Chapter 144: Unexpected Turn (Please Subscribe!)

“Sorry, Lieh. I’ve disliked this brat from the very beginning.”

Bai Tangjing turned toward the friend he had made only yesterday. There was not the slightest trace of the “apology” his words suggested on his face, and a drop of Guo Chuncheng’s blood was still falling from his fist.

“If you want to fight, we can start now.”

His opponent was the son of the Republic’s “incarnation of martial arts.” Even from a matter of appearances alone, his importance was self-evident.

From yesterday’s brief encounter, Lieh Haiwang seemed very much the sort of friend Bai Tangjing would get along with. But if they were going to fight now, he would be happy about that too.

Yet the man with the long braid did not grow angry as Bai Tangjing had expected.

“What kind of people do you think the Republic’s martial artists are, Bai Tang?”

Lieh Haiwang did not even glance at Guo Chuncheng on the ground. He answered Bai Tangjing in a solemn voice.

“Once a martial contest begins, it is equivalent to signing a life-and-death agreement of your own accord. Even if the Sea Emperor himself were standing before you, killing his son outright in the course of a match would still be entirely justified.”

“That is the rule of the Republic’s martial-arts world,” Quan Zhixin said with a nod.

“In the Republic, anyone who chooses the path of the martial artist must be prepared for that. Even if the Sea Emperor himself came here to break the rules, the two of us would stand unhesitatingly on your side now, even knowing he might beat us to death.”

Bai Tangjing raised an eyebrow.

To advance the development of martial arts, they had actually established such a rule.

The Republic’s martial-arts world suited his tastes far more than he had expected.

His gaze shifted to Bedivere and “Gawain” standing nearby.

Though they already looked somewhat battered from the shock waves, they still kept themselves completely within the view of the surveillance cameras.

“Now, can you tell me why you did this?”

Bai Tangjing strode toward them, a bloodstained, mocking smile on his face.

One minute earlier, Bedivere had not taken him seriously at all.

He had regarded him merely as a strong, brutish man.

But now Bedivere had to tense every muscle in his body just to keep his legs from trembling.

“Huh? What are you talking about? We were—”

“Woooo—!”

Before Bedivere could finish a single sentence beneath the pressure of Bai Tangjing’s presence, a shrill alarm suddenly rang throughout the entire underground facility.

Bai Tangjing also keenly noticed the look of relief in Bedivere’s eyes.

“The alarm is connected to them. Perhaps they provoked the fight between Guo Chuncheng and me to create an alibi and clear themselves of suspicion?”

Before the youth could react, Bai Tangjing stepped forward and seized Bedivere.

A tremendous crash came from the doorway.

“Riiip!”

A hideous beast’s claw tore straight through the lead-lined steel door with tremendous force.

The weaker enhanced fighters near the entrance had been martial artists, and they were not particularly sensitive to military alarms.

He assumed that the one ripping open the steel door was a transformed human.

“Hey! You—”

But it was not.

A grotesque monster nearly eleven feet tall thrust its head through the torn opening. It opened its jaws and, in an instant, bit away half the enhanced fighter’s body.

Then it pulled out a blue-black afterimage and charged toward the radiation generator at the heart of the building.

~~~~~~

Ten minutes before the alarm sounded.

The real Gawain, wearing a mask and the latest optical camouflage suit, slipped out of the British encampment.

With world-class espionage technology at his disposal, the multinational research base was utterly incapable of detecting him.

He smoothly reached the facility they had identified first after taking up residence there.

A subterranean base beneath an underground base.

The success rate of enhancement surgery was horrifyingly low. Even among martial artists and elite soldiers, it could hardly be called high.

Every country knew this.

So where did the failed subjects—the monsters driven insane—go after they were created in this underground base?

According to General Pankost’s official statement, these people were heroes who had sacrificed their lives for the evolution of humanity and the advancement of science.

Therefore, even when an experiment failed, they would not be treated as test subjects and left on display like the monsters in the exhibition hall aboveground.

Instead, they would be executed on the spot and cremated at high temperature.

Their ashes would then be returned to their families.

But Gawain, who had dealt with the United States for decades, did not believe the Americans would be so “wasteful.”

Sure enough, less than three days after he led the British personnel into the base, he found this underground passage.

Only a tunnel two yards wide and three yards high connected the base to the depths below.

According to his instruments, the inner walls of the passage were lined with enough explosives to destroy the structural integrity of the entire facility.

The main gate was monitored by a high-tech access-control system, while the muzzles of at least ten tanks were aimed at it from outside.

There were also countless fully armed soldiers.

“They’re obviously afraid of whatever’s inside getting out, aren’t they?”

Gawain raised an eyebrow and chuckled softly as he bent down and approached the gate in silence.

With his top-tier espionage skills and advanced technology, sneaking through a place like this was no different from playing a game.

He entered the passage with ease.

This was an experimental facility built less than a month ago. The idea that it could stop him was laughable.

Once he entered the underground levels, a refreshing sense of exhilaration rose through him along with the metallic scent in the air.

“Radiation energy. They’re feeding it to the failed subjects.”

Radiation could promote the growth of a titan’s strength and served as an energy source for vital activity.

Among the upper echelons, this was hardly a secret.

It further confirmed that Gawain’s plan was the correct one.

He continued downward until, at last, he reached the lowest room.

Just as he had expected, it was a prison.

In the cramped space, every cell held a monster curled into a ball.

The walls and cell doors were charged with ultra-high voltage, making even contact impossible.

Several ordinary men in protective suits served as their jailers.

Once he reached this point, Gawain had no need to conceal himself any longer.

“You—sound the alarm!”

One of the guards spotted Gawain swaggering down and shouted.

But before the others could react—

“Shing!”

In the brief instant before the guards could comprehend what was happening, Gawain tore their bodies apart.

He had not wanted to be so brutal, but ordinary human bodies had become far too fragile for him.

At the same time, dozens of glowing animal eyes suddenly opened in the dim room, all turning toward Gawain.

The beasts’ savagery erupted like a monstrous tidal wave within the cramped chamber.

Gawain remained utterly unmoved.

Not because he was strong enough to ignore them, but because he simply looked down on these failed subjects.

The results of experiments built atop countless human lives had already proven that they were nothing more than beasts.

“All right, you brainless idiots. I need to choose one lucky fellow from among you to go outside and stir things up.”

Gawain took the tablet controlling the voltage in the cells from one of the corpses in a protective suit and began tapping at it.

With his abilities, he could move through the facility without hindrance.

But only General Pankost knew where the research data was stored.

He first had to throw the situation into chaos, forcing General Pankost to take the data with him when he relocated.

Nor did Gawain want this multinational research base to collapse, so he intended to release only one monster.

He had also found the radiation source along the way.

For these mindless failed subjects, all he needed to do was toss the source toward the upper levels. They would probably pounce on it like wild dogs fighting over scraps.

Then, quite naturally, they would clash with the guards outside, and the entire situation would descend into chaos.

A confident smile curled across Gawain’s lips.

He did not even bother checking the cell numbers on the tablet. He simply shut off the ultra-high voltage to one of the cells.

They were all beasts, after all. What difference could it make which one?

“Bzzzt—”

The ultra-high voltage on the cell door subsided.

Taking advantage of the moment, Gawain kicked the radiation source upward, sending it toward the upper levels as cheerfully as someone kicking a soccer ball.

“Go on, good doggy!”

But the “beast” inside the cell showed no intention of coming out.

Instead, a heavy pressure slowly began to fill the entire room.

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