"You think he's fine?" Liz asked the others as they continued to move down the steps. They passed floor -20 The stairs continued to go and everyone was practically holding their breath for the next door.
"He'll be fine." Keng reassured the group. He landed on the landing between floor -20 and -21 and took a moment to breathe. A familiar sensation moved through Keng. Lee Seng materialized on the step below him. Lee Seng sighed as he took a moment to rub his eyes. The others all looked at Lee Seng, not shocked by the sudden appearance.
"-21. Y'all made progress." Lee Seng nodded, turning to face everyone. "Hopefully you didn't have much trouble like I did."
"Everything alright?" Ritsuka asked. Lee Seng nodded at Ritsuka.
"Everything's fine now… hopefully." Lee Seng smiled. He couldn't help but feel some weight lift off him. Number 1 had been dealt with but there were still a lot of things he was left wondering about.
"What's wrong?" Keng asked, reading his twin's face perfectly.
"Nothing. Just a bit confused, that's all." Lee Seng shook his head. "Number 8 knew something's wrong with both 7 and 1… so it got me wondering if the others know that…" He trailed off, not wanting to say the part he wished to bury away. The others nodded, seemingly knowing what he was thinking about.
Jiro stood near the staircase going up to floor -20. He crossed his arms and quietly watched while the rest talked. He was the odd one out here. He had followed his brother and his friends into this place. Even still, he couldn't help but wonder about the person his brother and his friends seemed to center around - Lee Seng Chang.
"Don't worry about it." Olivia put a hand on Lee Seng's shoulder. "You did what you had to."
"Yeah." Evan agreed. "Let's just focus on finishing what we need to do here."
"Y-yeah, you're right." Lee Seng nodded. "Did you guys find anything?"
"People walking about on the other floors. Those… Failed Experiments you and Jiro fough. Other than that, we haven't really seen anything." Keng shook his head.
"It feels like a horror movie." Liz commented. "Like they know we're coming to them." They all turned their attention to floor -21. "And we're not even halfway to floor -55, either. My legs will be butter by the time we're done with this."
"Let's continue then." Jiro pushed himself off the wall, drawing the young group's attention. "Don't wanna get caught up in security or more experiments coming our way, hm?"
"Jiro's right. We should continue." Ritsuka agreed. Everyone continued their way down, letting Lee Seng take the lead. They descended the steps and began to turn when they noticed a blockage.
"Great." Keng sighed. "Just what we needed."
"I guess we're going through this door." Evan pointed. Lee Seng opened the door and looked around before motioning for the group to come. The hallways all looked the same. Lee Seng questioned how people even survived down here.
"This is bad. This is bad!" A woman's voice panicked. Lee seng and Keng threw their hand up and stopped. The sound of papers rustling together followed by footsteps moving. Mouse clicking echoed as a woman continued to panic. "Someone's coming for all of this! I need to delete it before anyone finds out!"
Lee Seng moved ahead, turning into the room. His footsteps were quiet, barely catching the woman's attention. She screeched when she was suddenly pulled away from her desk. She noticed the nine-tailed Fox Spirit moving into the room and grabbing the papers.
"W-who are you?!? Se-security!" The woman shouted.
"Shut up if you want to live." Lee Seng threatened. She felt a force lock her jaw, tightly.
"What did you find?" Keng asked, stepping into view.
'There's two of them?!?' The woman's eyes widened in horror. 'I-I don't wanna die!' Keng looked at the woman and smiled at her. It was an odd thing for an enemy to do.
"Did you find something useful?" Ritsuka asked, stopping in the doorway. Lee Seng sighed and set the papers down. He moved to the computer and noticed it was already deleting stuff. He quickly stopped the deletion and looked at the files left. He clicked a random folder on the desktop and noticed a password. He turned to look at the girl and sighed.
"Tell me the password." Lee Seng spoke. The pressure on the woman's jaw disappeared. She began to scream and Lee Seng sighed. He moved over and put a hand up. Celestial fire billowed from his fingertips, engulfing his hand in an instant. "Tell me." The woman gulped.
"I'm going to die anyway! I would rather not tell you!" The woman shouted.
"She's brave." Keng commented. Ritsuka sighed. More voices came through, giving the woman more information. Lee Seng sighed and grabbed the woman as she screamed. The flames were harmless as Lee Seng moved his other hand to pull her badge off.
"This'll do." Lee Seng stepped away and watched the scanner fly out of the trash bin. He hooked the scanner backup and scanned her badge.
AUTHORIZATION CLEARED! UNLOCKING ALL LOCKED FILES!
andasnovel.com The file opened, showing sub-folders. Lee Seng whistled while Keng hovered, looking. Lee Seng scrolled through them, looking for something that would give him more information on what the Failed Experiments were.
"Nothing on what I want…" Lee Seng whispered.
"Research on random things." Keng commented. "Oh, D31!" He pointed at a folder. Lee Seng clicked on it and noticed tons of research on it.
"Too much to read." Lee Seng groaned. HE clicked the first thing that looked interesting.
'D31 Analysis, 022620xx.'
After six years of testing, we've finally found something more stable than the last iteration. D07 was the only iteration out of the first ten that seemed to have a similar effect to that creature we pulled in. I believe D31 is the next step in boosting Biohuman capabilities.
Creating this 'combined spirit' was hard, but I managed to create something.
(Graphs, charts, and numbers sprawled across many of the pages.)
The one thing about D31 is its harsh 'second spirit.' It doesn't resonate from what little information we got from the captured specimen. I am documenting this to look back on when the D series is finally complete!
"The D series…" Lee Seng sighed. "It seems like someone was a bit impatient." He turned and looked at the woman. "According to this, D31 is unstable due to one massive flaw: the second spirit. How was this passed through multiple stages and used on multiple people?"
"How do you know a lot about that?" The woman asked. "Y-you're just some intelligent humanoid m-monster! W-why would you be interested in that?"
"Because you released a bigger monster than anyone is capable of comprehending! If it weren't for the fact that there was me and my brother, we would've died and become a part of the D31!" The woman's face widened. She looked between Lee Seng and Keng.. They had similar looks but there was no way…
"I think you're scaring her." Keng looked at Lee Seng.
"Why do you blindly follow my father's orders? Why do you follow the Creator so blindly, not questioning if this is even right?!?"
"Y-you're… Lee Seng Chang?" The woman stuttered. Lee Seng moved up to the woman, locking eyes with her. "H-his son… is a fugitive. If you're here then—"
"I'm here to stop this madness! The D31 juicer is only creating killers. If the Creator is behind this, I need to stop him before it's too late."
"But he… He isn't the one who even sanctioned it." The woman told Lee Seng. Lee Seng's body shivered with goosebumps. The woman gulped and shook her head. "H-he isn't the one who even did this. It… It was…"
"Hey, you need to hurry. There's movement." Ritsuka poked his head in. Lee Seng's frozen expression pulled Ritsuka further into the room. "W-what's wrong?"
"What do you mean by that?" Lee Seng asked quietly. "Tell me."
"Well…" The woman looked at Ritsuka and then Keng.
"Tell me! Who sanctioned this? Who okay'd D-series 31?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but I know it's a woman. W-we we're a company within the Creator's lab… We… We technically don't e-exist—"
"Answer me!" Lee Seng grabbed her collar.
"Lee…" Keng lifted his hand. Everything in the room rattled. Lee Seng was starting to go berserk. The woman's eyes shook. Tears fell as she shut her eyes.
"I don't know who she is but she's deeper within! We get all our information from the Creator from time to time, but between the higher-ups, there's only two people who know of her! They call her Mother! Mother tells us what to do and Mother's the one who pushed D31 forward! Please don't kill me!"
"Let's go." Olivia popped her head into the room. The pressure lifted and the woman dropped to the floor. Lee Seng stood there in disbelief. Olivia and Ritsuka exchanged worried looks. Lee Seng turned and moved out of the room.
Foll𝑜w current novℯls on fre𝒆web(n)ovel.co(m)