Translator: Onlyfornovels
Translation Checker: 7qqy
Editor: yuki_shuichi
Rimbaud and Bai Chunian exchanged a silent glance. Rimbaud quickly grabbed the synthesis booster, raised his hand, and tried to inject it into the back of Bai Chunian’s neck. However, Bai Chunian caught his wrist and stopped him.
“Be good and let me inject it,” Rimbaud gritted his teeth slightly, applying pressure to the needle towards the back of Bai Chunian’s neck. Bai Chunian was still weak from the dissociative agent injection, making the hand that grabbed Rimbaud tremble.
“Wife, don’t get upset, put it down for now.”
After a short standoff, Rimbaud relaxed, allowing the hand holding the synthesis booster to hang at his side. He sat down with a melancholic tone, letting his bangs cover his eyes, and his voice quivered, “Don’t wait any longer…”
Bai Chunian took the synthesis booster injection gun from Rimbaud and examined it closely. He said, “Currently, apart from the Research Institute’s headquarters, this is the only supply of synthesis booster in the outside world. If I use it, there won’t be any left for Eternal Undead. If he loses control and Eternal Undead summonings run rampant worldwide, how much damage will it cause?”
This matter was clearly within Han Xingqian’s considerations. He propped his chin up and made a quick calculation, “If Eternal Undead summonings appear region by region, there may still be room for recovery. But if Eternal Undead summonings erupt simultaneously within a short time, it will indeed be challenging to control. The President’s willingness to give you this synthesis booster means he’s going to personally pursue Eternal Undead, isn’t he?”
Bai Chunian pursed his lips, then asked, “Does the entire content of this syringe need to be injected for it to be effective?”
“According to the information on the synthesis booster obtained by Knicks, every milliliter of the drug can be maintained for ten days, and this syringe contains a total of three milliliters, which can maintain the sanity of a deteriorating test subject for thirty days.”
“Han-ge, take out one milliliter for me,” Bai Chunian said, placing the injection gun in front of Han Xingqian. “Take the remaining medication back to the Alliance Medical Association, use half of it for sampling and reproduction, and save the other half. If Eternal Undead runs rampant, this one-third of the synthesis booster can be used temporarily to buy us ten days.”
“Ten days is hardly enough for the Alliance Medical Association to successfully reproduce such a drug,” Han Xingqian frowned. “Besides, what will you do after these ten days?”
“If, within these ten days, the President can bring back the search files to dissolve the Research Institute, the Secret Service will help me obtain the synthesis booster. The international conference has been indefinitely postponed and within these ten days… it’s hard to say.”
“In that case, during these ten days, I need to infiltrate the Research Institute headquarters and retrieve the synthesis booster.” Bai Chunian sat cross-legged on the carpet, idly tracing circles on the carpet with his fingertips.
Han Xingqian stared at him blankly. He recalled the days when Xiao Bai was first brought to IOA, covered in injuries and too weak to stand. Yet he still managed to put on a barely visible smile, trying hard to show everyone that he was harmless. As the No. 9100 fully-mimetic experimental being, a Divine Envoy, no doctors or nurses dared to be alone with him, and Han Xingqian was equally cautious, always using his unicorn horn to scan him, afraid that he might harbor ill intentions and suddenly hurt someone.
But no, every time he delved into Xiao Bai’s inner thoughts with his ability, everything was as clear and pure as it could be, that others would feel ashamed.
“Infiltrating the Research Institute headquarters may have tacit approval from the team leader, but it won’t receive written approval from the Special Operations Team, meaning no support and equipment. I’ll need some time to prepare, so please leave me a few more syringes of dissociative agent. The synthesis booster is in short supply; I will use it sparingly.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Suddenly, Han Xingqian grabbed Bai Chunian’s collar, pulled him in without any resistance, and gently touched his forehead with the unicorn horn on his forehead, reading Bai Chunian’s defenseless thoughts.
Inside his mind, there was a trembling voice saying, “I don’t want to die.”
¤¤¤
It has been one day and one night since the first wave of Eternal Undead’s summonings appeared in the Laurentian Mountains of Canada.
White Snow Castle was still tightly guarded, and no enemies could breach the defenses to disturb Knicks in their workshop.
The workshop was locked from the inside, and throughout the day and night, besides the occasional sounds of polishing and cutting, it remained remarkably quiet.
In the room, there was only one desk lamp providing dim lighting, and on the bed laid a porcelain doll. From its limbs to its torso, it was made of ceramic, sculpted to resemble an alpha’s body type—tall and slender, with pale Caucasian skin. Its small, flexible joints resembled ball joints on its ten fingers, but this ceramic doll was missing its head.
Knicks sat at the work table, wearing a leather apron. With one leg raised, he laid the ceramic head on his thigh. The table was filled with various makeup tools.
The porcelain head hadn’t undergone the final delicate carving yet, but Knicks’s craftsmanship was exceptional. The roughly sculpted facial features appeared handsome and three-dimensional. At this point, the makeup was complete. Knicks dipped a fine brush into red ink, carefully drawing a red line from the left to the right cheek, crossing the bridge of the nose. Then, he changed to a black ink and drew a vertical line, forming a cross with the red line. Finally, he sprayed a layer of matte, transparent varnish on the entire face.
From a drawer, Knicks selected a pair of light green glass eyeballs that he had made and placed them into the empty eye sockets of the doll. Afterward, he took out silver strands of short hair, stored in a self-sealing bag, and inserted them one by one into the doll’s head.
With everything ready, Knicks placed the head on the doll’s body on the bed. He tried moving it, tilting it, and facing it up and down.
Knicks couldn’t remember how many sleepless nights had passed, but his eyes were bloodshot, and a stubble had grown on his chin. His entire being appeared overly exhausted. He slowly removed half of his gloves and used his hands, marred with small wounds and cracks, to prop up Eris’s body.
The porcelain doll had no life, so it couldn’t sit up on its own. It merely twisted its limbs and joints and leaned awkwardly against Knicks, its chin resting on Knicks’ shoulder.
From his pocket, Knicks took out a Sacred Wind-Up key, inserted it into the keyhole at the back of the doll’s neck, and carefully turned it.
At first, the rotation of the key seemed stuck because the inside was brand new and unused, but then, it began to turn smoothly. Knicks turned the Sacred Wind-Up Key three times and, using his A3 ability, Hand of God, he secreted agave pheromones from his glands that spread into Eris’ body.
On the pristine porcelain body of Eris, a red-backed spider emblem emerged from beneath the skin at the lower back, resembling the branding of a logo on a factory-produced doll.
In the dimly lit workshop, the desk lamp flickered. The doll leaning on Knicks’ shoulder gradually raised its head, inch by inch, with a somewhat stiff motion. Suddenly, the light green eyes began to shine, and they turned within their sockets. The doll blinked, and the crimson lips curved into a narrow smile.
For the first time in a while, the room was filled with the sound of speech.
“You said you liked a violent world, where life changes rapidly. I’ve been following your order, Knicks. Why do you seem unhappy?”
Eris’ voice was as usual, partly like that of a cheerful youth, partly gloomy with the fierceness of a wild animal.
Knicks was focused on sanding the ball joints of Eris’ waist. Calmly, he replied, “Well, that’s under the condition that you and I have eternal life, Eris. It’s the dual nature of humans.”
“Alright.” Eris moved with pleasure, testing the still somewhat stiff joints. He raised his hand, forming a fist with his fingers, and pressed it against his left chest.
“What did you put inside me here?” Eris closed his eyes and touched his left chest. “There’s something in here, it feels like it was taken out of boiling water, hot and heavy.”
“How is it?” Knicks asked.
Eris was clueless but honored to have a mechanical core from Knicks. He drew his hand over his chest and vowed, “I’ll treasure it for life.”
Eris’ hand quietly moved to Knicks’ back and slid down to his waist. Before Knicks could react with a reprimand, Eris swiftly took a chip from the pocket of his leather apron.
It was the battle chip that fell from the Athena Shield, the same version Eris used, suitable for experimental subjects with the first number 6.
“Wait, I haven’t decided yet,” Knicks said, raising his hand to stop Eris. Eris now had a heart similar to a human’s, and a more rational program was needed to match it, but this required sacrificing combat effectiveness, making the decision difficult.
However, Knicks’ consecutive all-nighters had made his movements sluggish. He reached for the chip but grasped the air, and Eris beat him to it, placing the battle chip in his mouth and swallowing it before Knicks could react. The chip automatically reattached itself, connecting with the heart.
The chip was a specialized combat weapon developed by the research institute, capable of providing the subject with an understanding of weapon construction, combat knowledge, combat awareness, and a tendency toward slaughter.
As the chip suddenly reattached, the sounds of gears turning and meshing reverberated within Eris’ body. A golden readout program scrolled across his eyes.
After that, he sensed the approaching danger gathering outside White Snow Castle and stood up from the bed, looking out the window.
Knicks silently examined this work of art entirely of his own making—the slender legs with every vein and muscle that could stretch and change with movement. He hadn’t had the time to meticulously measure the sculpted body, yet it was incredibly lifelike. Most importantly, he had crafted it with a human-proportionate heart, and no one could replicate such a mechanical core.
This was the quickest he had ever created a puppet, and though it hadn’t been meticulously polished yet, just by looking at the prototype, he knew that this would be a work he could never surpass again in this lifetime.
Like all artists, he found himself worrying needlessly about whether his work would endure for centuries. Eris, as a full mimetic envoy-type subject, would inevitably approach the deterioration stage if left to grow wild.
He needed the synthesis booster.
As Knicks thought this, despite Eris showing no signs of deterioration, he couldn’t help but feel nervous and panic about the future.
Eris nonchalantly cracked a smile, his lips curling, “If you have anything you want to forbid me from doing, you can give me verbal commands, Knicks.”
Knicks placed the Sacred Wind-Up Key in Eris’s palm and spoke softly, “This time, only kill Eternal Undead’s summonings. Do not harm any other living beings.”
Outside White Snow Castle, undead summonings were killed off in wave after wave, but they kept coming back every few hours because the Laurentian Mountains were also one of the locations where destroyed experimental subjects were concentrated.
Odd Bones sat on the snowy-covered castle walls with her legs dangling over the outer wall, her high heels swaying on her tiptoes. She blew on the overheated barrel of her gun.
She led a large group of experimental subjects and puppet dolls in resisting the undead summonings outside the wall. However, when she looked back at the ammunition box, there were only a few magazines left, and having repelled this wave of undead summonings, she didn’t know how many more they would have to face.
“It’s been a day.” Odd Bones raised her peacock feather fan to shield the snow falling onto her forehead and asked the dragonfly that hovered at her feet, “Is Knicks dead?”
“No, he isn’t. Just hold on a little longer…” Dragonfly, weary, flew in the air, dragging her guns with two hands. One of her transparent wings was broken, leaving only half, and the multiple wounds on her body were unable to heal.
Odd Bones looked at her frail appearance and chuckled.
Suddenly, there was a faint noise from the ground. Odd Bones cautiously opened her eyes, and on the distant snow-covered horizon, another group of grayish-white experimental subjects emerged.
“They just keep coming, endlessly. How many of these damn things did the research facility create?” Odd Bones said irritably as she lifted her rifle. The magazines that fit her weapon had already run out.
The dragonfly, exhausted, laid prone on top of the high wall, her wings weakly fluttering. Blood continued to flow down her fingertips, and as she looked down at the foot of the castle, she saw that the broken remains of puppets were accumulating, gradually being covered by the snow.
She and most of the experimental subjects living here weren’t skilled in combat, and their ranks were too low. After a day and a night of high-intensity resistance, they were completely exhausted.
Specter Hourglass leaped down from a height while holding an hourglass and landed beside Odd Bones. He, too, had overused his glands, and his hands trembled slightly as he held the hourglass.
“Absolutely useless.” Odd Bones glanced at these inept individuals, tossed her now-empty rifle aside, and pulled a handgun from the side of her emerald green cheongsam.
Just as they were about to rise, supporting their injured bodies for another round of battle, a frantic and piercing laughter echoed from the highest point of the castle.
People turned to see the source of the sound. One of the arched windows at the very center of the castle was pushed open, and Eris flew out of it like a cuckoo bird from a cuckoo clock. He wore a lavish Baroque outfit that had been taken from an equally tall puppet. Leaping through the air in a graceful arc, he landed heavily in the snow outside the castle walls.
His landing sent snow flying in all directions. Eris slowly got up from the snow, using a pair of silver scissors crafted from the Sacred Wind-Up Key. The blade was entwined with scattered cursed golden threads, with his vermilion lips wide apart, curved upwards, giving a wicked smile.
“I’m Eris~”
Thank You for the new chapter ♡╰(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)╯♡
I wonder how pretty is eris @-@, and BCN’s thoughts broke my heart T-T
I am the only one who ships Eris and Knicks? ☺️