Chapter 217: Research (1/2)

”What is… this?” The young Rakna's voice quivered as he beheld what lied below the nuclear plant.

The bridge he was on spanned for tens of meters and expanded into a massive grid of which the cases had each a cistern located within their perimeter.

These cisterns were filled with a red liquid mixed with blue light as if it was electrified. And if the smell didn't make the contents' nature clear enough, the hundreds of dead animals hung to the ceiling with their throats slit definitely would.

”Is this… the pool of blood?” Ceres asked uneasily as she viewed the memory.

”Correct. Or rather, the pools of blood,” Rakna said with an empty chuckle.

”What happened here…?”

”Watch. You'll get your answer.”

Ceres turned back to the memory as the thirteen-year-old boy started walking further down the bridge whilst staying close to the railings. His face was stuck in a perpetual grimace as he did his best to examine the situation.

”Those cisterns…” He muttered and leaned a bit more over the railing to see that the containers of blood each had a screen displaying different measures. Additionally, there were several conduits pouring a cyan liquid inside.

”The Eion… Blood… Animals…” His eyes widened. ”The trucks aren't for the Eion, they're for the animals… Zeera? Did they steal Aurora's research and continued it on all sorts of wild animals? If that's true, why bring them all here and drain them of their blood?” He muttered to himself.

Since there didn't seem to be anyone monitoring this room, he quickly headed to a staircase static to the bridge and approached one of the cisterns' screens. ”Enzymes, acids, antigens… all sorts of natural compounds,” he mumbled and clicked his tongue.

He looked up again at the drained animals with a wince. His eyes wandered to the crystallized air around them coming from the vents. ”They keep them cold… do they use the corpses to add the organic compounds? Fuck; the old man is better at this than me,” he spat under his breath and started running around, trying to find out what this blood was for but to no avail.

He did find one cistern different from the others though. He climbed the ladder built onto it and looked inside only to almost gag. ”Disgusting pieces of shit,” he uttered. There were decomposing animals in there and some were already bones. ”This is clearly not Zeera's method. Are they trying to come up with a different solution to make super soldiers?”

As he was thinking that, he heard a sound coming from the other side of the underground factory along with voices he couldn't make out. 'Shit,' he cursed internally and quietly headed to the most outward walls of this test center. He used the metal poles sustaining the ceiling as covers and he started hearing the footsteps and voices clearer.

”Are we even sure the motion sensors didn't just malfunction? Might just be a rat. Who would even get in here? We should have fucking cameras anyway…”

”Shut up. The fewer devices we have vulnerable to hacking, the better. Aurora's been a pain in the ass since they've started putting back doors in every market.”

Rakna quietly listened to their conversation and eventually made his way back up on the bridge so that he could spy on them from above. They were speaking English and were obviously not of Asian descent; which made it even more likely for them to be Flood.

”Yeah, yeah, sure… see anything?” One of the two men asked as they walked around the cisterns.

”No,” the other responded lazily and his partner clicked his tongue.

”Tch, I hate this smell. Hey, do you know when's the next batch?”

”Tomorrow. It's the last one too. We're done with the research. The two other sites are closing and this one will follow next week. The higher-ups want to wrap this up before we get found out. To top it off, we have some weird vigilante after us. Some are saying the Demon's back.”

”Pff! As if! That's just a freaking urban legend at this point. It's been what? A hundred years since he disappeared? He must be dead already. My mom used to tell me scary stories about him when I was a kid.”

”You should have listened to her,” the man heard an unknown voice and before he could react, a knife had been thrust through his temple and Rakna landed on his falling body.

”Wha-!” The partner turned around when he heard the noise and raised his firearm. But before he could aim, the knife in Rakna's hand extended into a spear and swatted his weapon.

The spear then stabbed into his knee and he cried in pain. He reflexively keeled over and a hand grabbed his throat and pushed him to the floor. He tried to get the hand off but the spear retracted and slashed both his shoulders.

”Quiet,” Rakna spoke through his mask. ”You're clearly the most knowledgeable here. You're going to tell me what I want to know.”

”I'm not going to tell you anything… brat…” He choked out of his strangled throat and Rakna rolled his eyes. He whirled the knife and stabbed it into the man's palm while tightening his grip so that the man's scream couldn't be voiced.