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Dominion’s End - Volume 3 - Chapter 4

Published at 1st of May 2018 03:14:54 AM


Chapter 4

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Chapter 4: The Laboratory, Part One—translated by Elkin (proofread by Arcedemius; C/E edited by lucathia)

As the door opened, the soft metallic sounds of guns being gripped tightly surrounded me. It was dim outside the elevator, and the lights above flashed erratically. The damage here was not as bad as in the room above us. The explosion we had heard just now was probably some distance from here, but that was a good thing; otherwise, the elevator might have stopped working.

The scouts split into two parties as they scanned the surroundings. When they were certain that it was safe, they signaled “clear” to the back, and only then did the group follow them.

I was at the center of the group. Judging from the surroundings, this was a huge hall. This was a bad sign. If just the hall was this size, then this whole place must be enormous. Not only did this mean that we would have to expend more effort in our search, there were probably more experiments than we’d originally thought.

After checking out the hall without any incident, the soldiers started allocating tasks. Some were put on guard duty, and someone was sent to find the main switch. Blackie was even sent to take a look at the computers to try and repair them and see if they had any useful information.

“So? Can you pull up a map of this place?” the second lieutenant asked anxiously.

“Give me a minute. It takes time.”

Blackie didn’t even bother turning his head and focused his attention on the monitor. The monitor was huge, like a large TV screen.

I was standing to one side, a bit curious. I didn’t expect Blackie to be in charge of this.

The second lieutenant growled in frustration, “Goddammit, why the hell is it so quiet here? How the hell are we supposed to find them?”

“Quiet!” I hissed, and the second lieutenant immediately glowered at me, “Silence means only one of two things, and one of them is that everyone here is dead.”

Everyone’s expressions sank.

“The alternative is that something is forcing them to be quiet.” I glared at everyone coldly. “Does anyone want to draw out that something? Is there anyone here stronger than Ah Qing and his crew?”

The second lieutenant’s face turned white and he shook his head as he said, “No, and they took the top troops with them.”

So you’re telling me that you’re the leftovers? I suddenly felt the future prospects dim.

One of the soldiers said uneasily, “If the Lieutenant and the others can’t deal with it, w-what’re we supposed to do?”

Shit, I mustn’t scare them away. I said coolly, “A lot of the experiments have gotten away, so the situation probably isn’t as bad as it seems. Maybe they’ve got too many injured people with them. But no matter what, just keep quiet!”

The second lieutenant nodded. I had no way of telling if he really did buy what I was saying, or if he was still disgruntled at being told off by me, but it didn’t matter either way. As long as he was listening to me, all was good.

Throughout this exchange, Jiang Xiaotian was sipping on his long life milk. Just the thought that he was the revered Ice Emperor and one of the twelve world elites made my face twitch. Dàgē, please stop training my acting skills. Do you know how hard it is to maintain the facade of an arrogant and cool pro…? Actually, maybe he doesn’t really know. My Dàgē was born with an intimidating aura but, based on my observations to date, he had his fair share of acting like an idiot despite his competencies. This might also explain how he formed an idiotic team of competent soldiers.

I suddenly felt as if my mental image of the “Ice Emperor” had been dashed to pieces. No wonder people said that distance creates beauty. When you could hug the Ice Emperor to sleep, my only impression left of him was how adorable he was.

“I’ve got the map!” Blackie suddenly shouted.

“…” I face palmed.

A few soldiers immediately rushed up to cover Blackie’s mouth. Not understanding what was going on, he struggled a few times but couldn’t get free, and he looked around uncomprehendingly at everyone around him.

I walked up to gaze at the large screen, the bad feeling in my heart turning into reality. This place was truly humongous, and there was no way this could have been built after the apocalypse. This was probably a secret research lab even prior to the apocalypse.

Jiang Xiaotian tugged at my pants. I picked him up to give him a better view. He pointed at a part of the monitor, and I nodded to indicate my understanding.

“I’m going to take a look at the corridor where the lab is.”

The second lieutenant immediately retorted, “The monsters probably came from there. There’s no way the Lieutenant and the others would stay there.”

“Regardless of whether anyone is there, at least we can figure out what’s going on with those things. I’ve killed a fair number of monsters out there and none of them were as smart as these.” I turned to look at the soldiers and asked in confusion, “Since you’ve been inside the city to look for food, haven’t you noticed that the monsters here are completely different?”

No one answered.

The second lieutenant said uneasily, “The research center gave us a vehicle. We don’t know what’s in there, but as long as we drive that vehicle into the city, very few monsters would come close. And the few that do are small fry. We finish them off using silenced guns, load up the supplies, and come back. We’ve never actually seen much of the monsters before.”

No wonder. With something like that, it explained why the refugee camp held so many people but no aberrants ever attacked. But for the MORC to actually have something as amazing as this? I’d never heard of this before. I looked down at Jiang Xiaotian. He was frowning but kept silent. I couldn’t tell if he hadn’t heard of it before either, or if he simply didn’t want to talk in front of these people.

I intentionally mumbled out loud, “It’s only been four months into the apocalypse. There’s no way this place could have been built in that time. So what were they researching originally? The lab is buried so deep underground, and the layout doesn’t look like it’s for weapons research.”

The soldiers’ expressions changed, and now suspicion colored their faces.

Someone muttered, “Don’t tell me… the black fog is because of the MORC?”

Bro, you have amazing deductive abilities. It must be thanks to Ah Qing! I gave him a “like” in my heart but kept quiet and left things to their imagination. It was best to turn the MORC into the ultimate final boss, so in the future I might not even need to be the one to take down this research center.

“I’m going to check that place out. Come or don’t come, I don’t really care.”

I memorized the route. Along the way, you had to pass through a large part of the research center. If I encountered Chen Yanqing and the others, then I’d save whoever I could. If not… there probably wasn’t anyone left alive. After all, the exit was this way. If they were forced to flee in the opposite direction, then they must have been in an awful spot.

The second lieutenant said irritably, “You really don’t have the slightest bit of discipline. The most important thing in a group mission is to obey orders. You can’t just go wherever you want!”

“I never was one of your people, so why do I have to obey?” I asked coldly, “I made it out of a city all by myself and have survived up to now with a child in tow. Hmph, compared to the likes of you, I’d rather trust myself!”

With that, I turned and left. I couldn’t be bothered to debate this any further with them. I was better off finding out the MORC’s secret and then legging it out of here!

A research center of this size being reduced to this state by its experiments? It was probably close to impossible for the experiments that had gotten out to pull off something like this, so there had to be something even more dangerous inside. But I had no way of knowing if it had gotten away or if it had stayed behind. But in any case, I shouldn’t stay too long.

I wielded a gun in one hand and crafted an ice dagger in the other, then looked back at Jiang Xiaotian. He had been following quietly behind me all this time. The soldiers were so far behind him in quality that you could fit eight whole cities between them!

Time to set off…

“Wait!”

I took in a deep breath to calm myself. These were the leftovers, so I mustn’t have overly high expectations. I turned around and said expressionlessly, “You have ten seconds to talk. I’m starting the countdown now. Ten, nine…”

The second lieutenant’s face stiffened.

“Six… five…”

Blackie immediately shouted, “We’re going with you!”

I shrugged, and waggled my gun toward the front and said, “Then, lead the way.”

Blackie grated between ground teeth, “Do you have to be so fucking harsh and use us to clear the path for you?”

I didn’t answer his question and asked instead, “Do you know how old I am?”

Blackie stared at my face and hazarded, “Twenty three? Four?”

I almost gave an angry snort of laughter. You sure are good at lying to yourself to think that a face like Jiang Shuyu’s is over twenty!

“Eighteen.”

Silence. Not a single person raised any more objections to leading the way and the soldiers shuffled themselves into formation. Just as the second lieutenant shouted, “Move out!” gunfire rang out in the distance.

Dammit, plans always lag behind changes! I shouted, “Go toward the sounds of gunfire, quick!”

The whole group started running, and I quickly reminded them, “Watch your surroundings. It’s too dark in here. Don’t go exploring by yourself. You have to move in groups of four. If there aren’t enough people, the others should make up for the short fall! Everyone, remember the two people on either side of you and don’t lose anybody.”

Our advancement immediately slowed down, but this couldn’t be avoided. The lights here were damaged much worse than in the hall, throwing our surroundings into even deeper shadows. The area that could be lit up by a torch was simply too small, and the moment someone slipped up, well, forget not being able to save people, the whole group might even pay the price for that mistake. After all, the people who were trapped here were the top troops, while we were the leftovers!

Along the way, I glanced back to check on Jiang Xiaotian. I only relaxed when I saw that he was able to keep pace, but his expression was strange. It was almost like he couldn’t recognize me, and this made me a little anxious.

“Jiang Shuyu” certainly had no way of ordering around troops from the get go, but Guan Weijun was different. At the start of the apocalypse, I had probably acted as a leader more often than Xia Zhengu. That brainless dolt always got hurt partway through missions and was rarely able to pull off a successful retreat.

As his girlfriend, carrying her heavily wounded boyfriend on her back, there wasn’t anything I could contribute except to issue orders. And as time went on, some of my comrades became used to the commanders changing partway through missions, and some even started agreeing with my plans at the start and objecting to Xia Zhengu’s suicidal plans.

Come to think of it, it was probably because me saving his butt and my leadership experience at the beginning of the apocalypse that stayed Xia Zhengu’s hand from actually killing me. Doing so would risk alienating our comrades… and scaring the wits out of the women he had as well.

I had so many people standing on my side, from our old comrades to the women he had had. If I hadn’t given up on myself because of my boyfriend cheating left, right, and center; if I hadn’t given up on training because my special ability was useless enhanced vision and worked to raise my actual combat prowess; if I had put up a fight, I might have been the one to kill off Xia Zhengu. What a pity!

I’ll never do anything that I’ll regret in this life! I’ll bust my ass to get money to buy a house… Oh wait, I mean, train myself, protect my family, and have kids!

There was a sudden tug at my pants. I turned to look at Jiang Xiaotian. He said just one word: “Listen.”

I froze and pricked up my ears. There was a very soft sound, and it was growing louder and louder. The others seemed to have noticed it as well.

“Is that a cat?” some of the soldiers looked bewildered, but not one of them looked scared.

“It’s the sound of a baby crying,” I said calmly, “It’s probably bait. Just ignore it. Keep going forward.”

One soldier growled, “They were experimenting on babies?”

That was a female soldier, but she looked even buffer and darker than Yunqian. I hadn’t even noticed her gender until just now.

I hurried them, “Keep going!”

The female soldier had a sour look on her face, visibly reluctant to leave. The second lieutenant too frowned and said, “We have a duty to protect civilians.”

Right, that sure is a good duty. Then, why is it that soon enough the military will become a terrifying cancer among humans? Were you guys driven to insanity by the apocalypse, or is there something going on behind the scenes, something that ordinary people like Guan Weijun had no way of knowing?

But that would come later. The soldiers in front of me were pretty gung ho, and they even knew to protect ordinary citizens. They were a true rarity. I sucked in a deep breath and said, “Let’s first meet up with Ah Qing. Every extra body we have is more power to us, and they’re the ones who know what we’re facing. We need them, whether it’s to retreat or to rescue people.”

Hearing that, everyone calmed down. Amidst the sound of a baby’s crying, we forged on. With every step we took, people’s expressions darkened. This was because the sound of the baby’s crying wasn’t growing fainter with distance, but becoming increasingly clearer, like it was crying right next to your ear. The crystal clear and pervasive sound was giving everyone the chills.

Although I didn’t know what was going on, I was positive that no one would ever mention needing to rescue any babies again.

I stopped and looked around. Amidst the bone-chilling cries of the baby, there was a soft yell. I knew what I had heard, but because it was too dark and I didn’t know the soldiers very well, I couldn’t tell who was doing the yelling. So I could only call out, “Look around you, is anyone missing?”

Everyone immediately checked, and then the soldier at the very back gasped, “The guy on my right’s gone! H-he was just there a moment ago!”

I snatched a torch from a soldier next to me and shone the light around. There weren’t any open doors on either side of the room, so I reflexively flicked the light at the ceiling. Without any warning, a huge shadow appeared before my eyes.

Not caring to figure out what that was, the soldiers opened fire while roaring angrily.

“Shuyu, blood!” Jiang Xiaotian screamed.

I threw my hands in the air, crafting a huge piece of transparent ice, and shouted at the same time, “Get to a wall!”

Blood showered down. Most of it struck the ice and started making corrosive sounds. I hastily followed my own orders and flattened myself against the wall, then flung aside the layer of ice. The blood, mixed in with the ice melt, showered onto the ground, and continued to make the sounds of acid eating into the ground.

Thank god we had Jiang Xiaotian’s warning; otherwise, this shower of blood from above would have cut our numbers by a third.

In that instant, something black dropped to the ground with a plonk. If not for the fact that everyone’s torches lit up the silhouette of a soldier, everyone would probably have started firing like crazy once more.

I shone the light at the ceiling once more. That black shadow was gone. The attack just now wasn’t enough to finish it off, but it might be a good thing that it got away. Things with blood that could damage people were very tricky, and if we didn’t do a proper job when attacking it, we might hurt ourselves as well. We were better off not fighting it.

I crouched down and flipped the soldier to face up. Half his face was missing, and his head down to his shoulder had been corroded to the point where his bones and some reddish-white stuff underneath were showing. Worse, the corrosion was continuing to eat into him. He gurgled and his body twitched.

Seeing his injuries, I drew an ice blade out of the air and stabbed it into his brain.

When I stood up, I looked up just in time to meet the incredulous gaze the second lieutenant had leveled at me.

“You killed one of our men! Just because he was injured? We could have taken him to the medics. All we needed to do was just take a lift!” The second lieutenant rushed up to grab my collar. I gripped his hand, and the chilly rush of energy forced him to let go. Still, he glowered hard at me.

“Fuck the medics!” I hollered, “You think he can still live?! Look at him, I’m telling you to take a good look at his face and neck! And those bullet wounds on his body! Who was the one who fucking killed him, huh?!”

The second lieutenant jolted and fell silent when he looked down.

The soldier’s face was corroded right to his skull, and half his neck was gone, revealing his trachea. Quite a few bullet holes dotted his body, the result of the soldiers firing at the ceiling just now. No matter what, he wouldn’t last more than a few minutes, so he was better off being put to rest than experiencing another few agonizing minutes where he wanted to die.

I looked around and growled, “If anyone wants to be an idiot again, I’m ditching your asses hard. Otherwise, I don’t know who’s going to be the one to kill me!”

When they saw what had happened to their comrade, the soldiers were all shocked, and looks of shame flashed across their faces. It was only when I saw that that I breathed a sigh of relief. Honestly, given that they haven’t had much experience fighting aberrants, there was no way they would know much about how messed up things could be. But I had no choice but to whip them into shape, or else I really might end up dying at their hands. After all, I hadn’t trained to the point where I was impervious to guns and knives!

Gunfire sounded off in the distance again, a few shots followed by silence. I frowned. Something was off. A few bullets simply weren’t enough when you were going against an aberrant or an experiment, and would instead only serve to draw more of them to you.

“Xiao Yu, we better hurry!” Blackie said anxiously, “The Lieutenant and the others could be in danger!”

 

Chapter 4: The Laboratory, Part Two—translated by Elkin (proofread by Arcedemius & EvlNabiki; C/E edited by lucathia)

However, I just stayed right where I was and said, “That sounds like a trap. When you guys saw that monster just now, you fired off so many rounds and still weren’t able to take it down. So what are those few shots gonna achieve? I can’t think of any reason for doing that other than to bait us over there.”

When he heard that, the second lieutenant’s face darkened and he asked, “Then what now?”

How should I know?! Guan Weijun had at most snuck into a marketplace or a warehouse. She’d never broken into somewhere as high security as this place. This was a freaking secret laboratory full of aberrant experiments. If this had happened in my previous life, I’d have rather put a bullet in my own head than to come to a place like this. There were a million ways to die here.

I looked down at Jiang Xiaotian. The Ice Emperor was definitely the person with the most experience in breaking into places like this.

Jiang Xiaotian chuckled. “I wanted to see how far you could get. Are you throwing in the towel so quickly?”

“I’m still new at this.” I didn’t mind asking him. There was nothing shameful about asking the Ice Emperor for help. In my previous life, forget about hugging the Ice Emperor’s leg to beg for help, I had never seen hide nor hair of him except from afar, so since I had the opportunity to hug the entire person, I had to make the most of it.

“Judging from the situation, the computer system isn’t completely down. Send most of the troop ahead to scout, while we sneak into the control center. From there, we should have access to most of the security feeds in the lab.”

Then, Jiang Xiaotian pointed at Blackie and said, “Take this guy along with you. He should be an information technology specialist, so you can let him handle any repairs.”

Everyone stared at Jiang Xiaotian like they had seen a ghost. I couldn’t be bothered to help cover up for him anymore, so I just said, “So that’s that. My Xiaotian knows best. You guys keep going ahead, but don’t move too quickly, or else I won’t be able to inform you guys in time if we discover something.”

I beckoned at Blackie and said, “Come on, Blackie.”

Stunned, the second lieutenant exclaimed, “Wait a sec, how can you just go? If there’s danger ahead…”

“If there’s danger ahead, you seriously need me to protect you guys?” I glared and snapped, “What the fuck, guys?! Thirty soldiers aren’t as good as a kid, a university student, and one soldier? Calm down and don’t fucking panic. None of the existing aberrants can just brush off shots from thirty guns. The only thing you need to know to deal with them is this—blast their brains apart from far away. That’s all you need to do!”

Finished with my tirade, I ignored them, turned my back on them, and left. Even if Blackie didn’t come with me, it didn’t matter. I’d save who I could, and if I couldn’t, abandoning them wouldn’t make me feel a shred of guilt!

“A-aberrant?” came the mumble from the second lieutenant, and only then did I realize I had accidentally let slip the term. Whatever, even if they found out, it wasn’t a big deal. Soon enough, this word would become commonplace.

Blackie ended up coming along. He asked, “Xiao Yu, can you really take me to the control center all by yourself? The first thing the Lieutenant would have done is to order some IT specialists to head over there first. Of course, he’d send a couple of good men as well, to prevent the IT specialists from being killed off.”

Here, he threw Jiang Xiaotian a look of alarm and suspicion.

I said irritably, “Well, your second lieutenant wanted me to protect thirty soldiers. So what do you think?”

Blackie looked back to his far away comrades and said with embarrassment, “Yeah, we’re really not up to scratch. Everyone’s scared shitless by the attack just now, and without someone to command us, we don’t know what to do. If the Lieutenant or Ah Nuo were here, or even, or even Ah Qing would do, we wouldn’t be like this. Believe me! That second lieutenant’s just a boot, fresh out of military school, so his head’s crammed full of textbooks, and he’s hopeless in actual combat.”

I gave him a look, then shook my head and sighed, “You guys can even follow Ah Qing? You really have no standards.”

“…” Blackie bit the bullet and tried to explain, “Don’t get fooled by Ah Qing’s character. He’s really strong when he’s serious. Have you ever seen semi-automatic firing with machine guns? He can bust a head with every bullet he fires. He doesn’t fuck around!”

Now you make me want to take him with me again… Maybe that Ah Qing is really quite the good souvenir? I can definitely try when it’s time for me to leave.

“The control room is this way. I was keeping an eye out for it.” Blackie pointed at one of the corridors, and then added awkwardly, “I should’ve suggested to go there right at the start. I just didn’t get around to saying it ‘cause I’m used to listening to the Lieutenant’s orders.”

I glanced Blackie over. This one isn’t half bad either. What to do? I want to take everyone with me. Is it really okay for me to be so happily picking from the Lieutenant’s men?

Jiang Xiaotian spoke up. “Shuyu, we need to find another escape route in the control room. From the looks of things, those experiments probably intentionally kept the elevator running, to draw people down here to their deaths.”

I looked down at Jiang Xiaotian. Those gun shots did feel like they were fired to draw attention, but I still found it hard to believe. Are these things humans or aberrants? Humans haven’t evolved to be that strong, while aberrants aren’t that smart yet.

He continued, “The experiments that got out shouldn’t have the ability to decimate this lab. There has to be a leader, and he’s probably quite powerful. Seeing as how the top troops have been trapped here, that guy is probably still around and didn’t escape with the other experiments.”

“So I have no chance of victory?” I was a bit despondent. Don’t tell me that ascending to tier two this quickly still isn’t enough?

Jiang Xiaotian looked up at me and said, “I don’t know if you can win, but it’s only five months or so into the apocalypse. He can’t be strong enough to overturn this research center by himself, so there must be some other experiments under him obeying his commands. As for you, you only have disobedient soldiers with zero combat experience against aberrants. So what do you think?”

“Hold it there!” Blackie said quickly, “We’re listening to you already. I mean, aren’t I coming along with you?”

Jiang Xiaotian glanced at him and asked, “If I told you to take a gun and lead the charge against a group of aberrants, would you?”

Blackie stared at the three year old, his dark face growing darker by the moment. You couldn’t really blame him, though. If an average person was told to obey a three year old, it was hardly unusual to be very hesitant to do so. Of course, if this was toward the later stages of the apocalypse, then the commander could take the form of anything.

Jiang Xiaotian ignored Blackie and said directly to me, “Go to the control room, find the Lieutenant or the Ah Nuo he’s talking about. If you can get them to listen to you, then they can contribute in a fight. If we can’t locate them, then we’re looking for an escape route and leaving immediately. Blackie can go find his own crew to let them know that they should leave, too.”

“So it isn’t enough to find Ah Qing?” I was pretty sure I had a way of making Ah Qing listen to me, but as for the Lieutenant and Ah Nuo, I really wasn’t that close with them. It wouldn’t be easy getting them to entrust the lives of a whole troop to a teenage boy they barely knew.

“A guy who’s rated as ‘even Ah Qing would do’ probably has the same leadership abilities as you do, so he’s no use even if we do locate him.”

I secretly shed a tear of sympathy. Poor Ah Qing, being rated as useless so quickly.

I suddenly stepped on something soft. This sensation… I shone the light down and lifted my foot, revealing a hand in military green clothing. Although it was soaked in blood, I could still make out that it was a military uniform.

I heard a short sharp breath being sucked in to one side. Blackie was staring at the hand in alarm, but then he relaxed and said, “No, that’s not one of ours.”

I asked in confusion, “Not one of yours?” Is the shock so much that you can’t think of him as one of your own?

Blackie nodded and gestured toward the upper part of the severed hand, remarking, “Look. Even though they look alike, the sleeve and buttons are different. This isn’t an official soldier, so it’s probably the private army.”

“Like mercenaries?” Jiang Xiaotian asked in a thoughtful tone of voice, “Even if you are only responsible for guarding the outside, you still need people on the inside. This is even more the case if we take into account the missing people mentioned in the letter. You can’t possibly keep asking researchers to be the ones to abduct people, so if this wasn’t done by the military, then it has to be done by the private army owned by the MORC.”

“Letter?” Blackie stared at Jiang Xiaotian blankly.

He was right. The letter left behind by Dàgē did mention the mysterious disappearances among the people entering the refugee zone. Did they turn into the experiments? Just seeing the news about Junjun was a huge shock, and the only thing on my mind at the time was my worry about my Xiǎomèi. So the fact that other people had gone missing had completely gone over my head.

“Shuyu, we should hurry. Prepare yourself for combat.” Jiang Xiaotian frowned and said, “It might not be safe in the control center.”

I nodded and armed myself with the same combination of a handgun in one hand and an ice dagger in the other. But what I really wanted was my ice stave, even if it didn’t have a spear head. Perhaps Xiaotian’s worries were correct. I didn’t even have a convenient weapon at hand, so perhaps I was being a bit unrealistic in thinking that I could go toe-to-toe with a large group of experiments.

The three of us picked up our pace. We didn’t see any irregularities along the way, and finally our footsteps brought us to a large, transparent corridor with glass walls on either side. Of course, most of the corridor was missing the sheets of glass, and the only things left of them were the shattered shards littering the floor.

This was the lab. I’d wanted to come here from the very beginning but gave up on it after hearing the gunshots. But as it turned out, we needed to pass through this place on the way to the control center anyway.

Even though we needed to leave ASAP, we unconsciously slowed our steps. The sight before us was just too shocking. Although we’d seen countless scenes of human experiments in movies, it was a completely different experience when you were actually stepping into a place like this.

The most unbearable thing wasn’t the sight, but the smell. The intense smell of disinfectant made me want to rip off my nose, but it still wasn’t enough to mask the metallic tang of blood. The smells of fresh and rotting blood had mixed together, and the putrid mix of all these stenches was just absolutely indescribable.

Next was the sound. As we stepped on the glass and jumble of liquids, the crunching reverberated through the silent laboratory. It felt like we were going to draw the attention of something at any moment, and as much as we wanted to stop, we had no choice but to forge on.

Last but not least was the sight. This place was brighter than the corridor just now. It was originally probably as bright as day, but with half the lights smashed and some of the remainder flashing on and off, the flickering between light and dark was enough to drive one crazy with the fear that the next time the lights came back on, something would appear where there was nothing before.

Corpses were everywhere. Most of them could only count as pieces of corpses, scattered everywhere across the table, the floor, and even draped on various pieces of equipment. We had everything from severed limbs, to skeletons, to organs. Large quantities of blood had been sprayed against the wall as well, turning the originally pristine, snow white surface into a bloody mess of graffiti.

Blackie couldn’t help but clap a hand to his mouth at the surrounding scene. He didn’t dare to say a word. Then again, if he breathed in the air in here while opening his mouth to say something, the soldier just might dash off to find a corner to vomit into.

But Guan Weijun had lived for over a decade in the apocalypse. No amount of corpses in any shape or form could scare me. Except for those in the glass cylinders.

All the surrounding individual test labs had lots of transparent glass cylinders. Each cylinder held a corpse, or at least what I thought was a corpse. Although they had lots of tubes connected to them, given that they hadn’t come crawling out already, they were probably dead.

The corpses came in all shapes and sizes. Some had transparent skin and muscle, with veins and organs clearly visible underneath. Another corpse had completely turned into a mass of tentacles from head to toe, enough to outnumber the number of tentacles that any jellyfish or squid had any right to have. But the most disgusting corpse was one of a girl. She was completely naked, with beautiful facial features and a fine body. Unfortunately, she had a few too many faces, with as many as thirty faces covering her body.

Blackie trembled as he said softly, “W-what the fuck did they do?”

Sigh, they made the spectacle that you are seeing in front of you.

I lowered my head and asked, “Dàgē, are these aberrants?”

Although they looked disgusting, and they didn’t look like they had evolved properly, you could link just about every one of them to a similar aberrant. For example, the transparent guy would eventually become completely transparent, and could even change shapes, and would specialize in engulfing its prey to dissolve and digest. Furthermore, it wasn’t a picky eater and wouldn’t turn its nose up at eating even car tires.

An originally terrifying species, but perhaps because their brains became transparent, whatever wits they had also vanished. And when you tagged on the fact that they ate anything they came across, they simply wouldn’t starve and didn’t have to try hard to scavenge for food. So whether it was a human or an aberrant that got engulfed by one, you only had to struggle very hard to break free.

Later on, some bored folks even started treating it like a pet. In any case, it ate whatever you fed it, making it easy to raise, and some people even started calling it “glasster.”

Jiang Xiaotian said flatly, “Dead humans become aberrants, so does it really matter whether they’re humans or aberrants?”

True. If you want an aberrant, all you have to do is kill a human.

“What do they want to achieve?” I didn’t understand. Aren’t there enough weird and strange aberrants already? What’s the point of creating even more weird and strange things?

Jiang Xiaotian said frigidly, “What I want to know is whether they made these before or after the 21st of June.”

A chill ran down my spine. This was very critical. A lab wasn’t something you could just build off the cuff. If they weren’t originally doing experiments like this, where would they even find facilities like this, once the apocalypse arrived? Were those glass cylinders originally used for storing specimens? What about those tubes? Were they for making glow sticks?

“What are you talking about?” Blackie asked pitifully, “I don’t get what you’re saying at all. D-do we still need to go to the control center?”

Just as I was about to reply, “Of course,” Jiang Xiaotian suddenly sprinted off, charging into one of the test labs. He then glared at one of the glass cylinders. Or to be more precise, he glared at the monitor above the cylinder. The cylinder had been broken and whatever had been in it was long gone.

“Dàgē, what’s wrong?”

I ignored the startled Blackie and walked in to join him. This test lab was larger than the others, and the equipment looked more sophisticated and complicated. It was probably the main test lab.

I was about to resume my questioning as I walked up to Jiang Xiaotian’s side, but instead, my heart leapt to my throat. That little face of his was twisted into a demonic mask of fury!

“It’s him!” he raged through grated teeth, “Thirteen!”

I froze, instantly understanding who Jiang Xiaotian was talking about. Even if my memory for names was terrible, this name was one that struck fear in the heart of every Asian. The only Asian elite aberrant, he had a name that was not a name—Thirteen.

Thirteen had committed countless massacres in Asia, and he only ever targeted humans, completely disregarding plants and animals. It was to the point where it was almost like he killed humans on sight. Even if his subordinates were so full that they couldn’t fit in another mouthful, they still faithfully slaughtered humans. No one knew why Thirteen hated humans so much… All right, I think I might have found the answer today.

If I had been caught and stuck in a glass cylinder to be an experiment, I probably would kill humans on sight once I got out as well.

Jiang Xiaotian gazed at the monitor that was currently displaying information about the experiment in the glass cylinder. The top left serial number was 013. So Thirteen was his experiment number?

On the monitor was a long humanoid form, looking no different from an ordinary human being. He looked like a man of around thirty years old, but he had a tail that was as thick and scaly as a dinosaur’s. It probably packed a punch and could be used as a weapon.

Jiang Xiaotian gripped my arm and said, “Shuyu, let’s go! We have to find him!”

My face drained as white as a corpse on hearing that. Hey, hey, hey, Dàgē, that’s the guy that made humanity skip the number thirteen when counting. He’s even scarier than the four of death or the 666 of Satan, and you’re asking me to find him?

“Why?” You can at least give an explanation of why you’re sending someone off to his death, right?

“He killed my men!” Jiang Xiaotian roared, “Xiao Sha ran into him when he was taking the troop out with him, and all of them died! More than twenty good men eaten clean. We didn’t even have enough parts to piece together one whole corpse.”

My mind blanked. Xiao Sha died? “The Xiao Sha here is still well and alive, Dàgē.”

“My Xiao Sha’s dead!”

So he does know that this is a different world? I kept quiet. If Xiao Sha is already dead to Jiang Xiaotian, then what about Jiang Shuyu? No, rather, what about the entire Jiang family?

Jiang Xiaotian was so outraged that he didn’t notice his verbal slip. He stared at me, his eyes blazing with anger, and said, “Shuyu, all the twenty-odd crew of mine were eaten. Only Xiao Sha was left whole. He turned into an aberrant, and was shut in a cage by Thirteen as a pet. He wasn’t even a subordinate, but a pet!”

No wonder Jiang Xiaotian went crazy when he saw Thirteen. Dàgē cared a great deal about his godly troop, and he was already being very rational by not charging into the aberrant camp to fight Thirteen to the death, having seen Xiao Sha reduced to a pet.

“Okay, kill Thirteen.” I gave a simple nod of the head. I was already planning to duke it out, if not for Jiang Xiaotian stopping me earlier. And since he absolutely wanted me to fight now, then I’d fight!

Furthermore, far too many Asians had died at the hands of Thirteen in the apocalyptic world. If not for Thirteen and the aberrants he led, another hundred thousand people would still be living in Asia. And this number was a conservative estimate!

In the other world, Thirteen had established the aberrant camp, and was so powerful that even though the Ice Emperor hated his guts, he had no way of getting revenge for Xiao Sha. The current Thirteen here wasn’t an elite. Now that we had the opportunity, we had to kill him!





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