Bai Zhu dangled the head in his hand and gave it a shake. He had only meant to bluff him.
But when the Pope's head saw the constantly flowing ring of scarlet light on the Main Box, all color drained from his face. His pupils contracted violently, as though he had seen the most terrifying thing in the world.
"Refinement... it's Refinement!"
Before Bai Zhu could even speak, he blurted it out in utter disbelief.
"They're going to use that thing to refine and purify D-04 along with my clone's flesh! Impossible! That thing... how did they get their hands on that thing?!"
The Pope's head struggled violently. If he had still had a body, he would probably have collapsed in terror.
Bai Zhu's hand paused, and he dismissed the Kidō he had been about to cast.
"Explain. What do you mean by refinement?"
"One hour! One hour at most!" The Pope's voice trembled with fear. "That box will break down everything inside and reconstruct it into the purest Nen! That clone holds all my research data on the 'Main God' and my spirit-blood connection! Once the refinement is complete, they'll read all of it through the link between me and my clone! Decades of my work, all handed to those bastards on a silver platter!"
The more he spoke, the more frightened he became, and the faster his words spilled out. His earlier lofty demeanor had vanished entirely.
"And... and this refinement technology came from a fragment I brought back from the Dark Continent a few years ago! I nearly died getting it! I always thought only the Creation Society possessed the core technology! Why does Anvil Enterprises have it? And why is theirs more complete than mine?!"
By the end, he sounded close to tears.
Once every last