Chapter 198: Hiding On the Goddess’ Skirt [Part 1]
“We have bad news. An informer told us that one of ‘Miracle’s’ higher-ups named Kedwell had just ordered this base to be destroyed and turn it into an ‘accident’.”
“How much time do we have left?” Cillin asked.
“I don’t know, but it’ll be best if you leave the base within ten minutes. We’ll meet up at the ‘Goddess of Miracle’.”
“Got it.”
“Cillin… Be careful.” although Cillin’s ‘death’ back then wasn’t real, Knight still couldn’t help but feel that there was a heavy stone in his chest every time he recalled that scene.
“I know. You guys be careful too.”
After cutting off the comm, Cillin carried the unconscious Scarlet Wind and Snowball out of the lab and passed them to Czedow.
“Take them to the goddess’ statue. Qiuqiu and Wheeze are already heading towards there. You need to leave this place immediately since it will soon be ‘wiped clean’.”
“What about you?” Czedow asked.
“You guys go first. I’ll be right behind you.”
Czedow nodded and stopped asking questions. He put on a gas mask each on Scarlet Wind and Snowball before carrying them each with one arm and running towards outside.
Czedow had released all of the experimental beasts trapped inside research base. Although the parasites didn’t like these experimental beasts too much, the volatile gas discharged by the infected blood of the human puppets could cause them to go crazy.
The crazed experimental beasts, the security guards, and the infected human puppets that had lost control clashed against one another inside the research base. Blood and torn limbs could be seen everywhere. The sounds of gunshots, angry yells, bloodcurdling screams and beastial roars all became mixed together to form a cacophony of noise.
Czedow activated a defensive shield around his body. Right now, his main objective was to escape the base and not attack his enemies. Therefore, Czedow nimbly passed through the gaps between the large experimental beasts, and if human puppets were to block his way then he would run into them and knock them right out of his path. Metaphorically speaking, Czedow was a cannonball that ran over all those human puppets like a tank.
The gray cat had led Tang Qiuqiu away from this place through a secluded path after receiving Cillin’s message. This path was originally used to transport medical supplies, and it was a little tight even for adults. Therefore, it was impossible for the large experimental beasts and human puppets to come after them. Since the parasites cared nothing for them too, Tang Qiuqiu and the gray cat had escaped the place rather smoothly.
Tang Qiuqiu had sniped a few experimenters and a dozen or so human puppets. She had also found and collected her badge from a storage room. Tang Qiuqiu had displayed a level of calmness that far exceeded another peer in face of these inhuman-looking human puppets and aggressive experimental beasts. Her childhood had never been easy to begin with, and she had experienced many things after joining the Sixth Squad. Her personality had already become much more tempered and tenacious than before.
Tang Qiuqiu didn’t ask how the others were doing. Instead, she had followed the gray cat wordlessly and swiftly after it told her that they were leaving this place. The greatest aid a squad member could provide to their team in a Hunter regiment was to perform to the best of their role.
Cillin looked at the time, left the lab and walked down another passage.
Thanks to Czedow, every guarded entrances in this area had been completely nullified, with all passages open to access. Cillin ran down a particular direction.
Cillin had been getting a strange feeling every since he walked into this area. There was a kind of attraction that was calling out to him somewhere in this area.
It was an Aurelio starmap piece!
The piece he had obtained from the traitor of ‘Heaven’s Jail’ hunter regiment back at Sector S was resonating with this other mysterious piece. Right now, both pieces were pulling at each other clearly like magnets even though one of them was currently stored inside a subspace.
A human puppet covered in red and black blood charged towards him, and Cillin stepped right onto its head and jumped far, far away. He then popped out his wrist blade and cut off the head of a human puppet blocking his way.
Before him, there was an experimental beast were wrestling with a couple of human puppets at the passage entrance. The narrow space of the passage had limited the experimental beast’s ability to fight, and the numbers and the human puppets enhanced abilities post modification enabled them to fight the beasts into a draw. The experimental beasts stepped on some of the fallen human puppets repeatedly, causing more than half of their bodies to be crushed into meat paste. However, the human puppets whose heads were still intact were somehow still able to open and close their mouth despite their condition. Their faces covered in bulging veins and red and black blood was extremely eerie.
Cillin slipped through an opening like a nimble fish and left before the human puppets or the experimental beast could react.
I’m almost there!
Cillin circled around a corner and saw a room. The room’s door was shut, meaning that it didn’t fall under ‘Aier’s’ control even though it was clearly within ‘Aier’s’ area of network. This goes to show just how special this room was, and the starmap piece Cillin sought after was inside that room.
Since Cillin didn’t know if the room required retina, fingerprint, genes or other factors before to grant access, he didn’t use the information Czedow had collected directly.
Cillin took out an object the shape of a button and attached it to a scanner. A holographic screen popped up and displayed some symbols before his eyes. Cillin’s fingers danced across the screen, and the symbols vanished one line after another as they were decoded. They slowly turned into a double helix shape…
Mitochondrial DNA?
Inside the room, a blood drenched Shelt was attempting to connect a call while receiving treatment from the medical machine. He was gasping for air.
However, no one had picked up the call on the other side of the communicator. Right now, Shelt was feeling colder and colder and more and more worried. When this worry rose to a certain level, it turned into extreme fury.
Although Shelt was an idiot when it came to anything that didn’t involve an experiment, right now he was experiencing a rare moment of epiphany.
Kedwell, are you trying to destroy this whole research base?!!
The hand Shelt used to grab the communicator was trembling. He muttered to himself, “You can’t do this, you can’t… these are all rare research data, they can’t be lost, they absolutely can’t be lost…”
Beep——
The door opened.
Shelt abruptly turned his head towards the door. A pungent smell and distant roars and gunshots came in from outside.
He saw no one outside the door.
“Who… who’s there?!” Shelt asked with a slightly raspy voice that was full of panic.
There were no response.
Shelt barely pushed himself to his feet, and his gun hand was trembling even now. The broken bones and damaged muscles around certain parts of his body made even the slightest bit of movement incredibly difficult to execute. The fact that he was able to survive and crawl into this place was a feat of exceptional luck already.
Pu!
A needle entered Shelt’s neck, and the toxin coated around the needle swiftly entered into his body. When Shelt collapsed to the ground, he could only catch a blurry figure standing in front of him. Although the toxin had invaded his system at an incredible rate, his years of research boosted his drug resistance by a fair amount. He didn’t faint immediately, and he was able to point at a cabinet and say, “… Take it…”
Shelt was gone after he said this.
The cabinet was also password protected, but this time it didn’t take Cillin too long to break it. He opened the thick alloy cabinet and found that there was only one metallic box inside it. The password of the metallic box was none other than Shelt’s gene sequences.
Cillin discovered a starmap piece inside the metallic box after he opened it. There was also a chip inside too.
Cillin didn’t investigate what was inside this chip. There was no time. After briefly searching through the room, Cillin walked out and ran into a hologram right away.
It was ‘Aier’. The hologram was projected by the system. She was a beautiful girl dressed in white clothes who possessed a unique countenance. The white wings behind her back reminded Cillin of the Goddess of Miracles, Alvinia, in ‘Genesis Mythos’.
Right now, ‘Aier’s’ hologram was unstable. It would flicker from time to time.
“Are you Cillin? Are you the creator of that AI?” Aier asked.
Cillin frowned. It would seem that the AI system in this research base had a backup somewhere. It survived even though it was mostly killed off by Czedow.
Cillin didn’t answer her, but ‘Aier’ continued to speak, “I am only here to tell both of you that I am not my father’s proudest invention. I am just a wash out father gifted to Shelt.”
“Who is your father?”
“I only know that they call him Juno. He is the true creator of the strongest AI system in this world, not you…”
Aier’s hologram vanished along with her final sentence.
Who is Juno?