Chapter 686: Operation ’Hydra’. Part-4.
According to what Neo Aldif himself and what he told Ashtel before the final battle between them, he had done thousands of experiments in search of a perfect plan.
Supporting Fade, spreading mimics everywhere, hiding the real body in secret hidden locations, collecting powerful summons, and forcefully merging them with other summons to create even more powerful hybrids.
Neo had tried almost all kinds of methods to improve himself and find a method to deal with Ashtel.
He even partnered with a dangerous demon just for the sake of gaining new forbidden knowledge that could be used against Ashtel.
Neo’s plan was simple... if he can become strong enough to kill Ashtel Rex, he will become strong enough to threaten the world alliance, and nobody will dare to interfere in his future plans from there onwards.
Taking over Liam’s body was just one of the many plans Neo had prepared; the only reason he decided to go with the body possession plan was mainly because it had the highest success rate.
And his deductions were indeed right; if not for Riya showing Ashtel how to gain the favor of the world, Neo could have indeed caused Ashtel’s death that day.
In the end, his plan failed mainly because of Rio’s indirect influence, as Rio had made many changes in the storyline by that point, and even Riya being alive until this point was also because Rio helped save her life and changed her fate.
Although Neo failed and ceased to exist, all the research he did and all of his hidden labs still exist to this day.
During the criminal hunting mission, Rio once managed to find one such experiment lab, and what he found inside the lab was more valuable than even powerful artifacts!
...
*Step* *Step*
Ashtel and the others all left the meeting room, passed through several secret corridors, and arrived at a massive experiment room.
The walls, the floor, and the ceiling of the experiment room were all made up of magically enchanted white-colored concrete that was sturdy enough to withstand a full-powered blow from an S-ranker!
"Originally we had only prepared one but after you called yesterday, we prepared the other one too..."
"These can be used for our mission..."
Hearing Ashtel’s words, Rio focused his eyes on the two futuristic-looking cryogenic sleeping pods that were placed in the center of the room.
There were two humanoid bodies inside the cryogenic sleeping pods, and both bodies had no facial features or reproductive organs at all.
Both of those bodies were radiating powerful vitality as if they were alive, but Rio could sense that these bodies had no souls inside them at all; they were just living corpses with no mind or consciousness of their own.
"Neo Aldif was a madman who was obsessed with making clones of himself... he liked to use this method to hide his real body..."
"I don’t know where he got the method of crafting such human-like clones but his mastery in this field was below none..."
"When Rio found this hidden lab, he found hundreds of clones inside it. Most of them have been seized and destroyed by the association, but thankfully Raji decided to keep ten of them stored safely just in case..."
Raji nodded her head at those words as she spoke.
"At that time, Jin and Ashtel were both in a coma... I was thinking that in case they don’t recover from their wounds, we can use some forbidden magic and powerful artifacts to link their souls to these clones..."
"That way at least they would have been able to move around even if their original bodies wouldn’t have woken up... although the plan was very unlikely to succeed, it was indeed a possibility at that point..."
"Thankfully, Rio and Riya managed to wake the two of them up not much later and so I didn’t need to use this method..."
Hearing Raji’s words, Lia who was the one who felt the most surprised,
"Professor Jin woke up!? I didn’t know about that! That’s good news!"
Lia had already gone on her training mission by the time Rio finally woke Jin and Ashtel, and it’s only been a day since she came back, so she was unaware of the current situation in the nation.
"Yeah, he’s in good condition now... In fact, Jin and Anna have already fixed their marriage date, they will soon be marrying each other..."
Ashtel nodded his head at Lia and also told her about the good news that Jin and Anna were going to marry each other soon.
"This is the first good news I have heard in a very long time... sigh, finally those two will not have to suffer anymore; they have sacrificed a lot..."
Rio also nodded his head at that moment as he glanced at the coffin that was floating behind him even now.
"Yes... just like we managed to wake up Professor Jin... we can do the same for Liam and Ellie too... we will succeed..."
As Rio said that, a solemn look appeared on everyone’s face as Ashtel started the explanation.
"Operation ’Hydra’ is our attempt to rescue Liam and Ellie... Originally, I already knew that Liam’s body was destroyed because of Neo Aldif and we needed to help him find a new body if we managed to rescue his soul..."
"Now we need to do the same for Ellie too; thankfully, Rio has not only managed to bring back both of their souls intact, but he has also solved the trouble of finding compatible bodies for the both of their souls!"
"These cloned humanoid bodies that you see here were created by Neo Aldif using many innocent human lives as sacrifice..."
Neo was a madman; he kidnapped innocent people and used their corpses and vitality to create humanoid clones.
And as these clones needed to be strong enough to withstand the consciousness of an SS-ranker like him, Neo made sure that these bodies were strong enough and very compatible with himself.
"As Neo’s son, these bodies will also be compatible with Liam’s soul due to the similarity in their soul fluctuations etc..."
"As for Ellie, Rio has brought her real body back... so we can use that and merge it with the clone and create a body compatible for her soul..."
"I know... the plan sounds controversial and it makes us all seem like we are doing something similar to Neo... but we have no other choice right now..."
