After receiving the photos, the Technical Department began expediting Bai Chunian’s request. The department’s technicians are divided into three teams: Team A handles routine maintenance and daily operations in an orderly manner; Team B specializes in handling emergencies; and Team C is responsible for monitoring the status of every agent on field missions.
After Bai Chunian sent the photos back, Team C received them and forwarded them to Team B.
The Technical Department’s most elite personnel were all concentrated in Group B. Group B members usually had a light workload—not as heavy as that of technicians in other groups—and often had little to do, passing the time by playing games or watching anime. But whenever they were called upon, whether day or night, on a workday or a holiday, they had to immediately turn on their computers and get to work—even if they were in the middle of using the restroom.
Team B’s leader, Duan Yang, received an urgent notification. He walked out of the break room holding a cup of coffee, stretched, yawned, and headed toward his workstation.
But the Crawler was already sitting at his computer, having opened the test subject’s automatic recognition program, which was currently adjusting the photo’s clarity.
If anyone else had dared to enter Duan Yang’s private office without permission and tamper with his computer, Duan Yang would have snapped at them on the spot. But seeing the cute little Crawler sitting there, he wasn’t the least bit angry—he had even personally given the Crawler permission to use his office anytime. Still, the Crawler was only interested in the machines in his office; his setup was the absolute top-of-the-line in the entire IOA tech department.
The little reptile has become a huge hit in the IOA Technical Department. The technicians, who spend most of their time holed up in those two buildings, rarely get to see other Omegas—let alone a cute little reptile—so they’ve all flocked to him. The Special Operations Unit is also considering whether to promote the reptile to a full-fledged IOA agent and assign him to the Technical Department.
However, compared to the Investigation Division, the bar for the Technical Department is only higher, not lower. In addition to requiring top-notch technical skills, one’s identity must undergo rigorous vetting, as the internal data within the Technical Department is critical to the entire IOA’s operations and is not easily accessible to outsiders. The Crawler’s identity is a major issue; as Test Subject 6010 “Hacker,” passing the background check will be extremely difficult.
“Aileen has dispatched five A3-class elite test subjects to support the pharmaceutical factory; Bai Chunian is surrounded.” Crawler glanced at Duan Yang, feeling that this Border Collie Alpha didn’t seem as smart as other Border Collies.
With the help of the Omega Crawler, the IOA Technical Department successfully developed a Test Subject Identification System. Its accuracy is nearly on par with the PBB’s military-grade test subject radar; it can compile corresponding test subject data in a short time using even a blurry photo. However, it is still in the internal testing phase and has not yet been rolled out further.
Complementing the test subject identification system was a special weapon identification system, capable of identifying special weapons based on their appearance and the resulting wounds, and compiling the corresponding data.
Duan Yang, mug in hand, leaned over the table from behind the Reptile, resting his elbows on the surface as he stared at the screen. “Two confirmed so far?”
“Yeah. He’s with the Sorcerer—looks like they’ve teamed up for now. Both opponents are Level 7 Mature Specimens, and the other three are nearby. He can’t escape; they came prepared. Sending regular backup won’t help—we’d need to dispatch an A3 agent team. These specimens attacked us at the Shaojin Mansion, killed many of our people, and severely wounded Domino. They’re extremely powerful.”
“Step aside. I’ll figure something out. Hmm? Did you send an email? Who did you send it to?”
“The Demon Envoy. I don’t know if he’s willing to get involved in this mess, but back when we were at the Shaojin Mansion, he always kept a close eye on those two.”
——
Bai Chunian and Eris stood back-to-back, facing pressure from both front and rear. The Velociraptor crawled out of the abyss, raising its severed left hand with a cold smile. In an eerie motion, the twisted, broken fingers snapped back into place one by one, restoring the hand to its original form.
He had used an illusion to make it appear as though he had fallen into the abyss, but in reality, he had clung to the inner rock wall with his other hand, suspending his body in a blind spot of Eris’s vision to await his healing.
The patterns on the blue-black shield facing Bai Chunian suddenly flickered with a rhythmic blue glow. As the light flashed and traced the patterns, the head of a Gorgon gradually materialized at the shield’s center.
Bai Chunian caught the scent of rust in the air—it contained J1-level pheromones.
“This strange shield is activating its abilities,” Bai Chunian murmured.
Eris saw the same blue light emanating from the Velociraptor in the distance. A pale blue, translucent oval-shaped light shield floated around it, moving in tandem with the Velociraptor’s movements.
“Oh… doesn’t that make it even tougher now!” Eris raised her shotgun and fired repeatedly at the Velociraptor as it charged forward in an S-shaped pattern.
The shotgun’s staccato bursts exploded at the turning points of the Velociraptor’s S-shaped charge. The Velociraptor weaved to avoid three rounds, then charged straight toward Eris to meet the final shot.
Eris was well aware of his weapon’s damage potential. At this close range, a direct hit from the shotgun would cause even a test subject to freeze for nearly three seconds. If he could counterattack while the Velociraptor’s movement and vision were impaired by the pellets, he could turn the tide of the battle.
But things did not unfold as he had anticipated. The bullets were deflected by a seemingly ethereal yet incredibly hard light barrier. After several shots struck it, the barrier shattered, leaving the Velociraptor unscathed. its feet pounding two deep pits into the ground. Its long tail swept out with lightning speed and tremendous force, striking Eris in the right ribs. His body felt as though it had been swept into a hurricane, torn and hurled through the air, crashing heavily into the damp wall of the factory. The wall cracked open, forming a massive gash where Eris’s body had struck.
Eris struggled to pull his body free from the wall. In the blink of an eye, the Velociraptor had leaped in front of him. Eris raised his gun and fired, but another force field appeared around the Velociraptor, deflecting his bullet. The Velociraptor’s movement remained unimpeded as it delivered a powerful kick.
In that split second, Eris used the Curse Thread to link himself to the Velociraptor, taking the kick head-on. The blow was truly ferocious; the cracked wall behind Eris shattered and collapsed under the impact, and a large chunk of his ceramic body shattered as he let out a pained groan.
The Velociraptor, connected by the cursed thread, should have suffered the same damage as Eris at the same time, but was fully protected by a transparent light barrier. The barrier shattered, yet the Velociraptor remained unharmed by the damage transmitted through the cursed thread.
The shield’s power was even greater than imagined; it could even block indirect damage.
On Bai Chunian’s side, he felt the pressure emanating from the shield, as if a ten-thousand-ton weight were descending inch by inch above his head.
“Damn, this shield is such a nuisance…” Eris, leaning on his shattered, crumbling body, returned to Bai Chunian’s side. He appeared to have expended a great deal of energy, but once Eris stood beside him, the two found it somewhat easier to withstand the pressure exerted by the shield together.
The Velociraptor found another tricky angle to attack from. Eris’s gun barrel followed the Velociraptor’s movements all the way until he turned around and the barrel came close to Bai Chunian. Bai Chunian, on high alert, grabbed the muzzle of his gun.
“???” Caught off guard and his aim disrupted, Eris was struck by the Velociraptor’s tail as it swept in. He had no choice but to hoist himself up with the Curse Thread to dodge, and the two were separated once more. Bai Chunian was forced to bend his knees under the shield’s crushing weight, nearly collapsing to his knees.
Eris froze for a moment before suddenly losing his temper. He raised his shotgun and shouted at Bai Chunian: “What the hell are you doing? Why the hell did you shoot me?! F***!”
It was only then that Bai Chunian realized Eris hadn’t intended to ambush him; it was his own habitual suspicion. With no trust between them, it would be difficult to join forces and face external threats together.
“I can’t leave. None of us can disobey Aileen’s orders… Please obliterate me. Let me vanish.”
If the other party willingly submitted to obliteration, even an A3-grade gland could be reduced to a glass bead in Bai Chunian’s hands.
Bai Chunian suddenly realized that the cursed thread wrapped around his waist had come loose; the golden thread had now wrapped itself around the Shield of Athena. Several coils of golden thread encircled the dark-blue ancient Greek shield, which floated in the dim sky, radiating a certain sacred radiance.
The other end of the golden thread was flying toward the Velociraptor, which had been cornered by Eris.
“Wait! Don’t kill her!” Bai Chunian shouted, turning around.
Eris, however, cared not a whit whether his opponent was innocent. He drew the Puppeteer’s Sacred Spring, inserted it into the nape of his neck, and wound it tightly twice. Gripping the bone dagger he’d torn from his calf, he leaped from the heights, channeling all his strength into his arms as the sharp blade plunged forcefully into the gland of the Athena Shield.
The Sacred Winding of the Summoned Beast amplified the Summoner’s entire body by 300% to 600%. Even Bai Chunian couldn’t have fully withstood this strike head-on, even with the Summoned Beast’s enhancement.
In its Sacred Mirror state, the Athena Shield was unable to use any other differentiation abilities, let alone protect the Velociraptor. The snow-white ceramic long bone plunged directly into the shield’s gland. Starting from the gland, cracks and golden light spread across the entire human spine embedded in the shield.
Golden light spattered in all directions. The glands were the first to explode into a cloud of blood mist, and the scent of rust-tinged pheromones filled the air. The shield’s surface cracked, and the incessant crackling of its internal fragments could be heard as the fissures grew deeper and more intricate.
At the same moment, the nuchal glands of the Velociraptor—whose neck was bound by the other end of the cursed golden thread—also erupted in a spray of blood. Screaming, it spat blood and collapsed to the ground, its limbs twisting grotesquely as joints throughout its body snapped apart.
With a deafening explosion, the Athena Shield finally shattered into pieces. Blue steel fragments scattered through the air, and two translucent blue shields slowly rose from beneath Bai Chunian and Eris’s feet, shielding them from the sharp shards.
Leaning against the warm shield, Bai Chunian looked up at the debris of the Athena Shield scattering to the four corners of the sky, a sense of helplessness rising sluggishly from his heart.
If she were to be annihilated, her soul would surely be utterly pure.
“I told you not to kill her.”
“ “Why didn’t you kill her? I eliminate anything that threatens Nyx.” Eris felt no remorse for her actions. She found an eave to sit on, dangling her legs in the air as she swung them back and forth leisurely. Whistling casually, she lifted her shinbone to inspect the cracks on it; fortunately, the spot where the dollmaker’s signature was engraved hadn’t been worn away.
The Velociraptor’s mangled body lay nearby, still emitting faint breaths.
“You’re not dead yet, are you?” Eris raised his hand and plunged the bone knife into the creature’s nape gland, twisting it forcefully before pulling it out. Blood spattered, splattering onto Eris’s pale, grinning face.
“Three left. So much for the research institute’s star test subject.”
Eris’s ceramic body, which had been shattered, was repairing itself at an accelerated rate driven by the Sacred Spring. Yet his hands and legs trembled slightly; the wounds ached, but he focused solely on mending his torn clothes with cursed golden thread, quietly regaining his strength.
Bai Chunian stared at his battered body.
In the human lexicon, a cursed doll is used to bring about the death of an enemy; people pierce its body with iron nails to pray for the enemy’s misfortune. But he didn’t know if a cursed doll could feel pain—after all, the ceramic from which his body was fired was his skin and flesh.
The rain eased, and the clouds brightened; fine threads of rain washed away the blood-red stains from the roof and balcony.
Bai Chunian walked over and sat side by side with him on the eaves, bending down to pick glass shards from his own body. Pain and exhaustion made him breathe heavily.
The white lion’s tail extended from his body, twisting a leaf from the broad-leaved tree growing within the eaves. The tip of the tail curled around the leaf’s stem, raising it overhead to shield them both from the rain. Rainwater pooled in the center of the leaf, trickling down the tip in a thin stream that dripped onto Eris’s head.
A faint glow began to emerge from the gloomy clouds. A heavy low-pressure system swept in from the horizon, and the inky black clouds gathering there seemed to be tinged with a luminous hue. Gradually, a single cloud began to shimmer with a halo of light, illuminating a small patch of sky as it approached the direction of the playground.
Both of them looked up simultaneously, their senses on high alert.
“I’m out of here.” Bai Chunian was exhausted and didn’t want to get involved in this mess anymore; he shoved his hands in his pockets, stood up, and started to walk away.
Suddenly, a curse thread wrapped itself around his waist.
Eris grabbed the materialized golden thread with one hand while holding a shotgun in the other, the muzzle pressed against his crotch. He flashed a smile and stuck his tongue out at Bai Chunian: “Big bro, you’re not going to leave me behind, are you? Stay and help me protect Nyx.”
“……” Bai Chunian looked at where the gun was pointed and the cursed thread wrapped around his waist, two beads of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
May Day Special
After taking the shape-shifting serum and gaining legs, Lan Bo actually preferred walking in human form on land. Given the pressure on the contact surface due to Earth’s gravity, standing on two feet was much more comfortable than resting on a small piece of fishbone.
Once he got used to his legs, Lan Bo even maintained his human form while soaking in the bathtub—that way, he could enjoy a hot bath. So comfortable (˙?˙)
Before he knew it, he’d been soaking for too long and fell asleep in the tub, only to suddenly slip into the water.
When Bai Chunian came home from work, he heard a commotion coming from the bathroom. He rushed in to find Lan Bo, soaking wet, slumped over the edge of the tub, coughing violently.
Bai Chunian was startled. He rushed over, pulled Lan Bo out, and patted him hard on the back to help him cough up the water that had gone down his windpipe.
Lan Bo coughed until his face turned red. Unable to control his shape-shifting, his legs reverted to a fishtail.
Once Lan Bo had calmed down, Bai Chunian bent down to pick him up, torn between laughter and exasperation: “ “You really are a little treasure. I never would’ve thought a fish could drown in a bathtub.”
Lan Bo wrapped his arms around Bai Chunian’s neck, the tip of his fishtail weakly curling around Bai Chunian’s ankle. As Bai Chunian carried him out of the bathroom, Lan Bo shot an angry glance at the bathtub, then zapped it with electricity, reducing it to ash.
Bai Chunian carried his big wife back to the bedroom, dried her off, and blow-dried her hair. After tidying everything up, he returned to the bathroom to scrub the tub—only to find it had vanished, leaving nothing but a smoking drain on the floor.
Lan Bo crawled across the roof and made his way to the shoe cabinet, where he hooked Bai Chunian’s hand with the tip of his fishtail.
“It’s fine. No need to scrub it. Given our family’s circumstances, something as cheap as a bathtub is definitely a disposable item. My wife is truly amazing.”