Free Web NovelThe laboratory was saturated with the ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) thick stench of blood.
When Wen Yuzhi and the others entered, they met no resistance at all. Their group passed through without any trouble and took the elevator down into the interior of the laboratory.
But when they stepped into the corridor, what filled their vision was a blood-soaked scene that looked like a hell built from corpses.
Countless severed limbs were scattered across the floor, and blood was splashed everywhere over the cold white metal walls.
No wonder they had smelled such a heavy odor of blood the moment they came in...
Everyone present had fought their way straight out of the beast tide, but even so, when they saw the scene in front of them, their expressions still turned grim.
These were all human remains.
They seemed to have been the second group of guards sent to reinforce the place, but just like the guards above, their bodies had all been cut apart by some kind of sharp weapon.
It was as if an invisible net had fallen over them, slicing their limbs into mangled pieces.
Such a brutal, bloody way of killing made both Xi Heyan and Chong Feng frown deeply.
Wen Yuzhi was walking along the right side of the group. The white wolf stayed close at his heels. The rest of the wolves had remained outside, but this one had insisted on following him in.
Now, with the smell of blood so thick in the air, even the white wolf was growing a little restless.
Wen Yuzhi placed a hand on its head. Feeling the unease under his palm, he soothingly rubbed one of its ears.
The white wolf relaxed under the touch, and its earlier agitation gradually settled down.
Although Xi Heyan was walking up front, the corner of his eye was still paying attention to Wen Yuzhi.
Seeing how pale Wen Yuzhi’s face looked under the lights, Xi Heyan knit his brows. Remembering the boy’s condition from earlier, he slowed his steps slightly and moved over to Rabbit Mask’s side.
The two of them gestured about something. In the end, Rabbit Mask’s eyes lit up, and Rabbit Mask handed something over to Xi Heyan.
That bitter orange scent drifted close again, washing away some of the nauseating blood smell around them.
Wen Yuzhi also caught a faint trace of sweetness within it.
It was not until Xi Heyan quietly slipped a box of candy into his hand that Wen Yuzhi realized that little thread of sweetness had come from the candy.
He lowered his head and looked.
It was orange-flavored.
Wen Yuzhi used to have a habit of carrying candy with him at all times. Xi Heyan had learned that from their chats.
He had guessed that Wen Yuzhi would probably like something sweet like this.
So he had gone to Rabbit Mask and paid triple the price to buy back a box of candy.
Candy was not medicine, but Xi Heyan had thought that if Wen Yuzhi ate something sweet, he might feel a little better.
He said quietly, “If you’re not feeling well, you can stay upstairs with the wolves and wait for us.”
Wen Yuzhi had still been feeling a little tight in the chest earlier, but now, with the orange-flavored candy in his mouth, he suddenly felt like it was not so unbearable anymore.
All he could taste on the tip of his tongue was sweetness.
“I’m fine.”
He shook his head. Then, as if to make himself sound more convincing, Wen Yuzhi pulled the white wolf into it too.
“Awu’s fine too.”
“Awooo~”
The white wolf had no idea what Wen Yuzhi and Xi Heyan were talking about, but it had good instincts. The moment Wen Yuzhi called on it, it immediately chimed in.
Master and pet were both looking at him in exactly the same way. For some reason, Xi Heyan suddenly had the urge to take out his light-brain and capture this moment.
But when he lifted his hand, all he did was fix the hood that had slipped down a little on Wen Yuzhi’s head.
In the process, Xi Heyan’s fingers inevitably brushed against those silver-white strands of hair.
Wen Yuzhi suddenly felt a little itchy.
He had always been ticklish, especially around the ears. The stray hair Xi Heyan had brushed aside fell against them, and when it skimmed over his skin, it brought a tingling kind of itch.
But before he could say anything, Xi Heyan had already withdrawn his hand.
That bit of itch faded away without a trace.
The group kept moving forward. With the orange-flavored candy in his mouth, Wen Yuzhi no longer felt quite so uncomfortable from the blood smell around them.
When they passed a corner, everyone present heard faint sounds of panting.
They turned into that corridor. Like everywhere else they had passed, this place too was smeared with blood.
The only difference was that the corpses here were all wearing white lab coats.
They were researchers from this laboratory.
Among the heap of broken bodies, one researcher was still alive.
Not for much longer, though.
Both legs had been severed. The researcher was lying in a pool of blood, breathing weakly.
Seeing Wen Yuzhi and the others approach, the researcher seemed to think rescue had arrived.
The researcher forced open those unfocused, failing eyes and used the last bit of strength left to gasp, “N-Number One rebelled... cage... experimental subject escaped...”
The words came out broken and incomplete, and then the voice cut off entirely.
Number One rebelled?
Wen Yuzhi looked at the corpse. On the researcher’s chest, he spotted an ID badge.
The badge looked familiar.
It showed the researcher’s name—Danny—and below that, C-Level Researcher.
But on Danny’s neck, Wen Yuzhi also saw a snake tattoo.
“That’s the Ouroboros.”
A low voice came from behind him.
Wen Yuzhi froze for a moment, then turned around and realized it was the person wearing the rabbit mask.
The entire face was hidden under a black rabbit mask, and the figure was dressed in a sharply pressed suit.
If not for the bloody horror around them, just looking at that outfit, Wen Yuzhi might almost have thought this was some kind of banquet hall.
“My name is King of Clubs.”
As the figure spoke, a business card was handed to Wen Yuzhi.
The card was black, and on it was a rabbit face with grotesque features.
Wen Yuzhi noticed that the rabbit’s face bore the symbols of hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs.
“Black Rabbit?” he read aloud from the card.
King of Clubs smiled pleasantly. “That’s my organization. We’re called Black Rabbit. We’re an intelligence network. As long as you have money, even the most secret information in the world can be obtained through us.”
“And I can tell that you’re rich. At a glance, you look like one of our premium clients.”
Wen Yuzhi held the card without saying anything.
King of Clubs did not mind. The figure continued explaining, “That tattoo on this man is the Ouroboros. That symbol is Polaris’s current emblem.”
More precisely, it was Dan’s emblem.
That person liked the Ouroboros. After taking control of Polaris, Dan had changed Polaris’s original Morningstar emblem and replaced it with the beloved Ouroboros.
“In ancient civilizations, the Ouroboros was seen as a sacred symbol. It represents endlessness, the unbroken cycle of life, and eternity. Some people say that if you unlock the mystery hidden in the Ouroboros, you can obtain eternal life.”
“Sounds tempting, doesn’t it?”
After all, who in this world could resist eternal life?
The more power and status a person had, the more they wanted that power to last forever.
King of Clubs smiled, but the smile did not reach the eyes.
Wen Yuzhi lowered his gaze. “Nothing is eternal.”
Anyone who had read even a few books knew that nothing in existence was eternal. Even the vastest universe was changing constantly every day.
All things in the world moved toward entropy. That was an unavoidable law.
When King of Clubs heard Wen Yuzhi’s answer, the smile on the figure’s face deepened, and then came outright laughter. There was mockery in that laugh, though it was hard to tell who it was aimed at.
“That’s right. There’s nothing eternal in this world. Even children understand that much. And yet there are always people who foolishly try to change it.”
Wen Yuzhi did not understand exactly what King of Clubs was mocking, but he still corrected the figure.
“I’m not a child.”
He had grown up already.
King of Clubs smiled and shook the head. “Compared to those guardians of yours, you’re still far too green. Give it a few years. Maybe by then I won’t be calling you kid anymore.”
Before Wen Yuzhi could ask what that meant, the roar of beasts erupted behind them.
—Stray beasts.
No one knew when they had gotten behind them.
Every one of these stray beasts was covered in blood. Their bodies were enormous, and their fur was especially coarse and hard.
They were not quite the same as the stray beasts the people from the base usually dealt with.
These looked even stronger.
And in truth, they were.
The moment they opened their mouths, flames, venom, wind blades, and all kinds of chaotic attacks came crashing at the group.
Meanwhile, any injuries the group managed to inflict on them began healing at a visible speed in the very next moment.
“What the hell are these things?”
Chong Fengshuang said, face dark.
“They’re experimental subjects from this laboratory,” Xi Heyan said, lips pressed tight.
Clearly, compared to the stray beasts outside, the ones inside the laboratory had undergone far more mutations. Not only had their bodies grown stronger, they had even developed additional mutant abilities.
“This place is too narrow!”
someone shouted.
The corridor was not wide, and there were too many of them. It was hard to move properly.
Even when they wanted to strike back, they had to worry about hurting their own people.
Chong Feng was battle-hardened. He had fought through this kind of terrain disadvantage more times than he could count.
Faced with the sudden upheaval, he did not panic.
“Everyone keep running forward. Spread out more and don’t stay too close together. Little Xue, bring the hunting squad and stay with me. Heyan, you and the others keep moving ahead.”
Clearly, Chong Feng intended to stay behind and hold off the stray beasts.
With their strength, dealing with these beasts was not a problem. It would just take time. So Xi Heyan did not hesitate. He decisively led the other half of the group onward.
No one knew what was still waiting ahead. It was impossible to say which side was more dangerous.
Wen Yuzhi chose to stay behind Xi Heyan.
The white wolf guarded his side. The moment any danger approached, it lunged without hesitation.
It looked every bit like the most loyal of knights.
The group ran through the corridor. At the end stood a metal door that required a password to open.
Everyone stopped there at once.
Xi Heyan frowned. Before he could finish studying the lock, Wen Yuzhi took the ID badge he had picked up from the corpse earlier and pressed it against the raised scanner on the wall.
[Beep—C-Level clearance. Access granted.]
A cold electronic voice rang out, and the metal door slowly opened.
Everyone’s eyes moved from the open doorway to Wen Yuzhi, and then back to him again. A bright, shining emotion slowly rose in all their gazes.
Being stared at by so many people all at once, Wen Yuzhi ducked his head a little awkwardly and wanted to hide his face with his hood.
The white wolf, on the other hand, held its head high, looking thoroughly pleased with itself.
Seeing that, Xi Heyan suppressed a smile and said softly to the boy, “Thank you.”
“Let’s go in first.”
To avoid everyone’s burning stares, Wen Yuzhi was the first to step inside.
Behind the door was a laboratory.
It should have been neat and orderly. Everything should have been properly arranged and standardized.
But now it looked as though fierce fighting had taken place inside. The whole place was a wreck.
The moment Wen Yuzhi stepped in, he accidentally stepped on a sheet of paper. It was covered in a pile of data he could not understand.
King of Clubs, however, carefully bent down and picked it up.
To that figure, everything here was intelligence worth collecting.
And after only one glance, King of Clubs said, “This is their experimental analysis on stray beasts. These stray beasts have all undergone genetic modification.”
Thinking of the stray beasts they had just seen, King of Clubs added, “Looks like their technology is already very mature.”
Xi Heyan’s gaze darkened.
Stray beasts had ravaged Blackrock Star for many years, and all the while, these people had been using them behind the scenes to test the beasts’ abilities.
The lives others had paid with had all been turned into results that advanced these people’s experiments.
How could anyone here not be furious?
And besides that sheet of paper, there were many nutrient tanks here as well. Soaking inside all of them were stray beasts.
All kinds of tubes were inserted into their bodies, and each tank was labeled with a number and information.
“This stray beast’s evolutionary direction is explosion.”
“This one is toxic fog!” frёeωebɳovel.com
“This one can devour...!”
As one ability after another was read aloud, the more everyone heard, the more alarmed they became.
Compared to the stray beasts from before, the stray beasts inside these tanks were clearly even more terrifying.
They absolutely could not be allowed out.
That was the shared thought of everyone present.
“They’re researching stray beasts in the most dangerous possible direction,” Xi Heyan said coldly.
Based on the abilities stray beasts originally possessed, they would not have been enough of a threat to the races of the universe.
But after the laboratory’s genetic modifications, these stray beasts would only grow stronger and stronger.
One day, their existence would threaten the entire interstellar world.
