Chapter 60: First Fortress 12

This was an Observation Room, with temperatures noticeably lower than on the surface.

The moment she stepped out of the teleport elevator, An He shrank back from the blast of cold air. Then, she saw that the glass on the outer side of the small room was already covered in a thick layer of frost.

An He approached the glass and peered through the gaps in the frost patterns. Outside, the space was filled with red emergency lights, and coffin-like black cylindrical Sealed Boxes were arranged in rows along the walls.

An He’s heart skipped a beat. A strange sense of familiarity crept up her spine alongside the chill, filling her with unease.

She racked her brain trying to recall where she had felt this before.

After digging through her memories, An He finally remembered—this unease was similar to what she had felt in the Ninth Fortress mineshaft, right before she encountered the “God.”

But there were no hallucinations here, no so-called God or countless “An Hes.” Gu Xianqing stood beside her, her expression and demeanor perfectly normal.

An He simply felt uneasy, but not in any immediate danger. On the contrary, she even sensed a peculiar pull drawing her in, urging her to leave the Observation Room and approach those Sealed Boxes.

An He suppressed the impulse for now.

The workstation was covered in hundreds of tiny buttons. An He used Parasite to command Kazama Asagiri to perform the routine operations.

With her eyes closed, Kazama Asagiri precisely pressed the defogging button—she was under the control of two Innate Talents at once, with Gu Xianqing real-time replicating the real world in her dreams.

The frost on the glass cleared away, revealing the entire Research Lab to An He.

It was so vast that she couldn’t see the end of it. An He fell into a momentary stunned silence.

Kazama Asagiri began diligently logging data. Two more Sealed Boxes had lost signs of life.

Gu Xianqing, who had been watching everything coldly from the sidelines, crossed her arms and gestured to An He. “Want to go take a look? There are a few protective suits nearby.”

“Is it safe?” An He asked.

“For now, it’s not dangerous.”

An He turned to Kazama Asagiri and asked the same question again. She couldn’t directly read Kazama Asagiri’s mind, but she could control her to answer truthfully.

Kazama Asagiri said, “As long as you don’t open the Sealed Boxes, it’s safe. This is part of the standard inspection routine.”

“Alright then. You lead the way—show us inside.”

They donned the heavy protective suits, which were incredibly complex—like slipping into bulky spacesuits—and had to wear helmets with visors.

Kazama Asagiri opened the door, and the three of them stepped out of the Observation Room.

She couldn’t feel the cold anymore, but the suits did nothing to block the psychological terror. An unnatural discomfort still crawled over her skin—the pitch-black Sealed Boxes under the red emergency lights resembled coffins lit by candles.

An He approached the Sealed Boxes step by step.

She first noticed the bloody seepage from the seams of some boxes, thick and sticky, just as disgusting as Lola had described.

Fortunately, the suit blocked out odors, sparing her the stench of rot.

The blood under Box No. 2 was still vividly fresh.

An He drew closer involuntarily and grasped the pull ring on the box.

No one stopped her.

With a tug, the already-unlocked box creaked open effortlessly.

The contents matched what An He had seen in District 21: Shell Membrane-like filaments covered the entire interior, with countless gaps between them.

But unlike the silver boxes, these were kept in a low-temperature environment, so the contents hadn’t fully melted yet.

Thus, An He saw it—a half-melted body.

It must have been a tiny humanoid creature, melted like a candle down to just below the navel. Her pull caused the box to sway, sending organs and bones tumbling out into a puddle of blood.

An He recoiled in horror, a wave of nausea surging uncontrollably. Luckily, she hadn’t eaten in ages—there was nothing in her stomach to vomit up.

“What the hell is this?” An He’s temples throbbed. Seeing the thing inside filled her with wordless rage.

What kind of twisted experiment was this?

Had someone died here?

She posed the questions through the suit’s communication system to the two beside her.

Kazama Asagiri answered obediently, “A defective product.”

“Don’t give me vague bullshit,” An He said. “Tell me what these boxes are for, what experiment you’re running, and who—or what—is inside?”

“Understood.” Kazama Asagiri explained in a flat tone: “These boxes originally held Sleepers carefully selected from the Golden Age.”

“What are those?”

“According to the surviving records, toward the end of the Golden Age, an outstanding leader in Ivyen City proposed the Hibernation Plan. It was simple: like space shuttles, seal a portion of the population in cryogenic pods to survive the Dark Age and the disasters that followed. Upon awakening in the future, the Sleepers would return to the surface and rebuild human society.”

“The black Sealed Boxes held Ivyen City’s elite warriors in slumber. The silver ones outside are crude civilian imitations. This underground bunker is their eternal resting place. We discovered it and connected the teleport elevator.” Kazama Asagiri continued.

“But the Sleepers never made it to awakening day. The people outside all died, and no one initiated the revival sequence. Over a millennium, the nutrient solutions inside depleted completely. They passed away silently. Regrettably, humanity’s salvation plan ended in failure.”

Kazama Asagiri recounted the history of human survival in a calm tone, condensing epochs into a few sentences.

Fortunately, humanity hadn’t gone extinct. Over centuries of worsening ecology and shrinking habitats, ignorant survivors from elsewhere discovered this city.

Sadly, the new humans raised amid catastrophe had lost all knowledge and technology, able only to speculate on the pre-disaster world from remnants.

An He still couldn’t wrap her head around it. “They’re dead—then what is this half-body?”

“This is…” Kazama Asagiri paused here, her expression showing resistance. Her state was unstable; her subconscious was blocking her from revealing the project’s core.

An He’s eyes darkened as she intensified her control.

Moments later, Kazama Asagiri resumed her compliant posture. “This is our secret experiment: the Cabin Cocoon Project. We cultivate new humans starting from infancy.”

She went on: “We preserved the Shell Membrane functions of the pods to sustain vital signs. Under low temperatures, we harvested genes from unmelted Sleepers and mixed them with cells voluntarily provided by Embedded Spirit Bodies, then…”

Kazama Asagiri fell silent, her limbs twitching in struggle, sweat beading on her forehead like she was trapped in a nightmare. “I can’t say any more.”

She was hiding the key part. An He’s gaze turned icy. “Talk.”

An He uttered a single word, pushing her Parasite Innate Talent to its current limit.

Kazama Asagiri quieted again. “Then Professor Wen proposed adding the God’s Divine Blood.”

“She said if it succeeded, we could fully resist Bone Erosion Disease, achieve universal evolution, and become the new humans.”

Divine Blood?!

An He’s expression changed drastically. The last time she heard that term was in the mycelium-woven illusion.

“How could such a thing exist? Who is the God? Where did it come from?”

She demanded answers from Kazama Asagiri, but the researcher had none.

This scientist knew nothing of the details.

An He couldn’t fathom what made the Sleepers special enough for Wen Yewang to exploit. After pondering, she concluded their genes were untainted by Bone Erosion Disease.

Regardless, the Sleepers weren’t the point—the Divine Blood was.

An He asked incredulously, “Is your professor also a cultist?”

“Yes.” Kazama Asagiri nodded. “Professor Wen believes in the God. She thinks all technological progress serves to manifest miracles.”

An He thought Wen Yewang was insane.

A scientist worshiping some ethereal deity.

The “God” An He had encountered was tied to Bone Erosion Disease—how deranged did one have to be to conduct such experiments?!

“So,” An He forced her heartbeat steady, refusing to spiral into wild thoughts, “these are all test subjects?”

“You could say that. These are the first-generation Cabin Cocoons.” Kazama Asagiri said. “They’re decades-old cultured organisms. The project was once shut down and sealed after too many deaths, only secretly restarted later. But Divine Blood is hard to obtain, so no new experiments have been run.”

An He found it absurd. What were these test subjects—humans? Mycelium? Descendants of old-era survivors? A chill ran through her.

She didn’t want to dwell on the “God’s” words from that day, but An He couldn’t stop recalling them.

The “God” had said: You have my blood flowing in your veins.

She had to face the obvious conclusion staring her in the face: she really was… a test subject?

“Has the project ever succeeded?” An He steeled herself to ask.

“No.”

Kazama Asagiri’s answer made An He’s eyes widen. Then her shoulders slumped in relief.

Kazama Asagiri explained: “Most Cabin Cocoons are dead now. The rest are still in cultivation. But I don’t think it’ll succeed. With the Divine Blood added, they’re not human anymore—these red Shell Membranes are turning mycelium-like. And if mishandled, they melt into blood like poorly preserved Sleepers. Just keeping them viable is exhausting.”

That was Kazama Asagiri’s personal assessment.

A glance around showed all the Sealed Boxes standing in eerie silence.

An He rapidly pieced together the clues.

This experiment had been secretly restarted, likely opposed and obstructed by many. Even Tina didn’t know it had been greenlit and was ongoing.

Did the people outside know these things were linked to mycelium?

No, they probably didn’t—otherwise, how could they allow their greatest enemy to infest human blood?

Instinct would make them reject it, sensing the danger.

It would spark universal human panic.

But An He couldn’t figure it out: if Divine Blood was truly fungal-related, why hadn’t Bone Erosion spread through Babel Tower? This lab was right beneath it.

Did the low temperatures suppress the mycelium’s activity, or was the so-called Divine Blood something more advanced and controllable?

An He gritted her teeth.

Most importantly, if the experiments had failed, then what was she? What about her sisters?

Were those memories in her head, so out of place here, even real?

New questions piled up, the tangled threads still unraveled.

Her mind a chaotic mess, An He instinctively turned to Gu Xianqing for help—only to find her silently watching.

Gu Xianqing had lowered her eyes since hearing about the Divine Blood. When their gazes met, An He heard her let out a soft, mocking chuckle laced with pity, like she was enjoying a show.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” An He accused. All researcher lounges were identical; those on secret projects wouldn’t reveal their specialties to colleagues. Yet Gu Xianqing had picked Kazama Asagiri for her.

“Once.” Gu Xianqing approached the melted Cabin Cocoon. Under the glass cover, her face took on that “silent” expression again, just like when they’d argued about humanity’s future that day. “To witness humanity’s arrogance. Some desperately flee the calamity; others chase it fervently. Humans can be so naive sometimes.”

“Oh, right…” Gu Xianqing turned back.

Then she dropped a bombshell on An He.

“Not all test subjects failed. A few years ago, a little girl wandered off beyond Babel Tower.”