From the end of the world

Chapter 169: Missing a Step 1
Reading out the identity information of the person being interrogated in front of him or her is a fairly common interrogation technique, the purpose of which is to put pressure on the other party.

And if the person in charge of the interrogation is a member of an illegal organization, the pressure effect will be doubled. The implication is that we have already mastered your interpersonal relationships, and if you don't obey us, we will take action against the people close to you later.

The problem is that the information in the hands of this senior researcher is not my own, and I am afraid that the person mentioned in his information does not exist in this world. Not only did it not have any pressure effect, but it also required me to control my facial muscles and try not to laugh.

Perhaps seeing my "wavering" expression, the senior researcher's face calmed down a little, and he pretended to be pleasant and said, "Don't worry. As long as you cooperate with our research, your parents and friends will be fine."

"Then, can you let me go?" I deliberately disguised myself as a weak child.

"No."

As he spoke, he took out a small sharp instrument from the torture tools placed nearby. It looked like a small electric drill used by dentists, but the surface was extremely dirty, covered with bloody rust. It felt like if the skin was scratched by this thing, it would give you tetanus.

"You can never go home. You are an experimental subject here when you are alive, and you will become a ghost here when you die. Not even a grain of your ashes is allowed to leave this place," he said.

"Experiment?" I asked. "I just think you're trying to torture me."

"To a kid your age, do all experimental instruments look like torture instruments?"

He waved the dirty little electric drill in his hand, glanced at the torture props around him, and said without any self-consciousness: "How ignorant... Never mind, maybe you are just joking now, but after a while, maybe these things will really become like torture props in your mind."

As he spoke, he slowly walked towards me.

At this moment, I felt the fragment of the divine seal stored in my consciousness vibrate slightly. The iron door was suddenly pushed open, and a man wearing a bloodstained white coat and a silver mask walked in.

The senior researcher turned his head sharply, and when he saw the newcomer, he said in a gloomy voice: "Doctor?"

"What's wrong with you?" Dr. Silver Mask said coldly, "Didn't I just tell you not to hurt this child?"

"Look at what you said. I just want to collect some of his body fluids." said the senior researcher.

Doctor Silver Mask said in a deep voice: "Get out."

"Doctor, you are wrong." The senior researcher's voice also became impolite. "We are studying how to enable ordinary people to have powerful demon hunting power. For this reason, we captured those demon hunters in the outside world... and in the experimental process, ordinary test subjects are also indispensable. It's not like we haven't conducted human experiments on ordinary people before. Why are you suddenly soft-hearted now?"

"He's still a child." said Doctor Silver Mask.

"What's wrong with a child? I even think he's too old." The senior researcher said without shame, "According to the educational theories of those demon hunter families, the learning and practice of magic should start before puberty. Maybe ordinary people like us should also be transformed in the childhood stage to better adapt to that power.

"It would even be better to start from the infant, no, it's not too early to start from the fetus stage. I applied to you for pregnant women as test subjects a few months ago, but you rejected it every time on the grounds that it was unethical. I didn't know that we are still at the stage of paying attention to secular ethics? Haven't enough test subjects died in your hands!?

"What do you mean he's just a kid... Stop saying those hypocritical words! It was you who forced me to kill someone on the lab bench!"

The more he spoke, the more excited his voice became, and in the end he even lost his composure and his voice broke, as if he had been pent up with a lot of negative emotions towards the man in front of him.

"Are you done?" asked Doctor Silver Mask.

"...your predecessor is different from you. If I dared to curse at him, he would have killed me long ago." The senior researcher said coldly, "I heard that he is now spreading the seeds of the heart in society, turning ordinary people into bloodthirsty and murderous cyborgs, just for the purpose of collecting conflict data between cyborgs and demon hunters, but our backstage is unmoved by this.

"Don't you understand what this means? Our situation as mortals has become so urgent that we can no longer care about such trivial matters..."

Dr. Silver Mask said unmoved, "Get out when you're done."

The senior researcher looked at him hatefully, then put down the torture props in his hand, walked out of the door, and slammed the iron door loudly.

The Silver Masked Doctor didn't even turn his head. He just moved his eyes to me, stared at me silently for a long while, and then said, "...I'm sorry, you must be very scared."

I wasn't really scared though.

Instead, I was wondering if I should just kill him.

The "predecessor" mentioned by the senior researcher is probably Ying Lingyun, and Doctor Silver Mask is most likely his "possible clone".

Chen Long is not with Dr. Silver Mask at the moment, and even if he is, it will not prevent me from killing him. But my main goal of this trip is not to kill people, but to investigate the clues of the doomsday and rescue Chang'an.

Killing Dr. Silver Mask would certainly give me the fragment of the God Seal that I suspect he has, but rashly killing the person with the highest authority would inevitably cause chaos in the secret base. The value of the fragment of the God Seal in my heart is not so important that I would do anything to save it.

Of course, I have no intention of letting Dr. Silver Mask go, and in the end, Luo Shan and I will definitely destroy this secret base. But everything has to be done in order, and now the investigation is the priority.

I continued to pretend to be a little boy who knew nothing and started to test him: "Who are you and why do you do such an outrageous thing?"

"The less you know, the better." Doctor Silver Mask said sympathetically, "Besides, after a while, you will forget everything here."

"You want to... let me go?" I asked.

"Yes. But don't mention this to anyone," he said. "During this time, I will try my best to keep you away from the clutches of other researchers. You just need to stay quietly in this room, and everything will be over." As he spoke, he walked forward and helped untie the rough straw ropes that bound my hands and feet.

He freed me from the cross, and my feet landed on the ground. I was only wearing a white straitjacket, without shoes, so I could only step barefoot on the slightly hot wire mesh floor, and I felt a little pain on the soles of my feet.

I was not used to standing on my own feet all of a sudden and almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, he reached out and supported me in time.

However, there were other reasons why I almost fell. In addition to the straw rope, there was still something restraining me, and that was the wood gab.

Simply put, it is a piece of wood with holes for hands and feet to pass through, which can be regarded as ancient handcuffs. The "shackle" in "shackles" refers to this kind of thing. Usually the wooden shackle will fix the hands and neck together, but this wooden shackle only bound my hands, making it impossible for me to maintain dynamic balance with my arms when I landed.

After all, it is a base for dark science research, so why use such ancient handcuffs?

"This is a mana-sealing lock that can seal the magic power of a demon hunter. Although you are not a demon hunter, it is okay to remove it for you, but it requires quite complicated procedures and processes. I can only inconvenience you to carry it for now." Doctor Silver Mask said, "Don't even think about removing it yourself. You absolutely cannot destroy this restraint with your strength. If you hit it too hard, it will trigger the alarm."

After that, he seemed to think there was nothing more to say, so he turned and left the room. I still had a few questions to ask him, so I tried to ask him to stay. But he turned a deaf ear to me and closed the door.

I had no choice but to focus my attention back and look at the wooden shackles on my hands.

Does this kind of thing require a complicated procedure to unlock? But I clearly saw a keyhole in the middle of the wooden yoke, so it should only take the corresponding key to unlock it, right?

And from the beginning, I felt that the other party's words and my cognition were subtly inconsistent. Although they both admitted that they were conducting inhumane scientific research, they had no feelings about this scene that was obviously not related to the word scientific research.

It's not that this scene has any special scientific research significance, but they all accept it and take it for granted. At least I don't feel that way. If I have to say... they seem to see things differently from me.

The same was true for the demon hunters who were carried on the crosses. They all seemed to have no doubts about this black humor scene and assumed that they were kidnapped and taken to an inhumane experimental site.

I once again began to doubt myself, perhaps it was not the surroundings that were in disorder, but myself.

If I think about it carefully, is it true that the scene I saw through Lu Youxun and the scene I am in now are not the same at all?

In the scene of the vision, there are many large square mechanical devices standing like tombstones, surrounded by some figures. The scene I entered also has many upright crosses, and some "jailers" follow around. Those mechanical devices are slowly moving in a certain direction, and the crosses that bind the experimental subjects are also moving in the same way.

Could it be that those mechanical devices are actually used to restrain demon hunters?

Could it be that my perception was disturbed by some accident, causing me to see those mechanical devices as crosses and the cold research facilities as fiery places of horror? Even those fat and rotten researchers might actually have normal appearances, but they were distorted into monster-like postures in my vision?
Okay, let’s assume this is the case. Then why do I suspect I have come to the time period two years ago when Lu Youxun was captured by the Humanitarian Department?
Could it be that Lu Youxun's visions of the past were from the past, and I teleported myself to the past? Could it be that my flame teleportation could also travel through time and space? Wouldn't that mean that I could travel to the corresponding time period by watching a black-and-white historical documentary on TV?
But even if I really have such magical powers, how can I explain the communication between Chen Long and Doctor Silver Mask? Maybe I am still in the "present", but the surroundings are showing the "past" for some reason?

The most puzzling thing is undoubtedly the girl Lu Chan.

What's wrong with her?

Next, let's go find her. She may be imprisoned nearby. I have a lot of things I want to ask her in person.

I walked to the iron door and tried to open it, but it was locked. It was possible to force it open, but I didn't know if there were any "jailers" patrolling the corridor outside the door. Thinking of this, I activated the heat perception.

As expected, my perception was unable to penetrate the iron door. However, I didn't know if the anti-detection mechanism of this place was mainly aimed at people outside the room. When I was inside the room and activated the heat perception, my perception could barely penetrate the wall next to it and detect the scene in the next room.

The room on my left was empty, but the room on my right was occupied. It looked like a strange demon hunter, who was restrained on the cross like a martyr, with tension and fear on his face, but he seemed to be forcing himself to stay calm, constantly looking around to see if there were any items that could help him, while trying to break free from the cross.

At this moment, a researcher who looked like a monster suddenly pushed open the iron door and walked into the room.

Seeing this, the demon hunter struggled even more violently, and began to curse the demon hunter. The researcher seemed to be used to it, and walked to the sink next to him without saying a word, turned on the faucet, and rubbed his hands vigorously with the dirty brown liquid gushing out.

After a moment, he turned off the faucet, turned around, picked up the torture props next to him, and walked towards the witcher.

If this situation continues, the demon hunter will either die or live a life worse than death.

I decided to rescue him first, but I didn't intend to expose myself yet. I would first remotely control the flames to kill the researcher, and then release the demon hunter. Then the demon hunter should flee the room. I can lurk in the dark and see how this stronghold reacts through his actions.

Although I don't think this demon hunter has a chance to escape this base, he will probably die in the end... Never mind, there's no time to think about it, just take it one step at a time. This person is about to be operated on, so saving him first is the most important thing.

I quickly concentrated my mind, and my superpowers worked according to my thoughts, and flames burst out out of thin air in the next room.

The researcher's head suddenly caught fire and turned to ashes. He probably couldn't even realize that he was killed. The headless body fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

The ropes that bound the witcher were untied by the flames, the wooden shackles were burned to ashes, and the lock of the iron gate in the distance was also melted by the fire. The witcher made a startled sound, and fell off the cross involuntarily, falling heavily to the ground.

At the same time, a sudden strange experience attacked my whole body.

It was as if the floor suddenly disappeared, and I suddenly "stepped on empty air" and my vision fell into darkness.

(End of this chapter)