088 Children of Ether (Part 1)

The cell is dark and damp. Since this is a remote area where Artificial Sun can barely get sunlight, the temperature inside the prison often reaches below zero. In this case, Sky Ring's jailers will use a special way to discipline criminals.

Each cell has matching beds, but the jailer will take away the blankets and sheets before going to bed every day, leaving the cold bed board, and then order you to clean the floor with a mop. Late at night, the cold air will spread from the ground and grab the prisoner from the cracked and porous bed board. You hug your shoulders and shiver all over. Your rationality is gradually wiped out under the torture of the cold. At about the same time, the jailer will shout to you: Hey, get up, it's time to work.

At that moment, you were extremely grateful to the jailer. At least in the workshop, you could step on the sewing machine and lean on the lathe, and have the heat supply generated by the machinery. It was better than gradually losing temperature and freezing to death in the cold.

After more than ten days of torture, when the jailer calls you to work again, you will naturally stop resisting and feel relieved.

The cold is much scarier than heavy labor.

That is the fear of death engraved in the genes of life. In fact, when hypothermia first occurs, you will not feel uncomfortable, but will feel very hot, and you will start to take off your clothes unconsciously. Then you will become dizzy, freeze, suffer from heart failure, and finally your heart will stop beating, you will lose consciousness little by little, and finally die completely.

During the whole process, the blood seemed to have solidified and froze in the blood vessels. At first, you kept shivering and rolling, trying to warm yourself, but in the end, your head was so hot that you couldn't even think anymore. The heat dissipated little by little. You could faintly hear someone calling you loudly, but you couldn't make out a word.

After working in prison for a long time, the cold accelerates the body's metabolism, and the fat in your thighs and buttocks will gradually disappear, and eventually turn into a skinny skeleton. The dark vision and narrow closed cage will destroy people's emotions, coupled with long-term and high-intensity labor, it has caused serious damage to the mind and body. Countless prisoners have completely collapsed and gone crazy after being punished by Sky Ring jailers.

In a sense, this is indeed a release from prison.

However, what awaits them is not a lunatic asylum, but they are sent to the operating table. Their corneas cost 3 million baht, a pair of kidneys cost 1 million baht, and their torsos can be sold to the security group Hojo Family to fill in mechanical circuits and transform them into robots. Due to long-term exposure to the cold environment and the carefully customized diet in the prison, their organs remain very healthy and have very little contamination. Prisoners' organs are often sent to the freezers of high-level companies and can be taken at any time.

Sky Ring The jailers are very confident in their own standards and methods. In the past twenty years, no one has been able to withstand this kind of psychological and physical torture. They will also organize singing and dancing for the prisoners to gradually increase their trust in the prison. With your consent, the prisoners will even manage themselves, saving a lot of trouble.

However, in the face of Room K-202's new prisoners, this tried-and-tested management and education method failed for the first time.

Tick... tick...

The two jailers stood outside the door, listening to the sound of broken water pipes and seeping water, waiting with their hands behind their backs, waiting for the other to be unable to bear the cold and begging to go out to work.

"It's been four hours," one of the guards whispered, "He's not freezing to death, is he?"

"No, Beta-rank's strong ones may be more resistant to freezing." The jailer said unconfidently.

It's as if he didn't say it - as long as you are still human, you will not be able to bear it if you stay in such a cold and humid environment for a long time. There was once a proud warrior who was thrown into prison. He withstood the torture through his strong body, but he couldn't stand the cold after only four days.

That kind of damp and cold torture will penetrate directly into the joints. No one can bear the pain. Coupled with the cold plank bed, you will start to wail in pain after a while. People with strong physiques are not machines, not to mention that they have been injected with muscle relaxants before entering this prison. Their extraordinary senses should be more intense than the pain that ordinary people feel.

There was only silence in response to them.

"You're not really dead, are you?"

The jailer felt a panic in his heart, and then turned on the surveillance camera: in the black and white picture, a tall man was sitting quietly on the bed, with a calm expression and a layer of white frost on his body, but he was not moved at all. The man closed his eyes tightly and didn't know what he was thinking about. But what is certain is that he is not only alive, but all signals show that he can still maintain the strong vitality of Beta-rank.

"... It seems we are worrying too much." A jailer sighed.

"This guy doesn't seem to be an ordinary person." Another person added, "He may not be far from Gamma Rank. Look at this signal, it's like a furnace."

"Gretwar Night Song...Near Gamma Rank." The jailer curled his lips. "There are really more and more Gamma Rank recently, don't you think?"

"How can I see it?"

"Nethermark Humanity developed some kind of Gamma Rank biological beast. Grand Duke Gurant, who had never taken action, suddenly showed his true form and easily destroyed half of the city. Not to mention that Gretvor and his accomplices were able to stop an army head-on., we have seen with our own eyes that he blocked the main gun of Mobile Armor...Frostplate's Li Aoz is even more incredible. It is said that he single-handedly killed Frostplate's Air Force."

"You are overthinking. There are such Gamma Rank new stars in every era, but after they live for more than ten years, they will realize that this planet does not support their life forms at all."

The jailers have received formal training in the Sky Ring extraordinary system and have a very clear understanding of these issues.

"For example, you know that the dinosaurs will become extinct, not because they are directly killed by meteorites, but because the ecology that the dinosaurs rely on for survival is destroyed, the ferns become extinct - the herbivorous dinosaurs that eat fern food become extinct - the predatory dinosaurs that eat herbivorous dinosaurs become extinct."

The jailer lit a cigarette. Since Gretwar Night Song is not dead, there is no need to pay attention to him. His companion asked curiously, "What is a dinosaur?"

"You don't have to worry about it - in short, that's the case with Gamma Rank. Azure Planet's energy and environment are not enough to support their survival. Therefore, Gamma Rank that can truly be called active duty and can exert Gamma Rank's strength are very precious and rare. Most of them are just lucky ones who were promoted by chance. Without a country, they will only starve to death on the ground."

"It's so sad - the same goes for these people. His Majesty Ring King is obviously kind-hearted and allowed the untouchables Sky Ring to survive, but they still shamelessly want more."

"Who says it isn't?"

He blew out a smoke ring and said sarcastically:

"So, they are destined to fail. Red Squad thinks that by mastering the power of Gamma Rank, he can challenge the army? He really looks down on the 20mm depleted uranium armor-piercing projectile."

"Let's go. Since he's fine, how about we go back and have a drink?"

"Have you been hiding some private wine again? Tie Baa..."

The voices of the two laughing and cursing gradually faded away, but the tall man in the cell frowned more and more.

Cold, dank, dark.

None of this can break him.

But somewhere in the dark, he felt a strange palpitation in his heart.

Close your eyes, the world is silent except for the sound of dripping water and the sound of condensation of frost, and even your own strong heartbeat is gradually swallowed up by the silence. However, his consciousness was as clear as ever.

"...(whisper)"

Gradually, a faint call came from his heart, which seemed to be some kind of kind and gentle voice. Finally, with the association of his brain, it was interpreted into a sound that was almost like music.

It was an indescribable melody, just like the gentle itching of the wind blowing over the skin, or the body being wrapped in a hot spring and slowly being washed by steam. His consciousness was getting higher and higher, as if flying towards the sky, but people cannot fly. Only when the feet are standing on the earth can people feel alive.

"... wake up..."

As his consciousness gradually soared, he seemed to see the red and black Malefic Calamity sky, and above it, the 'blue sky' that only existed in legends and history books. The strong palpitations finally turned into a fervent call, not in any language, but the meaning was directly imprinted on his heart.

The strange echo finally fully expressed the meaning in the beautiful dark blue sky, "Wake up, people of the jury."

At that moment, his consciousness instantly sank back to the ground. In the dark world in front of him, a low-pitched male voice, as clear and sonorous as the impact of a knife blade, suddenly sounded:

"Black Whale, you still don't understand your 'quality', I'm really disappointed."

For some reason, whenever he hears a male voice, Gretwar Night Song's mind will unconsciously think of a creature that he has never seen before and does not exist on Azure Planet: a shark.

"You're here again."

Gretvor opened his eyes, and a pale, twisted figure seemed to be reflected in his blue eyes.

"I've said it many times - I'm not Black Whale, don't you want me to call you White Shark?"

Gretvor spoke without any tone, but no one seemed to think he had any malice.

"You don't understand, you don't understand anything."

White Shark opened his arms, as if he was confiding something passionately. "Your talent, your race, your surname, your destiny - you must be killed by me, but not now. Only when you fully awaken and understand the qualities of [Black Knight], will you be qualified to fight with me."

"I'm not interested in guessing riddles." Gretvor said to the pale figure, "I don't want to kill anyone, unless you will hurt others."

"That's it! That's it!"

White Shark said excitedly, but then denied it hysterically:

"No! No! That's not it! It's not enough!"

"You have to have a burning love and the awareness to regard death as a sudden return. You have to put your life in the most important place and then give it up! In this way, this is the greatest sacrifice."

"That's a necessary sacrifice. If you want to succeed, you have to pay a certain price - yes, that's a sacrifice, idiot. It's not a protection, it's a sacrifice!"

White Shark's tone is sometimes crazy, sometimes lost, like a shark stranded on the beach, he prays hard to himself and then roars.

Gretvor has no idea what he is.

If White Shark is a madman, then what is he who can see White Shark himself? "Why are you pestering me?"

Although he asked this question many times, White Shark would take the trouble to tell him the same answer every time:

"For sacrifice, Black Whale, you don't understand, quality is sacrifice, sacrifice is quality! We all have to sacrifice, only by sacrifice can we live and live soberly!"

Quite a bizarre thought, right? Gretvor continued to ask:

"Who are you anyway?"

White Shark replied proudly, "[White Knight], the jury's [White Knight]."