Chapter 258 - Abnormal Beast Research Department
The porthole of the ward was shut, but Meng Chao felt cold wind blowing at them, and it blew at Qin Hu so strongly that he turned into an icicle.
Meng Chao felt that the doctors were a little strange. They did not seem like normal ones.
When normal doctors told patients about their conditions, they seldom were… so straightforward.
“Doctor, can I ask a question? Which hospital or unit does this medical airship belong to?” Meng Chao asked.
The doctor smiled faintly. “You can ask Ms. Lu explain it to you personally. Meng Chao, this way, please. She’s waiting for you in the ward next door.”
He went to the ward next door, and right after he shut the door, Meng Chao was shocked by Lu Siya’s brand new image.
She had taken off the hospital gown and now wore a custom-made fitted suit. It was a mysterious dark red color, and there were barely noticeable flowing patterns sewn on it. They looked like a dragon, and she seemed to be even more mature and domineering than before.
Her face was covered by a mask with no holes. It covered half of her head and blocked off her ears. Her expression could not be seen at all, but Meng Chao could see his own twisted expression on the arc-shaped, polished surface.
The mask… No, the underground trip had changed her completely, and she was now a different person.
“The doctor said that my spirit sensitivity has increased ten times, so I can also see and hear ten times the things a normal superhuman can detect. My brain is not able to handle so much chaotic and useless information.” Lu Siya tapped her head. “I was fine underground, because there wasn’t that much noise down there.
“But once back on the surface, I’ve been exposed to too much light, sound, and spirit energy ripples. They charged at me like a flood, and my head hurt so much that it felt like bursting, so I faced the risk of going through spirit energy deviation at any moment.
“So, I have to wear this medical helmet for the time being. It blocks as well as filters out most of the information. I didn’t scare you, did I?”
Meng Chao shook his head.
If he had to be honest with himself, with Lu Siya’s figure, it didn’t matter if she was wearing a mask shaped like a curved mirror. Even if she had the head of a female ghost, many of the hot-blooded teenagers and young adults would still not be afraid of her and approach her.
“Then sit closer to me. No matter what, we’ve gone through a life and death experience together, and we have Lin Chuan as our mutual friend,” Lu Siya said airily. “I don’t have a lot of friends, and Lin Chuan was my most important one. Now, he died, and I don’t want to miss the chance of becoming your friend.”
Meng Chao thought about Lu Siya’s words for a while and decided that they were quite believable.
Lu Siya went straight to the point. “I know that you have been influenced by Lin Chuan slightly and think that I’m a Crystalline Nine-headed Dragon while you’re a Demonic Halberd Pig. So, somehow, we’re not the same kind of people.
“But no matter what, that is a bad comparison. We’re neither dragons nor pigs. We’re humans who know how to think, size up the situation, compromise, and work together. Do you think that our interests conflict with each other from the roots?”
Meng Chao shook his head. “I hope they don’t.”
“Then, do you think that I’m so stupid that I can’t see our mutual interests and would drive a future star like you who has extraordinary talent and has obtained a blessing to become my enemy?”
Meng Chao continued shaking his head. “You don’t seem that stupid.”
Lu Siya smiled under the mirror mask. “So, what reason is stopping us from becoming real friends?”
Meng Chao thought about it and extended his hand to Lu Siya. He gave hers a light squeeze before he asked, “Just which unit does this medical airship belong to? We seem to have been circling around Raging Waves for a long time and taken in a lot of injured people. I also saw a lot of monster carcasses. They’re all monsters skilled in mind attacks and mind control.
“In other words, this isn’t just a medical airship. It’s also a moving lab that can conduct research on the freshest of monster carcasses. Sky Pillar Corporation doesn’t have the need nor ability to do this, right?”
Lu Siya nodded and admitted it readily. “This airship belongs to the Other World Beast Research Department.”
Meng Chao’s mind raced.
His eighteen-year-old self had never heard about the Other World Beast Research Department before.
But certain information lurking in his previous life’s memory fragments was stirring up.
“The Monster War has continued for thirty years now. Humans have defeated almost all the well-built, simple-minded, and brutish traditional monster kings who don’t know how to hide themselves nor understand what civilization is,” Lu Siya explained. “The battle at Raging Waves might be the last fight for these powerful but stupid large monsters.
“As Apocalyptic Beasts like the Demonic Amethyst Gold Ape, Earth-shattering Bull, and Heaven Devouring Dragon are defeated, a generation will now come to an end. We might seem to be welcoming victory, or at least, walking down the correct path leading to victory.
“But the Other World is a place with unstable materials and quick evolution. Monsters who have been able to stand out in the screening process and lasted until today in the brutal fight for survival that lasted for billions of years are not easy to deal with.
“Many of the Apocalyptic Beasts possess power to destroy the world, and they have been occupying the top of the food chain for a long time. They didn’t need wisdom to live comfortably. That’s why when they realize that humans are a brand new enemy and are completely different, it is already too late for them to gain wisdom.
“But the monsters who are smaller and don’t have brute strength, are at the middle or low spectrum of the food chain, and are often treated as food by the high-grade superbeasts have to wreck their brains to think about how to survive. There is a high possibility that they might gain wisdom and start a brilliant battle against human civilization. They have the potential to create a brand new path of evolution and become even more mysterious and dangerous.
“During the prehistoric ages, Earth once faced the fall of numerous meteors, and the dinosaurs who ruled the place at that time were destroyed. But the entire ecosphere was not destroyed. Instead, many of the middle-sized and small-sized mammals gained space to thrive. It allowed them to develop, and in the end, glorious civilizations were created.
“Now, Earthlings who invaded the Other World are the ‘meteors’. We destroyed the traditional monster kings, but in turn, we gave the other monsters the chance to evolve. No one knows just how these monsters will evolve and what sort of effect it will have on our civilization.
“Would you believe me if I told you that the White Spirit is not the only intelligent monster?”
Of course Meng Chao did, but he only said, “Isn’t it?”
“Of course, monster intelligence is different from what we understand,” Lu Siya said. “But there is indeed a batch of smart monsters who are not large Apocalyptic Beasts with monstrous appearances, thunderous roars, and ability to destroy the world. They can change their appearances, bewitch people, release viruses, and make use of all sorts of unfathomable techniques to influence their environment, infiltrate Dragon City’s internal structure, and try to defeat human civilization’s fortress from within.
“Right now, we have a very crude categorization for monsters. Regardless of whether it’s monsters, superbeasts, Nightmarish Beasts, Hell Beasts, or Apocalyptic Beasts, they are all categorized based on their talents and fighting strength.
“But fighting strength and the level of threat are two completely different concepts. The White Spirit’s fighting strength was definitely not comparable to that of most Hell Beasts. It was far weaker than an Apocalyptic Beat, and its mind control ability was not even that strong, but you personally experienced just how threatening it could be, right?”
“Yeah.” Meng Chao nodded. “Many of the Apocalyptic Beasts aren’t willing to take the initiative to provoke humans. They only want to be in their territory to comfortably be their own kings. When the other Apocalyptic Beasts are killed by human hands, they even feel lucky. These creatures who only have brute strength but no brains are just slightly stronger monsters. They’re naturally not human kind’s opponents.
“But the monsters who possess intelligence, understand civilization, know how to unite, and take the initiative to launch attacks on us are the real danger.”
“That’s right. The level of threat those monsters pose is not directly proportional to their fighting strength. They can no longer be described as superbeasts, so they have a brand new title—abnormal beasts.
“The abnormal beast research department is naturally an organization that specifies in dealing with abnormal beasts.”
Meng Chao understood it now. “You’re a member of the abnormal beast research department?”
“That’s right. I’ve gone through one year’s worth of secret training in the abnormal beast research department, and it’s only then that I was able to turn from a pure mine explorer to an investigator who has certain fighting abilities.
“The abnormal beast research department is a recently formed brand new organization. In the beginning, no one paid any attention to the abnormal beasts who possess intelligence and can infiltrate human society. Most people just scoff and say that it’s all just a bunch of nonsense.
“But the Lu family is a large family, and we have to be involved in many things and support stuff that has not gained power yet. Some people stay in Sky Pillar Corporation, some people join the Red Dragon City, some people go to Dragon City University or the alliance of the five universities to conduct academic research, some people enter the zombie research center, some people join the Supernatural Tower and become adjudicators, and some people become part of recently formed abnormal beast research department.
“Earlier, no one thought that the abnormal beast research department would be able to produce anything good and were sure that it was just an insignificant, small organization. My cousins ranked above me and favored more by the older generation treated it as nothing.
“But I knew that if I do things according to procedures in the family, I will definitely be unable to seize authority in Sky Pillar Corporation, and if I join the Red Dragon Army, Supernatural Tower, or other organizations, I will meet my cousins or uncles or aunts who’ve had great success in the army since a long time ago. They will even monitor and limit my actions. So, it’s better for me to bet all that I have on the abnormal beast research department.
“Even though I had to go through a lot of training in the abnormal beast research center, I also gained a lot of help. Still, I never quite believed that monsters could become truly intelligent and cause major damage… until I met the White Spirit.”
Even though she wore the silver arc-shaped mirror mask, Meng Chao could sense her complicated emotions.
They appeared for an instant before Lu Siya pushed them down to the bottom of her heart.
“Now, I believe that the war is about to change completely. The fights humans conduct against monsters in the wild will no longer decide whether we will win the war or not. Instead, we will be shifting to a more secretive battlefield, but it will be even more bloody and crucial.”
Lu Siya laced her fingers together and looked at Meng Chao. “And the abnormal beast research department must rise to power and become one of the most important forces protecting Dragon City.”