Netero stared at the two of them for a moment and did not press further.
"Hunters exchange intelligence. There's no need to lay all your cards on the table. I won't ask about the part you kept."
He picked up the photograph from the table and folded over its water-damaged corners.
"Remember this. When something from the Dark Continent enters human society, the first ones to go mad are often the people who want to use it. And once people get a small piece of meat, they dare to wonder how to raise an entire litter."
That system warning immediately flashed through Bai Zhu's mind.
His blood had produced rejection and contamination reactions in the external environment. Unma had injected thirty milliliters of blood into the Seed Urn culture medium. If Pariston sent over samples from the Caspian Sea as well, then royal blood, the Seed Urn, and the contamination source would all end up on the same lab bench.
The Succession War had not even begun. What kind of disaster could the laboratory breed first?
"This is bad."
Bai Zhu slammed a hand onto the table.
"That spendthrift bitch Unma actually dared to mix all those things together."
Netero pulled a folded briefing from inside his kimono and pushed it toward him.
"You realized it half a step too late."
Bai Zhu unfolded the briefing. After reading only the first three lines, anger shot straight to his head.
The Hunter Association's Disaster Research Department had submitted an application to the Kakin Empire for sample-assisted evaluation.
The application was written properly enough. Researchers, transport procedures, and risk levels were all clearly listed. But the approval route had bypassed the chairman's office and entered Kakin directly through the vice chairman's channels.
At the bottom of the list was an additional note.