The Failed Holy Infant

Illumi put the small black bottle back in its place, raised a hand, and the cabinet door closed silently.

In his earpiece, Bai Zhu's ragged breathing came and went.

"Make the core area chaotic? What exactly do you mean by chaotic? Let me make this clear first: I'm not taking any plan that requires me to charge into battle."

"Charge my ass," Milluki immediately shot back. "You need to hold onto a wall just to stand up right now!"

Leaning against the back wall of the shed, Bai Zhu raised a hand and pressed against his stuffy chest.

"Don't expose what's already hard enough to endure, got it?"

Illumi had no interest in their nonsense. He merely lowered his head and leisurely straightened his cuff.

"First step: cut off the eastern medicine supply."

The crunching of chips from Milluki's end abruptly stopped.

"Big Brother, are you about to start blowing things up?"

"No. The medicine here stinks!"

Milluki had yet to understand what his big brother meant.

Illumi's gaze had already fallen on a corner of the medicine storage room.

A gray-robed attendant stood there holding a metal barrel, his eyelids half-lowered and his expression vacant. A Nen Needle, so fine it was nearly invisible, was hidden beneath the collar at the back of his neck.

Illumi walked past him and left behind only two words.

"Fall down."

Holding the metal barrel, the gray-robed attendant mechanically walked toward the door.

Two seconds later.

Clang!

With a deafening crash, the metal barrel slammed heavily onto the floor, and its lid rolled far away. The highly concentrated Holy Water Stock inside spilled everywhere, and an indescribably pungent odor instantly exploded through the room!

"Cough! Who told you to move the stock?!"

"Shut the valves! Close the ventilation! Turn on the air exchange!"

The nearby nurses choked until tears streamed down their faces, but another low-ranking priest under control had already reached the wall and expressionlessly twisted open the ventilation valve.

Whoosh—

The dense medicinal mist was violently sucked into the vents and spread wildly through the eastern supply corridor!

"Cough, cough! My eyes! I can't open my eyes!"

"Leak in the eastern medicine storage!"

"Where are the protective masks? Who the hell took the protective masks?!"

Hearing it through the earpiece, Bai Zhu seemed to recover a little of his spirits.

"Good lord, your brother's launching a biochemical attack?"

Milluki stared at the surveillance footage, and the flesh on his fat face twitched.

"Big Brother is... strangely gentle today. Normally, those people would already be lying there in neat rows."

Illumi ignored the assessment. He had already left the chaotic medicine storage room without looking back.

Before long, the altar area saw its first wave of unrest.

The eastern supply line had completely ground to a halt. Two medicine carts were forced to stop in the middle of the corridor, nurses covered their mouths and noses as they retreated in panic, and even the guards were too choked to approach.

At the edge of the altar, a silver-robed bishop was furiously jumping about.

"Hook up the backup medicine! The elder can't wait any longer!"

A technician clutched a clipboard, sweat pouring down his face. "The backup line hasn't been cleaned yet. Connecting it directly will contaminate the Holy Infant's parameters!"

"Contaminate?" The silver-robed bishop slapped him across the face. "The Lord's gift can be contaminated by mere medicine? Who are you blaspheming?!"

The technician staggered from the blow, covered his face, and did not dare make another sound.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Illumi reached the edge of the altar area. This time, he saw the whole picture clearly.

At the very center stood a Black Crystal Mother Stone taller than a person, firmly secured in place by thick metal supports. The only difference between it and the one embedded in the elder's chest was that the elder's was alive, while this one was deathly still.

The surface of the Black Crystal was covered in holes. Dense pipelines extended from them, their other ends connected to rows of glass compartments surrounding it.

Inside those compartments lay the numbered women.

Number Seven, Number Ten, Number Twelve...

Their wrists, ankles, and even abdomens were fixed to instruments. Their vital signs had become rows of cold data jumping across the screens.

The technicians beside them spoke as if they were discussing lab rats.

"Number Seven's heart rate is dropping too quickly."

"Give her a mental stabilizer."

"Number Ten's fetal movement has stopped."

"How much more can we extract?"

"Watch the Mother Stone's response. Ignore the mother."

Bai Zhu fell silent.

When he spoke again, all trace of his usual flippancy had vanished.

"So this is... their Sanctification Descent?"

Standing beside a cart, Illumi used the pretense of arranging documents to relay everything he saw in the coldest possible terms.

"The pregnant women are fuel. The fetuses are the ignition. The Black Crystal Mother Stone handles conversion, and the elder handles guidance. The so-called Holy Infant is merely the ritual's final product."

Milluki lowered his voice until it was nearly a whisper, and there was even a hint of trembling in it.

"The remnants of Post-Mortem Nen are in there too?"

"There are residual chaotic Nen fluctuations around the Mother Stone. Their nature is similar to that fragment from aboveground, but stronger."

Bai Zhu frowned tightly.

"You said they're only remnants. Then where is the real Post-Mortem Nen? If something is going to 'descend,' shouldn't it be complete Post-Mortem Nen?"

Milluki did not answer. He did not know either; all of this was intelligence Illumi had sent through their dedicated communication line.

On the screen, a nurse pushed a cart past the glass compartments. Three inconspicuous black bottles sat on it.

Milluki's pupils suddenly contracted, and his voice sank further.

"Those children in the choir... are probably failed products from earlier experiments."

Bai Zhu said nothing.

As if forcing himself to finish, Milluki spoke quickly and urgently. "After the failed Holy Infants are born, they use Choral Agent to stabilize them. Cognitive decline, increased obedience, drastically shortened lifespans. Then they package those children as sacred attendants and send them aboveground to sing! This ritual is called Pre-Sanctification Descent. Fuck, it looks like they just want to create another failed product!"

The microphone went utterly silent.

Bai Zhu casually tossed aside the empty bottle of hemostatic medicine.

"These beasts really know how to package things."

Milluki cursed under his breath.

"Even beasts would think they were filthy."

Illumi passed the backup control console, where another technician stood. His badge read: "Maintenance."

He handed over the folder in his hand.

"Calibrate Number Seven's reserved line."

The technician accepted the folder and looked down at it.

There was nothing inside. Just as he was about to ask, a Nen Needle silently pierced his wrist.

The next second, he raised his hand and pressed a button on the console.

Beep.

Beep beep beep beep—!

Every instrument on the western side of the altar area erupted into piercing red alarms at once!

"Abnormality in Number Seven's reserved line!"

"Number Twelve is experiencing backflow!"

"Number Fifteen's interface responded early! Who activated Number Fifteen's reserve? The person hasn't even arrived yet!"

The entire technical team instantly erupted into chaos.

Someone rushed to the control console and shoved the maintenance worker aside.

"What the hell did you press?!"

The maintenance worker stood there with a blank look on his face.

"I... I pressed calibration."

"You calibrated Number Fifteen's interface?!"

"Stop it! Stop Number Seven's extraction immediately!"

"You can't stop! The elder gave a strict order—the ritual must continue!"

"All the parameters are red! Do you want the Mother Stone to backlash on the spot?!"

The shrill arguing completely drowned out the alarms.

Milluki watched the chaos unfold on the surveillance feed, his eyes shining with a frightening brightness.