Translator: ThatLazyPotato
Editor: DragonFae
The grasses in the border’s uninhabited areas were drying out from the hot afternoon sun. The 109 Research Institute stood on the edge of the coastal cliff, the waves surge behind it and wash against the rugged rocks. The sea breeze blew through the water-eroded holes on the rocks, making a serene sound.
The seemingly silent and calm research institute building was located hundreds of meters underground, in a huge building that stretched like an anthill. A series of explosions and the sound of machine gun fire echoed deep underground.
It turned out Aileen had long since laid a trap in her office. Bai Chunian and the others had just stepped out of the pharmacy warehouse, then automatic machine guns were coming from the ceiling and aimed at them.
There were twenty heavy machine guns, all equipped with automatic thermal positioning devices. Without giving them enough time to react, they started firing as soon as the gun barrel appeared.
The machine gun fire lit up the entire room. High-velocity and dense bullets were fired across the room, forcing them to escape outside, and making them unable to get close to the general pharmacy warehouse and the elevator in the experimental subject cultivation area where Aileen was most likely hiding.
Bai Chunian went to the door and wanted to open the office door and run out, but the door was completely locked. The material was the same carbon nitride synthetic material as the punch wall test, and even his Bone Armor couldn’t break through it.
Rimbaud had the ability to break open the door by pure force, but he wasn’t fast enough, nor was he flexible as a cat, so he couldn’t dodge the bullets.
They were forced back to the small room of Pharmaceutical Warehouse No. 1. However, the wall couldn’t withstand the continuous firing of bullets, and had already shown signs of cracking.
Puppet Master proposed, “Is there any point in staying here anymore? It’s better if we leave. We have the sample of the synthesis booster already, it won’t be hard to imitate it.”
Bai Chunian sat down, leaned against the wall, and put his hands on his knees and thought. In fact, he wanted to take a sufficient amount of synthesis booster with him all at once, then he won’t need to return to the IOA and can go directly back to the Carribeans with Rimbaud.
Because synthesis boosters are expensive to produce, the material cost of each tube was as high as 6.1 million. They were also consumable; a three milliliter dose could suppress deterioration for just thirty days. Although the IOA had strong financial resources, if they keep wasting the money away like this, it could only last for a few years. So how could he accept this unpayable favor with a peace of mind?
Bai Chunian only hoped Aileen had produced enough of the synthesis booster, so he could live a carefree life with Rimbaud for a few more years.
He peeked out, but the guns seemed to have eyes, shooting at him wildly and forcing him back in place. He sat back down and looked at the three tubes of agents in his hands. “If you think these agents are real, then you guys go. The general pharmaceutical warehouse has an ingredient identification device, I want to confirm it.”
Puppet Master weighed the medicine box in his hands. Indeed, he couldn’t distinguish the authenticity of the agents with the naked eye. It could be that Aileen deliberately left fake agents behind, with the purpose of letting them inject it and get themselves killed.
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.
“Eris, find a way to pry open the indoor elevator door.” Puppet Master decided to take another risk after weighing the pros and cons.
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However, the door was purposefully reinforced. The joint between the two doors was so tight that Eris couldn’t find a point of force to exert.
“It won’t open. Entering the passcode is the only way.” Bai Chunian observed Eris’ situation from afar. “I have a decoder, but I can’t go over. It’s like these guns have eyes, they shoot very accurately.”
“Give it to me.” Puppet Master glanced at him indifferently, and took the decoder.
A cool agave pheromone emitted from Puppet Master’s nape, and he activated his J1 ability, Pawn Substitute. He switched places with Eris, and appeared in front of the elevator in an instant. Eris stood in his previous spot, right next to Bai Chunian.
Puppet Master pulled out a folding anti-explosion shield from his apron pocket that was as tall as a person, and put it behind him to block the heat detection. He inserted the decoder into the code disk next to the elevator door.
Bai Chunian peeked through the gap and was stunned. “Holy shit, how can such a big thing fit in there?”
Eris watched Puppet Master without looking away.
The decoder’s progress bar gradually filled up, when it reached 100%, and the decoding was complete, the passcode disk lit up with the passing green light. The elevator door slowly opened.
However, things didn’t go as expected. Although the door opened, inside the elevator was damaged, and it didn’t go up.
“Eris, go down and scout.” Puppet Master raised the flashlight to illuminate the inside of the dark elevator to guess its depth. There was a faint squirting sound coming from within the darkness.
Suddenly, an extremely long, thick and powerful tentacle rushed out from the dark elevator entrance, wrapped around Puppet Master’s waist, and dragged him down.
It was a gray-colored octopus tentacle.
Puppet Master’s entire body was pulled downward. He held the edge of the elevator with his hands, and tried his best to climb up. However, another tentacle came up and wrapped around his left leg, gradually exerted strength, and pulled downward.
Bai Chunian said in shock, “It’s the Kraken’s undead summon!”
The moment Puppet Master was attacked, Eris had already rushed out in the face of the hail of bullets, his reaction was faster than ever. He grabbed Puppet Master’s arm, dragged him upwards, and shouted, “Knicks! Pawn Substitute!”
Although the octopus experimental subject, Kraken, was only an M2-grade, and the summoned body only inherited 70% of the strength of the original body, it was still huge in size and had infinite power. Even a non-military A3-grade would find it difficult to escape from the entanglement.
Eris also had enormous power, but it was a human being pulled from both sides, so he didn’t dare pull up too hard. He was extremely scared, fearing that what remained in his hand would be a severed forearm.
Half of his body fell into the darkness he hated. He was about to be dragged into the abyss inch by inch, but still clung to Puppet Master tightly, as if someone on the opposite side was competing with him for the light.
Puppet Master said huskily, “Eris, I’m going to be torn apart.”
Eris was startled, and in the moment of his hands loosening, the fabric slipped through his fingers. Puppet Master fell down, pulled down into the bottomless depth by the octopus’s tentacles. Then, there was a ghostly chewing sound; something was being chomped on and making a crunching sound, as if chewing on flesh and bones.
“Knicks—!” Eris roared into the depth of darkness, but only heard the echo of his own hoarse voice.
Bai Chunian saw the pupils of Eris’ eyes gradually disappear, the light green pupils receded, and black crosses appeared on the surface of the two white eyeballs, like a dead teru teru bozu.
A strong wave of heather pheromones hits the surrounding area. Even Bai Chunian and Rimbaud were shaken two steps back.
“Deterioration! He has entered deterioration!” Bai Chunian shouted, “Rimbaud, kill him! Don’t let him completely deteri—!”
Once a fully mimicked envoy-type experimental subject deteriorated, it would inevitably produce destructive power that would destroy the world. Once the sixteen minute deterioration stage has passed and they become fully deteriorated, they would enter into a state of indiscriminate destruction. By then, the both of them won’t be able to control the situation at all.
Rimbaud and Bai Chunian rushed out under heavy machine gun fire. Rimbaud used his tail to wrap around Eris’ neck, dragging him out of the elevator. Bai Chunian rushed forward with the Dead Sea heart dagger, knocked Eris down and rolled several times on the ground.
Bai Chunian straddled Eris to suppress him. He aimed the dagger at Eris’ heart, and thrusted with all his might. If he guessed correctly, Puppet Master must have given his heart to him. As long as the heart was destroyed, Eris would surely die if he lost the core that held the battle chip.
Eris’ mind gradually lost focus. A powerful force that was unfamiliar to him was flowing throughout his body, both his hands held the dagger that Bai Chunian stabbed him with, the tip of the dagger was already pressed against his left chest.
However, Eris, as a pure force-type experimental subject, was much stronger than Bai Chunian who was being restrained by the collar. He held the dagger tightly with his ball-jointed and moved it away from his left chest centimeter by centimeter with difficulty.
“I admit defeat, don’t pierce my heart.” Eris lowered his eyes and stared at him. Tears unexpectedly flowed out of his two cross eyes, and dripped down from his porcelain eye sockets. “This is my most precious thing.”
Bai Chunian stopped the movements of his hands slightly. He looked at Eris’ face and couldn’t help but blame Puppet Master, blaming him for making Eris’ face look like it was now—like a little kid, making him feel guilty to finish him off.
An idea suddenly flashed across his mind. He injected Eris with the synthesis booster he had just taken, letting him test it out.
Bai Chunian still remembered the lessons he learned from his previous encounter with the bee patissier who was in the deterioration stage. If he was not dealt with during the deterioration stage, there would be no chance for him when he completely entered deterioration.
Bai Chunian suddenly threw away the dagger. He took out a synthesis booster, injected it in Eris’ nape, and injected a third of the agent into him.
No matter who, as long as they were endowed with humanity, selfish, despicable and cruel thoughts would always arise when forced into a desperate situation.
“Has anyone ever said you’re too suspicious?” Eris was injected with the synthesis booster without any mental preparation, raising the corner of his lips in pain. “Even if you choose to join with the good people, you’re still a killing machine at heart. I sympathize with you; you are an outlier on both sides. You have to make your own decisions whenever you take action, then take responsibility for it. I, on the other hand, just need to follow Knicks.”
Eris kicked Bai Chunian away, pushing him off his body, and retreated to the elevator.
He opened the doors, straightened his back, and jumped into the bottomless elevator.
Bai Chunian was a little dazed, and his movements slowed down. Rimbaud came over and knocked him out of place. Heavy machine gun bullets swept over, leaving deep bullet marks where they previously stood.
Rimbaud hugged Bai Chunian and rolled out, also falling into the elevator. Rimbaud wrapped his tail around Bai Chunian’s waist and climbed on the interlocking steel building frames by electromagnetic attraction.
When they entered, Eris and the Kraken were both gone. Everything was dark in front of them.
Bai Chunian sat on the suspended steel frame. He leaned his head against the wall and gasped for breath.
Rimbaud first looked around to make sure there were no dangers at the moment, then went beside Xiao Bai. He noticed he was pressing his lower abdomen with his left hand, and the smell of blood spreaded into his nose.
Bai Chunian’s chest was rising and falling violently, and he slowly moved his hand away. Blood was gushing out of his lower abdomen, a bullet had broken through his combat uniform, and it deeply penetrated his flesh.
“The bullet is coated with the IN infection agent…” Bai Chunian’s complexion turned ashen. “I can’t heal… Help me take it out, quick.”
“Randi.” Rimbaud stretched out his fish tail and gently wrapped it around his body, so that Xiao Bai could lean on his arms, as well as prevent him from falling off the narrow steel beam. He placed his lips against Bai Chunian’s sweaty forehead, and whispered in comfort, “Be good, don’t move.”
Rimbaud put his fingers between Bai Chunian’s teeth, held his tongue between his index and middle fingers, and slowly wrapped his fish tail around his wrists, forcing him to put his hands behind his back and stretch out his body to expose the wound. Immediately, a soft singing voice came out of his throat. The voice couldn’t be distinguished as male or female. It was ethereal and strange; it was the same as the singing voice heard on Merfolk Island.
Bai Chunian slowly lost consciousness. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain coming from his lower abdomen. Rimbaud’s slender fingers dug into the rotting bullet hole with determination, pinched the bullet stuck in the flesh, and quickly pulled it out.
Bai Chunian trembled all over from the pain, and his canine bit into Rimbaud’s finger uncontrollably. Rimbaud lightly frowned, used his thumb to wipe the saliva seeping out of the corner of his mouth that couldn’t be closed.
“Be gentle. Be careful not to bite your tongue.”
Thank You for the new chapter ♡ฅ(ᐤˊ꒳ฅˋᐤ)
I’m not fan of PuppetMaster nor Eris but I must confess I would be a little upset if they were dead. That’s disturbing me cause I’m really not fond of those two.
Hope BaiChunian would be okay.
I can understand Pupped masters reservations towards mankind in regards of treating the experimentals even not agreeing his behavior and Eris is just Eris 😂. It might be a bit weird but a kind of like them, so I hope they are not dead.
The author did not just kill them off like that!! I wanted them to have little doll babies .. why😭😭