Dominion's End

V3C6: The Control Room

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

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

Chapter 6: The Control Room—translated by Elkin

Bang bang bang!

I pushed the muzzle away with a hand. My devoted servant really did fire on me—if I had been just the slightest bit slower, the bullets would have lodged themselves in my brain, not even giving me the chance to turn into an aberrant!

Almost dying in the most random manner pissed me off to no end. I threw a punch at him, then started slapping his face non-stop!

Blackie originally moved to stop me, but when he saw that I was just slapping him, he fell into an awkward silence.

After a dozen consecutive slaps, I finally stopped when I'd slapped the wits out of him. I raged, "Wake up, Chen Yanqing! You bastard! How the hell are you gonna make it up to me if you damage this precious face of mine?!"

In that moment, everyone turned their eyes onto the "precious face."

Chen Yanqing was also staring at the "precious face" in a daze. Suddenly, he snapped out of it and shouted, "Xiao Yu? Why are you here? Did you get caught?"

I immediately grabbed his head in one hand, hauled him up, and even started radiating icy energies. I growled, "'Caught,' my ass! Is this cold enough to wake you up?!"

Then, I threw Chen Yanqing onto the floor. He spat out one mouthful of ice, then another, wiped his face, and said, "I feel like I'm still dreaming."

That was what he was saying, but he looked fully awake.

"What about the others? Quick, tell me everything that's happened since you guys came in here, or your comrades are all gonna die!"

Chen Yanqing glanced at Blackie, but he didn't ask any questions and just told us outright, "We split into two groups for the rescue. Ah Nuo was the leader taking us to the control center, while the Lieutenant and Guo Hong went the other way. But we kept meeting monsters along the way and a lot of us got injured or died. We wanted to turn back, but they cut off our retreat route, so we had no choice but to press forward. By the time we got here, we were down to half our men. Before I passed out, Ah Nuo was still alive, but I don't know what happened after that."

He had explained it quite clearly. No wonder Blackie said "even Ah Qing will do"—he was able to stay calm despite being covered in his comrades' blood and flesh, and being afflicted with red eyes, shaking hands, and even frozen ends of his hair. I'd underestimated him.

"From the sounds of it, Thirteen has probably taken over the control center." Jiang Xiaotian frowned as he said, "We didn't encounter any aberrants along the way, so they probably want us to walk straight into their jaws."

"They're that intelligent?" This was surprising. How could aberrants in this era be so smart? What the hell did the MORC do?! I asked quickly, "Ah Qing, did you encounter any aberrants who could speak?"

Ah Qing shook his head. "Nope, they didn't look too different from the monsters outside. They jump at us the moment they see us like we're food, unless we use heavy firepower to force them back. But there must be some monster at the top commanding them. When they launched a coordinated attack, Ah Nuo sensed that there was something wrong and wanted to retreat and regroup with the Lieutenant. But by then, it was too late. All our routes of retreat had been blocked off. There's no way this would have happened without a leader."

I had an idea of what was going on. The experiments had probably evolved a bit faster than regular aberrants and had not recovered their minds. What kind of human mind would gobble up other humans as food?!