Chapter 259: Fusion Experiment

A few minutes later, three figures in white lab coats pushed the young man from the next bed out of the room.

Jian Changsheng had been observing them in secret. From beginning to end, the young man had shown no intention of resisting, lying quietly on the snow-white sheets as if preparing to welcome his own death... As the door closed, he was the only one left in the empty room.

Oh wait, one mushroom.

Seeing this, Jian Changsheng rolled off the bed, but as soon as his feet touched the ground, he fell to his knees with a thud.

A deep sense of weakness surged from his legs, as if someone had drained his strength. Jian Changsheng held onto the edge of the bed with one hand, struggled to stand up, and frowned at the IV drip that was feeding him.

"Is this the effect of this stuff?" Jian Changsheng pulled the needle out of the back of his hand.

He took a few deep breaths by the bed, and after a long while, finally regained some strength. He carefully moved to the door and peered outside through the small glass window.

Outside was a white corridor, and on both sides were numerous identical rooms, which also appeared to be places for housing experimental subjects. He couldn't see clearly further away... Jian Changsheng looked up at the clock on the wall, and Chu Muyun's words echoed in his ears again:

"...After you both enter the base, you will inevitably be on different floors. Especially you, Little Jian, experimental subjects are precious materials to the base, so it's highly likely you'll be on the third level, not too far from the Aurora Lord."

"You can try to find the Aurora Lord first. If you find him, you can look for an opportunity to leave and head to the upper level for Heart to pick you up. If you don't find him, wait for the right moment and cooperate with Heart to infiltrate the lower level so he can find the Aurora Lord."

"Separated by different floors and unable to use any communication methods, you will basically have to fight on your own. Your only way to communicate is 'time'."

"The Aurora Base is deep underground, with no concept of sunrise or sunset, so there will be clocks everywhere. Use two hours as a baseline to attempt a rendezvous. The rendezvous point will be the passage between the experimental subject floor and the upper level. Generally speaking, the defense here is the tightest; Heart might not be able to pass through on his own."

"Because there are too many uncertainties in the base, if you haven't completed the mission after 12 hours, abandon all actions and start retreating..."

It had been almost an hour since he entered the Aurora Base.

In another hour, it would be the agreed-upon first rendezvous time. Jian Changsheng hoped to find the Aurora Lord before then, so they could complete the mission and retreat unscathed in two hours.

He had to start moving.

Jian Changsheng carefully opened the door and walked along the wall toward the other side of the corridor. His peripheral vision swept across the rooms on both sides, and through the glass on the doors, he could see figures lying on beds...

"What the hell are these things??" Jian Changsheng's pupils shrank slightly as he saw the appearance of those figures.

The rooms closer to theirs were okay; the people lying on the beds could at least be identified as human, but their arms were either swollen like the trunks of century-old trees, or they had grown strange, eerie tentacles... As he walked deeper into the corridor, the "things" lying on the beds no longer looked human at all.

Some were a puddle of slimy black substance that looked like liquid and solid at the same time; some were green creatures with nine arms; others were covered in mysterious incantations, their bodies seemingly under inverted gravity, stuck to the ceiling in an "X" shape, motionless like corpses.

These rooms were located deep inside, so it seemed the experimental subjects inside had been there for a long time. Even Jian Changsheng, who had seen his fair share of storms, couldn't help but feel his scalp tingle at this sight.

"What on earth are they researching? Fusers?"

"But aren't Fusers 'heretics' wanted by the Nine Great Domains? Over the years, the Fusion Faction has been treated like rats crossing the street, with everyone shouting for them to be beaten... Is the Aurora Base actually researching fusion experiments in secret?"

Jian Changsheng was secretly shocked. He went deeper into the corridor, where there were laboratory after laboratory.

Large, textured silver metal doors completely separated the laboratories from the corridor, with several different radiation and biochemical warning signs posted on them. There was no glass for Jian Changsheng to see inside, but passing by the doors, he could hear bursts of sound coming from within: sometimes heart-wrenching howls, sometimes chaotic shouting, and sometimes strange, low growls of unknown creatures...

Jian Changsheng became more certain of his judgment. He didn't stop there but continued forward, the numbers on the laboratory doors decreasing as he went deeper.

Lab 12, Lab 11, Lab 10...

When Jian Changsheng reached the end of the corridor, Lab 1 was right at his hand. Just as Jian Changsheng was wondering where the Aurora Lord was, a massive glass screen appeared around the corner... It was a hemispherical control center, filled with machines he didn't understand, covered in waveforms, as if monitoring some values.

In the laboratory at this moment, two or three figures in white lab coats were sitting there, some dozing off, some cracking melon seeds.

Outside that glass screen was a pitch-black space. If one walked to the glass and looked down, one could see a massive stasis pod standing at the bottom, with countless intricate pipes coiled around it, all connected to the surface of the stasis pod, like a steel heart connected to countless blood vessels.

On the wall of that pitch-black space, a scarlet, massive number was clearly visible—"0".

"Lab 0?" Jian Changsheng's eyes lit up.

Jian Changsheng finally saw it clearly: the glass screen in front of him was an observation center suspended on the second level of the actual Lab 0. Here, one could monitor the status of the stasis pod through equipment while avoiding any direct contact with it.

"Is the one in the stasis pod the Aurora Lord?" Jian Changsheng thought thoughtfully. "So the Aurora Lord's true body is actually on the fourth level at the very bottom... But the researchers can only monitor the stasis pod from the third level and don't have the authorization to approach the Aurora Lord..."

"Senior Chu said that to collect and analyze the components of the medicine in the stasis pod, one must approach it in person... In the end, I still have to find a way to enter the fourth level."

Jian Changsheng's gaze turned to the opposite side of the observation room, where a passage to the fourth level was right in front of him. At first glance, there were no traces of security or protective measures; it was plain and ordinary, just like a regular corridor.

"Time is almost up. Quick and decisive." A look of determination appeared in Jian Changsheng's eyes.

"For this mission, I, [Spade 6], must take the first merit!"