Display stand No. 127.
The soft sound of chanical sliding echoed as the display stand hidden in the ceiling compartnt slowly descended. The items on the rack shimred with a soft white light, reflecting in everyone’s eyes at the scene.
It was a piece of carefully treated and "processed" spinal bone—a thing Luo lost in this fortress many years ago.
She stood quietly beside this "artifact," her expression complex and indescribable. For a mont, Yu Sheng even thought she might cry, but such fragility perhaps had dissipated from her life many years ago—she remained standing silently, breaking the silence softly after a long ti: "Ah... it really is here."
Erin sat on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, turned her face to look at the piece of spine, then turned to look at the golden-haired elf beside her. After a while, perhaps unable to withstand the oppressive atmosphere, she finally couldn’t hold back: "You’re not thinking of putting this thing back, are you?"
"How could I!" Luo’s emotions suddenly beca disjointed again, looking at the little puppet with a face full of difficult expressions, "Who can put their head back on after unscrewing it?"
"," Erin said confidently, "I can put it back on even if it’s snapped off—want to snap one off for you now? But we’ll need another body, this one doesn’t work, it’s broken and needs Yu Sheng to glue. Oh, by the way, Marin’s nanomachine swarms don’t stick..."
Luo: "..."
"Why do you have to take her so seriously," Yu Sheng sighed next to her, waving his hand at Luo, "Alright, take it down quickly and take it with you. At least it’ll put an end to one of your worries. But then again, I’m also curious about how you plan to deal with this."
"I..." Luo opened her mouth, but her expression quickly beca tangled, "I haven’t really figured it out. I’ve been planning for many years how to completely get rid of Old Qiao, planning to take back what belongs to . I’ve envisioned everything, except what to do after that. Besides..."
She paused at this point, her gaze inadvertently wandering over Yu Sheng and the others, with a subtle expression: "The current situation isn’t quite what I had planned over the years—I never thought I’d co back in this form one day."
"Plans often can’t keep up with changes," Yu Sheng was more at ease, "If you have no idea for now, talk about it later. I’ll find a box to pack it for you; you can put it in the ’dormitory’ in the valley later."
Saying this, he casually opened a door, found a cardboard box from the basent of No. 66 Wutong Road, and gave it to Luo while explaining, "This box was originally intended to make a bed for Erin, but she didn’t want it. I think the size is just right..."
Luo looked at Yu Sheng, then at Erin, and then at the cardboard box, finally accepting this "gift" with an almost astonished expression.
She felt that her emotions today indeed couldn’t be more disjointed.
Yu Sheng watched Luo pack up the piece of the spine and then seed to concentrate slightly as if perceiving sothing. After a mont, he spoke again: "Besides, I found a group of people in this fortress who don’t seem like combat personnel—when Old Qiao’s troops began attacking, I sealed off the area they were in. I guess... you might want to et them."
Luo was taken aback for a mont, but in the next second, she reacted, realizing what Yu Sheng ant by "non-combat personnel."
"Should I arrange for a few mass-produced puppets to bring them here?" Yu Sheng looked into Luo’s eyes, "Those people are safe, just a bit nervous because of the sudden base lockdown."
Luo took a gentle breath.
"No, I want to see them myself."
"Alright, we’ll go together."
The group then headed toward the exit of the hall.
As they passed the now-empty biomass tank in the middle of the hall, Luo suddenly stopped in her tracks again.
She looked at the now empty tank and the screen next to it that had gone dark, her expression inexplicably tinged with so emotion.
"Actually, in the end, Old Qiao still got what he wanted."
Yu Sheng looked back: "Why do you say that suddenly?"
"...After being cut off from the mind for a while, the perception of ti gets greatly extended, and the fear and pain I inflicted on his neural circuits would have increased exponentially. He only sought a quick death then—death, for him, was a wish fulfilled."
"What, do you regret acting too quickly?"
"Of course not," Luo imdiately shook her head, "I’ve waited too long for this day, with no hope for any more variables, delaying even a second would be irresponsible to the years of waiting, and to be honest..."
She slowly curled her lips, finally showing a delighted smile on her face: "It was really satisfying to burn that thing."
...
The lower core area of Deep Rock Fortress was the "laboratory" section of the entire base. The corridors and rooms here were tightly sealed with layers of security systems; the residential area was entirely within the range of the sentry cannons’ fire power. The "Living tal Control Center" and "Transformation Center" were the central hubs of the entire region—instead of calling it an experintal facility, it was more fitting to call it a massive prison with attached laboratories.
At this mont, in the connecting hall at the edge of the laboratory area, more than a dozen figures in white lab coats were anxiously gathered, staring at the high wall at the end of the hall.
Humans, Elves, Beastn, Demon Subspecies...
Various different faces from different holands—the only thing in common was the fear and tension on their faces at this mont.
A series of huge explosions had shaken the entire facility not long ago, and it seed sothing significant had happened outside the isolation walls. However, no one knew what was happening outside—after a brief power outage, so cloned soldiers had appeared in the living area, instructing everyone to remain quiet, but soon after, it seed they received orders from higher-ups and hurriedly left the corridor.
That was the last ti anyone saw them.
Afterward, the entire laboratory area was sealed, not like before by the security system, but in a physical sense of "sealed off."
So brave souls ran to the end of the corridor in the living area and unexpectedly found that the gates there had disappeared, all passageways seed to have transford like living things, then "grown" together, sealing the path to the outside completely. The elevator seed to be malfunctioning as well, with the display on the door bizarrely showing "Not finished yet, don’t move" continuously, while the surveillance system on the ceiling was wildly jittery, though the sentry cannon had retracted into its dark slot, sothing that had never happened before.
The sound of hurried footsteps ca from the side.
A tall male Arglede Elf in a lab coat ran over from the hallway on one side of the hall. He jogged up to the dozen people and stopped in front of a small figure with distinct feline features, a Jipulo girl, slightly out of breath: "Momo, I just took a look at the communications station, and the equipnt there is locked out as well, it seems to be cut off from the main system. Also, there’s airflow on the vent side, but it seems like sothing is blocking the middle of the duct, too dark to see, looks like vines or sothing."
"Momo, what do we do now?" Another young Arglede spoke nervously, "It looks like sothing happened in the base... those soldiers haven’t co back, how about we..."
"No," the Jipulo girl with short, light brown hair imdiately shook her head, her ears twitching slightly in the air, "All passages are blocked, breaking into the vents would trigger an alarm, and we don’t know what’s going on outside yet... we don’t have the activation key for the shuttle either."
Suddenly, a slight tremor ca from behind the high wall at the end of the hall, interrupting everyone’s conversation.
The tremor occurred several tis, seemingly sothing was restarting, and then ca the slight friction sound like living tal squirming. The lift gate at the bottom of the high wall suddenly lit up green, and the rolling text on the gate’s display changed.
With the best eyesight, Momo bravely took two steps forward, seeing that the text on the screen read "Now it’s finished."
Her ears twitched a bit.
Before she could figure out what exactly was happening, the elevator doors suddenly opened.
An Algredian, a human, a "robot" dressed like a Star Maid, and a Foxman with many tails.
All unfamiliar faces.
——Tension, bewildernt, and confusion.
Luo was the first to walk out of the elevator, seeing the more than ten figures gathered in the hall, each with a similar expression on their face. Those laboratory uniforms, burned into her nightmares over the years, appeared glaringly stark and pale under the lights, and the smallest, seemingly weakest figure stood in front of everyone, appearing to be the "leader" here.
It was a Jipulo girl, with short light-brown hair, and matching light-brown cat ears, but she only had one ear on the left side, with the right ear replaced by chanical structure. She stood in front of the elevator, seeming to muster all her courage, the fur on her tail all puffed up, her hands clenched into fists in front of her—her right hand gleaming with a tallic silver shine.
Luo walked straight towards her.
"What’s your na?" she asked.
"I, I’m Momo," the Jipulo girl instinctively answered. Her racial talent seed to make her acutely perceive a certain... intimidating aura from Luo, one of a predator who had survived internal struggles within the Black Dot Group, but this aura wasn’t entirely terrifying, possessing a touch of friendliness within its strength, leaving her a bit puzzled, "I’m the... laboratory assistant here."
Luo looked up and down at the Jipulo person in front of her, then lightly nodded, patting her on the shoulder.
"Don’t be afraid," she said softly.
Erin ran over from behind—first rummaging through Hu Li’s tail, then running over to Luo while carrying a round object, and threw what she was holding to the ground with a proud yell: "Old Qiao is dead!"
The round chanical skull rolled on the ground, making a loud sound.
Momo flinched twice.
The first ti was because she just noticed Erin—earlier, the small puppet stood on the ground blocked by one of Hu Li’s tails, and no one had seen her.
The second was when she realized what the round skull was.
"Old Qiao is dead," Luo said, looking at everyone, repeating every word again.
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