Chapter 176: Test Subjects

Chapter 176: Chapter 176: Test Subjects

From a first-person perspective turning into a third-person perspective.

Facing that bizarre phenomenon, Evelyn did not panic at all. She calmly transmitted her voice:

"Could it be that these past few days we have been possessing the bodies of the native inhabitants in this illusion?" ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"That’s the only way to understand it right now."

Jeremy thought for a bit before analyzing: "Leon once said this illusion is unstable. Perhaps that’s exactly why we were forcefully ejected from their bodies."

Evelyn thought so too.

But her attention at this moment was entirely focused on another matter.

She glanced at the Mermaids soaking in the surrounding glass cages, then shifted her eyes to the upper floors — where grafted bodies hung suspended in liquid.

She hesitated for a moment, but still voiced it out:

"...Captain, don’t you find those deformed, grafted test subjects just now very similar to the things the Sylvanor continent calls Aberrants?"

"..."

That sentence was like a thunderbolt striking right beside his ears.

Jeremy’s spine went freezing cold.

Aberrants. The things Kathy and the Magic Tower people had once risked their lives plunging into the Demon race’s territory to steal research results on. The things the entire continent was currently having a headache trying to figure out how to deal with.

An absurd speculation popped into his head.

But it was so absurd that, without concrete evidence, he didn’t even dare to think deeper.

Jeremy raised his eyes, sweeping his gaze across this enclosed space.

He tried stepping forward, reaching out to touch the glass layer.

His hand passed right through it.

He tried channeling magic power. But he could only unleash about one ten-thousandth of his inherent strength — voice transmission or summoning a small breeze was still possible, but wanting to shatter this glass was truly a pipe dream.

...It seemed once turning into a bystander, one could no longer interfere with anything within the illusion. They could only stand and watch.

Jeremy retracted his hand, his gaze shifting upward, stopping inside the glass cage he and Evelyn had just left.

The two Mermaid princesses still hadn’t closed their eyes.

But exactly like the other test subjects, the magic power in their bodies had completely dissipated. Their eyes were blank.

Perhaps because the two outsiders had left their bodies, their visages had also restored to their original appearance.

Breathtakingly beautiful like fairies in a painting. And being Mermaids, they carried an added touch of a sprite’s allure.

It was a pity that liquid was currently gnawing at their skin.

Very quickly, the originally healthy pinkish skin had turned deathly pale. And beneath the skin layer, within the flesh and blood, something began to crawl — bulging into ridges, moving, then sinking back down, bizarre as if Gu worms were burrowing inside.

Jeremy stood observing for a few minutes, determining this type of liquid possessed two effects: modification and devouring.

But what its base ingredients were, he still didn’t know.

"Captain, come over here a bit."

While he was still observing, Evelyn had already gone to the other side to investigate.

Jeremy retracted his gaze, turned around, and walked over.

The Mermaid leader had completely gone into the deepest hidden door, closing it behind him.

And Evelyn was standing in front of the laboratory table he had just left.

The table was piled high with blueprints and books, along with a messy pile of sketched drafts.

There were sheets drawing bone structures. There were sheets drawing blood vessel diagrams. There were sheets filled entirely with formulas.

Evelyn pointed at a research report sitting on top:

"These seem to be the data of the test subjects after mutating."

Jeremy’s gaze slid down, skimming through very quickly.

Just as she said. This was indeed a data chart. And detailed to a terrifying degree.

Race, age, realm, personal characteristics before mutation — all were recorded.

What race the test subject had been fused with during modification, what their drug resistance capability was, how long their survival time was — were all fully listed.

The majority of the lines ended with two words: failed.

As for the deformed individuals that successfully mutated, all their stats hit horrifying thresholds.

Assuming using game multipliers for comparison, if a normal person’s vitality was one hundred points, then these individuals were one thousand. And it continued to increase according to their realms.

There was no soul to speak of. But their physical intensity was a hundred times that of an ordinary human mage.

Was the current leader of the Mermaid race trying to train an army of puppets devoid of personal consciousness?

Or perhaps... did he have other intentions?

Jeremy continued reading.

Thanks to a few weeks burying his head in the library, now even without that automatic translation ability, he could still read and understand these characters. Skimming ten lines at a time was no problem.

Below the stat chart was a section recording side effects. And it was many times longer than the stat section.

Under the influence of the mutating liquid, the test subject will turn into a soulless body within one day. (The soul is devoured, becoming nutrients for the modification process.)

Entering the second stage, they fall into a puppet state, completely losing independent consciousness. Capable of losing control, falling into a berserk state.

If successfully entering the third stage, the body will be completely modified. The toxicity in the blood is influenced by their very own realm.

Possessing extremely strong corrosive and invasive properties. Not only capable of corroding all non-biological matter — if their blood is injected into an ordinary creature, in the event the other party cannot intercept it in time, there is also a probability of assimilating the other party into their own kind.

Reading to that line, Jeremy’s finger paused.

He read it one more time.

Then continued reading.

Losing control and self-detonating will cause energy disruption and spatial anomalies. The higher the realm, the wider the diffusion range.

And as the realm increases, the frequency of going berserk also thickens.

After falling into a berserk state, the only way is to enter a slaughtering state; killing to a sufficiently large degree is the only way to neutralize it. (Distinguishing no friend from foe. All creatures within the attack range are prey.)

If there is no prey, they will self-detonate and die. The pollution level from the blood and rotting meat reaches two hundred percent.

A tier-six individual self-detonating, its blood and rotting meat can corrode an entire small city in the blink of an eye.

The most terrifying part of all was the last line of that section.

Although devoid of souls, the modified test subjects still retain reproductive capabilities. Even stronger than ordinary creatures.

And what Jeremy had just read were merely a few lines among thousands of items recorded in this report.

He flipped to the first page to find the earliest recording date.

Six thousand years ago.

In other words, this research had been ongoing for six thousand years — or even longer than that.

And it was still continuing currently.

Jeremy tried to suppress the shock in his chest. But the further down he read, the more his blood ran cold.

After finishing this volume, he and Evelyn again borrowed the meager magic power they could still use to flip through all the other reports on the table.

Each volume was a phase. Each phase contained thousands of crossed-out names.

When they finished reading everything, Evelyn’s usually composed complexion also became hard to describe.

She stood still for a long time in front of the last volume, her finger pausing on a line of text she didn’t read aloud.

And Jeremy had also understood: his speculation just now was very likely exactly the truth.

If every scene in this illusion was a true projection of the Wasteland before the day it was crushed by magical beasts —

Then the origin of those Wasteland magical beasts perhaps exactly stemmed from here.

From beneath the feet of the Mermaid statue holding the holy pearl, eyes closed tight, its posture reverent.