CH 137

The security officers patrolling the outer sections of the Berna Pharmaceutical Factory were normally conducted in groups of two. There were six groups in total, patrolling from the first to the third floor respectively.

“Why does it feel so quiet today?” A security guard muttered in bewilderment. He was a local, so his pronunciation was shoddy when communicating in a language that wasn’t his own mother tongue. 

“They’re all slacking off. Just look at the time, everyone is usually sleepy around this time. There’s also not much happening.” His partner looked at their watch, then pointed at the walkie-talkie on their waist. “We don’t need to care about anything as long as no one calls the police.”

The two of them patrolled the corridor. They gradually sensed that the lights above their heads were getting dimmer. They originally were able to see the illuminated poster on the wall very clearly. At this moment, the path ahead was so dark that they couldn’t even see clearly.

In the middle of the path, a plaster angel statue stood in the shadows; a simple white silk cloth was wrapped around its body.

The security guard rubbed his eyes. “Who moved the sculpture over here?”

He grabbed his walkie-talkie and pressed on the talk button. “Hello? Is this the warehouse? Are you guys moving things on the second floor?”

There was no answer coming from the other side.

And the snow-white statue that was far away appeared instantly in front of them.

It was only then that the security guards realized that it was not a statue, but a pure white omega with not even a trace of impurities on his body. He had three-dimensional facial features, an ice-cold indifferent expression, and an inverted triangular gold, blue, and green dot pattern on his forehead, holding an hourglass in his arms. 

“Who are you?!” The security guard asked in surprise. The other security guard’s reaction was even faster—taking out a stun gun and pulling the trigger at the boy.

The boy answered apathetically, “Specter…”

He turned the hourglass in his hand upside down and the white sand flowed back immediately.

The bullet aimed at him came to an abrupt halt, then flew back and returned inside the gun. It didn’t stop there though. In a short few milliseconds, the stun gun’s darts lost their power, while the stun gun, which should have been insulated, flickered with electricity. A powerful electric current knocked the security guard unconscious onto the floor. The other security guard started to have a hard time breathing, the oxygen in his bloodstream flowed out rapidly. He took a big breath, but he didn’t expect that the more he inhaled, the faster the oxygen would be lost. 

Specter Hourglass slowly crouched down. He opened the lid of the hourglass and stuffed the first security guard into it.

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After the two corpses were stuffed into the hourglass, the height of the sands didn’t change much; like a bottomless pit with an extremely strong devouring power.

Specter Hourglass continued walking down the corridor. The two security guards that had blocked his way seemed like they had never existed, leaving no traces behind. 

Wherever he walked, the voices of people were all silenced. He turned the entire outer section into a ghostly dead one.

Suddenly, a round shell landed at Specter Hourglass’ feet. Before he could react, it exploded, and an intense flash of light and buzzing sound interfered with his sense of hearing. His hands were attached to the hourglass so he couldn’t cover his ears. The ear-piercing buzzing sound gave him a headache.

Firefly held the flashbang he made with his J1 ability in his hand, closed his eyes and threw it at Specter Hourglass’ feet, muttering, “Don’t come over, don’t come over. Lu Yan, hurry up.”

Although Specter wasn’t clear about the situation, he immediately turned the hourglass upside down. Unexpectedly, a sniper bullet came from the broken window outside the building and accurately penetrated Specter’s left hand. 

Specter’s hands were fragile like pure white glass. The powerful sniper bullet shattered his left hand, making him retreat a few steps back.

He wanted to run, but his path was already obstructed by Lu Yan.

Lu Yan held two PSS silent pistols, the muzzles directed at Specter. “Where did you think you’re going? You broke our communicator.”

Two bullets flew toward Specter. He vigilantly identified Lu Yan’s position. The top lid of the hourglass that was shattered by Xiao Xun’s sniper bullet quickly repaired, and Specter’s hand also returned to its original state. He immediately turned the hourglass and the two bullets flew back in the opposite direction. 

“Do you still think I’ll fall for the same trick twice?” Lu Yan had long since used his associated ability, “Supersonic Speed,” to charge up before he had fired. His associated ability accelerated him to 100 kilometers in 0 seconds, to the speed of sound in 3.2 seconds, and then supersonic speed in 6 seconds. When he fired, he was already behind Specter. He swung his feet in mid-air and kicked Specter to where he was standing just now.

The bullets that flew backward hit Specter’s left shoulder and skull one after another. The pure white body shattered where the bullets shot him, but there was no bleeding. Specter was like a pure white glass statue that had half of its jaw and shoulder smashed. He held the hourglass and looked at Lu Yan from afar.

“Fuck. You…you didn’t get injured…?” Lu Yan was a bit scared to be stared at by those white, foggy-like eyes. He couldn’t help but retreat, muttering, “You want to be entirely shattered? I—should I shoot?” He subconsciously went to look for Bi Lanxing’s clothes, grabbed a handful of air and remembered that he didn’t act with Lanxing this time.

Due to his hesitation, it gave Specter the opportunity to strike back. His shattered body slowly restored itself, and he immediately flipped the hourglass. The ceiling above Lu Yan’s head rapidly aged, and the light attached to it dropped down toward him. 

Lu Yan moved out of the way, but sharp steel structures and bricks fell one after another. The rapidly aging rubbish fell down like it was raining. Lu Yan nimbly jumped away to avoid the crowded falling objects, but couldn’t withstand the collapsing of the entire ceiling. He was slammed to the ground and shards of glass fell on his head.

“It hurts…” Lu Yan felt intense pain on his back, and his bones might have been broken. He tried to crawl but was firmly pressed down by the ruins and couldn’t crawl out.

A vine grew out from underground and raised up the steel bar and brick wall pressing down on Lu Yan. Another pitch-black vine grew out in front of Lu Yan.

“Lanxing!” Lu Yan immediately grabbed ahold of the vine. The vine quickly retracted and brought him out of the rubbles. 

Bi Lanxing yanked him into his arms, the strong momentum caused the two to fall down together. Bi Lanxing landed on his back and let Lu Yan fall on him.

“My spine, my spine is broken!” Lu Yan hugged Bi Lanxing and screamed with tears and snot. Bi Lanxing hurriedly picked him up and released vines from his hand to seal the corridor. He shouted at Firefly, “Go upstairs!” Then he ran up the stairs while placing his cold hand that was breaking out in cold sweat under Lu Yan’s clothes, rubbing the spine of the petite body. He caressed him while releasing soothing pheromones to comfort him. “It didn’t break. It’s just the pain from being crushed.”

When the communicator wasn’t working, and he lost contact with Group B, Bi Lanxing really panicked. Fortunately, Xiao Xun’s communication was not interrupted. He relied on Xiao Xun reporting from outside to find where Lu Yan and Firefly were at.

Bi Lanxing put Lu Yan down at a safe place and breathed a sigh of relief as if he had regained something he had lost. His lips pressed on to Lu Yan’s forehead. 

There was a drop of snot hanging from the tip of Lu Yan’s pink nose. Hearing what he said, he moved his upper body. Although it hurt a little, it seemed that nothing was broken; only his skin was scratched a bit.

“Oh.” He sat up at once and wiped his face arbitrarily. He was so embarrassed that his rabbit ears rolled into roll cakes.

Bi Lanxing, “Where’s Dr. Han?”

“He originally was supposed to be in the security control room. When we just came in from Entrance A, the communication suddenly cut off.” Lu Yan took out the communicator from his ear and showed it to Bi Lanxing. “I know why now—that experimental subject can break things. As soon as he flips the hourglass, some things will work in reverse, some things will go back the same way, or some things will immediately age and break.” 

“You come with me upstairs first.” Bi Lanxing pulled Lu Yan up and walked up the dark stairs.

“Please answer, please answer.” Bi Lanxing tried to contact the others repeatedly, brows furrowed in anxiousness.

On his way here, Han Xingqian had not completely lost contact with him yet, but everytime he reported his location, he would lose audio, and the signal would be unstable. Now he couldn’t get in touch with Han Xingqian at all. The only thing he knew was that Han Xingqian was moving around the outer section.

Lu Yan blindly followed Bi Lanxing, his hand was wrapped tightly in his. Through the fingerless glove, he could feel the alpha’s temperature. 

Although they grew up together and had never separated, without him realizing, Lanxing was already much taller than him. His voice had become calm and mature, he was also becoming more and more reliable.

“I think you’re pretty amazing.” Lu Yan whispered.

Bi Lanxing silently looked ahead.

“I’m not amazing, I just got scolded by Chu-ge.” 

“That’s because he’s even more amazing, not because you’re not. He always scolds me for being a stupid rabbit, but I can beat the other trainees. There’s always going to be someone who’s better than you. You don’t have to be the number one in the universe; it’s fine as long as you’re number one in the class.”

After walking a certain distance, the communicator’s signal suddenly returned. Bi Lanxing reconnected with Firefly and Xiao Xun. Firefly was with Tan Qing and Tan Yang.

This was a ring-shaped hallway. Beside Xiao Xun who was lying on the commanding heights outside the building, the few others were together on the third floor.

Bi Lanxing, “Xiao, where is Specter now?” 

Xiao Xun, “He disappeared, disappeared into thin air. I saw it with my own eyes. Before losing contact with Han-ge, he said Specter went to Entrance C. I can only see A, F, and E—these three areas from over here. I can’t see the other three from here. Should I change location?”

“Yeah, go counter-clockwise. When you can see Area C, tell me.” Bi Lanxing commanded while holding his own communicator in his palm. When they went back to the second to last flight of stairs, the communicator stopped working. When he picked the communicator back up, the signal returned.

“Specter Hourglass’s ability has an effect range, which seems to be calculated from where he casted it, with a radius of about 20 meters. It should also have an effect period.” Bi Lanxing raised his head. “Give me a back-up communicator.”

Lu Yan took one out of his pocket and gave it to him. 

Bi Lanxing switched the communicator to self-destruct mode. In this mode, the communicator will send a warning sound to the other connected communicators, but lose its other functions.

The communicator was stuck under the handrail of the stairs within the scope of Specter’s differentiation ability.

He programmed it so Xiao Xun would be able to receive the signal from this communicator at any time and report to him whenever he heard the warning sound.

After he finished, Bi Lanxing took the others to advance to Area C on the third floor. 

“Chu-ge, Rimbaud, you guys are doing fine over there?” It was only when Bi Lanxing really started to command the group’s operations that he truly felt how tiring the commander position was. He had to constantly pay attention to the situation of all the members of the group. Every time the Secret Service went on an operation, it was Bai Chunian that would take command; he could see how much pressure it was for him.

Bai Chunian replied, “Me and Rimbaud are in the middle section. So far everything has been going smoothly. I have been listening to your commands, you did well.”

Rimbaud was making some rustling noises from the other side; it sounded like he was climbing on the wall.

“We’ll go get Han-ge, then meet up with you guys in the middle section.” 

Han Xingqian was standing on the corridor’s staircase on the second floor of Entrance C. The building was ring-shaped, and Han Xingqian had already gone around one full circle from the second floor’s corridor.

At this time, he had been in contact with Specter Hourglass several times already.

An analog clock hung on the wall above his head, and the clock ticked. There was a manufacturer’s label on the surface, which seemed to have been uniformly customized by the boss of the pharmaceutical factory and distributed to the employees for use. The time was completely unified. Han Xingqian deliberately counted it silently, down to the second.

Right now it was 2:34 in the morning. Han Xingqian leaned against the wall and waited. When the hour hand pointed at 7, he suddenly stretched out his hand in the air. 

In the empty hallway, the body of Specter Hourglass suddenly appeared, just where Han Xingqian stretched out his hand.

Han Xingqian grabbed his neck, spreaded his snow-white wings, and a feather fell on Specter Hourglass’ head. Using the A3 ability, The Wings of the Skyrider, he dispelled the changes that appeared around Specter after he flipped the hourglass.

“Why did you come here?”

Han Xingqian lowered his head and approached him, asking in a low voice. The spiral pointed horn protruding from his forehead touched Specter’s forehead. 

Pegasus glands’ second associated ability, The Holy Beast Prowls: When the horn touches a part of the opponent’s head, the user can read their mind.