Chapter Thirty: Potion of Passion (Part Two)

"They seem to have stopped."

Ling Ying crouched behind a bush as she spoke, keeping her eyes fixed on the strange group ahead.

"Odd. Why isn't this guy at the banquet? What's he doing out here in the woods in the middle of the night?"

"Yeah, it is odd. But at least we can finally stop."

Caitlyn finally broke free of Ling Ying's demon claws and sank to the ground in a rather undignified kneel, rubbing her ankles as she complained.

"We chased them for several kilometers in high heels! Damn, my legs feel like they're going to snap. Don't you feel anything?"

"Huh? Oh, right. I was so focused on chasing that guy. Sorry, heh."

Ling Ying scratched her head sheepishly, though she was thinking that she could have gone much faster if that damned dress hadn't been in the way. Fortunately, with her strength enhanced by the Void Power, she had managed to drag Caitlyn along and just barely keep up with Lunge and the others, despite their traveling light.

"An apology isn't enough."

Caitlyn glared at Ling Ying.

"You have to tell me what you're planning to do next. This is still private property belonging to the Tyros Family. Without authorization from the Enforcement Department and the council, we can't take action on our own."

"That depends on what that young master has in mind. Don't worry, I won't make a scene this time. We're just going to scout things out, I promise."

Ling Ying finished speaking, then looked away from Caitlyn's skeptical, pretty face and continued watching the group opposite them. They had been waiting beneath that dead tree for a full ten minutes now, and Ling Ying couldn't make sense of it.

"Coo-coo-coo."

A strange birdcall rang out. A moment later, a light flashed in the distance, went dark, then flashed again. Ling Ying noticed one of Lunge's servants pick up a lantern and answer with a sequence of flashes. A few minutes later, the sudden rumble of wheels broke the silence. Several horse carriages loaded with goods emerged from the woods and stopped in front of Lunge and the others.

"Well, look who it is. Young master."

A bald, bare-chested man with several bullet belts slung across his chest jumped down from one of the carriages and waved at Lunge.

"The goods you asked for are all on the carriages. Hey, though, I've got to say, with Piltover blockading Long Bridge lately, Zaun's goods can't get through. We have to bring them in through the Undercity at the border. The costs and risks are no joke."

"As long as you deliver on time, you'll be paid accordingly."

Lunge waved, and one of the servants stepped forward and handed the man a case. The man opened it in front of them, looked inside for a moment, then closed it with satisfaction.

"Generous as always, young master. You lot, unload the cargo."

At the big man's order, his men quickly got to work, unloading the goods from the carriages one by one. The distance and poor lighting made it hard for Ling Ying to see clearly, but they looked like long cloth sacks... Wait. Lunge took a knife and slit open one of the sacks, then pulled out a gaunt, sallow-faced woman.

"This is..."

Caitlyn, standing behind Ling Ying, stared wide-eyed.

"Looks like we're after the same person."

Ling Ying counted the sacks on the ground. There were at least twenty or thirty.

"I'd bet those missing people you mentioned are connected to him."

"But... there are so many of them, and he hired bandits to kidnap them. What could he possibly want?"

Caitlyn looked stunned. She couldn't imagine why the Tyros Family would resort to such a reckless method to abduct people.

"I'd say it has something to do with those potions... Shh! They're moving."

Ling Ying gestured for Caitlyn to be quiet, then resumed watching the group. Once the bandits who did the dirty work had confirmed that the "cargo" was in good condition, they left with their money. Perhaps to make sure they had gone far enough, Lunge waited a few more minutes before raising his hand. Murky magical energy gathered in his palm. At the same time, a magic circle appeared on the dead tree in front of him, and the two resonated with each other. The tree suddenly slid apart, opening into a Magic Gate pulsing with energy. It sucked in everyone present, including the people still inside the sacks. A moment later, the magical light vanished, and the woods fell silent once more.

"This..."

Caitlyn gaped in astonishment. Ling Ying, however, looked intrigued. She rubbed her chin with her right hand.

"Interesting. I'll just have to see what you're hiding."

With that, Ling Ying pulled Caitlyn, still dazed, toward the dead tree. The distance was only a few dozen meters, and they soon reached it. Then the two of them stood there, at a loss.

"Can you have the Enforcement Department seal off this place? We could wait until he comes out and catch him in the act."

"No."

Caitlyn shook her head at once.

"It's a serious offense for the Enforcement Department to act against a family without permission. Besides, we don't have any concrete evidence. In Piltover, we can't act first and explain later."

"That makes things difficult..."

Ling Ying studied the tree, thinking. Suddenly, she seemed to get an idea. She waved her right hand, and a mass of Void Flames surged high above her palm.

"What are you... going to do?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry. Wrong spell."

Ling Ying laughed awkwardly and casually pinched out the Void Flames. Then she opened her hand again, and a Shadow Orb appeared in her palm.

"Crack!"

The dead tree instantly slid open to either side, revealing the mysterious Magic Gate once more.

"Oh? I thought it seemed familiar. So it really is Shadow Magic."

As she spoke, Ling Ying stepped through the gate. Caitlyn was a moment too late to grab her and could only watch as the magical light swallowed Ling Ying.

"Hey!"

No one answered. The Magic Gate seemed to block sound from passing through.

"Damn it, why are you so impulsive!"

Caitlyn pouted and stamped her foot. After hesitating for a moment, she shut her eyes and steeled herself before following Ling Ying inside.

At least she can protect me.

That was what Caitlyn told herself as the Magic Gate's light enveloped her.

Beyond the Magic Gate lay a spiral staircase descending underground. Wall lamps lined both sides, and though the light was dim, it was bright enough to keep anyone from stumbling and tumbling all the way to the bottom. Ling Ying took Caitlyn's hand and carefully led her down. After nearly ten minutes, they finally reached the bottom, where a tightly shut Alloy Door stood before them. Ling Ying walked up and knocked.

"It's very thick. I can't even hear an echo."

"You can tell that just by looking at it."

Caitlyn sighed helplessly.

"We're stuck. Breaking down this door would make a huge racket and ruin our whole plan. But it won't open by itself if we wait here. Maybe I should go back and ask for some people from the—"

Caitlyn stopped halfway through her sentence, because the Alloy Door had actually opened. It hadn't opened all the way; a small hatch had been pushed outward from inside near the bottom. Two guards dressed in black and armed from head to toe stepped out. They froze when they saw Ling Ying and Caitlyn outside. A few seconds later, one of them frantically raised his rifle.

"An intru—Pfft!"

Before he could finish, a scythe appeared in midair and slammed into his head, leaving him dazed and sprawled on the ground. Ling Ying immediately stepped forward and caught the scythe, then swept it sideways, slicing the rifle in the other guard's hands in two. The scythe spun around with a burst of speed, and she kicked the guard square in the face.

The guard staggered backward and cracked his head against the door, knocking himself unconscious.

"Phew, that was close. We almost gave ourselves away."

Ling Ying looked perfectly relaxed as she clapped her hands, then crouched down and began rummaging through the two guards' equipment.

"What are you doing?"

"Obviously, disguising ourselves."

As she spoke, Ling Ying tore the hem of her evening gown up to her thigh. Then she pulled on one guard's heavy Leather Protective Jacket and trousers. She stuffed her high heels into her Storage Bag. Caitlyn seemed to agree that it was a good idea, so she did the same. A few minutes later, two slimmer-looking guards sauntered through the Alloy Door with rifles slung over their shoulders.

"This place is huge. Who would've thought?"

Caitlyn looked around curiously at the corridor, which was wide enough for several horse carriages to travel side by side.

"What is the Tyros Family trying to hide?"

"Whatever it is, it can't be anything good. Otherwise, why would they need to—"

Ling Ying clicked her tongue. Ever since entering the facility, her keen sense of smell had picked up a lingering stench of blood. It was hard not to think of certain unpleasant memories.

"This way."

Ling Ying led Caitlyn toward the strongest concentration of the bloodstink. They turned a corner, and after only a few steps, another Alloy Door blocked their way. Unlike the previous one, this door had an obvious switch beside it. Without hesitating, Ling Ying walked up and punched the switch. The Alloy Door slowly slid open to either side, revealing a space even wider than the corridor. What first caught their eyes was a row of Incubation Pods filled with Purple Liquid. Beyond them, researchers in white protective suits moved between the pods, surrounded by glowing instruments whose names they couldn't begin to guess. Ling Ying and Caitlyn were both stunned by the sight beyond the door. Then, someone suddenly rushed out from a corner and crashed straight into them.

"No! I don't want to die!!!"

A young man with a face full of freckles looked completely crazed as he shouted and tried desperately to force his way out. But his malnourished limbs weren't even strong enough to move Caitlyn, who was standing in front of him. A researcher caught up moments later. He hooked a long-handled instrument shaped like a fork around the man's waist, and the man immediately convulsed and curled into a ball on the ground. The others dragged him away by the feet like livestock.

"You picked a good time to show up. He wouldn't have gotten far anyway, but saving us a little trouble is always nice."

The researcher holding the Long Fork casually tossed it aside, pulled down his face mask, and took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

"Want one?"

"No, thanks."

Ling Ying and Caitlyn shook their heads together. This seemed to puzzle the man a little, but behind his thick protective mask, he couldn't see much of them anyway. He put the pack back in his pocket, lit a cigarette, and began puffing away.

"We've been getting fewer and fewer test subjects lately. What a shame. These experiments are so exciting and interesting."

"Yeah, it's hard to get people in with both sides blockading each other."

Ling Ying casually picked up his train of thought.

"But that aside, what exactly are you experimenting on that you need so many people for?"

"You don't know?"

The researcher glanced at Ling Ying in surprise.

"It's..."

He suddenly paused, looked at the watch on his wrist, then turned and shouted to the other researchers.

"Time's up! Change the liquid in the Incubation Pods! Get moving!"

"Gurgle, gurgle."

As several researchers pulled the levers on the machines, all the Incubation Pods hummed at once. The thick Purple Liquid drained away quickly, revealing what had been concealed beneath it. Ling Ying's expression instantly darkened. Caitlyn, Ling Ying noticed, seemed to be trembling all over.

Inside the Incubation Pods were horribly distorted bodies. Some still had vaguely recognizable human features, while most were grotesque masses of flesh. Each pod contained one of these "things." Some had crablike lower bodies, while others had spiderlike upper bodies. The only thing some of them had in common was that their bodies were all...

"Were these made from the ordinary people you kidnapped?"

"Of course."

The researcher nodded as if it were obvious. He proudly pointed to an Incubation Pod not far away.

"Look at this one. When she first came in, she was a pretty thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl. I figured a promising specimen like that shouldn't go to waste, so I implanted several kinds of Foreign Genes in her. What do you think? Pretty, right?"

"Pretty? Heh..."

Ling Ying stared for a few seconds at the "girl" in the pod. She had a slim, human-shaped body, but several round eyeballs and enormous horns sprouted from her head, and a pair of bat wings flapped behind her. Then Ling Ying turned to the researcher, who was still basking in his "masterpiece," and spoke in a voice as cold as frost.

"You deserve to die."

"?"

Before he could react to the sudden change, Ling Ying's rifle opened fire. A Large Caliber Bullet punched through his forehead, blasting half his skull away. Red and white matter sprayed out like a fountain, spattering the floor.

"You bastard!! What did you do!?"

A young researcher was the first to react. He grabbed the Long Fork they had used on those poor civilians and charged at them. Before he could get close, Caitlyn stepped in from the side and knocked him to the ground with the stock of her rifle.

"Don't move! Get down! You're under arrest!"

Even after seeing such a cruel reality with her own eyes, Caitlyn hadn't forgotten her professional duty. She pointed her rifle at the researcher, trying to make him surrender peacefully. But he had no intention of listening. He pulled a scalpel from his pocket and stabbed at Caitlyn. The next second, his head was blown open just like the other researcher's.

"I don't think they'll be willing to surrender peacefully."

Ling Ying glanced at Caitlyn and sighed softly. As expected, the chief constable still has trouble letting go of her scruples. Of course, Ling Ying hadn't expected Caitlyn to be as unburdened as she was when it came to...

"Murder! Run!!"

"There are intruders! Guards?! Where are the guards?"

After watching two people die right in front of them, the researchers, who spent their days tinkering with equipment, finally reacted. They abandoned their work and fled in a panic as if the end of the world had come. Even so, one of them managed to hit the emergency button beside the control panel in his panic. A piercing alarm immediately filled the entire laboratory.

"What happened?"

The Alloy Door at the other end of the laboratory opened, and a squad of black-clad guards rushed in. A man who looked like their captain grabbed a fleeing researcher and demanded to know what was happening. The researcher pointed at Ling Ying with a trembling finger.

"Those people... killed... k-killed..."

"They're intruders! Open fire!"

The guard captain took only a few seconds to assess the situation. In truth, he hardly needed to; two corpses were lying at Ling Ying's feet. A dozen rifles immediately unleashed a hail of bullets at Ling Ying and Caitlyn.

Ling Ying slid behind the laboratory's control panel, dodging the barrage. She ducked low, poked her head out from beneath the panel, and emptied her magazine at the enemy, but every shot hit a wall or a doorframe.

"Damn it!"

Perhaps annoyed at her long-range shooting, which barely hit the broad side of a barn, Ling Ying cursed and tossed her rifle aside. She raised her hand and summoned the scythe she had named Purple Moon. At that moment, Caitlyn, who had taken cover behind a wall on the other side, fired her fourth Burst Fire. Three guards already lay dead on the floor opposite, all shot in the head. It seemed that when her life was in danger, the chief constable knew how to keep her priorities straight. Seeing Caitlyn was all right, Ling Ying let loose as well. Black mist surged around her feet, concealing her figure. A moment later, Ling Ying swept through the mist and leaped across the room. Her scythe blade flashed through the air like a crescent moon, and the three guards firing from behind cover were sliced in half before they could dodge.

"Shit! It's a monster!!"

Seeing their teammates cut down so effortlessly, the guards, who were only slightly stronger than ordinary people, immediately lost their nerve. Two of them dropped their rifles in terror and turned to run for the door. But waiting for them was a figure woven from black mist and a gleaming long sword.

"Shing!"

The black-misted Ling Ying swept her sword through the air, and the sharp Doran's Blade easily slit both men's throats.

"Fuck! Fall back! Tighten the line! Fall back, all of you!"

Seeing his squad shrink by more than half in the blink of an eye, the guard captain flew into a rage. He had thought this would be a hunt with no suspense. Instead, one of the two intruders had inhuman strength, while the other seemed unremarkable but had astonishingly precise aim. Working together, the two of them had turned the battle into a one-sided slaughter.

"Give me the grenade launcher!"

"Captain? We can't use that thing in here!"

"We don't have a choice!"

The guard captain snatched the Twin Grenade Launcher from the man behind him and fired two quick shots in Ling Ying's direction.

"Die, you bastard!"

The captain spat viciously. He desperately wanted to see the figure slaughtering his men blown to pieces. But things didn't go as he hoped. The strange cloud of black mist suddenly leaped into the path of the grenades and "swallowed" them. The two High Explosive Grenades vanished halfway through their flight as if they had sunk into the sea. They didn't explode or even spark.

"You're that eager to kill me?"

"!"

The voice behind him made the captain move. His many years of combat experience made him dodge to the side on instinct. That saved his life. The scythe swept past, taking the heads of several guards who hadn't managed to evade it, but missed him entirely. Unfortunately, a moment's luck didn't mean he'd stay lucky. Just as the captain straightened up after narrowly avoiding the blade, a powerful kick slammed into his waist and sent him sprawling. Then the heavy shaft of the scythe crashed into his stomach, nearly making him throw up his breakfast.

"You're the last one."

Ling Ying stood before him, holding Purple Moon in one hand.

"In a way, you're pretty lucky."

"Who are you people?"

"Does it matter?"

"Heh. Fair enough. It doesn't matter. If I can't protect this place, I'm already a dead man."

The guard captain shrugged, then suddenly gave her a mocking look.

"But whatever you're trying to do, you've already failed by making this much noise. With the laboratory overrun, the security guards outside will activate the Self-Destruct System. Everything here will be reduced to ashes. Nothing connected to the Tyros Family will be left behind."

"Oh?"

Ling Ying raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised.

"What about you and these researchers?"

"Heh. I owe Master Fickle a debt, so I'm ready to die for him. As for them, it's their honor to contribute to the Tyros Family!"

"Clap, clap, clap!"

"?"

The sudden applause made Ling Ying point her scythe and Caitlyn her rifle behind them. A familiar figure was walking toward them, clapping as he came. It was none other than Lunge Tyros.

"I admire your loyalty, Mr. Valera."

Lunge Tyros didn't seem to care about the weapons aimed at him. He kept walking until he was only a few meters from Ling Ying and Caitlyn, then gave them a smile that seemed to hold a deeper meaning.