“…Monitoring shows no fluctuation… stable…”
“Blood extraction complete… sealed…”
“…Time… comparison…”
Fragmented, noisy voices echoed in her ears.
She exerted all her strength but only managed to open her eyes a tiny slit.
A harsh, piercing light shone through the gap in her eyelids, forming a dazzling glare.
Faint human silhouettes moved and conversed not far away.
Who were they?
What were they doing?
And she… what had happened to her?
“…Cycle… complete, inject… dormancy…”
The voices sounded distant, as if separated by layers of gauze, breaking the words into fragments.
Then, a chilling sensation touched her skin.
A heavier, deeper sleepiness washed over her. She struggled, tried to resist, but was powerless.
She vaguely realized that the people who had been here just moments ago seemed to have left, and the door was closed.
Just as she could no longer hold herself up, she suddenly heard a sharp alarm.
“Warning, warning, unauthorized intrusion…”
“Boom!!”
The originally loud sound, filtered through layers of doors, became muffled.
Her consciousness sank into chaos, plunging into an even deeper darkness.
Because of this, she did not know that the moment after she closed her eyes, the laboratory she was in suddenly erupted with a bright, intense red light.
Mechanical voices spoke.
“Initiate Plan 1: Seal all test subjects in the Research Institute…”
“Plan 1 failed. Initiate Plan 2: Destroy research specimens…”
In the center of the room, a huge transparent tank held a girl with her eyes tightly shut.
The tubes connected to the tank had once supplied her with nutrients.
But now, a strange mixture of black, gray, and purple poisonous liquids—derived from the Mutants—was being pumped in.
The liquids swept through the entire tank, engulfing the girl.
But the next moment, as if alive, the toxins spun violently and were absorbed into the girl’s body.
The nutrient fluid cleared once again.
Then, a crack appeared on the tank, which had been bulletproof.
In the next second, the crack spread layer by layer.
The glass, which had been stronger than anyone could imagine, shattered like ordinary, fragile glass.
The nutrient fluid splashed across the floor, and the unsupported girl slid down along with it, curling up as she hit the ground.
Two minutes later.
The once-solid, tightly sealed door was broken open. A team of people wearing specialized combat suits rushed in. They moved in perfect coordination: three checked for hazards, one sprinted to the computer to download experimental data, and one approached the girl in the center, curled up as if dead.
He pulled out a recording camera. Just as he was about to take photos, he noticed the faint rise and fall of her chest.
“Still alive?”
Immediately, all except the person at the computer looked over.
There were no hazards in the lab. After the checks, the three others gathered around.
The girl on the floor was completely naked. Her long hair, sprawling across the floor, just barely covered her chest, waist, and hips.
Her face was pale, her lips colorless. She lay on the ground, small and thin, seemingly harmless.
Yet guns were pointed directly at her—barrels facing downward, hovering midair—aimed at lethal spots: her forehead, heart, and neck.
“Check her,” the apparent leader ordered.
“Understood.”
A young man with a white broad cross on his chest squatted down, removed his gloves, and first touched the girl’s face.
“Skin texture normal.”
He opened her eyes to examine them.
“Normal human pupils, black irises.”
“Teeth normal, twenty-eight in total.”
“Correct number of fingers and toes. No abnormalities on the back of the head, tailbone, or waist.”
“Preliminary conclusion: ordinary human female, likely under twenty years old.”
Finally, a soft “beep.”
“Contamination level 10%, also within normal range.”
All of these indicators seemed normal.
Yet in this laboratory, the presence of such a “normal” human was inherently abnormal.
Their vigilance did not lessen; if anything, it increased.
At that moment, the man at the computer swore.
“Damn!”
“All crucial data has been destroyed.”
This was the first lab they had entered with a computer. He had been fast, but the rats that had been hiding here for so long knew how to leave no trace.
“Did you find her info?”
The leader had expected this and instead pointed at the girl on the ground.
“Most of her data is still here,” the young man said, removing a USB drive and briefly explaining. “She was brought here by the lab a month ago. They’ve been testing her genetic tendencies, apparently trying to match her with certain Mutants to create a half-Mutant. But there are no experimental records here, and the time is short. She should still be human.”
Hearing this, the other Western operatives relaxed slightly.
“Although they were fast, I managed to salvage some data. There’s something very interesting. Want to know?”
The young man spun the USB drive between his fingers with a mischievous smile, his voice confident.
The only woman among them tilted her gun from aiming at his hands to aiming at his three legs, wobbling it.
“Which limb do you want to throw it from?”
“Hey, can’t even joke around? You’re too serious,” he complained.
The woman lifted her hand to pull the safety.
With a click, the survival-instinct-driven young man tossed the USB drive, catching it in his palm.
“That document is called—Mother of the Mutants.”