"Herzog's experiments continued with funding from a certain Soviet family. Bondarev was one of the experimental subjects from that period. After reaching adulthood, he used various means to recover the memories erased through brainwashing when he left Black Swan Harbor. It was just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bondarev fabricated an identity and returned to Black Swan Harbor with a check for two hundred million dollars," Kazama Ruri continued. "The two old foxes met, and after some probing and sparring, Bondarev finally won Herzog's trust through deception."
"Although Herzog's experiments had hit a bottleneck, they had already reached the factory production stage. Otherwise, he wouldn't have received a steady stream of funding. It was an enormous nursery workshop, with incubators packed together like a honeycomb. Every incubator contained a frozen embryo, with a label stating where its genes came from."
"An army?" Lu Mingfei asked.
"Exactly. An army of hybrids. The powerful people funding Herzog had no deep understanding of the Dragon Raja's secrets, and they underestimated Herzog's ambition. He was an ambitious man who believed only in strength and power. With an army like that, he could conquer the world." Whenever Kazama Ruri spoke of Herzog, an eerie, clear light flowed through his eyes, carrying a killing intent so faint it seemed to seep into his bones. "But that time, he met another ambitious man. Bondarev used the check to placate Herzog for the moment and began selling him his plan. There was no longer any place for Herzog in the Soviet Union. Bondarev persuaded him to go to Japan."
Lu Mingfei perked up. The threads connecting Black Swan Harbor and Japan had finally joined, and it had actually been a Soviet agent's suggestion. "The Japanese hybrids, or rather, the Sheqi Eight Clans, should have been