Ciri

Anchorage Base was unusually lively.

Against the clear sky, black dots appeared one after another in the distance. Ten C-5 Galaxy strategic transport aircraft, the largest strategic transports currently in service with the United States Air Force.

More than twenty H-53 Sea Stallion heavy helicopters followed. They were high-speed assault aircraft developed by the United States Marine Corps, the largest assault-oriented multipurpose heavy military helicopters in the Western world today. They were used to force their way deep into enemy territory for strikes or airborne landings.

Farther away, formations of F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-22 Raptor fighters soared through the sky, breaking the sound barrier and leaving sonic boom trails that lingered for a long time.

'Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...'

The blue sky was vast, and the machines could not cover it. Yet the thunderous roar of their propellers, with sonic boom clouds streaking behind them as a backdrop, gave the oncoming "clumsy" heavy strategic transports and helicopters an overwhelming aura of gunpowder and steel, carrying the urgency of war about to begin.

It was as though they had suddenly entered a war.

Nearly two thousand elite soldiers from the army, navy, and air force, equipped with the latest weapons and gear, filed out of the C-5 Galaxy transports and H-53 heavy helicopters, airborne into Anchorage Base.

In the distance, dust rolled across the land.

The army stationed at the Alaska military base drove M1A2 main battle tanks equipped with the most advanced vehicle information systems and battlefield management systems, as well as new protective armor and electronic equipment. Alongside the bulk of the army, they approached Anchorage City, imposing military control and beginning the evacuation of all three hundred thousand civilians in Anchorage.

And that was not all. Various large passenger aircraft were being temporarily requisitioned and flying in from the sky, carrying top biomedical teams from twenty-one countries and all kinds of high-precision biochemical medical equipment.

Army General Jericho was powerfully built, his face stern and humorless as he swiftly deployed defenses around Anchorage Base and took over the base's wartime defensive arrangements, leaving the base staff at a loss.

Air Force General Augustine, imposing and dignified, led an elite force of one hundred men into Anchorage Base's command center. He took command in the simplest manner possible and presented his authorization documents. "These are orders issued by the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. Everyone, please cooperate and temporarily stop what you are doing."

General Augustine made a gesture, and the stunned people in the command center were immediately escorted away by the soldiers filing in. Elite military technicians then began installing the latest radar systems and connecting them to satellites and carrying out a series of other operations.

General Augustine broadcast directly, "Everyone at Anchorage Base, this base will temporarily be under military control. All ground base combat personnel will be assigned defensive positions by General Jericho. Mecha repair technicians are not to stop work. You must accelerate repairs on the mecha. We may need that big fellow."

"Everything else remains unchanged. Continue with your duties."

"The treatment room is temporarily off-limits. Do not enter without authorization. Anyone who does so will be shot at their own risk."

General Augustine's words silenced the entire Anchorage Base. Only the hurried footsteps of the troops remained. Just as everyone was feeling uneasy, the marshal they knew well, Stacker, appeared and steadied the people of the base. "Listen to General Augustine. Everything stays as it is. It's fine, guys."

The top biomedical teams from twenty-one countries, led by Tongus, dean of Harvard Medical School, consisted of a full one hundred and thirty biomedical PhDs. Every one of them was a national treasure, and they were now hurrying toward the treatment room.

Tongus was thin and wiry, with flaxen blond hair and the sharp gaze of a hawk. He wore a famous-brand black suit beneath a white lab coat, his black leather shoes polished to a shine. He had something of a British gentleman's air. Temporarily leading one hundred and thirty top biomedical PhDs in researching an alien was the most exhilarating and pinnacle achievement of his life.

No matter what they discovered from the alien, it would all become his achievement. Once word of such an accomplishment spread, no one in the entire biomedical field would be able to rival him.

This was the greatest achievement in the history of human biomedicine.

Tongus was thrilled, his steps unconsciously quickening. He just did not know which idiot had used an electromagnetic spectrum instrument meant for detecting thermonuclear reactors to examine the alien and calculated the absurd result that it possessed a baseline strength of eight thousand tons.

"It's you, freak Ciri!"

"It's you, Tongus! You skinny sack of bones with barely any hair, who transplanted a rabbit's lower organs onto his own son, is so old he's nearly dead yet still greedy for money and power, steals his students' achievements, and harasses his students!"

Tongus led the group around a corner and saw Ciri standing outside the glass wall, looking at the alien. His neck stiffened, and his expression changed drastically.

When Ciri heard someone call her a freak, her bright eyes turned with blade-like sharpness, and she saw Tongus arriving with his group.

"I will have my lawyer sue you for defamation and slander." Tongus's hawkish face darkened, hatred bursting from his eyes. Gritting his teeth, veins bulging on his neck, he shouted, "Now get out of here!"

Seeing this freak Ciri again, Tongus could no longer maintain his usual gentlemanly manner.

The things Ciri had done were simply too deranged. Even Tongus, who had once been her teacher, had been so terrified that he developed the urge to kill her.

Ciri had lived in the slums as a child. A neighbor had once reported her to the police for killing her stepfather and dismembering the body, frightening her mother into a mental breakdown. She had been sent to a psychiatric hospital for compulsory treatment.

Ciri had been born with a unique talent for biomedicine. Problems that others found difficult could be solved by her after only a few glances. Because of this, Tongus had taken notice of her when she was fifteen and accepted her as his student as an exception.

If that had been all, there would have been no issue.

But unfortunately, when Ciri was eighteen, Tongus, who styled himself a gentleman while being greedy, power-hungry, and lustful, saw her at a biomedical presentation wearing formal attire: a white blouse, a knee-length skirt, and black stockings that outlined her alluring figure. After watching her confidently command the stage with her coldly beautiful face, he became infatuated and developed improper intentions toward his own student.

Unable to bear it any longer, Ciri won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine that same year for discovering how cells sensed and adapted to oxygen supply. She thus avoided her teacher and applied for independent biological research at Harvard Medical School.

The following year, seeing that her teacher still had not come to his senses, she won her second Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work on the effects of cellular responses to temperature.

Most people would have backed off by then.

After all, she had already won two Nobels, was the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in the world, and had been placed under the protection of the United States' national-level research expert program.

But Tongus found it rather challenging, and he was preparing a whole series of methods to make it seem reasonable: getting her drunk and forcing her into a half-voluntary situation.

To Tongus, it was not really a big deal. The medical and academic worlds were all like this. If Ciri had not been so formidable and immediately won two Nobels, he could have gotten her drunk, threatened her graduation, framed her with a few fabricated papers, and used any number of methods. She would naturally have submitted.

That was how academia worked. It was the rule.

Unfortunately, Ciri was too intelligent. She had long seen through Tongus's character. She only wanted to quietly conduct biological research and had no desire to deal with all this troublesome nonsense.

When Ciri was preparing for her third Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Tongus came to visit her while she was conducting an experiment. The self-proclaimed gentleman Tongus accidentally sat on and crushed to death the experimental rabbit Ciri had raised for five years and loved deeply.

Ciri was devastated for an entire night. She cried until she nearly went blind, and then she became a freak.

She developed thoughts of revenge.

On a dark and windy night when Tongus was not home, she performed a two-hour operation on his son.

The operation was exceptionally perfect.

Even now, that lower-organ transplant operation was so flawless that Harvard Medical School students regarded it as a miracle, and it shocked the entire world.

The imaging scans showing the connection in Tongus's son were still secretly mandatory research material at Harvard Medical School. Every time, they astonished new students. How could it have been joined so perfectly? What godlike skill was this...

It took Tongus more than a full year to discover his son's problem. It had to be said that Ciri's success with the procedure was extraordinary. The healing, hemostasis, and suturing had left no aftereffects whatsoever. If Tongus had not one day discovered that his son took more than half an hour to urinate, he would never have noticed.

Tongus quickly uncovered the truth and learned that Ciri was responsible, but by then, he was even more terrified.

Because during that year, Ciri had used Tongus's and his son's genes to create a genetic bomb targeting the Tongus family bloodline.

It would cause males carrying Tongus blood to suffer a gradual decline in testosterone, eliminate their desire to mate, and make them abstinent and free of worldly desires, allowing the men of the Tongus family to contribute more to the medical field.

Unfortunately, Ciri had not yet had time to introduce it into the medical school's water supply system when Tongus discovered it and stopped her.

But fortunately, Ciri was simply too intelligent. She merely shook the test tube a few times, and the genetic bomb inside became ineffective through another chemical reaction.

Just as it had been throughout Ciri's life, there was no evidence that it was related to her. Nor was there any evidence that she had ever created a genetic bomb targeting the Tongus family.

Even Tongus's knowledge that Ciri had been making a genetic bomb was merely a deduction based on the operations in her biological laboratory and the presence of his own genes. It could not serve as conclusive evidence.

Even now, Tongus did not dare drink water at the medical school.

In the days that followed, Ciri was repeatedly targeted at the medical school. Having no intention of enduring it, she noticed that Tongus was going to withhold her funding and join forces with numerous researchers at the school to isolate her. She immediately grabbed a folding chair, beat Tongus senseless, and swaggered out of the medical school.

To this day, freak Ciri remained a godlike legend at Harvard Medical School.

Ciri was tall, and in her thick-soled high heels, she appeared nearly as tall as Tongus.

She tilted her head high, exposing her long, fair neck. Looking down at Tongus through her delicate nostrils, her eyes were full of contempt. "Tongus, did stealing the experiments I left behind and using them to win a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine give you the confidence to speak in front of me?"

Ciri had left far too stylishly back then, and the experiments she left behind had already been mostly completed. Tongus simply took over, only receiving the Nobel Prize years later.

Tongus's face darkened like water. He could already feel the mocking gazes of the biomedical PhDs from various countries behind him. What had happened at the medical school had become known throughout the entire medical community.

He hated people like Ciri, who came out and ruined the rules.

At the same time, Ciri was simply too strong. So strong that even the network of connections Tongus had built over decades could not deal with her.

Deep down, Tongus was somewhat afraid.

"My Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was earned with a clear conscience."

"Ciri, your moral character is corrupt. I will never allow someone like you to corrupt the ethics of the medical field."

"Throw her out. Don't let her get close to the alien."

Tongus's face was grim as he shouted and ordered the two researcher disciples behind him to step forward and drag Ciri away.

Ciri did not move. She gave a mocking laugh. "My talent surpasses all of yours combined by tenfold. I was also the first to study him. No one understands this body better than I do."

"This is my territory, Tongus. You do not have the ability to drive me away."

The two researcher disciples hesitated, uncertain for a moment. Ciri's presence was overwhelming, as though she were the true master here.

"I am the person in charge of the biomedical team. I said..."

Before Tongus could finish, a voice interrupted him.

"Since Dr. Ciri is here too, let her join the research." General Augustine, his slight belly protruding and his bearing imposing, stepped out from behind the crowd. With a stern yet warm smile, he said, "Please begin as soon as possible. There may not be much time left for you to build rapport."

Tongus swallowed the rest of his words, his face flushing red. He shot a resentful glare at his two researcher disciples, who had no idea what they had done, then replied, "Understood, General Augustine." He quickly turned around and led the team into the treatment room.

Ciri kept her chin raised and nodded to General Augustine. "Well done, General Potbelly." Then she turned and entered the treatment room, immediately beginning to curse.

"What the hell is this? Are you messing around?"

"Go read what I found in the preliminary examinations before you come here."

"I'm the one in charge!"

"My talent is a hundred times greater than yours. I have two Nobels!"

"You... you... you..."

"Go get the materials and read them, you PhDs who are worse than a bunch of elementary school students!"

General Potbelly...? General Augustine's expression froze, and he unconsciously sucked in his stomach.