Chapter 1026

His face was haggard, a sinister smile hanging on his lips; he had been lurking there for who knows how long, waiting only for Ulrich to notice his presence.

Ulrich's previously calm expression froze instantly; her eyes widened slowly, and her lips parted to speak.

"Red" had been waiting, quietly and excitedly, until he finally got everything he wanted from Ulrich's reaction.

—Sweet fear and vigilance.

The next moment, he raised a hand and sliced the agent in half, killing her instantly, not allowing her to issue a warning to Adam, not even a single syllable.

On the other end of the line, Adam only heard a vague clicking sound, followed by a busy signal.

Adam tapped his chest four times, then hung up the phone.

He heard nothing.

When "Red's" skull-like face and those gloomy eyes appeared on the screen, the viewers felt their hearts skip a beat.

"The good die young, but the wicked live forever."

"How can there be such a disgusting person? Can someone give him a miserable death???"

"Wait, why hasn't he been converted by 3125 into that ugly, neither-human-nor-ghost form?"

"Simply killing such a person is useless... To exact equal revenge on a guy like this, you can only shatter the things he relies on, one by one, at the conceptual level, and correct his twisted reality... That is much harder than summoning 3125 to destroy the world."

"Don't get the priorities wrong; the main contradiction is between the world and 3125. As long as the main contradiction is resolved, settling scores with clowns is just a side task."

"True, as long as 3125 is resolved, this accomplice who uses the pressure of supreme divinity to do evil will inevitably have nowhere to run... But the question is, what is a 'better concept'? Comparing numbers? Using 'Six' to suppress 'Five' and directly eliminate the 'Fifth Starfish'?"

"Hmm..."

Asta admitted she was frightened.

This man codenamed "Red" was like a lingering ghost; he didn't take up much space in the story, and while he seemed like an accomplice, he was inextricably linked to the tragedy of the entire world.

"Does he want to destroy the world?"

This thought suddenly popped into Asta's mind.

From the initial summoning of 3125, killing the agent, killing everyone related to the mission, to killing Moreno, and then killing Ulrich.

Such bloody crimes were all actively caused by him.

"Red" seemed born to destroy the world; nothing short of total annihilation would appease his hatred.

Yet, what had he experienced to make him so desperate about this world, so full of hatred for it, that even when 3125 had already turned the world into purgatory, he still found joy in hunting down the survivors?

That was probably another story.

As Adam hung up the phone, the screen switched, and time returned to before 3125 had destroyed everything.

A crucial meeting was being held in Containment Unit S167-00-1006.

It was called a containment unit, but it was actually a giant skull, taken from "SCP-2256," a stillborn super-giant cryptid.

This species possessed natural antimemetic camouflage; even though the adults were enormous, comparable to skyscrapers, they could hide their forms in the wild, making them almost impossible to see.

The hollowed-out cranial cavity also possessed similar antimemetic properties; when people left it, they would forget everything that happened inside, remembering nothing.

Dr. Bartholomew Hughes and his team had conducted years of in-depth research on it, striving to uncover and replicate this miraculous natural camouflage.

Now, they had achieved their wish.

They successfully imitated the skeletal material of "SCP-2256," compressed it into sturdy prefabricated panels, and welded them into an absolutely airtight box, thereby achieving passive antimemetic isolation and sealing information within.

This skull was a behemoth, forty-five meters long, sixteen meters wide, and fifteen meters high, standing majestically in the center of a giant containment unit custom-built for it.

Surrounding the skull were the rest of its remains, carefully arranged in an exquisite radial pattern, as if for a solemn funeral rite.

The ossuary occupied nearly a third of the containment unit's floor area, while the remaining space was occupied by a massive industrial module, containing various organs stripped from the beast's body.

Some of these were even converted directly from cargo ships to house its massive brain tissue and skin.

Dr. Hughes walked through a canyon; to his left was a hundred-meter-high femur, and to his right was a blue steel tank containing the beast's first stomach.

Looking up, the skull resembled a majestic yellow-white tower in the distance, its two hollow, pitch-black eye sockets staring at the visitor at the bottom of the canyon.

And this was merely the smallest member of its species.

Behind the skull was the beast's first cervical vertebra, which had been converted into a massive composite mechanical airlock, a ramp, a few steps, and a workstation area.

This workstation area served as a micro-service center, strictly monitoring all personnel and items entering and exiting S167-00-1006.

The facility was well-equipped, with chairs, scanners, coffee machines, cleaning carts, and cages containing a pile of embryos.

Outside the workstation area, a gleaming bulletproof luxury car sat quietly, ready for action.

"Where is everyone else?" Dr. Hughes asked the lady behind the workstation, adding, "I'm not late, am I?"

"Please follow me," she responded, guiding Dr. Hughes toward the seat next to the scanner.

Dr. Hughes was already well-versed in this procedure.

He naturally extended his left arm, waiting for the next step.

The staff member tore open the sterile packaging of a wristband-like sensor, wrapped it around Dr. Hughes's left wrist, and her gaze immediately focused on the screen beside them.

"They went in about an hour ago," she explained.

Dr. Hughes frowned slightly, pondering to himself.

Why did they deliberately tell him a different start time?

And why leave a one-hour gap before his arrival?

"Did they say anything?"

"Of course not."

Dr. Hughes had no clue about today's meeting or the previous ones, not even knowing if they had similar themes.

But from some subtle details, he could see something.

First, the change in the frequency of the meetings.

At the beginning of the year, they were still painstakingly writing self-guidelines for monthly meetings.

By October, the pace accelerated sharply, and meetings became weekly.

Last week, they were so dense that three were held in a row.

And starting this Monday, they were meeting for ninety minutes every morning.

An even more important clue was the list of attendees.

Besides Dr. Hughes himself, three top members of his team were also on the list, as well as the directors of Site-41, 45, and 167.

Particularly noteworthy was Michael Lee, the Director of the Foundation's Antimemetics Division and Dr. Hughes's direct superior, who was also on the list.

Thinking of this, Dr. Hughes secretly glanced at the luxury car behind him.

He couldn't be sure who the owner was, but in this world, only the O5 Council could brazenly drive a private vehicle into a Foundation containment building.

In other words, an O5 was attending today's meeting.

Dr. Hughes nodded at the car:

"Shouldn't this place be full of private security by now?"

The lady shrugged.

"Who followed the O5 inside? Bodyguards? Is anyone staying in the car?"

"No... Please open your mouth."

She placed a disc-like cap on Dr. Hughes's head, put a transmitter on the roof of his mouth, and then fired two radio pulses at his brain.

"Any psychological impulses?"

With the transmitter blocking his mouth, Dr. Hughes tried his best to reply: "Mmm—mmm—"

"Have you experienced deep sleep in the last twelve hours?" The lady removed the transmitter cleanly and discarded it.

Dr. Hughes wiped his mouth: "Yes."

"How many fingers do you have?"

"Ten."

"Please count them for me."

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

The lady injected him with an anti-rejection agent, then took a lively embryo from a cage.

It waved its tentacles in confusion, clearly dissatisfied with being held high.

"Please tilt your head back, look at the ceiling, keep your eyes open, and, if you would, please take off your glasses."

Dr. Hughes complied: "I really don't like this part."

The lady didn't respond, instead placing the embryo over his eyes like an eye mask.