The deafening crash of the elevator hitting the ground silenced everyone for a few seconds, then whispers began. The bolder ones peered out, but visibility was limited by the dim light of the emergency lighting. People turned to the supervisor, who had no choice but to grab a flashlight from the emergency cabinet and head toward the elevator shaft to investigate.
In the space of just a few dozen seconds, a similar thunderous crash echoed from another corner of the base. The explosions came one after another—more than a dozen thuds of massive objects hitting the ground—causing people to cover their heads and scream in terror.
Eris pressed her face against the observation deck’s glass, peering down excitedly. “Nix, another elevator’s crashed! Hahahaha, another one!”
The Puppet Master’s calm voice sounded in his ear: “It’s exactly sixty seconds now. All the elevators have crashed, and the entrances and exits of the breeding facility are sealed off. Is Bai Chunian trying to pull off something big? Eris, go down and take a look.”
“Okay.” Eris fired two shotgun rounds at the glass, swept the shards aside with his elbow, and leaped from the thirty-meter-high platform. The cursed golden threads coiling around his wrists wrapped around the support frames and pipes to cushion his fall, allowing him to slide safely to the ground.
Masked by the deafening roar of the falling elevator, the security guards all rushed toward the noise. The researchers had already fallen into chaos; even the two gunshots mixed in went unnoticed.
Eris wanted to find the supervisor who had just gone to the elevator shaft with a flashlight to check on the situation, but it took him time to smash the glass and jump down. By the time he turned his attention back to the elevator shaft, all that remained in front of the blood-stained, tightly closed elevator doors was a still-glowing flashlight and a single leather shoe.
“Ah, when did…” Eris looked around, but there was no sign of the supervisor. “Nix, I lost him… did you see where he went?”
The Puppet Master said helplessly, “Don’t look around while chasing a target.”
“Oh, so what do we do now?” Eris idly tossed the shotgun shell in his hand, flicked it off the barrel, caught it mid-air as it fell, and flicked it back onto the barrel to reload.
“This is probably just the beginning,” ” the Puppet Master said, “Find some clothes, blend into the crowd for now, and see what Bai Chunian is up to.”
People inside the building were scrambling to escape, but the elevators had crashed, and the safety doors in the stairwells were all locked tight. People pounded on the doors, smashed them with fire extinguishers, and pleaded for help from the AI, but to no avail.
“Alright.” Eris used cursed golden threads to force open the elevator doors, stepped over the bodies of researchers who had fallen to their deaths, grabbed a bloodstained white lab coat at random, climbed up the steel cables inside the elevator to a floor crowded with people, pried open the door a crack, and squeezed out.
Just as he made eye contact with the crowd, the elevator doors opened, and two people who had been desperately trying to squeeze inside were pushed in by the crowd surging from behind.
“?? What the hell is going on??” Eris had climbed up using cursed golden threads; there was no elevator inside the doors at all. In an instant, two people fell through, screaming as they plummeted all the way to the bottom.
But this did nothing to stop the frenzied crowd. They packed the elevator shaft so tightly that no one could move. After people began falling to their deaths, those in front shouted, “There’s no elevator inside! “Stop pushing!”
But those behind paid no heed and kept shoving forward. One by one, those at the front were pushed over the edge, until more than a dozen people had fallen. As more and more people shouted “Stop!”, the frantic crowd of survivors gradually calmed down.
Eris took advantage of the chaos to step aside, folding her arms and watching the spectacle. “I didn’t do this. They jumped on their own.”
The Puppet Master chuckled. “Just as I expected. That’s humanity for you—animals who love nothing more than to flaunt their empathy.”
Just then, all the lights suddenly came on.
People hurriedly shielded their eyes to ease the discomfort of the sudden transition from darkness to light, but Eris was unaffected; she looked around, her gun still in her arms.
The speakers installed in each experimental zone emitted a hissing sound, and then a young man’s voice echoed throughout every corner of the breeding facility.
“Ahem, please return to your respective experimental zones and take your seats. Each zone has a screen where you can see me… and your supervisor.”
Eris immediately recognized Bai Chunnian’s voice.
The Puppet Master pondered for a moment: “If he can use the speakers, he’s likely in the control center.”
“Go find him?” Eris was jostled by the chaotic crowd and asked impatiently.
“No, we absolutely must not run into him. Just follow the crowd.”
Eris was pushed to the left by the flow of people, then to the right, until she finally saw the screen in the experimental zone slowly lowering. She struggled to squeeze her way inside; by now, few people were willing to stay in the experimental zone, so it was actually empty and spacious.
The screen lit up, revealing what appeared to be a room. A single desk lamp illuminated a curved desk; everything else was shrouded in darkness.
A tall, slender Alpha walked slowly toward the desk, pulled out a chair, and sat down. He wore a jet-black crystal collar around his neck, his arms were covered in blue patterns, and his snow-white, slightly curled hair fell against his neck. The corners of his lips turned up, occasionally revealing the tip of a fang.
Bai Chunian pressed the speaker button and said, “Dear friends, the game is about to begin. Please return to your seats immediately. You have only twenty seconds. The countdown starts now.”
He snapped his fingers, and the green lights on several culture chambers near the observation deck lit up. One of the test subjects, whose incubation period had ended, twitched slightly. The level of culture fluid in its chamber dropped rapidly; by visual estimation, it would reach zero in just twenty seconds. The researchers knew full well that once the fluid level hit zero, the chamber door would open and the test subject would be released.
This was a centipede test subject in the cultivation phase, bred for venom.
Someone tried to stop the incubation chamber from opening, but to no avail; the chamber was now completely beyond their control.
People screamed as they ran toward the lab area, locking the bulletproof glass doors behind them. Finally, the chaos gradually subsided, and one researcher said tremblingly, “That’s the sound of 9100. It’s the Messenger.”
As soon as those words were spoken, several quick-witted researchers turned pale on the spot. and the remaining researchers recalled the codename. The Divine Messenger was the most unexpected and most tragic experimental subject they had ever handled—from a white lion embryo to a juvenile, it had naturally evolved into a fully mimetic state. Had it not been abandoned after suffering near-fatal injuries during a battle against the Electric Ghost during the headquarters’ selection process, it would undoubtedly be the institute’s most valuable masterpiece at this moment.
In this breeding facility, there was no one who did not know the Divine Messenger.
People stared at the large screen, still shaken. The camera cut to a different angle, revealing that seated around the curved table with Bai Chunian were ten researchers in supervisor uniforms, their hands tightly shackled to the tabletop. Their eyes, filled with terror and tears, were magnified on the screen.
Once everyone had taken their seats, the cultivation chamber of the centipede test subject opened. It smashed through the door and slowly made its way through the experimental zones, leaving a scorched purple trail of corrosion on the floor as it passed, hissing with toxic fumes.
At that moment, all the experimental zones were sealed off. The test subject couldn’t get in for the time being, but the researchers inside couldn’t get out either.
Eris moved to the door and tried it—the bulletproof glass door would no longer open.
Bai Chunian began explaining the rules of the game in a calm, measured tone, his hands resting lightly on the table as he held a deck of cards.
“We’ll draw cards. If your number is higher than mine, you win; if it’s lower, you lose. The winner gets to shoot me once. You’re researchers—perhaps you know where the test subjects’ vital points are.” ” Bai Chunian pulled out a revolver, loaded three bullets into the chamber in front of everyone, then closed the cylinder, shuffled the cards, and placed them on the table. “And the loser will have to come over here and make a choice—pick a punishment they like.”
“Of course, with too many people, the game wouldn’t work, so I’ve invited the managers from each region to draw cards on everyone’s behalf. There are ten managers in total, each representing one of the ten regions. Fair enough, right?”
Bai Chunian finished explaining the rules with a faint smile, shuffled the deck, and handed it to the first manager: “Sir, you go first. Shuffle it before you draw. “You should all be quite familiar with me by now. I don’t have the ability to see through people, so the rules are completely fair.”
The first manager, named Chen Wang, took the deck of cards with trembling hands, his palms already drenched in cold sweat.
Before his promotion, he had been responsible for monitoring the transitional period of young Divine Messengers. At that time, the Divine Messenger had neither a codename nor an ID number; he was still very young, having opened his eyes only a few days prior. Chen Wang had placed several white mice into the incubator to test Bai Chunian’s reaction. As a result, Bai Chunian was so terrified by the large rats that he scrambled and screamed inside the incubator. Hours later, his ears—which had not yet evolved into human ones—and his claws and feet were all bitten to a bloody pulp by the rats. He tossed the severely injured Bai Chunian back to the senior incubator technician, Bai Yansen, ordering him to bring the boy back once he was healed. He spat in disgust, accusing the old technician of ruining a perfectly good embryo.
It was precisely for this reason that, at first, the researchers held little hope for Bai Chunian’s future development.
The supervisor bowed his head in resignation and tremblingly drew a card from the deck. Bai Chunian drew one as well. They turned their cards over simultaneously: Bai Chunian had a 3 of Clubs, while Supervisor Chen Wang had a Queen of Hearts.
“Wow, a lucky start. You’re really in luck.” Bai Chunian pushed the revolver on the table toward him. “Go ahead.”
Manager Chen didn’t dare touch the gun; he cowered, unable to look at Bai Chunian.
Bai Chunian stood up and walked behind him, placing the revolver in his hand, guiding his index finger onto the trigger, then holding his hand and instructing him to press the muzzle against his own temple.
“Where do you want to shoot?” Bai Chunian wrapped his arm around Manager Chen affectionately. “Oh, you’re too scared? I thought you were brave enough to touch a rat. A gun is way easier to handle than that. I’ll teach you.”
Bai Chunian held Manager Chen’s hand and instructed him to lift the collar around his own neck with the muzzle, then pull the trigger, aiming at his windpipe.
Manager Chen closed his eyes in terror.
But the gun didn’t fire; this time, the cylinder hadn’t rotated to the chamber containing a bullet.
“Look at this mess. I’m just lucky.” Bai Chunian scrambled the revolver’s cylinder again and placed it on the table, then pushed the deck of cards toward the second manager with a smile.
The second manager, Jason, clenched his teeth as he took the cards.
He had once placed Bai Chunian in a marksman simulation training chamber, operating a machine gun to test Bai Chunian’s evasion skills and agility. Such training included a ten-minute break every hour to let the test subject catch their breath, but when Bai Chunian had collapsed to rest, Jason restarted the machine gun before the break was up, causing Bai Chunian to be shot in the head by a heavy machine gun round. His skull was reassembled in the recovery zone, and it took three days for the healing process to complete.
“He’s playing for real,” Eris muttered under his breath, inadvertently locking eyes with Bai Chunian’s deep blue pupils on the screen.
“This guy…”
Eris snorted lightly. Although the bulletproof glass couldn’t hold him back, and the centipede test subject crawling around outside wasn’t worth his attention, the air of utter contempt in Bai Chunian’s eyes made him uneasy. He was like a cat that had caught a mouse—in no hurry to kill it, but rather toying with it until they were terrified out of their wits before striking.