Chapter 5.4 - Dream of Changes
In the north, the Scorpions of Disaster’s forward operating base had already doubled in size over these short few months. Thousands of soldiers and over a hundred war machines were busily entering and leaving this base like a bustling scorpion nest.
“So, you failed your mission?” At the top floor of the Scorpions of Disaster base’s general headquarters, Pandora’s image that still looked like she was asleep floated up and down.
“Sorry.” Martham had one knee on the ground. Even though he was hanging his head, his head seemed to be making contact with the corner of Pandora’s dress. After hesitating for a bit, the giant continued and said, “Su has two extremely outstanding subordinates now. They have already formed a team that is extremely difficult to defeat.”
“I do not care much about your defeat. When the time comes, you can also die in battle.” Pandora’s voice sounded sweet, but her voice was as cold as ice. “However, why did you go against my order and try to kill Su?”
In a downcast but resolute voice, Martham said, “Su isn’t someone who we can control.”
“This isn’t something someone with limited intelligence like you can understand. All you need to do is to completely obey orders!” Pandora coldly cut off Martham’s words. She squatted down, and after thinking for a bit, she said, “Martham, you’ve disappointed me greatly. You should go and receive adjustment number 2.”
“I will obey your distinguished self’s order.” Martham replied. From the tone of his voice, it sounded like what Pandora was telling him do was just an ordinary small task.
It was now deep into the night. Roars of extreme suffering reverberated through the forward operating base’s skies, waking almost everyone in the base. The minority who had been here a bit longer were quite familiar with this noise, while most of the new soldiers didn’t know who was roaring so deep into the night and so loudly at that. However, this didn’t create any disorder, because they didn’t receive any orders or alarms. As a result, after the initial shock, they flipped their bodies over before going back to sleep again. For them, the orders they received from the computer chips were everything. Nothing else was important.
Outside the forward operating base, Diaster still lived in his residence. The roars that rumbled like thunder sounded through the open windows, forcibly waking him from his slumber.
Diaster felt like his brain was going to explode from pain. The wind that was blowing in front of the window was especially chilly and also dry enough to make one go crazy. The air conditioning system that was originally quite powerful seemed to have gone out of order, making him feel as if he had entered an icehouse. Meanwhile, the general’s own ability to produce heat seemed to have stopped working as well. The moment he was startled awake, Diaster felt both cold and hungry, as if he had returned to the harshest winter of his youth.
Even though the general immediately snapped out of this memory of his youth, his body still trembled involuntarily, because his cold and tightening tendons were bringing him intense pain. His palms and the soles of his feet even more so felt as if they were pierced by needles, aching to a nearly unbearable degree. His robust physique and exuberant vitality originally made Diaster almost immune to the cold, but tonight, these abilities seemed to have completely vanished for some reason.
“Damn it, what idiot is screaming like a lunatic? I’m going to beat the shit out of him tomorrow!” Diaster pulled the blanket that felt like a thin cloth while hatefully imagining the scene of his whip that was made of steel wiring and barbed tips lashing down on tender skin and flesh, as if the blood that would splash out as a result could bring him a bit more warmth.
Another wave of painful roars traveled through the opened window. Diaster’s trembling body immediately went rigid. This time, he finally recognized that it was Martham’s screaming voice. He clearly understood what was needed in order to inflict such suffering onto the terrifyingly powerful and firm-willed Martham. Only when the waves of howling gradually disappeared did Diaster mutter and curse, “Damn it! Turns out to be adjustment number two, that lunatic! There will be a day when I am going to…”
For some reason, whenever he thought of Pandora’s sweet and pure appearance, Diaster couldn’t help but shiver all over with fear. All feelings of malice, ferocity, and indecency completely vanished without a trace.
This usually domineering general naturally wasn’t willing to surrender so easily like this. He continuously repeated, “I am definitely going to, definitely going to…” However, no matter how many times he tried, Diaster wasn’t able to associate those vile, bloody, and desolate scenes together with Pandora.
Finally, the general gave up on his futile struggle. He fell back down onto his bed in disappointment. Only when he laid down did he discover that his uniform was already soaked in sweat. In addition, the room was extremely hot and stuffy to an almost suffocating degree. It seemed like the heating system that had just seemed to have went out of order recovered its functionality, and its output was now several times that of before.
Diaster, who could no longer fall asleep jumped out from bed. He rushed over to the windows and opened all of them completely before taking a deep breath of the ice-cold air, but he was still unable to rid his body of the dry heat. Diaster’s eyes were covered in bloody veins, and he gradually sank into a state of despair. He was quite clear on the fact that these abnormalities that happened tonight actually represented the weakening of his hatred for Pandora and his courage to defy her. Perhaps, from a different perspective, that was also the courage he had in seeking freedom.
After staring blankly for a moment, Diaster walked over to the other side of the bed before opening some drawers and fetching a transparent glass case. Borrowing the dim nightlight’s radiance, he carefully inspected it. The case was divided into four compartments, with each compartment containing roughly a milliliter of light colored liquid.
These were liquid samples that had been collected and restored from Martham’s wounds. Towards most people who had a human genome as the base but whose genetic modifications reached a certain degree, the main purpose was to cause genetic collapse, as well as to form a new type of cell that possessed destructive force similar to a virus. It could move at a speed of a hundred times that of an ordinary cell to attack normal cells and also break them down into nutrients to aid its own reproduction. Of course, in accordance with the complex laws of conservation, this hundredfold speed and vitality signified that its cycle of existence was only one hundredth that of a normal cell. The liquid inside the case in Diaster’s hands had practically all lost its efficacy, leaving behind the dead bodies of these special cells.
There was another sample of this liquid in this forward operating base, and it was also removed from Martham’s body. Back then, Martham had even clearly seen the words on the bullet: Special biological lifeform prototype bullet, Helen.
Compared to the initial specimen, the specimen in Diaster’s hands didn’t have a higher level of efficacy, but the stability had been slightly increased. However, the greatest difference was the amount! One has to understand that no matter how powerful a weapon was, if it couldn’t be mass produced, its power would be far weaker than weapons that were a level weaker or maybe even several times weaker. The liquid in his hands could be considered something that followed this reasoning as well. Even if there was a source of live specimen, an unstable biological preparation like this could still only be produced in the most cutting edge laboratories. If one wanted to make a bullet’s worth, then it would take up a week of the Scorpions of Disaster’s best laboratory’s production capacity, and even then, the quality of the finished product couldn’t be guaranteed. From the central intelligence system’s analysis, the special biological lifeform prototype bullet was created from segments of Malim’s genes. In addition, from the chemical preparation found on Martham’s body, the system deduced that some of the mass-production problems were already resolved.
To cross such a great technological barrier in such a short period of time, this Helen, and this technological strength that they were temporarily associating with her name, left even Diaster who established the Scorpions of Disaster feel incredibly uneasy.
Even though there were many injuries on Martham’s body, as for truly severe injuries, apart from the cut in his wrist, there were the four rounds of special biological lifeform prototype bullets.
From how his opponent used these special bullets, that woman definitely had more in reserve. Not only were these effective against people of Martham’s caliber, it was even more effective against the special Scorpions of Disaster soldiers who had undergone adjustments. Even though the Black Dragonriders definitely wouldn’t use these precious bullets on those special soldiers, who knew what would happen in the future? Perhaps a new model special bullet with even greater power would emerge, and the price of these special bullets might drop to the point of being the same price as anti-aircraft machine gun bullets.
“But…” Diaster suddenly threw all of these thoughts regarding strategy and countermeasures forcefully out of his brain! This was Pandora’s battle, the apostles’ battle. It wasn’t Diaster’s battle, so why was he worrying about it?!