Asura in Arknights

Because Viviana wasn't pointing to any other place, but precisely the location he wanted to hide.

"Really? This used to be a hospital?"

Provence quickly scanned the entire map and surprisingly found no second hospital in the architectural plan.

"Indeed... hospitals are more suspicious than residential areas or transportation hubs."

Warfarin clicked her tongue, her expression a mix of disgust and contempt. "Having a hospital as a cover can certainly conceal many irregularities, but such places are usually the focus of investigations. Setting up a lab in a place like this... this company really was unscrupulous before."

Although Viviana's clue was somewhat abrupt, no one doubted its authenticity.

After all, Viviana was indeed a representative sent by Pol Pharmaceuticals, so it's not surprising that she possessed important, unknown clues.

"Then let's go here first."

Provence made the obvious choice.

If you have clues, why not investigate them? Are you going to go to the trouble of finding something far away?

Looking at the others, no one seemed to have any other thoughts, but Provence noticed that Li Ang's behavior seemed a bit strange.

"What's wrong, Knight? Is there anything else you want to say?"

"...It's nothing, I'm just a little surprised that the Candle Knight actually possesses such a secret."

Coming to his senses, Li Ang shook his head and then said calmly, "But now that we have a target, let's go investigate that place, as the Candle Knight suggested."

How did Viviana know the location of this laboratory?

Did Hinterlea tell her?

Impossible. The location of this laboratory has no record within any of the internal records of Pol Pharmaceuticals, and Cintel has absolutely no way of knowing this secret.

Even Li Ang discovered the location of the laboratory by chance while searching for Adams's messy soul crystal.

Only Adams, Ayin, and Li Ang should know about the existence of this laboratory.

[No... there's one more, no, two more people who also know where this place is.]

Among them was Roy, the Azure King of the Unarmored Alliance, who had also visited the laboratory.

Thinking of this, Li Ang's gaze gradually deepened.

[...McGee.]

Ayin deliberately revealed the location of her laboratory to McKee, which led to the later appearance of the Origin Stone lifeforms.

To be precise, it should be the Empire's proxy consciousness that has taken over McGee's body. McGee's own experiences were too tragic, and his presence was too weak. Li Ang regarded him and the proxy as two completely different individuals.

At that time, Li Ang's eyesight had not fully recovered, so he did not rely on appearance to identify each person. This idea was not wrong, but it made Li Ang unable to think of that guy immediately.

Moreover, McKee was already dead before a series of events occurred, and those who were subsequently manipulated were all agents from the Consciousness Empire.

Even if all other conditions were exactly the same, if McGovern himself were to do these things, he wouldn't be able to create such a terrifying riot.

After all, McGee was just a middle-aged man who had accomplished nothing.

His greatest achievement in life was simply making a competitive rider who was destined to become famous.

"Let's get ready to go. This place isn't far from here... The protective suits should last about the right amount of time, but we only have about an hour for the investigation."

Amidst the shouts from Provence, Li Ang looked at Viviana, who was standing quietly to the side.

Is it because of him?

No one answered Li Ang's question.

The Candle Knight gathered the wind-blown strands of hair behind his ears, his deep blue eyes as calm as a still lake, without the slightest ripple.

-------------------------------------

Using the location provided by Viviana as their target, the group changed direction once again.

Although they encountered many setbacks along the way, their plan was generally executed smoothly.

With an extra person, their formation naturally changed. Viviana was placed at the very front, second only to Ace, alongside Huang, who was the forward.

This arrangement wasn't exactly reasonable, but what could they do when no one trusted her, the Candle Knight?

Elena is Astesia's sister and can be considered half of Rhodes Island's own people. As for Viviana... after shedding the halo brought by the title of Candle Knight, Viviana's behavior is actually quite suspicious. Rhodes Island's operators are not stupid star chasers, how could they ignore such obvious abnormalities?

Although Warfarin seems unreliable most of the time, she is actually an important pillar of Rhodes Island's medical department and is deeply trusted by the operators.

Especially these field agents, which one of them hasn't fallen into Warfarin's hands?

When Warfarin questioned Viviana, she had already sown the seeds of distrust in the hearts of the other Rhodes Island operators.

Placing Viviana next to two elite operators was also a way to monitor her every move.

Viviana remained quiet throughout the journey, not uttering a single word unless spoken to, and making no suspicious moves whatsoever.

“That underpass has collapsed and is full of rainwater. We need to find another way.”

Looking at the map in his hand, Li Ang pointed in another direction and said, "Go take a look in that direction. There's a pedestrian bridge there. If it hasn't collapsed, you can go that way."

The road to the hospital was much more complicated than expected.

The substructure of each urban plot is not a single entity, but rather composed of many independent areas. The area they are currently in does not provide direct access to the hospital; they can only proceed along the more challenging terrain.

Although this is the industrial park of Bohr Pharmaceutical, strictly speaking, it can be regarded as a small town called 'Bohr Pharmaceutical'.

Tens of thousands of employees of Boer Pharmaceuticals, along with their families, live on this site, somewhat similar to the super-large state-owned enterprises in Li Ang's hometown in the last century.

Fortunately, the compensation for the damage to the urban land was jointly paid by the Securities and Futures Commission and the Commercial Federation; otherwise, Li Ang, who had only been in charge of the company for a short time, might have faced bankruptcy again.

The ground floor entrance of the urban plot is right next to the factory area, which is how they came in, while the hospital is naturally located in the residential area, at the other end of this urban plot.

The area where the factory was located was fine, but once you headed towards where the employees lived, the buildings suddenly became denser, and with the damage caused by the natural disaster and the piles of vehicle wreckage everywhere, the complexity of the roads suddenly increased more than tenfold.

Li Ang led them through this complex environment, turning left and right, sometimes venturing into underground passages, sometimes walking onto a still-standing overpass. They were almost completely disoriented and had no idea where they were.

However, judging from some of the landmark buildings that have not yet collapsed, they are indeed moving towards the hospital at an extremely rapid pace.

"Your Originium Arts... are really convenient."

Huang's exclamation resonated with everyone else.

Chapter Sixty-Four Remains

Yes, it's not only convenient, but also very powerful.

No matter where you are, detection-type Originium Arts are extremely valuable, let alone the powerful Originium Arts that Li Ang possesses.

If it can achieve such an effect in heavily polluted areas, wouldn't it be even more powerful in other environments?

Without Li Ang, this operation would have taken ten times longer just to find a way out of this complex ruin.

Rhodes Island's operators underestimated the difficulty of exploring a city's ruins. After all, no 'metropolis' level mobile city had ever been destroyed by a natural disaster before; the destruction of any mobile village was already a major event.

As part of the 'metropolitan' mobile city of the Great Knight Territory, Plot 21 is far more complex than most mobile cities.

Is it convenient? Maybe.

While silently planning his route forward, Li Ang casually replied, "You probably don't know how much trouble this ability caused me at first."

"Often... having too much Originium Arts isn't necessarily a good thing."

Well... it's not that exaggerated. Li Ang was just saying it casually.

The powerful senses did cause him some trouble at first, but it didn't take long for Li Ang to fully master the ability and control it at a suitable level.

"Ah...sorry, sorry, I almost forgot. The abilities of infected people are indeed difficult to control. Just pretend I didn't say that."

Huang patted her head sheepishly, then said seriously, "But I meant what I said earlier, your Originium Arts are really amazing."

Infected individuals do not acquire their Originium Arts through learning; therefore, the more powerful the Originium Arts, the more difficult they are to control. The concept of "one's own abilities cannot harm oneself" does not exist in this world.

Huang thought of herself. Her Originium Arts were just the simplest 'heating', but in the period after she first awakened, burns and scalds were commonplace.

Although I can't imagine how a reconnaissance-type Originium Arts could harm me, it certainly wouldn't be a good experience.

Thinking about it carefully, what she just said did seem to reopen old wounds. Who knows how much heartache is hidden behind this kind of "convenience"?

Clearly, Huang was overthinking things.

"Um...it's alright, and thank you for the compliment."

Li Ang didn't pay much attention to Huang's words, and instead said to himself, "The overpass hasn't collapsed, but the structure is severely damaged. It's unlikely to be able to support our weight. Let's find another way."

No one questioned Li Ang's decision, not even the team's commander and captain.

In this way, Li Ang could easily steer the team astray. While he wouldn't lead the team in the exact opposite direction, deliberately taking a longer route to buy some time was perfectly feasible.

The time saved by this delay is enough for Li Ang to do a lot of things.

At this moment, while maintaining his attention on Ferdinand, Li Ang extended his senses to Ayin's secret laboratory, remotely constructing magical units there to destroy the remaining information storage devices in the laboratory in a very covert way.

In order to avoid being detected by human intervention afterward, Li Ang could only disguise it as a natural disaster, so the progress of the destruction was very slow. He led the group around the ruins several times, and the progress was only barely halfway done.

Fortunately, no one suspected Li Ang. Since the overpass was impassable, Li Ang found another passage, which greatly shortened the distance between them and the hospital.

Because he accidentally said the wrong thing, Huang was unusually quiet for a while, and everyone continued to move forward in silence.

Climbing up and down these ruins in spiked boots is actually quite physically demanding. Elena, who often stays cooped up in the lab and doesn't exercise much, was so exhausted that she couldn't utter a single word. The others weren't as exhausted as Elena, but either they were too lazy to talk due to their personality or they didn't want to waste their energy on this kind of thing.

However, this quiet did not last long. Seeing that Li Ang was not angry but forgave him, Huang's restless heart began to stir.

Not long after, Huang tentatively asked, "Knight, with your abilities, you could easily become an elite operator. Would you be interested in joining my team then?"

After saying that, Huang started promoting his team without waiting for Li Ang's agreement.

ACE, who was walking in front, raised his eyebrows. When he heard that Huang had started to sell out his teammates and promised many benefits to join their team, he almost couldn't keep his composure. However, he didn't say anything in the end and tacitly approved of Huang's actions.

After all, he had high hopes for Li Ang's abilities. If Huang could succeed, it would be a good thing. If he failed, it wouldn't matter, because there would be no actual loss.

"...No need."

With rather mixed feelings, Li Ang declined Huang's invitation.

For a fleeting moment, Li Ang thought this was Kal'tsit testing him through Hoshiguma's words.

After all, Kal'tsit's intentions were quite easy to guess; she had been working tirelessly to bring Leon into their camp.

Although Li Ang has incurred a considerable favor due to the circumstances, he currently has no intention of joining Rhodes Island.

That's why he subconsciously thought that this was another test from Kal'tsit.

However, when Li Ang tried to sense Huang's inner thoughts at that moment, he realized that he had overthought things again.

This silly girl doesn't have so many thoughts; she's just jealous of Li Ang's abilities.

"I only signed a temporary employment contract with Rhodes Island, and I have no intention of going any further. Putting aside other things, Rhodes Island will leave Kazimierz sooner or later, right? I have no intention of leaving here."

"That's such a shame. So you're from Kazimierz..."

While expressing regret, Huang also expressed his understanding.

After all, how many people would willingly leave their hometown unless they absolutely had no other choice but to leave?

The living conditions of the infected in the Great Knight Territory are gradually improving, and they have all seen this. Under these circumstances, it is normal for them not to want to leave their hometown.

In fact, some patients on Rhodes Island were also drawn to the city and planned to settle down there.

However, most people are still observing the situation, and besides, the residence permit for the Great Knight Territory is not so easy to obtain, except for those who plan to smuggle themselves in.

"Alright, let's stop talking about these irrelevant topics. We're very close to that hospital now."

Having delayed for so long, the storage devices that needed to be destroyed had been almost completely destroyed, and the objective had been basically achieved. Li Ang then led the team onto the right path.

Before long, the outline of the hospital came into clear view.

The group stopped outside the broken walls of the hospital. Li Ang pretended to use Originium Arts, and clearly visible Originium energy reactions continuously surged from his body.

Under the expectant gaze of everyone, Li Ang spoke up, "Found it."

"Right below the hospital, deeper in the parking lot, there is a huge space that is very likely the laboratory that the Candle Knight mentioned."

"What's the situation inside?" Provence asked cautiously. "Is there anyone else inside?"

Because they didn't trust Viviana, the information she provided was also questioned.

Although it has now been confirmed that the laboratory really exists, the possibility that it was a trap cannot be ruled out.

As for Viviana's reasons for doing this... that's not important; they only need to question Viviana's motives.

"The same thing has happened; no signs of life have been found."

Li Ang shook his head. "However... I found many humanoid objects inside, which should be corpses. They are very likely experimental subjects."