Dominion's End

V3C4: The Laboratory, Part One

Dominion's End Volume 3: Ice-Bound Splendor and Majesty

Original novel in Chinese by: 御 我 (Yu Wo)

Chapter 4: The Laboratory, Part One—translated by Elkin 

As the door opened, the soft metallic sounds of guns being gripped tightly surrounded me. It was dim outside the elevator, and the lights above flashed erratically. The damage here was not as bad as in the room above us. The explosion we had heard just now was probably some distance from here, but that was a good thing; otherwise, the elevator might have stopped working.

The scouts split into two parties as they scanned the surroundings. When they were certain that it was safe, they signaled "clear" to the back, and only then did the group follow them.

I was at the center of the group. Judging from the surroundings, this was a huge hall. This was a bad sign. If just the hall was this size, then this whole place must be enormous. Not only did this mean that we would have to expend more effort in our search, there were probably more experiments than we'd originally thought.

After checking out the hall without any incident, the soldiers started allocating tasks. Some were put on guard duty, and someone was sent to find the main switch. Blackie was even sent to take a look at the computers to try and repair them and see if they had any useful information.

"So? Can you pull up a map of this place?" the second lieutenant asked anxiously.

"Give me a minute. It takes time."

Blackie didn't even bother turning his head and focused his attention on the monitor. The monitor was huge, like a large TV screen.

I was standing to one side, a bit curious. I didn't expect Blackie to be in charge of this.

The second lieutenant growled in frustration, "Goddammit, why the hell is it so quiet here? How the hell are we supposed to find them?"

"Quiet!" I hissed, and the second lieutenant immediately glowered at me, "Silence means only one of two things, and one of them is that everyone here is dead."

Everyone's expressions sank.

"The alternative is that something is forcing them to be quiet." I glared at everyone coldly. "Does anyone want to draw out that something? Is there anyone here stronger than Ah Qing and his crew?"

The second lieutenant's face turned white and he shook his head as he said, "No, and they took the top troops with them."

So you're telling me that you're the leftovers? I suddenly felt the future prospects dim.

One of the soldiers said uneasily, "If the Lieutenant and the others can't deal with it, w-what're we supposed to do?"

Shit, I mustn't scare them away. I said coolly, "A lot of the experiments have gotten away, so the situation probably isn't as bad as it seems. Maybe they've got too many injured people with them. But no matter what, just keep quiet!"

The second lieutenant nodded. I had no way of telling if he really did buy what I was saying, or if he was still disgruntled at being told off by me, but it didn't matter either way. As long as he was listening to me, all was good.

Throughout this exchange, Jiang Xiaotian was sipping on his long life milk. Just the thought that he was the revered Ice Emperor and one of the twelve world elites made my face twitch. Dàgē, please stop training my acting skills. Do you know how hard it is to maintain the facade of an arrogant and cool pro...? Actually, maybe he doesn't really know. My Dàgē was born with an intimidating aura but, based on my observations to date, he had his fair share of acting like an idiot despite his competencies. This might also explain how he formed an idiotic team of competent soldiers.