Free Web NovelIt was a compartment that looked completely sealed off.
The walls were wrapped on all sides in tightly fitted metal panels, and not a single window could be seen in the smooth metallic walls. It was impossible to tell whether that was simply how this kind of room was designed, or whether the windows had been deliberately omitted.
The entire compartment had only one heavy metal door leading to the outside world, and in front of that metal door hung layer upon layer of dense iron bars.
At a glance, the place looked like a heavily fortified cell.
But why would there be a prison cell on this warship?
And what exactly was being held inside...?
Wen Yuzhi wanted to move closer and get a better look, but perhaps the force the door had endured had already reached its limit. After another thunderous crash, the metal door suddenly let out a piercing alarm.
Not long after the alarm began, Wen Yuzhi heard a burst of hurried footsteps coming from behind him.
The corridor was completely bare. There was nowhere to hide.
If he ran straight into those people...
The butterfly would definitely draw their attention!
With no time to spare, Wen Yuzhi quickly swept his surroundings with his gaze and in the end chose to fly up to the ceiling.
The butterfly he had formed from his mental power had a semi-transparent, crystalline body, and the ceiling just happened to be silver-white as well. As long as he stayed careful and did not move around, then in that vast wash of silver, it would be hard to notice him unless someone stared very closely.
It was a risky method. Wen Yuzhi was purely gambling.
He was betting that, between the metal door that had triggered the alarm and the ceiling above it, the people rushing over at the sound of the alarm would choose to focus first on the state of the metal door.
And in his haste, this was the best idea Wen Yuzhi could come up with.
Fortunately, they really did not notice the ceiling.
They only stared with grave expressions at the metal door, from behind which the crashing sounds continued to ring out.
At the front was once again the same woman Wen Yuzhi had just seen. This time, though, he heard the people beside her address her as Professor Milne.
Professor Milne clearly held a high position. With a stern face, she asked, “Why has it suddenly lost control again? This is already the third time this month... Is the inhibitor no longer working on him?”
The person next to her replied, “His mental power is in severe disorder, and he’s been overusing it constantly lately. You know that too. The orders from above haven’t stopped these past few days. I just checked the inhibitor a moment ago, and the numbers were still normal. I just don’t know why he suddenly lost control...”
Milne frowned at that. “We can’t let him keep slamming around like this. This metal door won’t hold him for long. If he breaks out directly, no one here will be able to subdue him.”
At that, Milne paused, then instructed the person beside her, “Get the sedative ready. We need to calm him down first.”
The other person quickly answered, “The sedative’s already prepared. It’s an enhanced dose.”
Milne nodded, pulled out an ID badge, and held it over the control panel.
Beep—
“A-level clearance. Passage authorized.”
The heavy metal door opened.
Wen Yuzhi took a closer look and discovered that there was another door inside. When that one opened, there was still another door beyond it.
Which meant...
This compartment had three layers of metal doors?
Wen Yuzhi was a little stunned.
What exactly was locked ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ in there... to require that many doors to contain it?
Unfortunately, from his current angle, he could not see what was happening inside the room.
Wen Yuzhi thought for a moment, then made a risky move.
Using the same method as before, he guided the butterfly to quietly follow the last person in line while everyone else was going inside.
Judging from the person’s position and clothing, this one looked like a junior assistant. The assistant seemed to faintly sense something and turned around to look.
But the corridor behind was empty. There was nothing there.
Huh...?
Was it just imagination?
The young assistant blinked in confusion, but in the brief moment of hesitation, the people ahead were already calling out.
The assistant immediately shoved that tiny bit of doubt out of mind and hurried after them.
What the assistant did not notice was that inside the pocket, there was already a butterfly that looked so dreamlike it barely seemed real.
The butterfly lay tucked away in silence, utterly motionless.
The assistant quickly came up beside the others, only to hear someone say, “Why are you spacing out? Professor Milne’s calling you.”
The assistant looked up to see Milne standing ahead with visible impatience on her face.
Panic seized the assistant at once, and the words stumbled out in a rush. “P-Professor...”
Milne asked a question.
The assistant hurriedly opened the box in hand and took out the blue injector from inside.
“They’re all here.”
Milne checked it, then returned the injectors to the assistant’s hand.
“Do you remember what I usually tell you?”
“I do...”
“Then relax. You’re all my students. This is a rare hands-on opportunity. You can personally work with the experimental subject.”
Milne’s tone was strict, but she seemed, on the surface, to be a good teacher, even giving her students the chance to practice firsthand.
But when Wen Yuzhi saw the so-called experimental subject Milne was referring to, he froze for a second, and then an uncontrollable fury rose inside him.
Beyond the compartment was yet another door. Once that door opened, what lay beyond it was a huge space like a plaza.
Countless chains as thick as bowls hung down from the ceiling and the surrounding walls, and at the point where all of them converged was an enormous beast sprawled on the ground.
The giant beast was bound layer after layer in chains. Every time it moved, the chains around its body tightened another degree. Even so, it still struggled madly to break free of those restraints.
The noises from earlier had been caused by it slamming into the door in an attempt to tear itself free.
By the time the assistant followed Milne inside, the chains had already bitten into the beast’s flesh. Its entire body was covered in wounds where the skin had split open.
And its appearance...
Wen Yuzhi would never mistake it.
It was a Saint Clan.
A Saint Clan that had reverted to its true form.
It had been imprisoned here, covered in wounds.
Large amounts of scales were falling away from its body. Its head was wrapped in a piece of black cloth. Most cruel of all, something had cut off the wings behind its back, leaving only a mangled, bloody wound.
Wen Yuzhi had seen many Saint Clan before, but this one was without a doubt in the worst condition he had ever seen.
It lay there on the ground, letting out pained, unending snarls.
And that pain was clearly coming from the chains wrapped around its body.
A Saint Clan would not appear in a place like this for no reason.
A compartment like a cage, densely packed chains, and the wounds covering its body...
There was no doubt about it. This Saint Clan had been captured and imprisoned here by someone.
And when Wen Yuzhi thought of the term experimental subject these people had just used...
A surge of indescribable rage rose abruptly in his chest.
Milne, however, seemed long since accustomed to it. Her expression was cold, and the way she looked at the giant beast was no different from the way she would look at an ordinary object.
Seeing the assistant still standing there without moving, she even urged, “Go on. However I taught you before, do it exactly that way now.”
This seemed to be the assistant’s first time handling it personally.
Looking at the monstrous giant beast in front of him, the assistant swallowed nervously.
“It... it won’t break free, right?”
Milne shook her head. “No. These chains were designed specifically for it. Without my clearance, it can’t break them.”
“This is an S-rank experimental subject. If it weren’t for this mission, we wouldn’t have had any chance to come into contact with it. This kind of practical experience is extremely valuable. If your senior classmates hadn’t died alongside Dr. Kegso at the institute not long ago, I wouldn’t have brought you out here.”
Milne was clearly somewhat dissatisfied with this student.
The assistant seemed to know that as well, so all he did was lower his head timidly.
And as he approached the giant beast, his body was trembling with fear.
Fortunately, the chains were bound tight enough that the beast could not move.
Seeing that, the assistant hurriedly opened the box and took out the sedatives, injecting them one after another into the giant beast’s body.
And by using the chance while the assistant was administering the sedatives, Wen Yuzhi was able to get close to the giant beast as well.
At closer range, the wounds on the beast’s body were even worse than Wen Yuzhi had first thought.
Saint Clan had powerful healing abilities, but even so, all kinds of injuries were still visible on its body. Not just the marks gouged out by the chains, but traces that looked like they had been inflicted by weapons, or sliced open by some kind of sharp blade.
There was not a single patch of uninjured flesh left on the body.
With wounds that severe, Wen Yuzhi had assumed he would be able to feel the other’s pain.
But when he extended his mental power, what he felt was only dead silence.
When he had combed through the mental seas of the Saint Clan under supervision, he had encountered Saint Clan who were weary and numb, and their mental seas had also been quiet.
But no matter how quiet, there would still be some emotional fluctuations.
When mental power erupted into disorder, that was when they were suffering most.
And yet from this Saint Clan, Wen Yuzhi felt nothing at all.
It was a pure kind of emptiness and deathly stillness.
He had only ever felt something like that once before—in Mansendis’s mental sea.
He wanted to examine further, but he was afraid that doing so would draw Milne’s attention.
And the assistant was nearly done injecting all the sedatives.
A Saint Clan’s body was huge, and the dosage required was equally large.
An entire case full of enhanced sedatives was emptied in no time, all of it injected into the giant beast’s body.
Before the assistant closed the case, Wen Yuzhi guided the butterfly to quietly slip out of the pocket, brush lightly against the Saint Clan in front of him, then hurried back inside the pocket.
At the instant of contact, the giant beast’s body gave the faintest pause.
The assistant noticed nothing unusual. He simply assumed the giant beast’s quieting down meant the sedatives were taking effect.
Milne was too far away and did not see the butterfly move either. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
Once the assistant returned to her side, she praised him. “You did very well. That’s exactly it. Really, there’s nothing to be afraid of. No matter how fierce a beast is, once it’s locked in a cage, it can only submit obediently.”
Perhaps because it was the first time the assistant had received praise from his teacher, the excitement in his face was obvious. He even dared to ask a question he normally would never voice.
“How was a monster this terrifying subdued in the first place?”
Milne was in a good mood as well and was willing to answer her student’s doubts.
“With the inhibitor in place, they’ll behave obediently.”
“Then... are the experiments you and the senior students were researching also related to monsters like this?”
Milne smiled, but she did not answer directly.
“When your clearance reaches B-rank, you’ll know.”
“As long as you stay by my side and put in the effort to learn, reaching B-rank is only a matter of time. Polaris values talent. People without ability are eliminated.”
First encouragement, then a warning.
With only those few words, Milne successfully planted in the assistant a strong desire to obtain B-rank clearance.
Wen Yuzhi remained hidden in the assistant’s pocket.
He forcibly endured his anger toward these people and listened carefully to their conversation.
And from what they said, he learned that everyone in white lab coats here was a researcher.
Among these researchers, the one with the highest clearance was Professor Milne. Next came the male researcher who had entered Wen Yuzhi’s room with her earlier, a B-rank researcher. The rest were their assistants.
They were here for a mission.
If Wen Yuzhi had guessed right, then the target of that mission was him.
They were going to take him back. As for where this back was, Wen Yuzhi still had not heard them say.
But wherever it was, he did not want to go.
He only wanted to return to the Saint Clan, to Dad’s side.
And from the condition of that Saint Clan just now, it was obvious that whatever these people called experiments was definitely not any kind of normal, legal research.
He had to find a way to escape!
Wen Yuzhi did not dare waste any time. Before those people noticed he had woken up, he hurriedly searched through the rest of the warship. Near the storage section, he found the escape pods.
But those escape pods also required clearance to activate.
On the entire warship, the person with the highest clearance was Professor Milne. Only she could open the escape pods.
Wen Yuzhi thought back to how she had taken out her ID badge earlier. Perhaps that badge could be used to unlock her clearance.
But...
How was he supposed to get that badge?
Just as Wen Yuzhi was feeling troubled, an opportunity delivered itself right to him.
Perhaps because Wen Yuzhi was so important to them, Milne and the B-rank male researcher checked on his condition every two hours or so, recording the data each time.
And every time, the two of them entered together and left together.
That was probably some sort of rule, but for Wen Yuzhi, the fact that the two of them were always together meant he never found a chance to make a move.
He could not guarantee he could deal with two people at once.
But during this inspection, Milne received a communication halfway through.
It was probably from someone important. After taking it, she stepped outside to continue the call.
Only the male researcher remained in the room.
This was his chance!
Wen Yuzhi made a small noise.
Sure enough, the sound from the hibernation pod attracted the male researcher’s attention.
He was already walking over.
And his dismissive attitude toward the Saint Clan made him fail to call Milne back immediately, nor did he make any preparations in advance.
He simply opened the hibernation pod.
