Chapter 551: The Tower of Sorrows – Libra

Nikolai’s gaze shifted across the sterile walls and rows of incubators over nine feet tall and filled with luminous blue fluids. Inside these tubes, twisted creatures, neither man nor monster, floated in the fluid with countless pipes connected to their bodies, which pumped black and red fluids into them.

“…”

His heart pounded faster with each second that passed.

’Who would do such a thing!?’

Werewolves with six limbs, vampires with deformed fangs and jaws like a fish. He stepped forward, glancing at the small nameplates, which revealed the person’s code name and the various DNA used.

“Lamia, Human, Vampire (Noble) and… Ghoul?!”

He glanced up and quickly removed his gaze, covering his mouth in disgust. The deformed creature could barely be called a humanoid. What caused greater mental trauma was the mixture used almost matched Lunaria’s.

’This is beyond just creating undead and abusing necromancy.’

Dozens of deformed creations floated in the incubators, the bubbling of fluid and bleeping of each machine as if mocking Nikolai. He clenched his teeth, the flicker of black aura almost exploding from within as his muscles bulked up.

“Urgh!” He sank his teeth deep into his lips, drawing the sweet taste of his black blood. Nikolai nearly transformed out of sheer anger, while the sorrow almost filled his chest enough to drive him close to the limit.

[White Wolf, is everything alright!? Your vitals are off the charts!]

Leona’s voice of concern sounded in his right ear, and yet he couldn’t respond to her. Nikolai’s huge palms pressed against the glass. His eyes locked onto the nameplate, while his body rapidly grew in size. He transformed into a werewolf with black and silver fur growing from his body.

“How?”

The nameplate was scratched and damaged, but he couldn’t mistake that face and traces of the letters which remained. Inside the tank, a female with only an upper torso floated with deformed, tiny legs and arms, the face pretty, with a small beauty spot beneath her eye and silky black hair.

Nikolai touched the nameplate with one palm, tracing the letters.

Eliza… the rest damaged and scratched, “How did they get mother’s DNA?”

No, that wasn’t the true question in his heart, but. What were these bastards planning, and was it limited to just his mother, and what if they took the DNA of his wives, himself, or even his daughters in the future?

Crack!

The glass on the incubation device smashed, long webbed cracks forming across the surface as the blue liquid gushed out.

Nikolai closed his eyes and stirred the burning heat in his chest, forcing the black flames to explode from his palm. Immense flames devoured the corpse and remaining tubes in a matter of seconds. In the end, Nikolai stepped back after burning the traces to ash.

“That’s it, none of these abominations should exist. I will let them rest.”

Transformed into his werewolf form, he rushed along the aisles of incubators, his claws wreathed in flames. With each swipe, he devoured the corpses and mutated monsters, removing their existence from the world.

Not long passed as the fire died down. Nikolai stepped into the executive elevator and left the room of broken machines and melted tubes.

Not once did he look back.

***

[Please select your floor]

The mechanical voice prompted him as he leaned against the cold, steel wall of the elevator, despite his preparation for any deviance. But upon seeing them use his mother and other members of the higher clans, Nikola lost his cool because of the experiments which afflicted his mind.

“Keep it together, Nikolai.” He mumbled to himself with a swift slap to his cheeks and replied to the AI-driven elevator. “The top floor.”

[Understood, heading to floor 35]

With a hiss, the doors closed, and the hellish white room vanished from his vision. Nikolai slammed the back of his head against the steel. Deng! “Come on, focus.” Honestly, there were things he’d seen when saving Sasha that should have affected him more.

’Was it because they used mother’s DNA?’

Nikolai struggled to recover, his werewolf form fading slowly as the elevator hummed and pinged each floor it passed. There was no reason to go to each floor; that was the job of the maids, who already cleared most of the other buildings.

[Ding! 29th Floor]

He closed his eyes, desperately trying to calm his blood, which raged like a stormy ocean after seeing the mutants.

There wasn’t any trace of what Nikolai might face the higher he went, but finding another lab might just drive him into a frenzy. The elevator continued its ascent, floor after floor ticking past with mechanical indifference. Each chime nagged at him, dragging Nikolai’s thoughts back toward the shattered incubator and the face floating inside it.

Every heartbeat felt like a dull strike against his ribs. He clenched his fists until piercing them with his claws deep enough to scar the soft flesh. But he refused to lose control, and gradually his anger and disgust faded.

[Ding! 34nd Floor]

A faint scent drifted through the vent above, carried down from the upper floors—sterile chemicals mixed with rusting metal on the lower floors. Yet the higher Nikolai came, the more sophisticated and pleasant the scent became, like a high-class cigar mixed with flowers and sweet pastry.

His breathing slowed as if to clear his lungs using this aroma, while he glared at the doors with narrow eyes, prepared for battle. The rage didn’t fade, but he peeled it back enough to let his instincts take over.

’They’re still experimenting, even after losing Sasha and Marianne.’

Nikolai straightened his back against the cold steel, wiping a smear of dried black blood from his torn lips after he returned to his usual self, leaving only the faint glow of his obsidian eyes that flickered like restless flames.

[White Wolf, this is Celtic One. Respond immediately! Give a status report.]

Once again, he could feel Leona’s worry through her cracked voice and the urgency in her voice.

This time, he could answer with a calm and steady voice without the strain and uncertainty from earlier. “I’m fine, currently heading to the top floor. I just found something unexpected on an earlier floor. I marked it on the link, tell the other teams to be careful.”

[Ding! 35th Floor]

“Gotta go, I’m here!”

Before Leona could respond, the steel doors hissed and once again opened slowly, and the rancid stench of the mutants he had fought on the third floor poured from inside. The only difference was the intensity of the smell. It was stronger than the unfortunate female mutant he faced before.

’This scent…’

He sniffed the air; this was a familiar smell.

“Death…”

The sour earthen scent reminded him of the place he fought ghouls, in the dark caves filled with sticky black ichor. A smell of death, corruption and musty rot.

He took a slow breath before covering his mouth with the bodysuit’s breathing apparatus. With this, he could use the backup oxygen and filter system to avoid suffering. The rotten stench made him feel lightheaded.

Nikolai snapped his eagle free from its holster before stepping out of the elevator with slow, measured steps, avoiding noise. The doors sealed behind him with a soft hiss, trapping the stench inside the hallway as if the entire floor exhaled death.

With each step he took, the lights overhead flickered, casting a dim light across his figure and revealing the deep claw marks carved into the walls and ceiling that leaked with black ichor. None of the footprints looked human, and several bloody marks painted the floor.

The further he progressed down the hall, the deeper the rotten smell became, almost forcing him to turn away and gag.

’There’s something dangerous here…’

He didn’t know why or how he knew; maybe it was his danger sense, but the feeling of dread and danger continuously grew the longer he remained. Distant cries and wailing echoed, like the background noise of a horror game.

“Come on…”

His footsteps remained stable, but his instincts sharpened to a razor’s edge. The Obsidian Eye adjusted, filtering the dim hallway and revealing clusters of distorted auras scattered throughout the floor, not one of them below Great Elder.

“What have these fuckers created?”

Nikolai tightened the grip on his gun as he came to a crossroads. A stronger aura lingered in the depths; it slowly patrolled the area with heavy steps. He couldn’t afford to rush in when there was a great elder-level being in all four directions.

With his senses pushed to their limits, Nikolai started to breathe deeper. He steadied his pulse, every breath sharpening his focus until the haze of aura thinned into clarity.

’No choice, I’ll start with this path!’

Nikolai exhaled once, letting his aura condense, wrapping his body to hide him from detection, although confident that the strange roaming monster seemed to be in the vents or somewhere else able to travel anywhere.

He could only face the monsters easy to hunt.

With a sigh, he tapped his ear.

“Celtic One, this is White Wolf. I forbid anyone below the Great Elder Rank to enter the top floor. I repeat, no one is to enter the top floor!”

It was time to fight.

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