The Crow Omega studied Lanbo for a moment, eyes tracing the smooth, translucent merfolk tail that extended from his waist—long fins glimmering like falling blue silk, tapering to a serpentine tip with no caudal fin.
“You’re Lu Yan?” Du Mo squinted, examining Lanbo. “You appear frequently in the kill broadcasts.”
Lanbo met his gaze, hostile and wary, sitting on the windowsill with a look of contempt.
After Lu Yan collected the team members’ kills, the broadcast updated in real time, and Du Mo realized he had misjudged some things—but not enough to fully understand.
The lab door swung open. Lu Yan and Bi Lanxing stepped in first. Bai Chunian glanced back at Du Mo. “Come on, join us.”
Du Mo cast a cautious look at Lanbo on the windowsill. “Make sure he’s secured.”
“Got it.” Bai Chunian extended his hand; Lanbo lowered his electricity output, leaving the windowsill to glide along the metal railing, joining Bai Chunian into the lab.
Inside, the lab was equipped with common hospital instruments. On the east wall stood a glass-doored grid bookshelf. In the middle and right compartments were lab reports, each sealed in transparent ziplock bags. Bai Chunian casually grabbed the middle one, opening it to reveal the cover reading:
Special Operations Weapon 1513: Snake Woman
Inside, the first page contained a few scrawled lines—apparently the examination conclusions for Special Operations Weapon 1513, named Snake Woman.
“Special Operations Weapon 1513 is still in the cultivation phase. Due to forced mating, it developed rigid, violent tendencies, but has now been treated and fully recovered.”
Note: During the cultivation period, the experimental subjects appear physically normal, but their expressive and cognitive abilities are underdeveloped. Signs of destructive tendencies are just beginning to emerge, along with strong predatory instincts and an intense urge to consume, used to replenish glandular energy. This state naturally ends once the subject reaches maturity.
Bai Chunian quickly skimmed the report and picked up the next one to the right. The cover read: Special Operations Weapon 324: Elephant Stealther.
This report was thicker than the previous one because it included a CT scan of the subject.
The scan showed the full skeletal structure of a human Omega, but the eye sockets were twice as large as normal, and the tailbone was long and slightly curled, making it hard to imagine the Omega’s true appearance—it resembled a lizard. The content otherwise wasn’t very different from the previous report.
Bai Chunian laid the reports together and opened his hand toward Du Mo. “Hand it over.”
Du Mo’s mouth twitched. “What?”
“We’re all here for the exam. Since we’re on the same team, sharing intelligence is important.”
“What am I supposed to hand over? Obviously someone’s already been here. You can tell by the dust—every slot of the bookshelf had a report, the rest have been taken.” Du Mo leaned against the shelf, face calm.
Bai Chunian flipped open the previous report. “One CT scan is missing.”
“You took the CT image of the half-human, half-snake skeleton, right? Looks a lot like Lanbo?”
“And your ability is probably to detect life signs within a certain range, not temporary eyes,” Bai Chunian said, tapping the ziplock bag in his hand. “Temporary eyes seem to be the ability of that experimental subject. You deliberately mentioned it to gauge our reaction and figure out if Special Operations Weapon 1513 is Lanbo. Smart thinking—but wrong.”
Du Mo exhaled slightly, unzipped his jacket, and handed Bai Chunian the CT scan he’d hidden.
As Bai Chunian expected, the CT revealed a human upper body connected at the waist to a serpentine tail, resembling the Medusa figure from Greek mythology.
He paused. Even though he was carefully controlling Lu Yan’s kill count, in an exam full of experts, their team shouldn’t have attracted special attention. Lanbo’s appearance was distinctive, but humans with unusual forms were common in this world; merfolk weren’t the most extraordinary.
Bai Chunian recalled the ambush at the library against the No Survivors team: they had collected twelve inhibitors from the corpses. The No Survivors team had twelve members, and they had wiped out the Exploding Head Squad and the Just One Time team. Considering timers on dropped items, about eight inhibitors remained, plus supplies from the fixed ammo boxes. The extra four inhibitors likely came from a team that ran off in the chaos.
“You went to the library?” Bai Chunian asked.
Du Mo looked surprised, then nodded. “How did you know?”
According to exam rules, fixed ammo boxes contained inhibitors, yet the library boxes didn’t. Since Crow had the ability to detect life signs within a range, they probably snatched the inhibitors before other teams arrived. The No Survivors and two other teams arrived too quickly for them to grab more supplies.
“Why risk going to a major loot point like the library without offensive units? You must have had a mission there.” Bai Chunian snapped his fingers. “Third floor, section D?”
Du Mo raised his fine brows. “Yes. Our first task was in the library—disrupt all files in section D on the third floor. Securing mission points was most important to us, so we didn’t immediately search the ammo boxes. Time ran out, so we only took the inhibitors.”
Bai Chunian nodded thoughtfully. “So file C described a half-human, half-snake creature?”
“Right. I thought that’s what the data said,” Du Mo said, glancing at Lanbo. He began to understand the misunderstanding. When they entered the archive, scattered illustrated sheets stood out against the floor covered in white A4 paper. Du Mo had paused briefly to look.
File C:
- Special Operations Weapon ID: 1513
- Name: Snake Woman
- Status: Cultivation-period Alpha
- Appearance: Human upper body, snake tail; can move on land in a straight posture using scales.
- Differentiation Ability: “Temporary Eyes”—Two eyes can detach from their sockets and remain in an unnoticed location. If someone accidentally meets their gaze, a “freezing-like” effect occurs within 30 seconds, gradually petrifying the body. The closer and longer the eye contact, the greater the petrification. Pain is induced to prevent unconsciousness, raising body temperature, which allows Snake Woman to detect position and hunt.
- Research Notes: Lacks olfactory sense. When the eyes are removed, the body loses vision, relying solely on hearing and thermal sensing.
- Last Observed Location: 109 Research Institute