Chapter 379: The Ultimatum
“Sure.”
A smile appeared on Xu Zhi’s face as she agreed directly.
No matter what he was plotting, she would know once she got there.
With someone leading the way, Xu Zhi didn’t need to take any detours. The biometric authentication required to enter the inner sections of the laboratory was easily bypassed. Soon after, as she followed the man into the central laboratory, Xu Zhi finally got to see more of the experiment’s contents.
The area the man was leading her to was likely something akin to a main control room. As they walked past, Xu Zhi witnessed many sights that were strikingly similar to what she had just seen outside.
There were Extraordinaries wearing collars locked inside transparent rooms, unformed embryos floating inside petri dishes with hologram displays nearby showing the talent circuits of both parents, and twins locked together, among other things.
The abundance of these rooms was proof enough of just how many secret human experiments had been conducted here. Jiang Qing was likely one of them as well, and a relatively successful one at that.
Xu Zhi let out a soft sigh. Looking at the vacant, numb expressions of these experimental subjects, she thought to herself that if nothing went wrong, today would be the day they died, buried underground along with this secret research institute.
Would death be a form of release for them?
Xu Zhi didn’t know. She only knew that even if she didn’t destroy this laboratory, now that the facility had been breached, the people fleeing from here wouldn’t let them live either.
And Xu Zhi certainly wouldn’t give these people a chance to escape.
“Qu Yunshi, who the hell did you bring in?!”
The moment the man leading Xu Zhi walked into the main control room, he was fiercely barked at. Upon spotting Xu Zhi, the researchers gathered inside immediately grew vigilant, drawing their firearms and aiming them straight at her.
They had received at least some basic training on how to defend themselves after the [Magic Suppression Circuit] was activated.
The man named Qu Yunshi said submissively, “…I didn’t want to either, Supervisor. I had no choice.”
“Him!” Qu Yunshi pointed a finger into the crowd, targeting a middle-aged man—or at least, someone who looked middle-aged. “He is the Supervisor! He’s in charge of managing the entire operation of this lab! The two next to him are the Deputy Supervisors!”
Alright, it was confirmed. This guy was a genuine coward and a total traitor.
“Qu Yunshi!”
The middle-aged man roared. He immediately pulled his trigger, aiming straight for Qu Yunshi, clearly intending to execute the traitor on the spot.
It was understandable. From the moment these researchers entered this underground laboratory, they were destined to have a hard time ever leaving again, and they were completely barred from contacting the outside world. Coupled with the binding oath circuits ensuring their compliance, loyalty wasn’t a primary concern; their technical skills and intelligence were what mattered. The Supervisor had probably never imagined such a disaster would strike today. Enraged and fearing that Qu Yunshi would leak more information, he intended to silence him instantly.
Regrettably, before Xu Zhi could even speak, the specialized bullet fired at Qu Yunshi was directly deflected by the Little Mutant.
Qu Yunshi originally thought he was a dead man. Seeing that this intruder had actually saved his life, he blurted out in sheer excitement, “Thank you, thank you! Anything you want to know, as long as I’m permitted to speak of it, I will definitely tell you!”
Xu Zhi didn’t answer him. Keeping Qu Yunshi alive was solely because he was still useful.
“Don’t bother resisting. Even if you all band together and use every weapon at your disposal, you won’t be able to scratch me in the slightest.”
The moment her voice fell, the Little Mutant dropped to the floor again, sprouting row after row of tentacles. It bound all of the hundred-plus researchers in the room and hoisted them up, leaving them dangling in midair.
Seeing this, Xu Zhi shook her head. “You guys really don’t have any fighting capacity whatsoever, do you?”
The Supervisor’s face flushed bright red, visibly trembling with rage.
“How did you get past those circuits to get in here?! Where are the guards at the entrance?!”
They were just researchers whose entire minds were focused on their studies. Of course their combat strength was pathetic!
Moreover, the magic suppression circuit was originally meant to protect them, yet they never expected that it would one day make things incredibly convenient for an intruder!
“Tell me your experimental results, and you get to live.”
As Xu Zhi’s words landed, the room fell into a dead silence. With the binding oath circuits in place, it was physically impossible for them to speak.
Thus, she spoke up again: “After disabling the magic suppression circuit, I can temporarily help mask your oath circuits. Whoever speaks first with the information I want to know will be the one allowed down alive.”
“Now, the first question: where do we shut down the magic suppression circuit?”
Since they were researching talent circuits, it was impossible to completely bar the subjects from performing extraordinary ability tests. There had to be a switch that controlled the magic suppression circuit.
As Xu Zhi finished speaking, she signaled the Little Mutant to tighten its grip on the tentacles, acting as if it were about to crush these researchers to pieces one by one.
Under the crushing pressure of life and death, a core researcher finally cracked. It was a remarkably young-looking man whose forehead was already drenched in cold sweat. Looking at Qu Yunshi, who stood next to Xu Zhi without being hoisted up, he seemed to steel his resolve and blurted out, “The magic suppression circuit can be disabled directly from here, but it requires a key!”
“The key is on the Supervisor! Inside his necklace!”
Hearing this, the Supervisor snapped his head up to glare at the young man. The young man, however, guiltily averted his gaze. Even after the Little Mutant lowered him back to the floor, he didn’t dare look up at his colleagues.
Xu Zhi felt that he was a bit too thin-skinned. Doing what it took to stay alive wasn’t shameful.
Afterward, the Little Mutant swiftly retrieved the necklace from the Supervisor and extracted a… safe.
Impressive. Carrying a safe on his person.
“Yes, yes! The key is inside!”
The safe looked highly peculiar. It resembled a solid cube of iron, entirely flawless without a single seam or opening, making one wonder how it could possibly be opened. But to Xu Zhi, this wasn’t an issue.
She casually tossed the iron block onto the floor. Xiaozhen flapped its wings from her shoulder to gather momentum, then lunged straight down at the iron cube on the ground. Its maxed-out, razor-sharp beak pecked repeatedly. In less than ten strikes, a hairline fracture surfaced on the iron block.
Appearing simultaneously with the crack on the safe was the shattering fracture in the Supervisor’s expression.
It seemed he truly hadn’t expected Xu Zhi to be able to break this “safe” open.
Holding the key between her fingers, Xu Zhi delivered her ultimatum: “Don’t assume that once the magic suppression circuit is offline, you’ll stand a fighting chance. If I dare to turn it off, it means I don’t care if you regain your extraordinary powers to face me as enemies.”
“Now, start thinking very carefully about how to answer in a way that satisfies me, so you can come down from that tree alive.”
“Once I learn everything I want to know, anyone who hasn’t come down will not be spared.”
With that, Xu Zhi walked to the main console under the young man’s guidance. After passing through a few procedures and pulling a few people over to complete the verifications, she clicked on the prompt: [Confirm Deactivation of Magic Suppression Circuit. Please Input Key.]
As the sound of Xu Zhi unhurriedly typing in the lengthy key echoed through the room, panic, anxiety, and expressions of desperate resolve began to surface on the faces of the many individuals suspended by the Little Mutant.
Without a doubt, these researchers—who shared no real camaraderie and possessed zero genuine loyalty to begin with—had already begun plotting how to save their own skins.
