Pov: Vik
Noah, get Xiaoran, Roman, and Lina, and ask Lina to prepare Chintu's containment gate. If our precious little transmigrator wants to have a monster battle, then we'll show her what a genuine prehistoric top predator is like when it crashes her laboratory.
Noah rose, his jaw firm as stone. He bowed low to me, gave Uncle Han's weak shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and then went out into the corridor leading to the residential quarters.
I remained sitting at the long mahogany table, tapping slowly at the rim of a porcelain cup. Pushpa put her chin on my collarbone and purred in low, rhythmic vibrations which pleased me pleasantly against my chest.
I thought to myself, in the quiet of my mind, 'System', what is the diagnostic report on the Apex Flesh-Forge Protocol? Just what are we actually getting ourselves into?'
The system says, "Host, I've already carried out the calculations and Ruby's experiments are just a means for her to collect a army of minions; however, with the information at our disposal I can confirm that she has so far been mostly unsuccessful in achieving this, but thanks to her chosen one's good luck it won't be long before she will find a way."
"So she didn't merely build monsters," I remarked, pushing my spectacles with their gold rims up the bridge of my nose, "but instead created remote-controlled organic drones, and avoided the usual cultivation bottlenecks by treating living cultivators like modular plug-and-play chips."
You're correct, Host! Yet synthetic grafts suffer from serious genetic instability and, in the absence of a stabilizing catalyst, the chimeric creations undergo cellular necrosis after seventy-two hours; her urgent attempt to get the Bloodborn ancestral jade was probably meant to use your disciple's ancient bloodline as an organic stabilizer!
I broke out in a soft, cold laugh.
The fact that I had removed the bloodline essence from the jade tablet inside the Great White didn't just give Noah a fresh start; it also meant that I had inadvertently taken away the very stabilising agent which was preventing her awful science fair from coming crashing down.
It meant that our beloved transmigrator was at that moment living on borrowed time, for her biological materials were deteriorating, her schedule had been violently sped up, and a gamer who was cornered and had an unstable system was the most dangerous type of creature there was.
A few minutes later the heavy brass doors of the main hall opened.
Roman went ahead, his bulky frame almost blocking the archway. In his right hand he removed the rough burlap wrapping from the Ivory Cleaver, the celestial ivory shining against the amber lanterns above. Behind him came Lu Xiaoran, the sword which he had been carrying being replaced by a slim, wind-hardened broadblade which was securely strapped over his shoulder. Lina rushed in next to Noah, adjusting a set of heavy magnifying goggles as she held a brass tablet showing flickering holographic telemetry.
"Master," Xiaoran was the first to speak, and the usual mischievous grin was gone. His eyebrows were tightly together in deep disgust. "Noah has told us what Han said. Is that girl really opening up mortals in the basement?"
"Worse," Lina interrupted, tapping her brass tablet to project into the center of the hall a wireframe scan of the underground layout of West Oak City. "I have cross-referenced Uncle Han's testimony with the city's alchemical waste channels and have found that for the six weeks past the drainage canals under the Bloodborn manor have been discharging four thousand litres of necrotic bile and synthetic flesh runoff every day. The local wildlife in the sewers has now completely mutated and the whole underground area functions as an incubation nest."
Roman's heavy face grew darker and his knuckles went white as he gripped the handle of his scepter. "An abomination—using the blood of the innocent to create puppets... Even in the most dreadful places on the northern border, slaughterhouses of that kind were immediately set on fire."
"Torch is too kind, Uncle Roman," Xiaoran muttered, keeping his hand on the pommel of his blade. "What I suggest is that Chintu should just do a belly flop directly onto the manor."
"Violence that lacks accuracy is nothing more than butchery, Xiaoran," I gently reprimanded, as I leaned back in my high-backed chair. "A competent scholar will never carry out imprecise work."
I stuck a gloved finger at Lina's holographic map.
If you look at the arrangement, Ruby's laboratory is situated four levels below the ancestral manor, in the old underground vaults. The outer boundary is strongly protected by Heavenly Sword Pavilion suppression arrays and the streets above are full of regular citizens. If we just send Chintu into the middle of West Oak City, we will cause unnecessary destruction, set off the continental military alarms, and provide Ruby with a reason to blow up her failed experiments in order to cover her tracks.
Noah moved forward, his red eyes filled with sharp clarity. "Sir, there is an old maintenance aqueduct in the catacombs. My father constructed it as an emergency drainage channel which leads directly into the Great Cold River, three miles outside the city walls. It goes around the surface wards altogether."
"I nodded in approval," I said, "when I mentioned the aqueduct. It's a subterranean entrance, invisible, damp, and entirely out of sight from high-altitude surveillance."
Master, I asked what our objective is,' Lina said, as she had her quill ready and placed it beside her parchment. 'Shall we carry out the assassination of Ruby directly?'
"No," I replied, my slit pupils, which were yellow, narrowing to razor-sharp lines behind my spectacles. "We should destroy her infrastructure first."
I got up, smoothing the flawless folds of my scholar's robes. Pushpa stood on my shoulders, stretched out her front paws and emitted a quiet yet dangerous purr which echoed around the hall like the sound of a war drum.
A transmigrator who makes use of a large number of summond creatures is completely dependent on her command network. Ruby thinks of herself as a divine conductor who is safely situated behind glass vats. As soon as her creations get out of her control, her confidence will break down. And whenever a transmigrator panics, their system starts to make hasty mistakes.
I headed in the direction of the portal archway which led into the simulated Great Fire Forest.
Lina, adjust the Anonymous Gate so that it is connected directly to the drainage aqueduct under the city. Roman and Xiaoran, your job is straightforward: as soon as we break into the lower vaults, catch the remaining captives and get rid of the bio-guardians who are patrolling the corridors.
"All right, Master!" Roman and Xiaoran said at the same time.
I said to Noah, turning my eyes in his direction. He was to show us through the labyrinth of your ancestral vaults since he knows those tunnels better than anyone else living. When we get to the central incubation chamber... it was going to be you who cut the main mana conduits supplying her vats.
Noah gripped his fists and the crimson lightning in his bones crackled with cold, controlled rage. "That's that."
"And as for our green friend..."
I passed through the portal archway and found myself in the thick greenery of the Great Fire Forest.
Chintu was curled under the canopy of the tall, ancient spirit pines. The forty-meter-long emerald Tyrannosaurus Rex was asleep, his huge, scaled tail casually flattening a small hillock and periodically releasing warm sulfur smoke from his large nostrils.
When my boots came into contact with the grass, his big reptilian eyelids shivered and opened. Since he recognized my smell, the beast of Calamity level made an affectionate, earth-shaking rumble and then slowly lowered its enormous snout to push my shoulder, like an oversized golden retriever.
I chuckled and gave Chintu's thick, scaly snout a solid, satisfying pat, "It's time to wake up, Chintu. Nap time's over; I've come across someone who thinks they're an expert in reptile biology."
Chintu blinked his big amber eyes, tilted his enormous skull to one side, and emitted a high-pitched, questioning "chirp?" which sounded completely ridiculous coming from a skyscraper-sized apex predator.
Yes, that's correct, I said, my vertical pupils shining with emerald Prana light as I readied his compression seal. Someone must have built a pen filled with knockoff monsters down in the dark—how about we go down there and show those creatures what a genuine Cretaceous king has for dinner?
Chintu threw back his big head and let out a loud, echoing roar of pure, uncontrolled excitement.