"It seemed Mist Shadow had indeed come to the hidden room before. No wonder Angel had never managed to locate Mist Shadow while monitoring the secondary control nodes."
But how had it entered the hidden room?
Could it be that its semi-void state allowed it to ignore walls inscribed with magic energy arrays? If that were true, it could have left the laboratory whenever it wanted. There had been no need to possess Reynolds.
Unless its purpose had never been to leave, but to do something within the laboratory.
And that process had to be carried out in the material plane through a physical body.
What could its purpose be? Angel could not help recalling how, when he had first encountered the Fire-Scaled Familiar, it had brazenly set fires in the corridor. Could that arson have been connected to its purpose?
"Or was it trying to cause trouble? Destroy the laboratory?"
Angel shook his head. He truly could not guess Mist Shadow's purpose, so he could only set the matter aside for now.
"Angel, why did you suddenly stop talking over there?" Nis's voice sounded through the Mind Tether.
Angel said, "Nothing. I just discovered that Reynolds's body seemed to have been hidden in No. 01's secret room before."
"No. 01's secret room? No. 01 is practically the leader of the base already, isn't he? Why is he so interested in Reynolds's body?" Nis muttered. "Could it be that he, too, has taken a fancy to the mascot's luck?"
Thinking of No. 01's current predicament, Angel felt Nis's guess might really have been right.
No. 01 might be committing insane acts now, but that did not mean he had truly gone mad. He simply could not see any hope, so he could only give madness one last desperate throw. But