Chapter 570: Shocking
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Just like that, John was taken by his mysterious savior to Blackwatch’s New York branch office building. They arrived at a large banquet hall in the building where he saw many new faces.
The demographic was vastly diversified. There were black people and Caucasians, middle-aged men, and youths who looked like they could not have been older than fifteen years old. This gathering was not particularly well behaved. They were causing a loud commotion in the middle of the banquet wall.
“Joey, you insolent brat, you better watch out before I break your neck!”
“Hahaha, bring it on, Robert! Let’s see if your psionic strength holds up to mine!”
“Hey Jenny, give me another round of beer, I want more beer!”
“Drink up! Is a large pint good enough for you or do you want two pints?”
“That’s more than enough, thank you, Jenny! Jenny is the best!”
“Could you people shut up and at least show some class? Hey f*** you!”
John looked at the frenzied group then shot a confused look at the BSS lady. “These people are...?”
“Just like yourself, they’re the psionicists we’ve gathered from all over Northern America.”
The BSS lady stepped into the banquet hall, announcing her proud presence with her high-heeled leather boots clicking loudly against the marble floor while she informed John, “You’re the last one on our list.”
John surveyed the banquet hall vigilantly and noticed that many of the others were looking in his direction. Some of them even whistled loudly when they saw the BSS lady who accompanied John into the banquet hall. There was a frivolous look in their eyes.
“Hey, so when are you going to tell us why Blackwatch gathered all of us here?”
A large, drunk man approached with another comrade whose both rows of teeth took on a horrid-looking yellow texture trailing after him. The drunken man reeked of alcohol and he audaciously stumbled into the BSS lady’s path, then boldly put his hands on her shoulder.
The BSS lady glowered almost instantly upon feeling the touch of the drunken man on her shoulders. She took a short step backward and produced a dagger that seemed to appear out of nowhere, which she flung at full force to her side. The piercing scream of the drunken man immediately resounded across the banquet hall!
“Ah! My hand, my hand!”
The drunken man wailed in pain. His hand was nailed into a section of the wall by the sharp tip of the dagger!
“You crazy woman!”
The drunken man’s comrade was immediately enraged by this aggression and charged at the BSS lady. Everything happened in a flash, so quickly that John could hardly register the fluidity of the BSS lady’s actions.
This time, a chrome pistol was produced out of nowhere and the barrel of the gun was stuffed into the mouth of the yellow-toothed man.
“Please don’t kill me!”
The yellow-toothed man raised his hands in the air and gestured for surrender.
“Hmmph, pathetic!”
The BSS lady put the chrome pistol back into her holster. Then, she held her hands up and clapped twice. Upon receiving the signal, the main entrance opened and dozens of soldiers wearing black combat suits and armed with live ammunition marched into the room. They assumed their positions in an extremely trained and disciplined manner. The hall was immediately surrounded by soldiers before John and the rest could realize what was happening.
Everyone fell silent and slowly rose to their feet as they eyed the surrounding soldiers cautiously.
“Psionicists.”
The BSS lady broke the silence. She rested her hands behind her back, slightly above the hips, and slowly strutted to the center of the banquet hall like a field commander. Then, she turned to face the gathered group. “I’ll put it bluntly. As far as I’m concerned, all of you are garbage.”
This quick, insulting remark certainly had its intended effect. Several members of the crowd were riled up by this but they decided against doing anything rash since they were surrounded by live ammunition.
“With that said, there may still be hope for garbage like you lot.”
The BSS lady stated coldly, “You people are the lucky bunch because Blackwatch has noticed your potential and is willing to polish you into viable tools.”
“I didn’t come here to be degraded as mere garbage!”
It seemed like her repeated insulting remarks had upset several psionicists. One of them, who was a large, stocky man covered in tattoos shouted, “If this is how Blackwatch is going to treat me, we’re better off joining the FBI, let’s go!”
With that note, the man gestured for two of his comrades to follow him. The three of them quickly stormed out of the venue.
Upon seeing this reaction, a subtle wipe of a smile appeared on the BSS lady’s lips. “Did I ever give you permission to leave?”
At the end of her note, the tattooed man heard the sound of gusts of wind whistling past his ears. He felt a subtle breeze caressing his cheeks, immediately followed by two sickening “pop”, then felt a splatter of wet substance washing over him!
The tattooed man looked stupefied by what just happened. He quickly turned around and saw that both of his comrades had their heads cleanly popped off with pulse rifles.
“Ah!!”
The crowd descended into panic upon seeing this. Many of them tried to flee from the scene but were quickly shepherded back to their original positions by the surrounding soldiers!
“Do you have any idea what you just did?”
The tattooed man immediately realized the severity of the situation and glared at the BSS lady in utter disbelief. His instincts were telling him that these people were not going to let him leave this place alive!
To escape, the man would have to take down their boss first!
After having decided this, the man charged at the BSS lady like a football quarterback. In an instant, whisks of flames appeared on every part of his body and burned his clothes into fine crisps! His entire figure transformed into an enormous ball of flame as he continued accelerating toward the center of the banquet hall.
However, the BSS lady seemed unfazed by this ludicrous display and only flashed a mocking smile at him. The man’s vision suddenly jolted, then he caught the faint silhouette of the BSS lady suddenly appearing beside him. She kicked on the ground with the back of her heel which immediately deployed a sharp dagger at the tips of her heel!
“Swish!”
The tattooed man felt a sharp pain radiating from his legs. He lost his balance and tumbled onto the ground!
“Hiss...”
Due to the velocity of the man’s fall, his burning knees scraped against the marble floor and left a charred trail!
“Ah! My leg, my leg!”
After collapsing onto the floor, the man winced in pain. The flames on his body began to extinguish as well!
“You’ve led a pathetic life. Even if you acquire psionic powers, it won’t change the fact that you’re worthless.”
The BSS lady stepped in front of the defeated combatant and grabbed him by the hair to expose his neck, then made a clean slice at the artery with a knife on another hand!
“Swish!”
Hot, steaming blood poured out between folds of torn skin. The man’s eyes immediately became frozen with lifelessness.
“Ah..!”
The others did what they could to muffle their screams as much as possible. They stepped away as far as they could from the BSS lady as if they were afraid of upsetting her with their puny presence.
The BSS lady stood beside the pool of blood and looked back at them. At this moment, her presence seemed to take on the form of a blood-red rose blooming amid a lake of blood. They would forever have this devilish sight imprinted in the back of their minds.
“My name is Sarah. I’m the deputy director of Blackwatch’s Black Security Service.”
Sarah licked the blood that splattered onto the corner of her lips and smiled menacingly. “But I prefer going by my codename. My codename is ‘Blood Rose’ and I’ll be your coach for you psionicists.”
John could hardly recognize Sarah who took on a one-eighty transformation from when she picked him up from the alley. That was when he realized that these people were serious.
A small part of him felt like it would have been better to surrender to the FBI.
“Why are you killing people ruthlessly, what are you going to do with us?”
Somebody in the crowd collected the courage to ask.
“To train you all, of course.”
Sarah replied, “Do you think that the Earth Federation will simply adopt you psionicist freaks into regular society? The answer is no. You have two choices. One is to join us and the other is to join the officials and see what they do with you. There are no third options.
“And about the killing? I’m afraid that the training involves a certain risk of death. My best advice if you don’t want to die is to put in your best effort to survive in the upcoming training sessions!”
With that, Sarah gave another signal and the soldiers immediately stepped forward and began escorting everyone to another area.
Left without a choice, John followed obediently as well. They left the banquet hall in an agitated state and slowly went to the rooftop helipad...
“Sir Godfather, the fifteen psionicists in Northern America have departed. Estimated time of arrival at Eco Science City should be around ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
On the top floor of the Blacklight building, Little X went beside Chen Chen and reported faithfully.
“Fifteen?”
Chen Chen was perplexed by this. “I remember there were eighteen, wasn’t it?”
“Three of them were killed to send a message to the rest of them.”
Little X pouted. “Sarah killed them.”
Chen Chen only replied with a short “Oh.”, followed with an understanding nod. “Alright then.”
After that, Chen Chen redirected back to the virtual display.
Three figures were shown on the virtual display. They were Lane, Hodge, and Brooke, the past members of the now-defunct BHB Combative Police Force.
The footage showed the three of them in a training room, honing their newly acquired abilities. When Lane made a short wave with his hand, a bolt of lightning appeared from the tip of his finger and hit a target nearly fifty meters away, obliterating it instantly.
Meanwhile, Hodge displayed his abilities by staring at a caged chimpanzee in front of him. Within moments, the chimpanzee began making a series of complex movements, mimicking the behavior of a regular person.
As for Blake... Chen Chen saw a bizarre sight of articles of clothing floating in the air, the opening around the cuffs of the shirt and pants were empty.
Lane, lightning manipulation.
Hodge, organism manipulation.
Blake, invisibility and steel body fortification.
These were the awakened psionic abilities of the trio.
Chen Chen never foresaw something like this happening. All along, he was under the impression that these psionic powers in his mind operated under a fixed set of rules. However, it began assuming various sorts of transformation after the extracted L compound was injected into others, allowing them to obtain different abilities.
However, regardless of the forms these psionic abilities took on when applied on others, when they inevitably return to Chen Chen and fuse with his base psionic potential, they would still revert to their primordial form.
This was what Chen Chen discovered when experimenting with the Deltlevel subjects in the Spire.
This meant that at its core, all these variations of psionic manifestation were still the original, primordial psionic power at the end of the day. These manifestations were merely another form that they were represented in different individuals.
Chen Chen found himself in awe as he watched their training sessions. He remembered that when he first acquired Field, his power was barely noticeable at all. He had a hard time even lifting objects of several hundred grams alone. The early psionic potential shown by the trio was several magnitudes greater than his in the past.
However, it should be noted that there was a difference between Field and psionic powers. The explosiveness and potential of Field greatly could not be compared to that of psionic powers.
Field was a manipulation of electromagnetic force at its core. Its range entailed both macroscopic or microscopic and altered both gaseous and solid substances. Since electromagnetic force was present in all particles, it could be said that the potential of Field was unlimited!
“I didn’t expect the psionic power to manifest into all these different forms.”
Chen Chen pondered. “Judging by this, I’m sure that there are many more secrets to psionic powers that I haven’t discovered yet. I doubt that the Consciousness Stealer’s usage of it to absorb the consciousness of other humans to fuel its resurrection is the extent of these power’s capabilities...
“Field has greater potential and broader uses, but its growth is significantly slower...”
Little X stated, “Meanwhile, psionic powers can grow rapidly in the initial phases and may manifest into thousands of different forms. It’s directly connected to the user’s mental psyche and inner conscience, but its overall strength doesn’t match up to Field... I suppose this is the general difference between the two?”
“There’s more than that.”
Chen Chen shook his head and added. “I suspect that there’s a greater secret to these psionic powers... I’ve discovered a certain pattern.”
“What pattern?”
Little X asked curiously.
“Haven’t you noticed?”
Chen Chen smirked. “In the movie Chronicle, Field originated from an alien plant. Meanwhile, in the real world, psionic powers were brought to our planet from a meteorite. Despite the glaring differences between these two powers, there’s a distinct similarity between the two which is that they both came from outer space...”
With that, Chen Chen craned his neck and looked at the boundless sky. “The universe is full of wonders. First, there are alien plants, then the Consciousness Stealer appears. I’ve expected no less from the boundless stretch of space full of looming dangers and countless opportunities. This was why the predecessor of the USB drive stated that mankind’s understanding had been false all along, that the ‘safety’ on Earth was merely an illusion. The slightest disturbance in the scope of the universe can easily wash over Earth and destroy the measly civilization that we’ve taken pride in shaping...”
Having said that, Chen Chen suddenly got up and asked, “Is the USB drive fully charged yet?”
“Based on estimation, it should be nearing full charge very soon.”
Little X nodded. “In the past, it took us three years to bring it to full charge. These days, with the expansion of the nuclear fusion reactor, its output is greatly improved and it would only take a year to achieve complete charge.”
“Ah...”
Little X suddenly gasped, cutting herself off. “I’ve received a message from my cloned copy that the USB drive just reached maximum charge moments ago. How did you know, Sir Godfather?”
“I have no idea.”
Chen Chen frowned. “It just suddenly struck me like an idea out of nowhere. It feels like the USB drive somehow spoke to me.”
“Considering how the USB drive mysteriously found its way back to you so many times, it has recognized you as its owner.”
Little X noted excitedly, “Doesn’t this mean that you’ll never have to worry about it getting lost ever again?”
“I wouldn’t know about that. Anyway, it’s time to try something new.”
With that, Chen Chen stepped out of the room. “I plan to create a new Rosen bridge, one that leads to the DOOM dimension.”
“Huh?”
Little X followed Chen Chen out of the room. “Is this why you secretly injected the God chip into several researchers and left my cloned copy in that dimension the last time?”
“There’s a fully developed human civilization in that dimension.”
Chen Chen stated, “Which means that it’s a viable subject for our L compound plans as well. It has greater potential than the future dimension the other half of myself is currently stuck in.”
Chen Chen came to a newly built teleportation room and teleported to the Spire instantly.
“But before creating a permanent Rosen bridge gateway, I’ll have to send someone in there to investigate. After all, it’s been a year and there’s no telling what changes may have occurred during this period.”
“True.”
Little X agreed. “Chances are nothing major has happened in such a short time, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Exactly.”
Chen Chen collected the USB drive from the charging room, then he went to the great hall.