Death Knell

Jenny followed behind General Vick out of the Medical Building.

Her face was pale and cold, her eyes wide open, the whites filled with bloodshot veins. She looked terrifying.

On both sides were wounded people supporting each other, or those too severely injured to walk, being pushed along on hospital beds. Whenever this happened, General Vick, Jenny, and Violet pressed themselves against the wall to let them pass first.

The smell of Formalin disinfectant and charred flesh constantly filled their nostrils, while wails and urgent rescue efforts rang in their ears. Human tragedy was enough to describe this situation.

General Vick walked on. Outside the Medical Building, large numbers of wounded were still gathered on both sides.

The air here was even murkier, reeking of scorched oil, smoke, and Malfoy Disinfectant. The stench made their noses itch and turned their stomachs.

General Vick said heavily, "Look. This is what that beast did."

Hearing General Vick call Ba Di a beast, Jenny flew into a rage. "Shut up! I won't allow you to insult my Ba Di!"

General Vick choked at Jenny's retort. The anger he had just suppressed surged back onto his face.

Very few people dared speak to him like that.

He let out a cold snort and turned to glare at Jenny.

But Jenny pressed the middle finger of her left hand into the bullet wound beneath her right collarbone. Blood spread out, seeping through the gauze in crimson beads.

Jenny grinned. "I won't allow you to insult Ba Di. Even if every human died, none of them would matter more than him."

Whenever she heard Ba Di's name, Jenny felt as though her heart were being cut apart. An indescribable pain lay buried deep within her, and only physical pain could keep her mind clear.

Yet when she pressed her finger into the wound Ba Di had made and blood beads seeped out, she remembered the muzzle of Ba Di's gun pointed at her.

She was forever wandering in an abyss of heartbreak, physical agony, and painful memories.

Whether physically or mentally, she was despairing.

Seeing her crazed appearance, General Vick's anger abruptly halted.

She... was insane.

There was no point arguing with someone like this.

But whether she was insane or normal, as long as she could create value for him, that was enough.

"Even if all the soldiers here die, what does it matter?" Jenny grinned and sucked the blood from her middle finger. Blood smeared across her pale teeth and colorless lips, making her seem bewitching and crazed.

A chill rose in General Vick's heart. With a dark expression, he turned away and continued walking.

This crazy woman.

"Go to the Underground Research Institute. Take all your research materials. We're leaving this place," General Vick said.

This place had been exposed too thoroughly. It was no longer suitable for research.

Even if it were suitable, it might not remain under his control in the future. Conducting research here was definitely not a good choice.

Jenny followed General Vick, seeing countless wounded people along the way. From time to time, she tilted her head, a smile appearing on her cold face. From time to time, she pressed the middle finger of her left hand against the wound beneath her right collarbone, her bloodshot eyes stretched wide.

Other than the Negative Second Floor, there were no survivors on the other levels of the Underground Research Institute. Jenny was the exception.

When they reached the Negative Fourth Floor of the Underground Research Institute.

The smell of blood in the underground laboratory was even thicker. Gunpowder smoke and blood stench lingered in the air, making people nauseated.

Even General Vick could not help covering his nose.

Soldiers carrying a stretcher passed by them with Slade's corpse.

General Vick felt rather regretful over losing a loyal dog. Slade had followed him for quite some time and was powerful enough. Unfortunately, he had still died stupidly, failing to loyally guard the Underground Research Institute and allowing Ba Di to escape.

That made General Vick both regretful and furious. What useless trash!

"Wait."

Jenny extended her right hand, stopping the soldiers carrying the stretcher.

With her bloodshot eyes wide open, she stared intently at Slade.

Slade's chest had caved in. The military knife was no longer lodged in his right eye, and the eyeball had fallen out. There was not much bleeding, but that empty eye socket made him look even more terrifying.

General Vick frowned. "What? He hasn't had a heartbeat for thirty minutes."

Jenny pressed her finger against Slade's carotid artery. After a while, she said through her bloodshot eyes, "Even if breathing has stopped and there is no heartbeat, it doesn't prove that a person is completely dead."

Jenny grinned, a crazed expression appearing on her face. "Give him to me. I'll transform him into a Human Weapon."

"He's not dead yet?" General Vick asked in surprise.

Jenny stood up, her face turning cold again. "I don't know. It feels like he still has brainwaves. It depends on his willpower. Let's go get the materials."

Jenny's temperament changed too quickly. How could she just leave like that? If he was not dead, save him first.

General Vick paused, then said, "If he's not dead, save him first!"

Slade was, after all, his trusted general. Both his ability and loyalty were outstanding. If he was not dead, of course he should be saved first.

Yet Jenny ignored his order completely and said coldly, "If he's not dead, he can hold on a little longer. If he dies, throw him away."

She said it as casually as if she were buying a bun from a street stall. If it did not taste good, throw it away.

General Vick's words caught in his throat. It felt as though a ball of fire were about to explode inside him. He truly wanted to pull his gun and blow Jenny's head apart, but considering that he needed Jenny to create enhanced soldiers, and that Jenny had already gone dark and looked completely insane, as if she did not fear death at all, he suppressed the flames in his heart again.

Slade was in a corpse-like state anyway. Jenny was more important.

General Vick suppressed his anger again, turned around, and headed deeper into the laboratory.

When they arrived at Jenny's laboratory, the tumor-covered white mouse was already dead.

After checking all the materials.

"He erased all information related to his genes and destroyed the blood samples." Jenny smiled with unusual delight. "You really are extraordinarily accomplished in biological genetics. Thinking about it now, you had been misleading me all along."

As Jenny laughed, her bloodshot eyes became dry, and tears of blood streamed out.

General Vick's face darkened, clearly displeased.

With bloody tears on her face, Jenny stared at him so intensely that General Vick felt a chill creep into his heart. Then she tapped her own head with her hand. "It's all in here!"

"What about this thing?" Only then did General Vick's expression improve slightly as he looked at the tumor-covered white mouse.

Jenny sneered. "Throw it away. He wouldn't leave behind something so obvious."

Jenny knew what was wrong with this white mouse that had been injected with the Gene Serum she had made.

The white mouse in Jenny's laboratory had not undergone a strength-enhancing mutation because of the Gene Serum. The drug's effects had simply been too powerful, stimulating its nervous system all the way to its brain. It absorbed thermal energy, causing tumorigenic factors in its body to proliferate, turning it into a white mouse covered in muscular tumors.

In the end, that white mouse had no possibility of evolving at all. Nor had it undergone a genetic mutation. It was merely covered in tumors. While the drug remained active, its body jumped around madly, its internal nerves thrown out of balance and beyond its control.

Once the drug wore off, the unnaturally proliferating tumors would naturally crush the white mouse to death.

Simply put, it was a white mouse with tumors. It had nothing to do with genetic mutation, and it could never gain Kryptonian genes.

Jenny considered this experiment a success because Ba Di could use this tube of substance to connect the action potentials in his nervous system, allowing his limbs to move.

It was only that Dean Bo Li had seen the white mouse going mad out of control and mistakenly thought it was meant to strengthen physical power and the body. Jenny had never intended to create a Gene Serum that enhanced the body.

Ba Di's Cytoplasmic Energy could absorb thermal energy. She had developed a catalyst that used a night of Infrared Ray exposure to make Ba Di's cytoplasm absorb sufficient thermal energy, melting the cellular genes and preserving the Infrared Ray heat energy within them.

This could no longer really be considered a Gene Serum. The cellular genes inside had actually been destroyed by the catalyst, turning it into a liquid that retained thermal energy.

Even if this tube of Gene Serum were tested again, Ba Di's Kryptonian genes could not be detected.

Even if an ordinary person drank it, they would not gain Kryptonian genes or immense strength. Instead, their limbs would twitch and flail madly as though they had hyperactivity disorder. The more they drank, the more tumors they would grow, and the faster they would die. This was something only Ba Di could drink.

More than anything, this tube was medicine Jenny had made to stimulate the nervous systems in Ba Di's limbs and trigger action potentials, so that Ba Di could stand up.

Of course, if it were diluted several hundred times and adjusted again using ordinary human genes, ordinary people could drink it to improve their motor nerve responses. That was also why Ba Di had taken the Gene Serum.

As for the white mouse, he had seen at a glance what was going on with it.

General Vick frowned. This white mouse looked rather... powerful after mutating. "No, biological genetics must be handled rigorously. We should dissect it and take a look," Jenny suddenly said. She grabbed the tumor-covered white mouse in one hand and began studying it.

Bang.

Not long afterward, the examination was complete. She hurled the tumor-covered white mouse directly against the wall, splattering black blood. Coldly, she picked up a white towel and wiped her hands. "How could he possibly be stupid enough to leave behind a sample?"

"I was too naive."

She walked out of the laboratory, the corners of her mouth curling into a smile that did not reach her eyes. Her bloodshot eyes were wide open. "Let's go transform the strongest Human Weapon."