Chapter 1447 - 89: Sample

"Guer, huh..."

Number Three looked down at the little Ancient Demon under his feet, not even a year old, the corners of his mouth slowly lifting, as if he’d just run into something interesting.

Guer, on the other hand, failed to notice anything off about the "weird uncle" in front of him. He quickly tore open the chocolate wrapper and gobbled down that strangely sourced piece of chocolate. The sound of his chewing carried far, drawing a lot of Demon Fiends’ attention.

Still, these Ancient Demons hadn’t fallen so low they’d snatch snacks from a kid.

Only after Guer finished the chocolate did he give Number Three a slight bow, then shuffled his feet, and in the blink of an eye vanished into the distance.

"Doesn’t even say thank you, seriously..."

Number Three’s smile didn’t change; he just tossed out a minor complaint.

A little Ancient Demon under one year old already having Third-level strength—what that implied wasn’t exactly simple.

But that didn’t have much to do with Number Three. He just pushed the issue out of his mind and walked toward the inside of the camp.

...

The underground warehouse that could barely hold ten thousand people had five thousand crammed into it. The space wasn’t exactly packed, but the territory each Ancient Demon could claim was definitely limited.

One Ancient Demon, the space of a single-person tent. That was it.

Number Three strolled through the not-so-large underground warehouse. After a moment, he found his own tent, ducked inside, casually tossed his tattered luggage into a corner, then sat cross-legged. A Spiritual Fluctuation rippled through his mind.

"Number Three in position. But I still want to ask, Number One, what exactly are you getting at, stationing me in this camp?"

Very quickly, Number One’s reply came from far away.

"Exactly because you’re so boring, I’m giving you something to do. Help me keep an eye on Marcus—don’t let him get suspicious, and don’t let anyone disturb Marcus’s little hobby. The rest... tonight I’ll have Ray deliver the goods. You’ll invade Marcus’s Soul’s Core and see whether his situation is the same as Ray’s."

At the end, Number One added a very solemn reminder.

"Whatever you do, don’t kill him. Ray and Marcus, those two guys, are the only two successful experimental subjects we still have. If we lose them, the progress on cracking the Human-demon Conversion Technique will drag out to a length that’ll make us want to bash our heads in."

"Yeah yeah..."

Listening to Number One’s nagging, Number Three curled his lip and decisively cut off the mental link.

Number Three, of course, was Wen Yu’s Number Three carbon copy—the one loafing around on the tiered battle ground, doing absolutely nothing.

Given how special Ray and Marcus’s identities were, on one hand, Wen Yu had set monitoring restraints on Ray, though he figured Ray probably wouldn’t have any issues.

On the other hand, Marcus also needed a certain level of monitoring—at the very least, Wen Yu had to make sure Marcus’s little hobby didn’t blow up into anything too big, causing trouble. At the same time, he had to make sure that some clueless idiot didn’t see through Marcus’s tricks and go for a kill-first-report-later cleanup of a "traitor."

Keeping Marcus alive was something Wen Yu and Ray had agreed on in advance—that was one promise he wasn’t going to break.

Wen Yu had plenty of ways to dissect Marcus inside and out without Marcus ever noticing. And given the absolute value of Ray and Marcus as samples, Wen Yu figured instead of dragging Marcus back to the lab, he might as well let Marcus stay as he was. That way Marcus could "cooperate" more in helping Wen Yu analyze the successful samples.

Which was why Number Three was being sent out.

He’d proactively reshaped himself into a Third-level Ancient Demon and, by way of Ray’s hand, successfully slipped into this little camp Marcus had set up.

With Wen Yu’s level of power, a move like this was basically impossible to screw up.

...

Wen Yu’s Number Three, bored out of his mind, sat in the tent for a while, then crawled back out.

He wandered aimlessly around the camp. Only when dinnertime rolled around did he see Ray and Marcus again.

The two of them stood one in front of the other in the most eye-catching spot in the underground warehouse. Then Marcus rummaged through his space ring and, after a moment, a huge pile of food appeared on the open ground in front of them.

"Seven days’ worth of supplies. You can distribute it yourselves."

Marcus said in a flat tone, then turned to leave. Ray, though, watching Marcus act this indifferent, frowned slightly.

"Everyone, we’ll be staying here for a while for now. Once the chaos up top settles down, we’ll find a way to relocate you all to a peaceful place, one without external risk."

"We still have to hold on to hope..."

"Enough. Why are you telling them all this?"

"Marcus, you saved them—that makes it your responsibility."

"Yeah yeah... eat well, drink well, everyone..."

Their whispered back-and-forth nearly made Wen Yu laugh out loud. He looked at Marcus, face full of impatience, and Ray, looking completely baffled, and couldn’t help but shake his head slightly.

Marcus looked like some "righteous guy taking in refugees," but he was really just an emotion-deficient "cold-blooded kid." Inside and out, people like that were cruel, self-willed, reckless, and utterly unfit for real responsibility.

Ray, on the other hand—if he wasn’t putting on an act in front of Wen Yu—was more or less a "good person" in the usual sense.

Their dynamic was somewhat similar to Wen Yu and Tang Haofei back in the day, and the weird bond between them naturally wasn’t something you could sum up in a sentence or two.

Just as Wen Yu was turning that over in his head, a small hand lightly touched his knee. Wen Yu turned slowly and saw Guer, looking rather pitiful, squeezed in among a forest of long legs.

"He doesn’t really want to help us, does he?"

The crowd of long legs had Guer sweating buckets. Wen Yu noticed, gently scooped Guer up, then spoke softly.

"Whether he really wants to or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that he did it, and he actually did help us."

Don’t ask about motives, just look at outcomes.

That was Wen Yu’s stance on most things.

Guer just curled his lip, clearly not satisfied with Wen Yu’s answer. With a bit of force he wriggled free from Wen Yu’s arms, then his figure flickered a few times and disappeared.

Seeing this, Wen Yu only shrugged, then turned and walked back to his own tent.

Until the moonlight grew heavier.

...

In the dim underground warehouse, snores gradually rose, lights scattered and sparse.

Until a faint breeze blew through, slipping past Wen Yu’s tent and straight into the tent shared by Ray and Marcus.

Then, subtle ripples of power began to surge. Only once Marcus’s breathing inside had completely evened out did Wen Yu lift the flap and walk in.

"My lord."

Seeing Wen Yu’s silhouette, Ray immediately rose from the bed and addressed Wen Yu.