighting ability. But the passengers moved like marionettes—their limbs stiff and entirely unafraid of death—while they were still made of flesh.
And anything made of flesh could be killed.
Lin Wen Jing quickly noticed that once the passengers’ heads were injured, they had great difficulty moving again. In that respect, they were not very different from living people.
“Li Li, aim for the eyes whenever you can. Be precise.” She picked up a gleaming table knife and issued her latest instruction, a calm chill flashing through her eyes.
“Understood!”
Xiao Li Li raised her wine bottle with an excited expression.
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