Chapter 176: ‘Grim Reaper’s’ ‘Godfather’ [Part 2]
Deciding not to confuse himself with this issue any longer, and considering that the people making a din outside had subsided a little, Ghost Butterfly told the duo about his encounter.
Originally, they had planned the starting time of the operation. Once the clock started ticking, the convicts would break out from inside the prison while Ghost Butterfly Seventeen provided them support from outside. There shouldn’t have been a large commotion if everything went according to plan. However, this confusion that had suddenly erupted completely screwed up their plans. After receiving Ghost Butterfly Fourteen’s news from inside the prison, Ghost Butterfly Seventeen got ready to provide him support. However, along the way he encountered a person, got beaten into the state he was in, and some of his equipment had been destroyed as well. If he hadn’t escaped quickly he would’ve died there and then. After he escaped, he then hid himself inside this bathroom.
“Who’s the guy who hurt you?” Cillin asked.
“I don’t know. He was invisible. He was very strong.” Ghost Butterfly Seventeen answered.
“I’m surprised. You Blue Butterflies are imprisoned in just grade three prisons?” Lung rubbed his chin and said.
Ghost Butterfly Seventeen obviously did not plan to talk further on the matter. He was now feeling a lot more spirited, and he expressed that he was going to find his companions and leave after wiping away the traces inside the bathroom.
“Oh right, since you’re already here, let me tell you something.” before he left, Ghost Butterfly Seventeen said, “There is a VIP in this grade three prison. He has probably come out by now. Take care and don’t offend him.”
“Who is it?”
Cillin and Lung looked at Ghost Butterfly Seventeen at once.
“Hunting Blade Jiada.”
After parting ways with Ghost Butterfly Seventeen, Cillin and Lung switched a new relatively hidden location to hide under and pondered about Ghost Butterfly Seventeen’s words.
“What are you thinking?” Lung asked.
“There’s no blood.” Cillin said.
“Ah?”
“You remember the time when we went looking for him? There was no blood on the ground. He did not bleed when he was escaping, and had only started bleeding when he was inside the bathroom. This meant that he could control the bleeding of his wounds. The bathroom door had also been processed. There are other scents that covered up the scent of blood. Not even a guardian beast could have sensed it.”
“Someone from Blue Butterfly truly cannot be underestimated.” after a pause, Lung asked again, “What are you going to do about Hunting Blade Jiada?”
“Let’s just go with the flow. Hopefully we won’t run into him, but even if we do, he shouldn’t raise a hand against small fries like us as long as we don’t offend him, right?”
While supporting his own head, Lung stretched his fingers through his hair and scratched, thinking, “I really didn’t think that other than Blue Butterfly, Hunting Blade Jiada would be here as well. If we were to query the convict data, we probably won’t find his records in it.”
“Actually, I’m guessing that ‘Mist’ or ‘Merciless’ had a VIP hidden in that grade one prison from earlier too.” Cillin said.
“It really is unexpected; to think that Sector S’ prisons had become their hiding spots.”
“Are we still going in then? After all, you’re the employer of this mission to come to Sector S. The choice is yours.” Cillin looked at Lung.
“Don’t you think it’ll be a huge shame to leave just like that? Let’s go. We have to clarify some things now that we’re already here, and even if we couldn’t, it is still very important for us to get some information.”
Boom!
There was another explosion over at the prison.
“Come on, now’s our chance!”
Cillin and Lung seized the opportunity of the chaos created by the explosion to enter into the prison through a hole in the wall. The second he stepped into the prison, Lung suddenly felt discomfort all over his body. Cillin pulled Lung into an empty office. There was no one inside. The prison guards had all gone out to deal with the convicts.
“What’s going on? I’m feeling discomfort all over my body.” Lung looked at the scanner and confirmed that there weren’t any other life forms around them. But he just couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable.
“Radioactive substances!!”
Upon hearing Cillin’s words, Lung hurriedly looked at the mini detector on his hand, “There are some radioactive rays and particles, but they are not within a threatening level. My detector would’ve sounded the alarm a long time ago if it was very serious.”
Cillin felt the substances in the air around him before shaking his head, “There are radioactive substances in the air, and quite a lot of them too. However, they had gone through multiple radioactive decays and are no longer at a threatening level. The threatening period had already passed.”
Lung looked at the elements and degree of radiation displayed on his detector, “You’re saying that they’d mostly undergone radioactive decays already?”
A radioactive substance that had gone through a decay would transform into another kind of element. No wonder the data displayed on the detector was strange.
But how did it decay this quickly? It’s understandable if it’s just a small amount, but from what you say this is a huge amount of radioactive substances! I thought that the precise timing of decay of radioactive elements could not be estimated?”
“Godfather!” Cillin said the name directly.
Lung’s entire body shuddered once, and with a gaping mouth he stared disbelievingly at Cillin. Then, he squatted on the ground and covered his face, “Cillin, why’s our luck so darn ‘good’?!”
‘Godfather’ was a person. Twenty years ago, he discovered a method to control the time of decay of radioactive elements as a four star scholar in GAL research institute. He was able to manipulate the activity in a radioactive element’s nucleus and cause the decay time to go according to his plans. At the time this research affected the entire GAL academic circle, but there were plenty of academicians – especially from GAL research institute – that voiced out different opinions. Later on, when ‘Godfather’s’ research claimed the lives of many innocent research personnel during the research process, the research was put under control.
‘Godfather’ would escape along with his technology later and join the organisation ‘Grim Reaper’. Since he had always been an authority in the research of radioactive elements and decay, he was later given the title of ‘Godfather’.
‘Godfather’ affected a lot of people. ‘Good’ or ‘evil’ aside, in terms of the research of elements the people greatly admired this ‘Godfather’ for his work. There were no longer any news about ‘Godfather’ after he joined the organisation ‘Grim Reaper’.
Since ‘Godfather’ had brought with him his technology and research findings and joined the organisation ‘Grim Reaper’ no less, what could’ve won him a space on the publication of absolute authority, ‘Code’, was waved away just like that.
If they were to talk about ‘Godfather’, then they had to talk about ‘Grim Reaper’ as well. ‘Grim Reaper’ was an unconventional organisation. There was no such concept as good or evil in their dictionary, and they did not belong under the category of Hunters, adventurers or hitmen. Although the government labeled them as a ‘menace’, they still had plenty of supporters in GAL. The reason for that was their power – their absolute power.
Although Blue Butterfly’s average individual combat strength was the highest among all Hunter regiments, they could only submit in defeat when compared to ‘Grim Reaper’. That being said, not everyone within ‘Grim Reaper’ had incredible individual combat strength. For example, ‘Godfather’ had poor combat strength since his expertise were leaned towards academics. Overall, every person in ‘Grim Reaper’ had their own familiar field of expertise and absolute authority there. It was just that they applied this authority with real action.
Radioactive decay, system hacking, destruction of defenses and an unknown combat strength. ‘Grim Reaper’ was even more of a headache to both the government and the military when compared to ‘Mist’ and ‘Merciless’. At least ‘Mist’ and ‘Merciless’ were simpler to define – hitman organisations, right? – but this wasn’t the case with ‘Grim Reaper’. They could roleplay a hitman, a Hunter or an academician too.
However, the amount of activities from ‘Grim Reaper’ had been pitiful as of late. Cillin’s generation and his father’s generation had only heard of ‘Grim Reaper’ as an entity in legends.
But now…
“That’s it. It has to be ‘Grim Reaper’. The instantaneous destruction of the satellite array earlier was probably their work as well.” Cillin sighed. Ever since he arrived at Sector S, the amount of sighs he let out had obviously increased.
“Why did ‘Grim Reaper’ come here?”
“Who knows? Just like how no one would’ve expected that ‘Mist’ and ‘Merciless’ would appear in a mere grade one prison, all those people who should be appearing at grade five prison planets were all popping up at unexpected places.”
Cillin sent a message to the gray cat. Since the situation on this planet had gotten even more complicated than before, he had to warn them one more time.
The gray cat quickly replied his message. They had found a food storing warehouse, and there were still some fresh food in it. They were currently eating…
Lung’s mouth twitched upon seeing the gray cat’s reply.
“Screw it. We’re not returning empty handed at least!” Lung adjusted the parameters of his mini detector and said, “Let’s go rob a profit while it’s chaotic!”
“What are we robbing?”
“Energy blocks!”
The amount of energy needed to maintain the defenses of a grade three prison was quite a lot compared to a grade one prison. Therefore, the amount of energy storage here should correspond accordingly as well.
“The fresh food supplies on the starship are getting low too. After we got the energy blocks, we’ll go to Wheeze’s location to collect some food supplies, just in case we get delayed by whatever that might happen later and couldn’t find food.”
Nutrient pills were seriously unpalatable. There was absolutely no way Lung would want to live his life eating them.
After making their plans and enlarging the scan to acquire the prison’s overall layout, Cillin and Lung picked a route and headed towards the storage room containing the energy blocks directly.
What was strange was that the closer they got to the energy storage room, the fewer the people they encountered along the way. This was because most of the people who survived long enough to come here were dead. There were plenty of dead people lying on the ground of the passage leading towards the energy block storage room, but no fatal wounds could be found on the surface of their bodies. All of the wounds that were visible had been inflicted by them upon each other.