"Dead? No..That can’t be..."
Emery forced the shock down and made himself look more carefully—not just at the body suspended within the tube, but at the series of conduits humming beneath the chamber.
With his deep knowledge of apothecary and the years he had spent working on the Supreme Gene Project, it did not take him long to recognize what he was looking at.
This was a bloodline enhancement conduit.
The corpse itself served as the catalyst, its bloodline continuously extracted and circulated throughout the tube. Only the body of someone possessing an exceptionally pure bloodline could sustain a process of this scale.
The bad news was that the corpse truly belonged to Ronan Faulen, the Serpent Supreme.
Yet something about it immediately struck Emery as odd.
Every cultivator’s body retained faint traces of the life essence it had lived. Even after death, aging, and accumulated vitality left behind subtle marks that could not easily be erased.
This one carried extremely little of them.
It was far too... young.
As if it had barely existed before being placed inside the tube,
A realization surfaced almost immediately.
It wasn’t Ronan’s original body.
It was one of his clone bodies.
Emery did not linger on the discovery. Instead, he continued deeper into the facility, where each new chamber only reinforced his growing suspicion. More cultivation tanks lined the laboratories, each one containing another identical corpse suspended in pale fluid.
Every single one bore Ronan Faulen’s face.
Only then did Emery reminded of the Serpent Supreme’s infamous gene.
The Nine-Headed Nightmare Hydra.
Ronan Faulen hadn’t only mastered a true-body technique. His bloodline gene has a terrifying gift that allowed him to cultivate an entirely new body from even a severed limb, over and over again.
Emery continued deeper into the facility until he arrived at the largest chamber yet.
Nearly thirty cultivation tubes stood in orderly rows across the vast hall, every one of them occupied. More than a dozen researchers moved busily between them, their attention fixed entirely on their work as they monitored formations, adjusted instruments, and recorded data. None of them so much as glanced toward the invisible intruder who had just entered.
He spotted Master Bob almost immediately.
Even so, Emery resisted the urge to approach. Instead, he slowly circled the chamber, taking his time to understand what this laboratory was truly studying.
Unlike the previous rooms, these cultivation tubes no longer contained Ronan’s clone bodies.
Each one held the preserved corpse of a halfblood with an exceptionally pure bloodline. From the pressure lingering within their bodies, Emery estimated that every one of them had once been a Grand Magus, with several likely having reached even higher realms.
Supreme realm corpse?
Nearly half belonged to dragon halfbloods, while the remainder represented the other eleven races of the Half-Blood Alliance. Every corpse had been meticulously preserved, its bloodline essence still remarkably intact and rich enough to serve as valuable research material.
Emery’s eyes narrowed.
Corpses of this quality were priceless. Acquiring even a single one would have required enormous resources and influence.
Yet this laboratory possessed dozens.
"Interesting..." he murmured. "They’re using complete bodies instead of bloodline samples. That’s... an extravagant approach."
With every observation, the true scale of the project became clearer.
A single glance around the chamber was enough to convince him that the Supreme Gene Center was exactly what it claimed to be. This was no façade or secret prison disguised as a laboratory, but a genuine research facility operating on a scale that the old Utopia Gene Center could never have matched.
Only one question still remained unanswered.
Where was Ronan Faulen?
Or more importantly...
What had become of him?
Emery’s gaze settled on Master Bob, and after one final sweep of the laboratory, he quietly made his way toward him.
He had barely taken three steps when a shrill siren suddenly echoed throughout the entire facility.
The alarm had been triggered.
"Dammit!!"
They had discovered the breach far sooner than he had anticipated.
His first instinct was to retreat immediately. The safest course would have been to open a Khaos Waypoint and disappear before anyone could respond.
Yet Master Bob stood only a few steps away.
Emery hesitated.
That single moment of hesitation cost him.
The entire facility trembled as brilliant runes ignited one after another across the walls, ceiling, and floor. Formation arrays that had remained dormant until now awakened in perfect sequence, weaving together into a massive spatial barrier that rapidly spread through every corridor.
A restraining formation.
Emery immediately realized he had missed his opportunity to leave cleanly.
If he was going to be trapped inside anyway, then he refused to leave without answers.
His figure blurred.
Before anyone in the chamber could react, he appeared beside Master Bob, seized the startled frog halfblood by the shoulder, and pulled him directly into his inner domain.
"...Emery?"
Master Bob stared at him in disbelief.
"How... why are you here?"
Emery had no intention of wasting precious seconds on explanations.
"What happened to the Serpent Patriarch?" he asked directly. "Where is Ronan Faulen?"
"I... I don’t know..."
The answer came too quickly.
Emery immediately sensed the invisible restraint tightening around the man’s bloodline. The suppression was subtle but unmistakable, preventing him from speaking what he truly knew.
Without hesitation, Emery extended his divine sense into the restriction itself.
Rather than trying to shatter it by force, he patiently searched for flaws, probing every layer like a blade slipping between the seams of tightly fitted armor.
Nearly a minute passed before Master Bob’s tense expression suddenly relaxed.
"No..." he muttered unconsciously. "The Patriarch... the Patriarch doesn’t want the others to know..."
A measure of relief settled over Emery.
Not complete relief.
But enough.
Those words suggested Ronan was participating in whatever was happening rather than simply being imprisoned against his will.
He wanted to dig deeper.
He never had the opportunity.
Several overwhelming auras suddenly descended upon the facility, their divine senses sweeping through every chamber with terrifying precision. One of them brushed against the edge of Emery’s concealment technique, lingering just long enough for him to realize how close he was to being exposed.
"That’s my cue," he muttered.
He immediately released Master Bob, ensuring nothing remained that could implicate him after Emery’s departure.
As he turned to leave, his eyes caught a row of sealed blood-serum vials neatly arranged across the central worktable.
Finished products.
Recently refined.
For the briefest moment, temptation flickered through his mind.
He had helped found this entire project decades ago. Didn’t he deserve at least one sample? Those vials might reveal exactly how far the Supreme Gene Project had progressed—and perhaps explain everything the Alliance had worked so hard to conceal.
The thought disappeared as quickly as it had come.
There would be a proper way to obtain them.
This wasn’t it.
"Time to leave."
Emery shot toward the edge of the chamber, already weaving the intricate patterns of [Runelock Threading]. The spell bit into the surrounding formation, carefully opening a narrow weakness in the spatial restraint—just enough for a Khaos Waypoint to slip through before the barrier repaired itself.
He never finished.
A voice rolled through the entire facility at once, low and absolute.
"Who dares break into our sacred land?"
The seam he’d been carving snapped shut and hardened further, the whole restraint tightening around him like a fist closing.
Worse than that.
He felt it — a single divine sense settling directly onto him, unmistakable in its weight.
He’d been found.
Not by just anyone
A Supreme.
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