Episode-759
Chapter : 1517
Jasmin shivered. She stared at the complex. She could feel a low, humming vibration coming from it. It felt wrong. It felt like sickness.
"Risa is in there," she whispered.
"Yes," Ken said. He pulled the Mana-Jammer from his pack. "And we are going to get her."
He looked at the fence line. He looked at the timer on his wrist.
"Wait for the light to pass," Ken instructed. "Then we run. Keep low. Follow my steps."
The searchlight swept past them, illuminating the wet rock for a second before moving on. Darkness returned.
"Go," Ken hissed.
They broke cover. Two shadows detaching themselves from the night. They sprinted across the open ground, splashing through puddles.
They reached the fence. It hummed with magical energy. A killing field.
Ken slammed the Mana-Jammer against the metal post. He twisted the activation crystal.
Hummmmm-click.
The device pulsed. A wave of distortion rippled out. The hum of the fence stuttered and died. The red warning lights on the post flickered and went dark.
"We have three minutes," Ken said. He pulled out a pair of wire cutters. Snap. Snap.
He peeled back the fence.
"Welcome to hell, Jia," Ken whispered.
Jasmin crawled through the hole. She stood up inside the perimeter. She looked at the dark windows of the bunkers.
"I'm coming, Risa," she thought.
She pulled her mask up tighter. She summoned the Diamond Queen, letting her skin harden into an unbreakable shield.
They moved toward the drainage tunnel. The mission had gone kinetic.
The drainage tunnel was a nightmare. It was a narrow, cylindrical pipe, half-filled with a sludge that smelled of alchemy, rot, and burnt hair. Jasmin crawled behind Ken, trying not to gag. The air was thick and chemically hot.
"Don't touch the water," Ken whispered back, his voice echoing strangely in the pipe. "It's acidic. Runoff from the processing."
Jasmin nodded in the dark. She focused on Ken’s boots. Left, right. Left, right. She tried not to think about what "processing" meant.
They crawled for what felt like hours, though it was only minutes. Finally, the tunnel widened. They reached a grate. Light filtered down from above—harsh, alchemical white light.
Ken stopped. He pushed gently on the grate. It didn't budge.
"Locked," he whispered.
He didn't use tools. He placed his hands on the bars. His muscles bulged. With a low grunt of effort, he pushed. Metal groaned. The lock snapped with a dull pop.
He lifted the grate and slid it aside. He pulled himself up, checked the room, and then reached down to help Jasmin.
They emerged into a utility room. Pipes hissed steam. Mops and buckets sat in the corner. It was terrifyingly mundane.
"We are in the sub-basement," Ken said, checking his internal map. "The holding cells should be on this level. The labs are above."
They moved into the corridor. It was silent. The floor was tiled in white, spotless and sterile. It felt like a hospital, but the air was wrong. It was too cold. And there was a sound—a low, constant throbbing, like a giant heart beating somewhere deep in the building.
They passed a door with a small window. Jasmin peeked in.
She gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth.
It wasn't a cell. It was a storage room. But the shelves weren't filled with boxes. They were filled with glass jars. And inside the jars were... parts. Glowing organs. Eyes. Hands.
"Keep moving," Ken said, pulling her away. His voice was hard, but his hand on her arm was gentle. "Don't look."
They reached a heavy metal door labeled Subject Holding: Batch 4.
"This is it," Ken said.
He checked for traps. None. The guards were so confident in their perimeter and the secrecy of the location that internal security was lax.
He opened the door.
The smell hit them first. Not rot, but despair. The smell of unwashed bodies and fear sweat.
The room was vast. It was lined with cages. Small cages. Dog crates, really. Stacked two high.
Inside the cages were children.
Dozens of them. Some were sleeping. Some were staring blankly at the wall. They were thin, pale, wearing grey rags. Around each of their necks was a heavy iron collar that pulsed with a faint red light—the mana suppressors.
Jasmin felt a rage so hot it almost blinded her. This wasn't a prison. It was a kennel.
She rushed forward, scanning the cages.
"Risa!" she whispered. "Risa!"
A few heads turned. Dull eyes looked at her. They didn't have hope. They just looked confused.
Chapter : 1518
"Third row," Ken said. "Number 402."
He had memorized the ledger data.
Jasmin ran to the cage marked 402.
Inside, a small girl was curled into a ball. Her hair was matted. Her skin was grey. She looked like a skeleton wrapped in skin.
"Risa?" Jasmin whispered.
The girl stirred. She opened her eyes. They were Pia's eyes.
"Pia?" the girl croaked. Her voice was a dry rattle.
Jasmin’s heart broke. "No, sweetie. Pia... Pia couldn't come. I'm her friend. I'm Jasmin. I'm here to take you home."
Risa looked at her. She didn't move. "Home?"
"Yes," Jasmin said. She fumbled with the Mana-Jammer Lloyd had given her. Her hands were shaking. "Hold on. I'm going to get this off you."
She pressed the device against the lock of the cage. Click. The door swung open.
She reached in. She pressed the device against the collar. The red light flickered and died. The collar popped open with a hiss.
Jasmin pulled it off. She threw it on the floor. She reached in and pulled Risa out. The girl was light as a feather.
"I have her," Jasmin said, clutching the girl to her chest. "I have her, Ken."
"Good," Ken said. He was watching the corridor. "We need to go. Now."
"What about the others?" Jasmin asked, looking around at the rows of cages. The other children were watching them now. Some were reaching out their hands.
"Please," a boy whispered.
"We can't," Ken said grimly. "We can't carry them all. We have to stick to the mission."
"We can't leave them!" Jasmin cried.
"If we try to take them, we get caught," Ken said. "And then no one gets saved. We come back. Lloyd promised. We come back with the army."
Jasmin looked at the boy. She looked at Risa in her arms. Tears streamed down her face. It was the cruelest choice she had ever made.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the boy. "I'm so sorry. We will come back. I promise."
She turned away.
"Let's go," she said to Ken.
They moved back toward the door. They were halfway across the room when the alarms went off.
It wasn't a siren. It was a scream. A psychic scream that echoed in their heads.
BREACH. SECTOR 4. CONTAINMENT FAILURE.
Red lights began to flash. The heavy door they had entered through slammed shut. The lock engaged with a deafening clang.
"Trapped," Ken said. He drew his daggers.
"The vent," Jasmin said. "There was a vent in the ceiling."
"Too high," Ken said. "And too small for me."
The door at the far end of the room—the one leading to the labs—hissed open.
"Intruders," a mechanical voice announced. "Deploying Project Chimera. Prototype Unit Zero."
Ken stepped in front of Jasmin. "Get behind me. Don't let go of the girl."
From the darkness of the lab hallway, something stepped out.
It wasn't a soldier. It wasn't a guard.
It was a child. A boy, maybe twelve years old. But his eyes were glowing green. And his right arm... his right arm wasn't an arm. It was a massive, bio-mechanical claw, fused to his flesh with dark metal and pulsing tubes. His skin was covered in rune-tattoos that glowed with unstable power.
He looked at them. He tilted his head. He didn't look angry. He looked... empty.
"Target acquired," the boy said. His voice sounded like two voices speaking at once.
"It's a child," Jasmin whispered in horror. "They turned a child into..."
"A weapon," Ken finished.
The boy raised his claw. The runes on his arm flared.
"Terminate," the boy said.
And then he moved.
----
The Chimera prototype moved with a speed that defied physics. One second he was by the door; the next, he was in the air, the massive claw descending like a guillotine.
Ken reacted instantly. He didn't try to block. He couldn't block that much mass with daggers. He shoved Jasmin sideways, sending her sliding across the floor with Risa in her arms.
BOOM.
The claw slammed into the spot where they had been standing. The reinforced concrete floor cracked and cratered. Dust and debris exploded outward.
Ken rolled to his feet. He lunged, aiming a dagger at the boy's shoulder, avoiding the lethal arm.
Clang!
The dagger bounced off the boy's skin.
"Hardened," Ken noted. "Magical reinforcement."
The boy turned. His movements were jerky, unnatural, like a puppet being pulled by strings. He swung the claw in a backhand arc.