The Fallen Merman

The six mercenaries walked in through the door that appeared out of nowhere, next to the bed. They all aimed the muzzles of their submachine guns at Bai Chunian and Rimbaud.

En Ke ordered with a sneer, “Put the gun on the ground and kick it over.” 

Bai Chunian did as he was told, he threw the HK417 to his feet and kicked it towards En Ke. The most difficult part when he did this was having to hold Rimbaud down at the same time with his hands to prevent him from storming up and hurting people.

Rimbaud converged the blood-red spikes on his body and reverted it to blue. He stared at these people quietly as the tip of his tail curled up to the crystal chandelier not far away. En Ke waved his hand carrying a light machine gun and two mercenaries came up behind him. They took out metal handcuffs and cuffed Bai Chunian’s wrists in front of him.

The other two mercenaries were about to go to Rimbaud when Bai Chunian whistled against the corner of the wall. “I advise you, don’t do it.”

The last mercenary who tried to do so had become a pinch of scorched soil under the ultra-high voltage current. Not even his ashes were left.

En Ke looked at the merman curled up on the crystal chandelier, who looked like a delicate and soft omega. Although he was wearing a police uniform, but his rank was the lowest investigation officer, based on his epaulet. This industry was really unfriendly to newcomers. It wasn’t uncommon for them to be hired and pushed over to investigate the situation.

Therefore, En Ke wasn’t wary of Rimbaud at all, but he thought the white lion alpha who was leaning against the corner of the wall and looking around leisurely was more likely to be a plainclothesman sent by the police department to carry out the rescue mission.

Several mercenaries looked at Bai Chunian who looked more threatening, while En Ke didn’t pay attention to Rimbaud at all, even turning his back to him.

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Bai Chunian coughed just in time before Rimbaud could bite off En Ke’s head, warning him with a look of ‘don’t eat people’ in his eyes—this was the bottom line for experimental subjects who wanted to live in human society.

Rimbaud shut his mouth and indignantly retreated back to the base of the crystal chandelier, then yanked off a few crystal decorative pendants to eat as snacks.

En Ke glanced back at Rimbaud and didn’t notice anything unusual, but noticed the Alliance Police Department badge on Rimbaud’s chest. Filled with curiosity, he pointed at the badge and observed it. “You’re a police officer at the Omega Alliance Police Department, not from the International Felony Prison?” 

Bai Chunian heard something different in his words. “Our Alliance Police Department is only responsible for saving people. We’re not working with the international prison this time.”

The International Felony Prison wasn’t subordinate to any country and was established by a coalition of countries. The recruits had different nationalities, guaranteeing absolute neutrality. They only took in all potentially dangerous individuals who had caused significant damage to human society or had extremely socially destructive abilities.

En Ke walked towards Bai Chunian. He played with the gun in his hand and negotiated half-heartedly. “Since you only want to rescue the hostages and we’re not here to kill people, why don’t we exchange clues with each other and get out of this hellhole early. What do you think, police officer?”

Bai Chunian was certainly willing. He only had so many clues in his hands, and being played  by an experimental subject in the game cabin really wasn’t a good feeling. 

“Look, you’re a smart person. We can show our sincerity first.” En Ke squatted down and talked to Bai Chunian while resting. “We have some information about Experimental Subject No. 324. You can choose some valuable clues you know to exchange with me. It’s up to me to decide whether your clues are worth the exchange.”

When Bai Chunian heard him mention some information about the experimental subject, he suddenly recalled some details of the ATWL exam.

They encountered the team “No Survivors” in the library. By the time they arrived, “No Survivors” had already wiped out the two remaining teams in the library.

At that time, they chose to go to the library not only to grab the fixed ammunition boxes from the large warehouse but also for Bi Lanxing, Lu Yan, and Rimbaud’s tasks, assigned in the library archives, involving many documents. 

File A documented the emergence of the hurricane virus in the early 17th century which was also the emergence of human glands.

File B documented the reproduction process of Experimental Subject No. 1513, Medusa’s Eyes.

File C, which Du Mo’s team read in the library, documented the differentiation ability and characteristics of Medusa’s Eyes.

Finally, File D found by the Ghost Hunting Team in the safe on the tenth floor of the Research Institute documented a detailed description of Medusa’s Eyes’ ability. 

With this, it would be impossible for No Survivors to appear in the library for no reason. Most likely, they went to complete the task of the library archives. En Ke just confidently said that they had the information on Subject 324, so possibly, the document they took in the exam recorded the characteristics and detailed description of Experimental Subject No.324 Invisible Stalker.

This was what Bai Chunian needed the most at this moment since Experimental Subject No. 324 was an unusual experimental subject that he didn’t know about. Most likely his ability was closely related to this strange cabin.

Bai Chunian thought about the red-throated bird tattoo he saw on En Ke’s chest when he was examining the No Survivors team’s corpses during the exam, and could roughly guess what this group of mercenaries would be interested in.

“The police from the International Prison visited our Alliance Police Department yesterday.” Bai Chunian hung up the handcuffs and cracked his knuckles to count. “They came to hand over files and asked for six copies of the files about ‘Red-Throated Bird’ members and took them away.” 

“When were those files dated, then?”

“Five years ago.”

This information was of course confidential, but it could only be considered as the international prison’s confidential secret. Bai Chunian had no obligation to keep secrets for other forces, so he had no psychological pressure when disclosing it.

Fortunately, he followed Rimbaud to the Alliance Police Department for a day. Otherwise, the fish wouldn’t be able to remember these details. He felt that comparing Rimbaud’s memory with ordinary fish, Rimbaud didn’t have much advantage. Except for grudges, he couldn’t remember anything, or didn’t care enough to remember. 

When he heard the words “Red-Throated Bird”, En Ke’s bored gaze came to focus and he leaned forward slightly, a small movement that people instinctively do when their interests were piqued.

Bai Chunian was very good at observing these small movements, so he took this to his advantage and asked without leaving any thread, “You should also know about that group of nosy international prison police officers. They’re everywhere.”

“Heh, of course.” At the mention of the international prison police, En Ke looked very annoyed. “I saw that group stalking people a few days ago, near this cabin. They came to test Experimental Subject No. 324.”

Bai Chunian sat down on the ground and drew closer to En Ke. “Is there a young O police officer with them?” 

“More than two.” En Ke sneered. “The most annoying one is the sea spider. Several of our brothers are M2-level experts. That sea spider’s disgusting ability pulled them all down to the same level as that stupid police officer across the street. They brought so many people that we couldn’t even fight them off.”

Sea Spider’s J1 differentiation ability, Suppression Offset; an ability that could lower the level of the enemy to its own level. It seemed useless at first glance, but on further examination, that was a rather terrifying secondary ability.

“I still know a lot,” said Bai Chunian. “But it’s useless for me to talk about it now. We’ve been trapped in this cabin for more than an hour. If we can’t get out, we’ll die here. Anyway, the police department likes bullying newcomers, using us unlucky ones to the landmines, and sending us to our deaths. We don’t know anything, there’s no hope at all.”

En Ke could see that Bai Chunian actually knew how to negotiate. He seemed to be at a disadvantage and could only maneuver using such a way of speaking, but there was an invisible stubbornness of doing exchange on equal price everywhere. 

Even so, he still wanted to pry more useful information out of Bai Chunian’s mouth, so he could only reveal a little bit of information he had as little sweetness to bait him.

“From what I learned from my employer, this triangular pyramid cabin is Experimental Subject No. 324’s masterpiece,” said En Ke as he held his gun and reloaded the half-empty magazine. “Experimental Subject No. 324, Invisible Stalker, the prototype is a chameleon omega. As for the reason why the name is Invisible Stalker, you should be able to understand. Invisible—an experimental subject with stealth abilities, but it’s more than that.”

“This was said on the researcher’s observation records: 324 showed excellent talent in music and art. We asked him to listen to a piece of music and after listening to it once, 324 hummed the entire melody. We showed him a painting and gave him a blank piece of paper, and he could reproduce the painting on the paper without any mistakes.”

“What’s even more amazing was that we showed him a piano performance without sound, only the video capturing the pianist’s hands. And the result is, 324 could play the same piece played by the pianist. We tried to play the same video on reverse and 324 still managed to play the melody on reverse on the piano. He’s a genius.” 

Bai Chunian got lost in thoughts as he listened to it.

En Ke raised the muzzle of his gun to his head. “Dude, are you listening?”

“I’m listening.” Bai Chunian snapped back to reality and scratched his hair with his handcuffed hands.

“I was just thinking, there was a piano in the corner of the last room. I wasted a lot of energy lifting the piano bench lid to find clues.” 

“So, 324 had been sitting on the piano bench and I threw him off?”