CH 126

Shaojin Mansion stood in the middle of the quiet, cold wind of early spring. A piercing alarm sounded from the open game room in the corner of the first floor.

Crawler was awakened from his hammock, hurriedly grabbed a coat, draped it over his shoulders, and ran over to the computer barefoot. 

He wrote a monitoring program himself; it could retrieve the growth status of the members in the organization. Such alarm was rare. When he was setting it up, he had chosen a special sound.

When it sounded, it meant that a member had entered the deterioration stage.

The alarm was so loud that it had awoken Domino next door. Not long after, he sleepily pushed the door open while holding a pillow and wearing a nightcap. He languidly asked, “What happened?”

Crawler looked at the message on the screen, the furrowing of his eyebrows getting deeper and deeper. “Patissier has entered the deterioration stage. But that shouldn’t have happened—he’s only a grade 1 maturity stage subject, so there should still be a long way before he enters deterioration. Could he have been accelerated…? He’s in prison though, so that shouldn’t be.”

“Deterioration? Someone really entered the deterioration stage?” Domino snapped out of his drowsiness. He rushed over, leaned against the back of Crawler’s chair, and looked over.

“Didn’t you say that the IOA Secret Service had left Greenfly City for a while now? Four months ago Bai Chunian was arrested, probably for this reason.”

“He definitely went in because of Golden Silk Spider. He wanted to use the International Prison to remove the micro-bombs and tracking chip in Golden Silk Spider’s body and to make sure he doesn’t get assassinated before getting bail.”

“In other words, if someone wanted to silence another, they would only need to kill Golden Silk Spider. There’s no need to kill a stupid and weak bee.” Crawler skimmed through the words on the screen. “It must have been a mistake. If this matter goes out of control and causes too many casualties inside the prison, we will likely be jointly purged by those major organizations.” 

Domino, “What should we do then? Can the Divine Envoy handle him? Let’s have Panther go check ba.”

“It wasn’t easy for Panther to escape from the clutches of the Warden. I’m afraid he doesn’t want to go either. It’ll only make matters worse, so let’s just wait and see.”

“Just how many AC enhancers does the Research Institute have? The production of these are expensive, so there shouldn’t be a lot on hand. Otherwise, it would be a great threat to us.” Domino shook his antennae. “How frightening.”

Crawler, “Four months ago, Electro-optic Phantom revealed his A3 ability. Things might take a turn for the better with him there.” 

Domino, “Even the weakest experimental subject can’t be handled by an A3-differentiated mature subject once they enter deterioration.”

“But… Cursemaker is also inside. You think there’s a possibility of them joining forces?”

Crawler, “I can’t say for sure… I can only pray for them and hope the Divine Envoy could come up with a rescue plan. If he doesn’t succeed, we won’t be able to stay here any longer. And if the video recording gets leaked, they’ll have even more reasons to join hands to get rid of us.”

“…” 

The door was gently knocked on—a beta doctor in a white coat stood at the door.

Professor Lin Deng saw both of their expressions and had already guessed what had happened.

Crawler comforted him, “Professor, go back and rest ba. We’ll go over there, perhaps we’ll make it in time by private jet. Under such a situation, even if we get detected by the International Prison’s radar, they won’t even have time to deal with us. I’m going to get a little closer to the deterioration-staged Patissier to collect his data.”

Lin Deng stared at the computer screen and softly said, “If the Divine Envoy kills Patissier, have him come see me. I have something to say to him.” 

Crawler was puzzled. “What do you want to say?”

Lin Deng shook his head. “Humans can’t kill a real deterioration stage experimental subject. Special operations weapons have been out of control since I was fired from 109 Institute’s headquarters. If the Divine Envoy can really do it, he’ll become a hope.”

The morning light was dim, and the room was dark and silent.

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Once upon a time, it was a firm fortress—so long as one took a step into this impenetrable cage, it was difficult for them to see the light of day ever again. No matter how arrogant the thugs were here, they could only obediently bow their heads and work. 

It wasn’t until the world’s first deterioration stage experimental subject was born that the iron defense was easily cut open like tofu. It was unknown how long it would take for this news to be transmitted back to dry land, and when the employees of the 109 Research Institute hear this news, would they tremble and feel terror toward the demon they created with their own hands?

Looking at the building that melted into ruins in a matter of seconds, Du Mo finally snapped out of it and picked up his walkie-talkie. “Spittlebug, bring someone to set up a separate partition wall in the main prison building. Don’t let the experimental subjects spread out to the cell block. Everyone else, retreat to the restricted confinement area outside the custody building. Prepare to receive support from the Police Station and make room for them and the IOA Secret Service.”

After Golden Silk Spider had filled his food intake and automatically entered the maturity stage, his memory became clearer, but his mental trauma was very grave, and his entire being was in a state of confusion. It was excessively noisy outside today, which once again irritated him and made his movements even stiffer.

“Follow after me.” Bell-bird turned around to comfort him, spreading one of his arms and holding him behind him as if protecting a little baby, his other hand holding a gun. Under the protection of the armed forces, he used his body to block Golden Silk Spider and retreated outside of the main prison building. 

It was difficult to predict Patissier’s flight trajectory, and he was extremely fast. He buzzed toward Golden Silk Spider, the sharp Buzzing Wingblade could definitely cut off his neck.

He attacked indiscriminately.

“Take Golden Silk Spider away! Close the confinement room!” Bell-bird pushed Golden Silk Spider into the arms of the armed police officer, turned around, and fired at Patissier’s head.

Each bullet hole on Patissier’s cheek split open—like a pebble falling into the water yet it just aroused a few ripples—it healed to how it was before. 

Bell-bird’s chest started hurting, seeming to have been hit by a stray bullet. When he lowered his head, he saw that his chest had been corroded by colored syrup, his flesh was corroded to the bone, and severe pain rushed to his brain.

He fell to the ground on his back and turned over with much difficulty. He took out a pair of handcuffs from his back waist, crawled toward the armed officer escorting Golden Silk Spider, and used up all of his strength to toss it. He hoarsely ordered, “Don’t… Don’t let him run off…”

But in mere seconds, the colorful syrup rapidly enveloped Bell-bird’s body. Du Mo turned around and saw that his flesh and bones had melted into a puddle of sticky syrup, only leaving behind a gun.

“Ling Que!” Du Mo froze in place, but at this moment, he didn’t even have time to grieve for his colleague who had died in the line of duty; his voice trembled as he ordered, “Put up the electric nets, lock all cells to prevent jailbreak.” 

Rimbaud wrapped his tail around Bai Chunian’s body and placed a gun in his palm. He looked at the chaos all around and sneered, “Humans have finally paid the price for their arrogance. Is this considered their retribution?”

Bai Chunian squeezed his hand. “To dare make such a weapon when you can’t estimate your own strength, it’s called having no self-awareness. Humans are a kind of creature without self-awareness.”

Bai Chunian, “Can you handle it?”

Rimbaud didn’t answer directly, “Merfolks are the strongest naturally occurring creatures on Earth.” 

“Go probe out a few key positions.” Bai Chunian supported Rimbaud and sent him upwards. He turned around and used Bone Armor on his left hand, then broke a fire hydrant with one punch.

The water gushed up, immediately drew to Rimbaud, and turned into a hydrated steel M4 rifle. The translucent rifle was held in his hands and aimed at the bee flying in the air.

Patissier was flying extremely fast, and the vibration frequency of his wings was very high, so he was able to abruptly stop and turn in mid-air. Rimbaud, on the other hand, didn’t have the ability to fly, so he could only rely on the impact of the gushing stream of water and electromagnetic force to stay in the air.

Bai Chunian, “Lanxing, vine restriction. Wrap Lu Yan in poison ivy armor. Lu Yan, go upstairs and shoot at his gland suppressor.” 

These days, so that they could smuggle in things for Bai Chunian, the vines had long since covered the ground under the island. Under Bi Lanxing’s control, the waist-thick vines underground grew wildly, easily breaking through the concrete floor and growing into an eerie jungle net.

Lu Yan relied on his associated ability, Supersonic, to instantly get to the roof of the building. He held a micro submachine gun in his hands and fired at Patissier’s nape.

The densely growing vines temporarily restricted Patissier’s flight path, but he suddenly screeched, his wings fluttered, and the razor-sharp edge instantly cut off the vines blocking the way—he had broken through the predicament.

“Missed.” Rimbaud changed his rifle magazine and aimed with one eye open. “He’s flying too fast.” 

Lu Yan was so angry that his rabbit ears flew up. “Lanxing, your vines aren’t strong enough! Don’t let him move, I can’t even hit him!”

Even seeing a trace of Patissier’s shadow within the scope proved to be hard, let alone shooting him.

An ordinary sniper bullet was useless toward an experimental subject in the deterioration stage, so even if Xiao Xun could shoot him, it wouldn’t have caused any injury to Patissier at all.

Lu Yan, who was standing at the top, attracted the most firepower. Patissier changed his direction and flew toward Lu Yan. At the same time, he initiated a roll call, and his M2 ability, Honey Meltdown, picked Lu Yan. 

The corrosive honey almost dripped onto Lu Yan’s body, but he was wrapped entirely in Bi Lanxing’s Poison Ivy Armor. A vine wrapped around him in time and dragged him down.

Lu Yan was frightened, rolled around on the ground, then held his chest and panted. “That was a close one, I almost died.”

Bi Lanxing’s eyes were focused on Patissier’s position. He calmly said, “You won’t. I’m watching him.”

“Xiao Xun.” Bai Chunian looked back. “Help out.” 

Greyhounds were classified as sighthounds, so the gland differentiation ability inherited from the greyhound genes would most likely be related to hunting. Xiao Xun’s J1 differentiation ability Universal Dashboard could accurately measure various indicators, its degree of practicality had already exceeded the J1 ability of normal people.

Xiao Xun held his rifle and bit his lips.

Han Xingqian leaned against the landed helicopter, holding the laptop in his hand. He lowered his gaze and softly reassured him, “You are a member of the IOA Secret Service. You are under the protection of the IOA, so if someone troubles you because of this, the Secret Service will settle all your worries for you.”

Lu Yan was confused for a while. “What are you guys talking about?” 

“…” Xiao Xun no longer hesitated—he closed one eye and quickly looked for the target from the scope with his J1 ability, Universal Dashboard. A calm bullet was fired without any hesitation, hitting between the eyebrows of the fast-flying patissier.

However, it was different from before. After the bullet shot Patissier, although the bullet hole healed, a square crosshair was left in its place, flickering a red glimmer.

The flickering red crosshair was very obvious; Rimbaud could see it. He raised his rifle to take aim, and the crosshair of his own rifle easily coincided with the red crosshair on Patissier’s head. Moreover, no matter which direction Patissier turned to fly, the rifle in Rimbaud’s hand would exactly aim at the red crosshair.

Rimbaud pulled the trigger, several translucent bullets flew along the corrected trajectory, and a burst of blood came out of Patissier’s forehead. 

The wound caused by the hydrated steel bullets healed much slower than that of ordinary bullets. Patissier let out a scream of pain and flew randomly in the air.

Greyhound’s gland M2 differentiation ability, Hunt Back Lock On: Sharing-type ability. A target shot by Xiao Xun would be locked on, and their location would be shared between allies. The shooting of the surrounding teammates would be corrected by Universal Dashboard, and their shooting rate would improve substantially.

Lu Yan stared wide-eyed. “?? You’re an M2?”

Bi Lanxing was also a bit shocked, casting a surprised look at Xiao Xun. 

“Sorry.” Xiao Xun stared at Patissier intently. “I kept it a secret to protect my life.”

Rimbaud whistled, then glanced at Bai Chunian. “You think I’d believe you if you said you chose your members randomly?”

Bai Chunian spread out his hands, “Picked up a treasure for nothing bei, my luck is good. Besides, wasn’t he picked up by us? You have good eyes.”

“Hm.” Rimbaud changed to a hydrated steel heavy machine gun and held it in his hands. 

The trajectory corrected by Xiao Xun’s assistance was exactly the same as the predicted trajectory of Patissier when he was flying—the bullets scattered then gathered, and blasted toward Patissier.

Patissier was restricted by the concentrated bullets ahead of him, so he could only retreat. At this moment, Lu Yan climbed back to the top of the building, aimed at the crosshair, deflected to the right, and fired several shots at the gland suppressor on Patissier’s nape.

Once the suppressor had been shot, the self-destruct system started and sent a burst of heat into Patissier’s gland. The micro bomb detonated.

Patissier’s gland burst with blood, his heart-rending cry of pain piercing the sky. His speed also slowed down, staggering along the vines, and finally landing on a flower on the stalk. 

Bai Chunian gradually furrowed his eyebrows together and muttered to himself, “Even this couldn’t kill him…?”

Whether human or experimental subjects, as long as the gland was blown up, they would be handicapped even if they didn’t die—or at the very least, lose their ability to resist. Looking at Patissier, half of the gland in the back of his neck was blown to pieces, but he continued to struggle with the remaining shattered half.

The enormous bee fell and perched on a vine. He bent his back, wing quivering, and his wound slowly healed.

“Withdraw,” Bai Chunian ordered through the communicator. “He’s storing up energy. After everyone has retreated, build a wall Lanxing.” 

Rimbaud fell down from the sky, dismantling the hydrated steel heavy machine gun in his hand, and withdrew to Bai Chunian’s side.

Lu Yan jumped down from the roof, was firmly caught by a blooming flower on the vine, and was pulled back to the ground.

The shield wall formed by the vines slowly rose from the ground. Rimbaud and Lu Yan retreated to this side at the same time.

Suddenly, Patissier flapped his wings and rose. Blazing hot syrup burst out from his body, bursting like lava from a volcano eruption and splashing everywhere. 

Where the syrup splashed, the buildings melted and colors flowed. The ground was corroded into soft rainbow syrup, which flowed along the slope and swept toward Rimbaud and Lu Yan.

“Lanxing, Poison Ivy Armor.” Bai Chunian saw that the situation wasn’t great, so he propped on the armor and flipped over. He grabbed Rimbaud and threw him into the vines, “Go in.”

In succession, the pitch-black vines appeared before Rimbaud, who was closest to the bee, then Bai Chunian and Lu Yan, and wrapped around their vital points.

Blazing-hot syrup splattered down from above their heads. When the syrup was falling, Rimbaud didn’t enter the shield walls, rather, he jumped out and used his tail and wrapped it around Bai Chunian. 

The hot syrup burned a hole in the vine shield, making a sizzling sound as it dripped down onto Rimbaud’s tail, and the blue fish scales fell off.

Rimbaud gritted his teeth. He put his hands on Bai Chunian’s nape to cover his vital area, his snow-white fingers scalded by the boiling syrup.

“Hurry inside, I’m fine.” Bai Chunian held his hands.

“An A3-grade omega isn’t that frail.” Rimbaud raised his hand and grabbed some running water; a hydrated steel riot shield covered the top of both their heads. He strangely said to himself, “There’s a lot of cat heads spinning around beside me. They all have pink paw pads, I need to go suck on them.” 

A part of Bai Chunian’s legs was also sprinkled with the pervasive corrosive syrup—he felt dizzy, and everything became distorted and dazzling in his eyes. Suddenly, several small blue fish floating in the air appeared in front of him, swimming around and kissing his cheek.

Patissier’s associated ability, Gingerbread House: An impairment-type ability. The target  splashed with syrup would slow down, reduce in strength, lose the will to resist and be absorbed in a sweet mirage.

“Han-ge, dispel it.” Bai Chunian held his dizzy head and ordered in a low voice, “And get me a fishing net while you’re at it…”

The situation right now couldn’t be handled alone. 

“What kind of net do you want?” Han Xingqian put down his laptop and jumped out of the helicopter. A horn grew out of his forehead, surrounded by a glowing light.

A pair of snow-white wings slowly unfolded from his back. Han Xingqian leaped up, his wings fanned a hurricane, and he lightly landed on the vine shield wall with his hands in the pockets of his white uniform.

“A3…” Xiao Xun was shocked, everyone else was too. A winged-type A3-grade was very rare, the most well-known so far being Lu Shangjin’s peregrine falcon hunting wings.

Pegasus’ gland A3 ability, Wings of the Divine Rider: Dispel the negative status of the targeted ally and dispel the buff status of the targeted enemy. 

Two feathers surrounded by holy light floated on the top of Bai Chunian and Rimbaud’s heads respectively.

The dispelling effect of the Wings of the Divine Rider could be applied to the same target up to three times in succession. Each time it was used, a feather would be added to the target, and it would detonate after reaching three feathers.

Han Xingqian could choose to detonate the enemy or to bear the detonation for his ally.

An airplane was flying around the island and observing the situation inside the prison. 

Crawler and Domino were inside, shocked by the live feed coming from their drone.

Crawler, “Well damn, a human A3 with a Pegasus gland. So it’s true that mutated glands have a higher probability of being upgraded than ordinary glands.”

Domino knitted his brow. “No wonder he didn’t get annihilated and turned into a marble when the Divine Envoy went berserk at M Harbor… Alright then, hurry and come up with a way to help them so we can get a good impression in front of the IOA. This is a promising organization.”

Crawler, “Let me think.”