“Sir, confirmed 20 killed, no survivors.”
A combat engineer walked up to Morin and handed over a handful of blood-stained ID documents:
“They’re all from the Coldstream Guards. These guys were tough; no one surrendered until the very end.”
Morin took the IDs and casually flipped through them.
They were all sergeants and privates; not a single officer was among them.
It seemed the commander of this task force company had indeed taken the rest of the men and fled deep into the research institute. These twenty ordinary soldiers left behind were purely disposable pawns to delay time.
Just then, Morin also noticed that several new pieces of intelligence had refreshed continuously in the system’s [Intelligence] tab.
Morin glanced over them impassively, his expression, which had relaxed slightly due to the end of the battle, becoming grave again.
Most of this intelligence information was very simple, but the amount of information contained was not low.
For example, these soldiers and wounded were just as Morin guessed, except they voluntarily stayed here to stall for time.
Also, the number of Britannian soldiers who fled into this underground research institute was not the 40-something Kahn had estimated earlier, but a total of 64…
However, since Morin and his men had wiped out these 20, there should only be 44 left now.
…At least in Morin’s view, this number was quite unlucky (4 sounds like death in Chinese).
Of course, the most important piece of intelligence was what allowed Morin to completely confirm that the enemy commander intended to go in and find the advance team that had been out of contact for four days.
The reason this Coldstream Task Force Company defended that depression to the death despite being at a complete disadvantage, and even split their forces to intercept after retreating underground, wasn’t because they were so stubborn or wanted to fight to the death.
They were looking for people.
An advance team composed of Highland Mage Order members and intelligence personnel had already entered this underground research institute four days ago.
According to the original plan, this advance team should have completed their mission and evacuated by noon yesterday at the latest, rendezvoused with the Coldstream Task Force Company outside, and then retreated westward together.
But they failed to evacuate on time, and the commander of this Coldstream Task Force Company didn’t want to easily abandon friendly forces, so he waited here for an extra day.
As a result of this wait, they waited until the instruction unit arrived…
Then came the battle that just happened.
After reading this information in the [Intelligence] tab, Morin also began to feel somewhat uneasy.
“Four days…”
For an elite squad possessing spellcasters, being out of contact for four days in a closed underground environment was obviously very unusual.
Morin believed the Britannians wouldn’t send a bunch of incompetents to execute such an important mission—except for that Major Cavendish from before.
So even if there were no high-tier mages in the Britannian team, there should at least be a group of mages with sufficient experience.
Don’t look at how the Highland Mages always suffered losses on the battlefield previously; that was because there were certain misconceptions in the way the Britannians used mages.
Mages only have so many spell slots per day. On the current battlefield where the intensity and ferocity are getting higher and higher, it’s definitely not enough.
But in the current environment akin to “dungeon exploration,” the strength of mages suddenly became different…
Morin handed the IDs back to the combat engineer beside him, his brows tightly furrowed.
There were only two possible situations.
The first was that this bunch of Britannians got what they wanted, and then those Highland Mages directly used a [Teleportation Circle] to run away with the core personnel—Morin didn’t believe there were no permanent magic circles on the Britannian mainland to serve as teleportation anchors.
It was just that doing this would mean treating the extraction unit outside as fools.
Although this kind of teammate-selling behavior was very much in line with the traditional arts of the “Great Brit,” in this kind of highly classified mission, Morin felt it wasn’t very likely.
Then there was only the second possibility left.
They didn’t even have the chance to run away, or even the time to send out a distress signal, before completely failing… Or to put it conservatively, being trapped inside.
“Lieutenant Colonel Morin, any discoveries?”
Master Haber’s voice came from behind.
This Tier-4 mage was currently tightly gripping a combat staff in his hands. Although the mage robe on him was still neat, the calmness he had when they set off was no longer on his face.
Although he hadn’t directly witnessed the brief and intense indoor close-quarters combat just now, the gunfire and explosions in the confined space obviously gave this “academic mage” who had always stayed in the research academy quite a shock.
This kind of scene with a hail of bullets and flesh and blood flying was not common for the mages of the Saxon Empire.
“The situation is not good, Master Haber.”
Morin turned around. He didn’t hide it, but lowered his voice and spoke the intelligence obtained from the system in the tone of his own speculation.
“The Britannians most likely lost contact with the advance team they sent out, and there are most likely experienced and powerful mages in the advance team…”
Hearing this, Master Haber’s face visibly paled a few notches, and his fingers pushing his glasses trembled slightly: “Even the Highland Mages… then do we still need to continue deeper?”
This mage and the other operatives were obviously also a little panicked, losing the high spirits and calmness they had when they first set off.
As long as you are a normal human being, you will ultimately feel fear in this kind of dark, unknown environment.
Identities like mages and intelligence agency operatives do not mean you can summon much courage.
However, they also knew that since they had come this far, it wouldn’t make sense not to continue exploring.
Morin: “Now it depends on your decision, Master. Do we continue to advance, or cancel the mission and withdraw from here…”
“Since we’re already here.”
Master Haber’s eyes ultimately became firm. Although his heart was pounding, he still maintained his composure on the surface.
“If we don’t go in and take a look, we won’t be able to report to our superiors when we get back. And… I believe in you, Lieutenant Colonel Morin, and your soldiers.” He pointed to the fully armed, cold-eyed instruction unit soldiers behind Morin.
Seeing this, the several Section III operatives nearby also gathered around. One of the leaders suggested in a low voice:
“Lieutenant Colonel, since the situation is so complex, in order to improve search efficiency, should we divide the team into three groups? To explore areas A, B, and C respectively?”
“If you guys want to die, you can go by yourselves…” Morin interrupted him unceremoniously, looking at this Section III operative with complex eyes.
“Splitting up in this kind of hellhole? Do you think our lives are too long?”
Morin snorted coldly: “I don’t care how you executed missions before, but in my team, just following orders is enough…”
Under these circumstances, Morin would oppose splitting up no matter what.
Are you kidding me? In horror movies, anyone who suggests splitting up basically doesn’t survive ten minutes before truly “splitting up” (literal translation: heads separating from bodies).
Morin had obviously seen too much of this trope, and he also knew that dividing forces in this situation would weaken the team’s combat power, so he would not make this kind of low-level mistake.
Under Morin’s command, everyone ultimately continued to advance together. After all, he was the overall commander of the operation; what he said went at this time.
The forces that entered the underground research institute included 1 infantry platoon + flamethrower teams + combat engineer detachment, totaling over 160 people.
Excluding those guarding the stairwell entrance above and the logistics distribution hall, there were still over 100 people following Morin and the others deep into the research institute.
This was a full half-company’s worth of troops.
If there were this many people in those movies, those classic horror plots probably wouldn’t happen.
What is modern industrialized exorcism?
As long as the firepower is sufficient, fear does not exist.
Just like some horror games, after getting weapons, the nature of the game changes…
The team quickly passed through that corridor with quite a few bloodstains, and the space ahead suddenly opened up.
Area A had arrived.
This was the life support area and administrative center of the entire underground research institute, but the bloodstains on the ground also disappeared around here.
“Stay alert, it’s too quiet here.”
Morin reminded in a low voice. The double-barreled shotgun in his hands was slightly raised, the muzzle slowly moving along with his line of sight.
Passing through the heavy quarantine doors, the scene of Area A unfolded before everyone.
The design style here was completely different from the corridor outside. If one ignored the oppressive underground environment, this place looked simply like a university campus built inside an air-raid shelter.
The first thing that caught the eye was the life support area.
Rows of rooms were distributed on both sides of the spacious passage; those were the dormitories of the researchers.
Morin waved his hand. Several soldiers immediately stepped forward and carefully opened a few doors.
“Clear!”
“Nobody!”
Morin walked into one of the dormitories.
The room wasn’t large, about ten square meters, furnished with a bunk bed, a desk, and a few simple wardrobes.
A notebook was still spread open on the desk, with a dried-up ink bottle beside it.
The quilt on the bed was somewhat messy, as if the owner had just gotten up and left not long ago.
“Strange…”
Morin reached out and touched the bed; it was ice-cold, obviously hasn’t been slept in for a long time.
He walked to the desk again and picked up that Gallic notebook.
The latest content was calculation drafts regarding some magitech circuit, the handwriting scribbled and hurried.
But on a certain page, it suddenly stopped abruptly. The fountain pen even left a heavy ink blot on the paper, as if the writer was suddenly interrupted by something at that instant.
“The feeling this place gives… is like everyone suddenly evaporated at the same time.”
Master Haber also walked in. His gaze fell on a white coat hanging on the wall, his voice somewhat tight.
“No signs of a struggle, no bloodstains, and no chaotic rummaging like during a hasty evacuation.”
Morin nodded. This bizarre calmness was more unsettling than a floor full of corpses.
It was like that legendary ghost ship, the “Mary Celeste”; the ship was completely empty, but the breakfast on the dining table was still steaming.
Except there was no steam here, only a bone-chilling cold.
“Keep moving.” Morin put down the notebook, turned, and walked out of the room. “Let’s go check the cafeteria.”
This scene also involuntarily reminded Morin of the cheap literature “Unsolved Mysteries of Mankind” he read as a kid, which often mentioned incidents of people mysteriously disappearing—although most of it was total nonsense.
The scenes described in those cheap books were just like this now, seeming like people were just working and then suddenly disappeared…
The team continued to push forward.
The scene in the cafeteria was even more bizarre and nauseating.
Dozens of food trays were placed on the long tables. The food inside had already rotted and grown moldy, turning into lumps of black-green unidentified objects, emitting a foul stench.
Some chairs were overturned on the ground, while others were placed neatly.
Several coffee cups were still placed by the table edge, the liquid inside having long evaporated and dried up, leaving only a ring of dark brown stains.
“Looking at this degree of decay…”
A veteran accompanying the team frowned and glanced at those food scraps:
“It’s been at least a month.”
“A month?” Morin raised his eyebrows. “In other words, the people here disappeared not long after the Battle of Paris just ended?”
This was somewhat inconsistent with the intelligence.
According to the information previously grasped, the Gauls should have evacuated their core personnel before the fall of Paris. But this research institute obviously didn’t seem to be included in the evacuation plan.
“Perhaps some magic experiment went out of control?” Master Haber guessed.
“Stop guessing, Master… Your guessing is giving me the creeps.” Morin interrupted him. At times like this, the most taboo thing is scaring oneself.
He looked around. The over one hundred heavily armed soldiers gave him tremendous confidence.
No matter what thing caused the personnel disappearance here, as long as it’s a carbon-based lifeform, as long as it has a physical body, it has to kneel and call daddy in front of the metal storm created by dense firepower.
“The Britannians aren’t here either.” Company Commander Kahn ran over from the other side to report. “We searched the entire life support area and the defense force barracks, didn’t even see a ghost.”
The defense force barracks were right next to the life support area, a barracks capable of accommodating two companies.
The gun racks were completely empty, the weapons all taken away. But this instead indicated that the evacuation or disappearance at the time was orderly, or the defense force mobilized entirely to deal with some threat.
“They definitely went deeper, or to the next level.”
Morin looked toward the passage leading deeper and spoke:
“Since that advance team came for the core data of the ‘Sentinel Project,’ they should have at least headed straight for the archives or the laboratories, right?”
“Let’s go, to the administrative center and the central archives.”
The team set off again.
The administrative center was located at the core of Area A; this was the brain of the entire underground research institute.
Along the way, Morin remained highly vigilant.
Although they hadn’t encountered any attacks so far, he always felt there was a pair of eyes staring at them in the darkness.
That feeling of being watched was like a prickle on his back, forcing him to maintain the operation of [Mage Armor] at all times.
Finally, two massive oak doors appeared at the end of the corridor.
A brass plaque hung on the doors, with Gallic writing on it: [Central Archives / Unauthorized Personnel Prohibited].
The doors were half-open, the locks having been violently destroyed—who knows if it was the good deed of that batch of Britannians.
Morin didn’t rush in rashly, but first had the soldiers control the key positions.
After confirming it was safe inside, he finally took Master Haber and those few agents and walked in.
This was a huge circular hall, the size of a basketball court.
Surrounding it were rows of massive file cabinets reaching the ceiling, densely packed folders and scrolls stuffing every cubbyhole.
The air was filled with the smell of old paper.
In the center of the hall was a circular workbench.
“It seems our Britannian friends haven’t been here.” Morin picked up a document dropped on the floor; there were no marks left on it.
“Quick! Find what we need!” the lead agent of Section III immediately ordered his subordinates behind him.
Several agents quickly rushed to those file cabinets and began searching for core materials regarding the “Sentinel Project” according to the index.
Master Haber also ignored his fear. His instinct as a scholar made him immediately plunge into the search for these precious materials.
Morin didn’t participate in the search; he was more concerned about the safety here.
Holding his shotgun, he patrolled aimlessly in the archives, his gaze sweeping over those dust-covered spines.
The collection of books here was astonishingly large, covering almost all aspects of Gallic magical research, from basic magitech theory to cutting-edge biological alchemy.
Suddenly, a set of black-bound logs placed in a corner caught his attention.
Those logs were placed inconspicuously, even somewhat squeezed into the corner. There were no special markings on the covers either, only a string of numbers.
As if guided by ghosts and gods, Morin pulled out the bottommost one.
Flipping open the first page, the date was written in beautiful cursive on the yellowed paper:
[October 12, 1867]
[Weather: Overcast]
[This is the cradle of hope. To deal with that increasingly powerful neighbor to the north, we must create miracles here…]
1867…
Morin’s fingers gently stroked the yellowed paper pages, a ripple rising in his heart.
This year, for the Saxons, meant the glorious victory of the Saxon-Austrian War and the basic formation of the “Greater German” (referencing the unification of Germany).
And for the Gauls, it meant that the once loose federation to the north was rapidly rising into a terrifying behemoth.
The Saxon Empire at the time obviously had already begun to display traits that made the Gauls apprehensive, so the Gallic Republic also attempted to initiate military reforms.
This massive underground research institute was not originally the birthplace of the “Sentinel Project,” but a large comprehensive magical research institute.
After completing the construction of over 80% of the area in 1869, it was put into use.
Many “enchantment” technologies of the Gallic Republic were also born in this research institute.
Morin continued flipping through.
The contents of the log were very dry at first, mostly records regarding the progress of the underground facility’s construction, and some test data for basic spell models.
But as he flipped deeper, Morin found the tone of the log began to change, and the author also began to write down some of his own “reflections.”
That was 1870, the year the Franco-Prussian War (Saxon-Gallic War in this world) broke out.
[September 3, 1870]
[Bad news has come from the front line. His Majesty the Emperor was captured at Sedan.]
[Those Saxon barbarians, their armored trains are simply monsters… Our Mage Order appears so powerless in front of those steel behemoths.]
[We must change. Conventional magical research is already too late. We need more direct, more brutal, more powerful power.]
From this page on, the “Sentinel Project” officially began to unfold in this underground research institute.
As time passed, the research direction of the entire institute also completely shifted from enchantment technology to body modification and the militarized application of magical affinity.
Shocking terms like “biological modification,” “negative energy channeling,” and “human tolerance testing” also began to appear frequently in the log.
“So that’s how it is…” Morin closed the folder and gently let out a breath of turbid air.
The Gauls… in the humiliation of defeat, driven by the fury of revenge, slid step by step into the abyss—this was not surprising.
When a country faces the crisis of national subjugation and extinction, or is blinded by hatred, morality and bottom lines are often the first things to be discarded.
Just as Morin was lost in thought, a flurry of rapid footsteps interrupted his train of thought.
Master Haber walked over quickly.
This usually gentle and refined scholar, however, had an extremely spectacular expression on his face at this moment.
Shock, disbelief, anger, and even a trace of fear; various emotions intertwined on that slightly pale face.
He tightly clutched a document that looked like a personnel file in his hand, his fingers trembling slightly due to excessive force.
“Lieutenant Colonel Morin…”
Master Haber glanced at the soldiers at the door of the archives and deliberately lowered his voice, “You will never guess what I found.”
“Regarding the technical details of the ‘Sentinels’?” Morin raised his eyebrows. “Or do the Gauls have other even more terrifying projects?”
“More serious than that.”
Master Haber sighed long and hard, then handed the document in his hand to Morin, pointing to a line of text on it.
“This is the file of the Chief Technical Advisor and General Director of the ‘Sentinel Project’.”
Morin took the document. By the dim light, he focused his gaze on that name—it was a very typical Saxon name.
“This can’t be possible, right…”
Morin blurted out subconsciously:
“The Chief Technical Advisor and General Director of the ‘Sentinel Project’ is a Saxon???”
“I also hope this is fake, or a shared name.”
Master Haber took off his glasses with a bitter smile, then pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
“But the resume, magical characteristics, and even the record of papers he published in Dresden in his early years attached to this file all match.”
“Victor von Heinrich.”
Master Haber read out that name, and then briefly introduced him to Morin.
This name was once a pivotal figure in the mage circles of the Saxon Empire.
He was once a senior researcher in the Imperial Royal Academy of Magitech Research, and also a rare mage with extremely high attainments in the Necromancy School.
He was even one of the early tutors for the current Saxon Emperor, His Majesty Albert II… God knows how the House of Wettin agreed to let a necromancer be an early tutor.
However, shortly after the “Saxon-Gallic War” ended, this mage suddenly disappeared during an operation heading to the border.
According to the official statement, he encountered an accident and not even his bones remained.
But now, this file told Morin: this former Saxon mage not only didn’t die but also brought his “talent” to the territory of their mortal enemy, the Gauls, and directed this “Sentinel Project” that was to send Saxon soldiers to hell.
“If word of this gets out, there will be major problems with the morale and public opinion of the entire Empire.” Morin felt his scalp go numb.
This was obviously no longer some simple defection incident…