No, it seemed she hadn't seen it. She only saw... light!
"!!!!"
Chang Guang instantly let out a groundhog-like scream, covered her eyes, and dropped to the floor!
"Who?! Which bastard threw a flashbang?! You called me here in the middle of the night just to blind me?!"
Chang Guang clutched her aching eyes and shouted furiously from the floor. She had only just gone to sleep! Was this how they treated people?!
"Lady Chang Guang, please put these on."
Rita calmly walked over to Chang Guang and handed her the sunglasses in her hand.
Why did Rita know to guard against Bai Chen's little trick? Because Bai Chen had pulled the same stunt on the airship to headquarters.
Of course, he had knocked Otto flat with it, so she had prepared in advance.
"Thank you, Rita."
Only after taking the sunglasses did Chang Guang manage to see the scene clearly. Closest to her were Otto and Rita, both wearing sunglasses like gangsters.
"Lord Otto, you knew what was going on in here and didn't warn me?"
Chang Guang gritted her teeth and complained.
"Chang Guang, I have no idea what you're talking about."
Otto adjusted the sunglasses on his nose and played dumb. What a joke. How could he keep such a magnificent sight to himself instead of inviting everyone to enjoy it?
"Tch."
Chang Guang did not continue the argument. Her gaze shifted toward the center of the laboratory, where she wanted to see which poor bastard had been taken down.
Instead, she saw a child of only thirteen or fourteen tied to the central experiment table. The source of the flash was the stigmata on his back, constantly shifting forms.
"Bishop, is this the important matter you called me for? Going back to your old ways and experimenting on children?!"
Chang Guang frowned deeply, her tone turning hostile.
"It seems my image in your minds has become quite something."
Otto gave a bitter laugh, then pointed at Bai Chen and continued.
"I discussed a collaboration with him. He volunteered. Besides, look at the expression on his face. Does he look like I forced him?"
Chang Guang followed Otto's finger and indeed saw Bai Chen's delighted smile.
"Little Bai Chen, if you keep flashing like that, today's experiment will be delayed."
At the same time, Otto gave Bai Chen a timely reminder.
"Oh, fine."
Hearing that the boring time might be extended, Bai Chen stopped switching his stigmata. The blinding light gradually dimmed.
It was mainly because he was too bored. Hearing the people around him scream under the light was the only thing that made it less boring.
"..."
Chang Guang moved closer to inspect the stigmata on Bai Chen's body. They were vastly different from the stigmata she had discovered before! The patterns seemed to be a single whole, yet also like three fused together.
Then she examined the samples already collected in the laboratory. The more she looked, the more shocked—and delighted—she became!
These were not natural stigmata in the conventional sense, but their effects were no different from natural stigmata. They were even better!
This guy had stigmata of all kinds of forms. At this rate, they might really be able to improve artificial stigmata until they had almost no side effects!
"Little guy, how did you do this?"
After reviewing the data, Chang Guang asked Bai Chen excitedly, having completely thrown the matter of him blinding her out of her mind.
"I have a secret weapon."
Bai Chen rolled his eyes internally. What else was he supposed to say? That he had been rewarded for killing Black Jilin?
"It's fine if you don't want to say. Don't worry, the procedures requiring your cooperation are over for today. The rest is up to us researchers."
Not bothered by Bai Chen keeping secrets, Chang Guang cheerfully removed the instruments from his body and let him down.
"About how long will it take you to develop the next set of artificial stigmata?"
Bai Chen stretched his stiff shoulders and asked Chang Guang curiously. Himeko's condition was worsening by the day. The sooner they created new artificial stigmata, the sooner they could save Himeko.
If even that did not work... then he could only kill Himeko.
More precisely, he would do as he had with Yuno: destroy her body, then reshape a better one for her.
But that method touched on ethics somewhat. Unless there was truly no other option, Bai Chen would not use it.
At that moment, Himeko, who was burning paper offerings before Bai Chen's coffin at St. Freya, suddenly felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
What was going on? Was the place haunted in the middle of the night? Himeko glanced at Theresa beside her, whose eyes were red as she burned paper offerings, unsure whether she should tell her.
Back at headquarters, Bai Chen skipped up to Otto, spread his hands, and said:
"Old man, cough up some coins."
"Hm?"
Otto did not quite understand what Bai Chen meant.
"Come on, Lord Bishop. I cooperated with your experiment so much, and you're not giving me weapons or armor? A little pocket money would be fine too. Otherwise, I'll report you for employing child labor."
Bai Chen put his hands on his hips and strongly condemned Otto's attempt to get free labor from him.
"Ah, my apologies. I'll have someone send you appropriate wages afterward."
Only then did Otto realize Bai Chen was asking him for money. Mainly because Bai Chen had talked to him about all sorts of things on the way over but never brought up this matter. Otto had assumed Bai Chen had no interest in such things.
You're Right, but This Is Kaslana
The next day, Bai Chen stared silently at the 500 yuan transfer on his phone. No, bro, was he being shortchanged?
Five hundred yuan? The blood they had drawn from him alone should have been worth more than five hundred yuan!
What could five hundred yuan even do? Buy five hundred packs of spicy strips outside an elementary school?
"Lord Otto, aren't you being a little stingy?"
Bai Chen raised his pinky at Otto on the other end of the communicator in contempt.
"Now, my friend, children should not hold so much money. I gave the rest to your guardian."
Otto had not actually investigated who Bai Chen's guardian was, because there was no need. He could just give it directly to Theresa. He trusted Theresa to keep the money safe.
Of course, Otto was also quietly getting revenge on Bai Chen. After all, Bai Chen had kept joking with him about being a minor yesterday. So Otto would let him experience the suffering of being a minor!
Bai Chen relaxed after hearing Otto's words. Since the money had been given to Himeko, there should be no problem. He could just ask Himeko for it after going back.
As long as it had not been given to Theresa. With Theresa's spendthrift habits, she might secretly blow all that money.
At St. Freya, Theresa and the others stood solemnly before the gravestone, speaking blessings and words of remembrance for Bai Chen.
After placing the bouquet in her hands before the gravestone, Theresa suddenly noticed a message on her phone.
She saw that headquarters had transferred five million yuan, with "Bai Chen" written in the note.
"Grandpa knows Bai Chen is gone too?"
Theresa sorrowfully accepted the transfer from headquarters, thinking it was merely a gift from headquarters.
"Can you transform into the Herrscher of the Void?"
Otto wanted to see whether Bai Chen had time to cooperate with another experiment.
"Not long ago, I used up Skill A, the Herrscher of the Void transformation, and everything else. You should know that already. The Herrscher of the Void's powers are all on cooldown now, so wait a few days."
In about four more days, the Skyward Ranger's cooldown should be finished. With the stigmata enhancement then, it should be able to perfectly replace the Herrscher of the Void.
After talking with Otto, Bai Chen realized he actually had nothing to do. The data collection for the stigmata research experiment had been completed last night, so they would not need him again anytime soon.
He could not help with Otto's experiment either... Where was the Key of Infinity now?
Bai Chen only remembered that Otto's experiment required the Key of Infinity. As for why it was needed, and whether Otto had it now, he could not remember any of it. Why?
He had remembered it not long ago, hadn't he?
Bai Chen worriedly thumped his head. Had his memory gotten worse again? Was it really an aftereffect from last time?
With nothing to do, Bai Chen wandered aimlessly around headquarters. He had finally come here once; he could not just lie around for several days, could he?
He would find the training grounds! He would not have to worry about exposing his identity there, and he could finally let loose.
After finishing her work for the day, Rita had planned to find Bai Chen directly, only to discover that he was not in his room at all.
Checking the surveillance footage, she learned that Bai Chen had followed the navigation to the training grounds.
Memory Arena was a special training facility developed by Schicksal. It could materialize enemies from the user's memories for training, and it could also call upon enemies from the memories of other Memory Arena users.
As Rita approached Memory Arena in search of Bai Chen, she heard an excited atmosphere from within.
"My god! You can do that?!"
"So violent, so powerful! Could she be another Lady Durandal?"
"Don't you think the thing facing her is even more ridiculous? That doesn't look like something an A-rank Valkyrie could handle!"
Following the shocked cries of the observing Valkyries, Rita's gaze also turned toward the striking figure in the arena.
At first, she noticed a mechanical humanoid roughly four or five meters tall, with many gear-like design elements in its appearance.
That towering humanoid was darting across the training grounds at an utterly unreasonable speed. Valkyries who were even slightly weaker could not even catch its movements.
Its target was a white-haired girl? That girl looked somewhat familiar.
She looked like the protagonist of the game Rita had seen the Bishop playing while slacking off a few days ago!
No, wait! Wasn't that Saint Kallen from the history textbooks?
Rita's eye twitched violently. If she remembered correctly, Bishop Otto seemed to have some unclear relationship with that Kallen.
There was no need to guess. The reason Kallen, dead for five hundred years, had appeared here was definitely because Bai Chen had transformed into her.
On the other side of the training grounds, Otto had appeared at some point. His expression was no longer as composed as usual.
His face was as dark as the bottom of a pot!
Of course, he knew that this Kallen was Bai Chen's transformation. He knew very well that this person could not possibly be Kallen, but it still grated on him!
For some reason, he even had the feeling that this Kallen before him was the closest thing to Kallen.
It sounded convoluted, didn't it? But that was the truth.
"Otto... He's still so young after five hundred years?"
Kallen's consciousness had originally been learning cooking from Chijie in the World Bubble. Yet at the moment Bai Chen transformed, she seemed to sense something and took the initiative to return to Bai Chen's body.
The moment she returned, she saw Bai Chen fiercely fighting the Imaginary Entity, while also noticing Otto nearby.
"He feels a little fatter."
For some reason, Kallen felt that this Otto was a bit fuller than the one in her memories.
Bai Chen leaped into the air to evade another charge from the Imaginary Entity, then planted one foot on its massive sword.
Though it looked like nothing more than a petite, adorable foot, when it stepped on that enormous sword, it carried incomparable force!
It was as though a cannonball had exploded in the arena. With a tremendous boom, the greatsword in the Imaginary Entity's hand was stomped into the ground, leaving only half the blade exposed!
The Kaslana family was already renowned for its monstrous strength. Combined with the stigmata enhancement, this was not something an Imaginary Entity that had lost a life to an unawakened Mei could compare to.
The Imaginary Entity was strong, but not strong enough!
Bai Chen waved a hand, and Judas Vow appeared out of thin air in his grasp.
He swung the enormous Judas as though wielding a hammer, whipping up howling gusts as he smashed it into the Imaginary Entity's waist!
In that instant, the arena erupted with a roar like machinery shattering! The once-mighty Imaginary Entity flew apart in every direction like scrap metal!
The entire audience fell silent in shock at the sheer brutality. Since Durandal mostly used a lance in battle, even she had never displayed this sort of violence before them!
Of course, it was not that Durandal could not do it. They had simply never seen it.
The Use of Small Worlds
Before you continue