As Petra entered the deepest part of the laboratory, the lights dimmed down even further, barely releasing enough light to reach the floor. With the constant flickering, the sour, nauseating smell, and the darkening halls that stretched ahead, the entire atmosphere felt grim.
Petra slipped through the melted doorway and stepped into a vast chamber.
It was like a metallic hollow, warped and uneven, open in a way that felt unnatural. Like a steel cathedral that had been gutted, turned inside out, and stuffed with machinery and arcane devices. This room gave off an uncanny feeling, almost like the lingering aura didn't match. The air was thick with the sharp scent of blood and chemical sterilizers, so strong it made the eyes sting.
Broken notes littered the floor, and tables were overturned. Strange chain-like tubes dangled from the ceiling like metal vines. The faint hum of dying machinery echoed through the room, weak but persistent, forming an unending string of static.
Petra's antennae twitched.
She could hear something…
Without a word, she walked deeper into the underground laboratory.
* * *
After a short walk, Petra appeared before a large steel door.
With a push, she entered a room with three chambers. The largest of the three chambers was marked as an 'Experimentation Hall' for 'Bloodline Conversion'.
Inside, lining the walls, were hundreds of pods, rows upon rows of them, far too many to count.
Transparent glass tanks stretched across the chamber, each one cracked open and leaking a half-dissolved crimson fluid, spilling across the floor, and pooling together in the center like suage. Petra had no doubt the members of the Black Lion had shattered them before leaving, likely trying to hide something.
What remained inside no longer looked human, they didn't even appear as beasts. They were monstrous, floating forms that twitched, somehow still clinging to their residual life.
Bones fused in unnatural ways, hardened flesh that resembled metallic plates and shell-like ridges, glowing veins that flowed faintly blue beneath translucent skin, and some figures had thin, transparent wings sprouting from their backs, while others had jagged keratin spikes extending from their spines.
Petra found twisted bodies with distorted expressions, faces frozen in agony, and limbs bent and warped beyond repair.
Some looked intentional, while others… did not.
But the worst part, more unsettling than the smell, more horrific than the shape, was the fact that every single 'test subject' was a youth no older than ten.
There were no adults, no soldiers… no, it was all children.
It was a dark sight that turned the heart cold.
Rose had been around ten when she was taken, but the ones here were much younger, some looking barely four or five years old.
Even Petra's eyes darkened at the sight.
Ka-ka-ka!
The mental energy that was safely controlled, flickered for a mere moment, releasing an unrestrained, uncontrolled arc of green lightning that ran down her hand. A wave of apocalyptic pressure slipped out, creating a flicker of oppressive aura so great that the world didn't dare to move.
Chik!
Through the unnatural silence, a crisp crack suddenly rang.
Petra paused for a moment, before raising one hand and touching the small crack that ran from her left eye to her ear.
She clicked her tongue.
These Avatars were still too fragile.
Petra sighed, making a note of it.
She turned her attention back to the pods.
The smell that rolled out from the broken pods was nauseating. Petra stepped up to one of them and peered through the murky glass. She tapped it like a child tapping a fish tank. Something floated inside, half-dissolved, but still twitching faintly.
She tilted her head and mumbled. "Alive…?"
Through the glass, she could feel the faint pulse of a heartbeat, slow and uneven, but confirming her unfortunate guess.
Her expression didn't change, but her steps seemed to contain slightly more weight.
She turned and kept walking, leaving the 'creature' behind. Whatever it had once been, it no longer had the ability to talk. Everywhere she looked, it was the same half-formed, failed experiments. They were all attempts to fuse special bloodlines into living people. It was messy, brutal, and unrefined. It was a complete insult to bioengineering as a science.
Petra was once again reminded that this place wasn't Earth.
Such cruel experiments had stopped after the third world war, when the genetic tree had already been opened, and 'Gene Keys' had begun to appear.
These people, the Black Lion, they weren't experimenting to direct life, no, they were trying to force an evolution, to twist nature into something that would obey and advance.
It was barbaric in Petra's eyes.
She moved on…
* * *
Although the experimental hall had left a bad taste in her mouth, it was nothing compared to what came next. Petra followed the central corridor downwards, step by step, the air growing colder with each change in elevation. After a few minutes, she reached another large door, and unlike the ones before… this one was unlocked.
She pushed it open.
A wave of decay hit her immediately, sharp enough to make her vision tear up. The air inside was cold and heavy, thick with the lingering stench of rot and old blood. The metallic bite of dried iron clung to every sniff, and the visible fog exhaled with each breath only made what appeared before her worse.
The room was dark, stretching back for many meters.
Iron bars lined both sides of the hall. Behind them were rows of cells, each one filled far beyond capacity.
Hundreds of people.
Dozens upon dozens of them, all packed together in cramped cages. Some slumped lifelessly against the walls, others lay tangled in piles, their bodies thin and motionless, skin pale and stretched tight over bone. Their eyes were glassy and vacant, reflecting nothing but empty despair.
Weak runes pulsed along the cell doors in a dull, flickering rhythm. They were containment runes, half-dead yet still active, sealing the prisoners inside, even in death. Threads of pride-steeped spiritual energy crawled through the carvings, whispering faintly as if refusing to fade away.
Petra's gaze moved slowly across the scene.
The smell of decay was nearly unbearable for a normal person, but that just made the indifferent faces of these prisoners much worse.
These people, no, these test subjects had been abandoned when the Black Lion fled. Most had starved to death, but the few who hadn't were buried beneath the ones who had.
Petra stopped in front of one of the cells.
At the same time, she heard Arthur and the others finally enter the corridor from behind. Their footsteps echoed faintly, before going silent.
They had reached the prison…
Arthur froze when he saw Petra standing before a cell.
Around him, the team's expressions twisted into disgust, shock, fear, hatred, and sorrow, all mixing into a suffocating silence. Even the veterans among them, hardened adventurers who had seen death countless times, seemed to turn pale beneath the cold light.
Petra didn't move.
Her gaze remained fixed on the cell.
Inside, a small figure silently stirred.
He was a young boy, barely breathing, curled up with his knees pulled against his chest. His wrists were bloody from the restraints, his lips were cracked, and his dark red hair was matted with dirt and dried blood. His ribs showed through his skin, and his every breath was shallow but steady. Despite everything, his eyes were clear, too clear. Something heavy silently burned behind them, like a storm that had yet to erupt.
Across from him, another boy lay half-conscious, muttering nonsense under his breath. His eyes were unfocused and wild, carrying a hint of madness. Pale blue hair clung messily to his face as his body trembled in the cold, feverishly twitching between life and death.
Out of the hundreds of cages that filled this prison, only a few still had movement, thirty, maybe forty children were clinging to life purely by instinct, but unlike these two, the others were already unconscious.
Petra stood there quietly.
Arthur didn't speak.
Her black eyes lingered on the two boys, just as Arthur's did.
Then, without a word, she lifted her hand. The runes on the cell door pulsed once, resisting something, then melted like ice on fire, the faint blue light hissing out with a dying shriek. The metal bars melted away, and Petra stepped inside.
The smell of rot and death only thickened, clinging to her feet as she walked over. She passed the piles of bodies that lined the walls, until she soon stood before the two children.
The muttering boy fell silent, twisting up to see her with maddened eyes. The other boy, thin and badly bruised, simply raised his head, looking straight at her without averting his gaze.
There was no fear in his eyes, only a dull, smoldering anger.
Petra tilted her head.
After a pause, she did something that none of them expected.
Her voice, when she spoke, was soft and steady. "Sell your soul to me… and I can give you a new life. If you want revenge, I can help you." Her words came out smooth, clear, and unmistakably human.
Arthur's eyes widened in shock after hearing that voice.
The others stiffened as well.
After a very long pause, the entire group broke into low whispers, mumbling together like startled classmates. There was only one thought in their minds…
What a beautiful voice!
"You can talk!?" Arthur's voice cracked in disbelief, echoing through the hall with a sharp cry.
Petra ignored him.
Her gaze never left the two youths.
The two boys just stared at her, their eyes hollow and unreadable. The mad one muttered something, then turned away as if mocking her. The other, however, didn't look away. Instead, his gaze focused, and he took a closer look at this strange figure.
He was studying her face, trying to find something.
He wouldn't.
He couldn't.
Petra was a void.
In the young boy's heart, he seemed to unconsciously understand that his life had reached a crossroads. In his mind, he knew that his next words would change everything. What was strange, was that he felt as If this figure wasn't one of his paths…
HE had reached the cliff, and he could go left or right. Just as he was about to make the decision, the cliff seemed to uncaringly approach, encouraging him to jump.
What was at the bottom of the abyss?
The boys seemed to feel the pull of fate tighten, trying to drag him back.
What was this…?
After a long silence, he 'jumped'.
It was a simple nod, but that simple nod sent a large ripple through the unseen world. The muttering boy beside him turned sharply, confusion flickering across his face, almost as if unable to comprehend why anyone would agree to something so stupid.
Petra raised her hand.
She pressed it against the boy's forehead.
Black light erupted, wrapping around him like a shadow. The energy rippled through the cell, collapsing the air in a sudden pull and thrusting the boy through space.
Arthur's eyes widened in shock, "How!? How can your puppet—teleport!?"
He didn't understand. Teleportation at that level should require an extremely high level of cultivation, something that he was sure Petra didn't have. His assumption was that Petra was using some kind of artifact, but that didn't explain what he just saw.
Petra didn't answer.
She simply turned, glancing at him with an unreadable gaze.
In truth, she had temporarily called the Ethereal Echo Silverwing Butterfly into the Ant Avatars' Sea of Consciousness. It wasn't something she liked doing… but this boy was worth it. After all, in her eyes, he was definitely a 'Child of Fate'…
Only a flicker of black light remained where the boy had been. He was gone, sent to the Tower Spider along with the Ethereal Echo Silverwing Butterfly.
Petra walked past Arthur, and his stunned group without a word.
Arthur didn't stop her, he simply turned towards the remaining cells, his jaw gritting with annoyance. He would handle the rest, yes, but he hated it! This little girl couldn't be seen with his ability! He wanted to take these kids and train them for the future! How could he have known that it was a race against time!
Damn it!
* * *
Research Archives.
In this room, tables were overturned, papers were scattered like fallen leaves, and glass shards crunched beneath her feet. But what caught Petra's attention wasn't the mess, it was the glow of spiritual light in the center of the room. Half-buried under a series of collapsed shelves, stood a crystal console, still faintly functioning. Its surface flickered weakly, runes drifting through the air in thin orbits of blue light.
Petra recognised this as a piece of High Elven technology.
She approached, then brushed her fingers across the glass surface, and the device responded instantly. A ripple of blue light spread outwards, and a web of translucent symbols unfolded before her eyes.
Petra raised an eyebrow.
She could feel the spiritual energy pulsing through the runes, forming a delicate and refined channel, forming something far beyond anything that the current humans could craft. Even the miniaturization, something that was grossly unique to the elves, was unable to be replicated, much less a functioning terminal. The system was ancient, yet ridiculously advanced, at least… that was how it appeared in the eyes of the humans of this age.
It projected a stream of text and images, biological diagrams, beast bloodline illustrations, and complex rune matrices tied to genetic reconstruction. Even for Petra, it was an advanced field of study that she hadn't dared to touch.
At least, not yet…
Names of creatures she didn't recognize scrolled past, ancient species, extinct races, and fusions formed from impossible combinations. The High Elves' naming conventions were noble, written in a script that hadn't been seen since before the disappearance of the Elfefalein Empire.
'Replication of the Old Humans 'Demi-Human Creation Project'.'
'Ancient and Extinct Species – Before the Age of Chaos.'
'Time Displacement Countermeasures – Note: Time Sensitive!'
'World Barrier Instability: Report Seven.'
'Investigation into the First Hero – High Priority!'
There were hundreds of entries, but one phrase appeared repeatedly across the display, glowing brighter than the rest: 'Beast King Integration.'
Petra's eyes narrowed.
As she read through the fragmented notes, a realization dawned on her…
* * *
It all began with a single bottle of blood.
According to the records, the Black Lion had purchased a special bottle of blood from a nameless peddler during one of their auctions. They later discovered that this wasn't just any blood, It was the blood of a Beast King, one of the overlords that had fallen during the Age of Chaos.
The leader of the Black Lion, Bouer Blacklion, had been obsessed with the idea of improving the talents of the human race. When this blood appeared, it became his greatest temptation. He believed that by merging it into a human body, he could create the next step in human evolution, turning even a common person into a genius. For this goal, he tried countless things.
And so, the 'Beast King Integration Project' began…
-
The early experiments were all failures.
Subjects rejected the Beast Blood violently, their bodies tearing themselves apart within mere minutes. They didn't even need to be injected, because contact was enough to cause a life-threatening rejection.
Even so, Bouer continued refining his methods, learning from every source he could.
He went behind the Mercenary Alliance's back, approaching the subject like his life depended on it. He couldn't hide it, so Hexfill had silently decided to allow the research to continue, either from ambition or helplessness. Thus, this became the central goal of this facility, and everything here revolved around the 'Beast King Integration Project'.
-
Petra flicked through the records, her black eyes tracing the glowing runes as they scrolled across the screen. Each 'page' was densely packed with equations, bloodline models, and fragmented results.
She turned to the next page.
This was an explanation regarding the origins of the project.
When she looked at the appended note, her eye couldn't help but twitch.
Bouer's desperate madness hadn't come from nowhere. Apparently, this all started because Bouer had a son, and that son was… well, a complete disappointment, a complete piece of trash. It wasn't only his talent, but also his intelligence, physique, and ambitions were disgustingly low.
Petra stared at the words, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
It seemed that Bouer's son was born without talent. A weak body, no elemental affinity, and an ego too large for his body. Bouer, being a father blinded by ambition, began his experiments in the hope of granting his son the 'fate he deserved'.
And indeed, there was something here. If Elena were asked about it, then perhaps she would tell you that this was the prologue to a certain 'very annoying guy' in the future. Unfortunately, Bouer's son, Bellan Blacklion, met a certain little black hold that liked to mess things up.
Years passed before something finally changed in the laboratory.
The experiments began to yield results, and for the first time, there was successful, albeit slightly unstable, results. This news made Bouer extremely excited, because it meant that there was an actual possibility that his son could be 'saved'.
But that was also the time everything started to fall apart.
-
According to the logs, Bouer's son died under unclear circumstances. Some claimed it was an accident, while others suspected that Bouer might have caused it himself. Perhaps, only Petra herself knew the true reason…
Petra's eyes narrowed as she turned the page.
The next entry was recorded with a different handwriting.
"The Branch Lord (Bouer) has lost control. He left the facility, screaming hysterically that he would 'find the murderer'. We haven't heard from him since, requesting instructions." Beneath that, another entry, likely from the facilities overseer, lit up. "No further instructions have been given in regard to the 'specimen' in the underground chamber. Until new orders arrive, maintain observation protocol."
The next entry was a few months later.
"New Orders have been received from a command chain superseding the Branch Lord, evacuation is to begin immediately."
Petra leaned back slightly, her three toes tapping the ground. She flipped through the final pages, scanning the fragmented reports for anything else of interest.
After Bouer vanished, the experiments continued half-heartedly.
The remaining researchers lost their direction, and the results became inconsistent and dangerous. When Hexfill, the Leader of the Mercenary Alliance, ordered an evacuation of the western region, this laboratory was the first to abandon ship.
It was comically fast, almost like they were sitting on a landmine.
They didn't even bother to clean up.
-
Petra closed the console and tapped her palm.
She suddenly thought of something and wrapped the console in her mental energy, trying to copy it. After failing, she realised that she needed to 'understand the medium' before she could pull something into her Inner Library.
She shook her head
There was a strange irony to all of this.
Bouer had spent many years trying to 'fix' his son, but one of the early failures, a subject that had become a slave instead of being 'recycled' like the later experiments were, was sold, trafficked, and bought by Bouer's own son, who never realized what she truly was. This was Rose. Bellan tortured her, turning her into his own punching bag, and in the end, died chasing the very experiment that was supposed to save him.
Petra hummed softly.
"In a way… I already avenged little Rose, didn't I?" she muttered to herself. "How neat..." She chuckled and placed the console back, then stared at the dimly glowing rune channels running across the floor.
"Now then," she said, her tone lazy.
Her hand brushed the edge of the console, clicking off the remaining runes.
"Let's go see what's hiding in the basement, shall we?"
With that, Petra turned and walked towards the final door at the end of the hall.