The wild grass in the border uninhabited zone was dried out by the midday sun. The 109 Research Institute stood on a coastal cliff, waves surging behind it, washing over jagged reefs. Sea wind passed through the cavities eroded in the reefs, producing a quiet humming sound.
Seemingly silent and standing still, the research institute appeared calm and undisturbed. Yet hundreds of meters underground, in the ant-nest-like massive structure extending below, the sounds of continuous explosions and machine-gun fire were deeply buried underground.
It turned out Ailian had already set traps inside the office. As soon as Bai Chunian and the others stepped out of the reagent storage room, they were immediately targeted by automatic machine guns extending from the ceiling, aimed at their heads.
There were twenty heavy machine guns, all equipped with automatic thermal tracking systems, giving them no time to react. The moment the gun barrels emerged, they immediately opened fire.
The entire office was illuminated by gunfire. High-speed, dense bullets swept through the room, forcing them to retreat outward, unable to approach the elevator leading to the main reagent storage and the experimental subject cultivation area where Ailian was most likely hiding.
Bai Chunian rolled to the doorway and tried to pull it open to escape, but the door was completely locked. Its material was the same nitrogen carbide composite as the test-strength wall—something even bone steelization could not break through.
Lan Bo did have the ability to physically smash the door open, but he was not fast enough and not as agile as a feline type; he could not dodge the heavy machine gun fire.
They were forced back into the small room of the first reagent storage, but the walls were already showing cracks under sustained machine-gun fire.
The Puppet Master suggested, “Is there any point in dragging this out? We might as well leave. With the prosthetic union factor samples, it won’t be hard to replicate them.”
Bai Chunian sat down, leaning against the wall, resting a hand on his knee in thought. In truth, he wanted to seize enough prosthetic union factor in one go so he would not need to return to IOA again, and could directly leave with Lan Bo to the Caribbean Sea.
Because prosthetic union factor was extremely expensive to produce—each vial cost 6.1 million in material alone. It was also a consumable; one 3 ml dose could only suppress deterioration for thirty days. Even though IOA had immense financial power, how many years could they keep burning resources like this? How could he accept such an unrepayable favor with peace of mind?
Bai Chunian only hoped Ailian had produced enough prosthetic union factor so he and Lan Bo could live a few more carefree years.
He peeked outside, but the bullets seemed to have eyes, furiously shooting toward him and forcing him back again. He sat down and examined the three vials in his hand: “If you’re sure these reagents are real, then you all should leave. There are composition analysis instruments in the main storage. I need to go confirm them.”
The Puppet Master weighed the reagent box. Indeed, he could not distinguish authenticity with the naked eye. Ailian might have deliberately left fake reagents, intending to make them inject them and kill themselves.
“Eris, find a way to pry open the elevator door,” the Puppet Master decided after weighing the risks.
Among the four of them, only Eris was not affected by the machine guns’ thermal tracking. He nimbly dodged the dense bullets and moved to the elevator door, digging his fingers into the seam, trying to force the tightly sealed metal doors apart.
But the door had been specially reinforced. The joint between the two doors was seamless, and Eris could not find a leverage point to exert force.
“It won’t open. It needs a password,” Bai Chunian observed from afar. “I have a decoder, but I can’t get over there. These guns are like they have eyes—too accurate.”
“Give it to me,” the Puppet Master said coldly, taking the decoder.
A cold dragon-ginger lily scent of pheromones spread from his neck as his J1 ability, Chess Piece Substitute, activated. He swapped positions with Eris and instantly appeared at the elevator entrance, while Eris was transferred back beside Bai Chunian.
The Puppet Master pulled out a folding, human-height bulletproof shield from his apron pocket and set it behind him to block thermal detection, then plugged the decoder into the password panel beside the door.
Bai Chunian peeked through the gap and froze. “Damn… how did you even carry that thing in there?”
Eris stared intently at the Puppet Master.
The decoder progress bar steadily filled. At 100%, decoding completed and the panel lit up green, granting access. The elevator doors slowly opened.
However, things did not go as planned. Although the doors opened, the elevator inside had already been destroyed and was not present at the upper level.
“Eris, go scout below,” the Puppet Master raised a flashlight into the dark elevator shaft, trying to gauge its depth. But from within the darkness came faint sticky, writhing sounds. Suddenly, an extremely long, thick, powerful tentacle shot out from the elevator shaft and wrapped around the Puppet Master’s waist, dragging him downward.
It was a gray-white octopus limb.
The Puppet Master’s entire body was dragged down. He grabbed the edge of the elevator with both hands and struggled to climb up, but another tentacle wrapped around his left leg and began exerting force, pulling him downward.
Bai Chunian exclaimed, “Kraken undead summoning body!”
Eris had already rushed out into the rain of bullets the moment the Puppet Master was attacked. His reaction was unprecedentedly fast as he grabbed the Puppet Master’s arm and pulled upward, shouting, “Nyx! Chess Piece Substitute!”
Although the Kraken experimental subject was only M2 level, and the undead summoning body only inherited 70% of its original strength, its massive size and overwhelming power meant that even an A3-level individual would struggle to escape once entangled.
Although Eris also possessed great strength, the one being torn between them was a human. He did not dare exert full force upward, terrified that only a severed arm would remain in his hands.
Half his body leaned into the darkness he despised, inch by inch being dragged toward the abyss. He clung tightly to the Puppet Master, as if someone on the other side were competing with him for light.
The Puppet Master said hoarsely, “Eris, I’m going to be torn apart.”
Eris was startled. In that instant of hesitation, the fabric slipped from his fingers. The Puppet Master fell, dragged into the unfathomable depths by octopus tentacles. Immediately afterward, a ghostly chewing sound came from below, bones and flesh crushed together, producing a grinding, crunching noise.
“Nix—!” Eris roared into the darkness, but all he heard was his own hoarse echo.
Bai Chunian saw Eris’s pupils gradually vanish. The faint green irises receded, leaving only white eyeballs, and black cross-shaped marks formed on their surface—like a deathly, sun-dried teru teru bozu doll.
A violent burst of heather-like pheromones surged outward, forcing even Bai Chunian and Lan Bo back a few steps.
“Feralization phase! He’s worsening!” Bai Chunian shouted. “Lan Bo, kill him—don’t let him fully deteriorate!”
Once a fully mimetic agent-type experimental subject enters deterioration, it inevitably produces catastrophic destructive power. After this fifteen-minute feralization phase passes and full deterioration begins, entering indiscriminate annihilation mode, the situation will be completely uncontrollable.
Lan Bo and Bai Chunian broke through the machine-gun fire. Lan Bo used his fish tail to coil around Eris’s neck and dragged him out of the elevator entrance. Bai Chunian rushed forward with the Dead Sea Heartstone dagger and slammed into Eris, knocking him down and rolling several times.
Bai Chunian pinned Eris to the ground and aimed the dagger at his heart, stabbing downward with all his strength. If his guess was correct, the Puppet Master must have transplanted his own heart into him. Destroying that heart would eliminate the core carrying the combat chip, killing Eris instantly.
Eris’s consciousness was also becoming blurred. An unfamiliar, powerful force was spreading through his body. He used his jointed mechanical hands to clamp Bai Chunian’s knife, struggling inch by inch to move it away from his left chest.
“I surrender. Don’t stab my heart.” Eris looked up at him. His crossed-out eyes actually overflowed with tears, running down his porcelain eye sockets. “This is the most precious thing I have.”
Bai Chunian’s hand hesitated slightly. Looking at Eris’s face, he couldn’t help but resent the Puppet Master for why he had made him look like this—like a child. It made it harder to strike without guilt.
A thought also flashed through his mind: inject Eris with the prosthetic union factor they had just stolen and use him to test whether it was real.
He still remembered the lesson from his fight with the feral bee dessert maker. If he didn’t resolve a feralization-phase opponent here, there would be no chance once full deterioration set in.
Bai Chunian suddenly dropped the dagger, pulled out a vial of prosthetic union factor, and injected one-third of it into Eris’s nape.
In the face of adversity, when humanity is forced into a corner, selfish and cruel thoughts inevitably emerge. At that moment, Bai Chunian himself could not tell whether he was hoping the drug was real or fake.
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re very suspicious?” Eris, unguarded, was injected and gave a pained smile. “Even if you choose to stand with the so-called good side, you’re still a killing machine at your core. I sympathize with you. You’re an anomaly on both sides—every action must be decided by yourself, and you bear the responsibility alone. But I only need to keep following Nix.”
Eris kicked Bai Chunian away, flipping him off, and retreated to the elevator entrance. His long, slit-like mouth curved upward. “Next time we meet, I’ll pin you to the wall and carve your femur into a sculpture stand for Nix. Just wait.”
He spread his arms and fell backward into the abyss of the elevator shaft.
Bai Chunian felt dazed, a beat too slow. Lan Bo rushed forward, knocking him aside. Machine-gun fire swept past, carving a deep line of bullet marks where they had just been standing.
Lan Bo grabbed Bai Chunian and rolled with him, both plunging into the elevator shaft. Using his fish tail, he coiled around Bai Chunian’s waist and climbed along interwoven steel structures using electromagnetic adhesion.
When they entered, Eris and the Kraken were gone. Everything was swallowed in darkness.
Bai Chunian leaned back against a suspended steel frame, gasping heavily.
Lan Bo checked the surroundings and confirmed no immediate danger before crawling over. He noticed Bai Chunian’s left hand pressing tightly against his lower abdomen. A strong smell of blood spread through the air.
Bai Chunian’s chest rose and fell violently. He slowly lifted his hand. His lower abdomen was bleeding heavily—a machine gun bullet had pierced his combat suit and embedded deep inside his body.
“The bullet was coated with IN infection agent…” Bai Chunian’s face turned increasingly pale. “It won’t heal… help me take it out. Hurry.”
“Randi.” Lan Bo wrapped his fish tail around him gently, holding him so he wouldn’t fall from the narrow beam. His lips pressed against Bai Chunian’s sweaty forehead. “Good. Don’t move.”
Lan Bo slipped his fingers between Bai Chunian’s teeth, holding his tongue between his index and middle fingers, while his tail coiled around Bai Chunian’s wrists, forcing his arms behind his back to expose the wound. He then began to sing softly—a voice neither male nor female, ethereal and strange, identical to the song heard on Mermaid Island.
Bai Chunian gradually lost focus. Suddenly, a sharp pain erupted in his lower abdomen as Lan Bo’s slender fingers ruthlessly and decisively reached into the infected bullet hole, hooking the embedded bullet and pulling it out quickly.
The pain made Bai Chunian tremble violently. His fangs involuntarily sank deeply into Lan Bo’s finger bones. Lan Bo only slightly frowned, gently wiping away the saliva leaking from the corner of Bai Chunian’s unclosed lips with his thumb.
“Be gentler. Don’t bite your tongue la.”