[White Heart from a Dragon!]

Through a permit issued by his superior, Barnaby, who held considerable real power yet now had to run errands in person, saw the object before him for the second time in his life, deep within another underground facility.

Unlike their brief encounter last time, this transcendent object, codenamed "Holly," had now been placed inside a specially made, heavily reinforced isolation chamber. Visitors could only conduct this relatively "direct" inspection through the internal monitoring equipment.

"It is not that we mean to prevent you from examining it up close, but this core 'beats' several times a day in what appears to be a random pattern. At most, it has been recorded beating twenty-two times in a single day. Every beat is extremely dangerous to living beings within close range."

The "receptionist" in protective gear was so bloated that it was nearly impossible to make out the person beneath it. Based on Barnaby's experience, though, the voice belonged to a middle-aged man with a deep, rich tone.

"When it first arrived at this laboratory, a single 'beat' caused two of our valuable researchers to suffer cardiac arrest on the spot. If the security personnel and other colleagues had not reacted quickly, using electric batons and auxiliary mediums to forcibly perform a round of CPR, someone might have ended up meeting God in a muddle back then—"

Through the screen, the visitor could see the "core" inside the enormous chamber, resting steadily on a cradle molded precisely to fit its shape. It was only the size of a palm.

This treasure, obtained at the cost of many lives, was almost entirely a dull, pale white. It carried a subdued sheen resembling dense biological tissue. It lay utterly still and, at least for the moment, seemed exceptionally quiet.

—But everyone present knew that it