"Looks like I'll have to admit Miss Kiana's instincts are pretty useful after all."
Deep inside the Heliopolis Life Sciences industrial district, Rita let out a breath, her expression grim. She and Kiana stood inside a sealed black chamber so completely cut off that there was no conventional way inside.
This was the laboratory they'd uncovered after all their searching and investigation—or rather, the testing ground.
The vast chamber was lined with upright experimental pods glowing yellow. The test subjects suspended inside were painfully familiar to both of them: zombies.
Fine patterns covered the bodies of the walking corpses Rita and Kiana had fought countless times before. Where those lines intertwined, glowing marks had formed.
Neither of them could mistake what they were looking at. They were traces of Stigmata, marks that, throughout the long ages before Schicksal developed artificial Stigmata, had appeared only on the rare few chosen by fate.
The subjects varied wildly in height, build, and age. Some had Honkai Beast tissue implanted into them, leaving parts of their bodies coated in white silicon-based shells. Others had whole body parts removed and replaced with electronic prosthetics.
The place was like a museum of grotesquely altered human beings, displaying to its intruders just how far the human body could be modified.
Shock quickly turned into rage. The emotion swelled in both of them, almost impossible to suppress. No one could've stayed calm after seeing something like this.
"These damn bastards!!"
Blood rushed to Kiana's head, and a savage urge to destroy everything around her began taking root. Her blue eyes rapidly started turning gold.
The instant they noticed, Fu Hua and Rita forced themselves to calm down.
"Kiana! Don't let your emotions control your thoughts!"
"Miss Kiana, if you can't keep your emotions under control, then until we understand what's happening here, I'll have to make sure you can't interfere with the rest of the mission."
One voice tried to reason with her while the other gave a warning. Kiana clenched her teeth.
Her body was already beginning to ache after only a few moments, so she shut her eyes and silently repeated the Mantra of Serenity Fu Hua had once taught her.
More than ten seconds passed before she opened them again. Seeing that her eyes had returned to blue, Rita lowered the scythe she'd started to raise.
Then she pointed toward a console in the distance. "That looks like the main control computer. We should investigate it first."
Venting their anger could wait. Right now, they needed to figure out exactly what Heliopolis Life Sciences—or rather, World Serpent—was trying to accomplish.
Documents flashed across the screen like falling snow, but Rita immediately locked onto the information she'd been searching for. The records went into detail about the true nature of the Stigmata developed by the Previous Era, then dismissed Schicksal's artificial Stigmata as nothing more than a crude imitation.
Finally, they declared that World Serpent had completed its research into genuine Stigmata.
[The cost has been enormous, but that cost has been well worth paying.]
[Activation is still progressing too slowly and remains far below our projected numbers. We plan to conduct an experiment in a densely populated city.]
"Experiment on an entire city!?" Kiana's eyes widened. She couldn't believe there was an organization even more brazen—and even more insane—than Schicksal.
It wasn't just Kiana. Rita's brows had drawn tightly together, and for a moment, even she was nearly speechless.
"Sometimes... I feel the same way."
Before either of them could force down their emotions and keep reading, every word on the screen vanished. In their place came a voice Rita knew well.
At the same time, every zombie in the chamber came back to life and immediately smashed free of its experimental pod.
"It's a trap...!" Rita realized at once.
"Then let's get out of here!" Kiana had no intention of fighting their way through. She opened a gateway into Imaginary Space beside them. It was how they'd entered the sealed chamber in the first place, so escaping the same way shouldn't have been a problem.
"I'm guessing she won't be leaving with you."
Raven's amused voice echoed through the room.
"What?" There was no point in telling a lie that'd be exposed instantly, so Kiana turned toward Rita in confusion.
"She's right."
Rita slipped into a combat stance. "We still don't know exactly how they're carrying out these experiments. Until we uncover that, we can't simply leave."
Kiana immediately understood. If they retreated now, there was almost no chance they'd ever get their hands on World Serpent's data again.
"The enemy have already severed their data connection, so they can't erase the files remotely. But if we leave, that changes everything." Rita spoke while issuing an order to the Immortal Blades stationed outside. "I'm surrounded. Immortal Blades, force your way in."
She finished speaking.
No answer came.
"What a shame, Miss Rita. We've already pinned down your people. I'm sure it won't be long before you're all reunited in the next world."
Raven's voice came again, but this time it no longer sounded as though it were coming through a speaker. Her clear voice echoed around them.
Kiana and Rita looked up toward the source and saw a figure standing atop one of the overhead beams. Her entire body was wrapped and concealed, leaving barely more than her eyes visible.
Rita found Raven's personal appearance strange, and a bad feeling crept over her. For Raven to come here herself without hesitation, what exactly was she relying on?
"You sound rather confident that your mechanical toys and those failed experiments can stop Schicksal's strongest Valkyrie squad." Rita smiled as she tested her.
"The strongest Valkyrie squad? Unfortunately, before the Serpent, they're nothing."
Raven smiled faintly.
Countless vents snapped open beneath Kiana and Rita's feet, blasting huge clouds of gas into the chamber.
"Hold your breath!" Rita shouted before pulling on a mask designed specifically for dealing with gas attacks.
Kiana didn't have anything as convenient, but she didn't need oxygen in the first place. Holding her breath was little more than uncomfortable for her.
The zombies rushed toward them, yet neither woman panicked. They were both battle-hardened Valkyries. Ordinary zombies were little more than fodder they could cut down in a single strike, and even these Stigmata-bearing variants weren't dangerous enough to pose a fatal threat.
But as the fight dragged on, both of them realized something was wrong.
"My body... it's getting so sluggish!" Sweat covered Kiana's face as wave after wave of weakness spread through her limbs. Then she noticed something strange. She wasn't the only one losing strength—the zombies were weakening too.
Rita still wore a smile, but maintaining her usual composure was getting harder. She finally understood where Raven's confidence that World Serpent could defeat the Immortal Blades had come from.
This wasn't the time to keep pushing forward. As unwilling as Rita was to admit it, they had no choice but to retreat and contact Lady Durandal.
BOOM!!
Just as Rita was about to signal Kiana to open a portal, a massive, sudden tremor nearly knocked both of their weakened bodies off their feet.
The impact hadn't come from inside the testing ground.
What was happening outside...?
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL