Star Rank Hunter

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As a shooter, Yue Lou's senses were more attuned to guns than anything else. He would never allow himself to take shots like these unless the circumstances were extraordinary. Cillin checked out the marksman's wounds again and noted that he took quite the number of hits, but none of them had hit his vitals. A possibility entered his mind:

Could Yue Lou had intentionally taken these hits?

Still, there was no need to go this far. What on earth had driven him to take such a risk?

The shots looked like they had been fired from Yue Lou's back at close-range. The only type of people Yue Lou would allow to get this type of range over him was a comrade, and Cillin didn't believe that a true friend of his would've acquiesced to such a stunt, much less take it to the extent they did.

This told him that Yue Lou had a run-in with spies and traitors. It also told him that the same thing probably happened to the defeated First Fleet soldiers around him as well.

Cillin didn't speak with Yue Lou. He simply observed him and everyone else in the store room in silence.

Yue Lou seemed to be sleeping well. His breathing was weaker than normal, but stable. He wouldn't be dying just yet.

Some of the captives were muttering to themselves or checking out their surroundings to no avail. Not everyone had Cillin's excellent night vision, so most of them could only see a curtain of pitch black darkness and the faint light emanating from the command button at a corner of the store room.

The transport ship took off after the captives were fully loaded. Besides the pain, they would have to endure the discomfort of flight as well.

Both Cillin and Yue Lou stayed quietly where they were. There were cameras monitoring the situation inside the store room. Every time a certain amount of captives had died, the guards would drag them away and toss them into space.

Like everything else in the world, the army had their own brand of cruelty and tyranny. A small commotion had broken out when the guards entered the store room to drag the dead away. A couple of captives who had reached their mental limit tried to escape and were shot for their effort. Yue Lou barely reacted to the incident though. His breathing rhythm remained regular, he seemed completely indifferent toward his comrades' fate. Scenes like this were probably a common occurrence to him.

That being said, the guards hadn't given them any trouble besides the two times they came in to drag away the dead. Sward, or rather Shusag obviously had a hand in this.

Everything was going smoothly, so Cillin took a page from Yue Lou and caught some rest himself. The operation had just begun after all.

The transport ship met little to no resistance on their way to the base at Sector C. No military force had harassed them, nor had the First Army demanded a prisoner exchange. There was definitely something off about this. Normally, the First Army would definitely want to rescue a talent like Yue Lou. In reality, it was as if the world had forgotten about the youngster.

Cillin was well aware of the turbulence between the armies, and he wanted no part in it. That was why he didn't speak with Yue Lou.

Cillin opened his eyes when the transport ship finally reached their destination planet. A third of the captives had been removed from the store room, and it became clear who had the better constitution, and who hadn't. Some people had recovered to the point where they could move around as they pleased. Although they couldn't perform strenuous exercises, and being trapped in a confined space was hardly beneficial for one's mental health, they were still doing much better than when they were first tossed into the store room.

Yue Lou had recovered a lot as well. On the outside, it looked like the gunshot wounds hadn't recovered much, and he still looked like he could die at any moment. Cillin had a feeling that he was hiding his strength though. If necessary, he could transform from a dying man to a ferocious tiger in an instant.

The transport ship didn't enter the planet directly. It docked at the space station orbiting it first so that the professionals could categorize and process the captives accordingly.

Cillin looked up and watched the store room door. A while later, it opened to reveal a squad of fully-armed personnel. They didn't look like soldiers—in fact, the actual Fifth Army soldiers who were guarding them were standing behind these personnel—and a couple of white coats were standing among them. They were probably Miracle's private army.

These people were taller, bigger and faster than your average person. Their movements were graceful, and the way they held their guns looked very practiced. Their gaze was concealed by their helmet, but even an idiot could tell that they weren't the sympathetic type. In fact, they emanated a strange, terrifying aura that worsened the already existing anxiety, depression and despair in the store room.

A dazed captive staggered toward the entrance like a fly that was attracted by a light. He barely managed a couple of steps before there was a tu sound, and his entire torso exploded like a piñata. Someone among the armed squad had open fire.

The action further solidified Cillin's first impression of these people: cold, numb, and without hesitation.

The restless captives in the store room immediately reined in their impulses. No one wanted to become the second splat on the floor.

Expression indifferent, the white coats took a moment to glance around the store room. One of them said, "This batch's almost the same quality and quantity as the previous batches."

The others nodded in agreement before commanding the armed personnel to start escorting the captives.

The armed personnel walked up to those who were still sitting or lying on the ground and mercilessly kicked them to the center of the store room. Cillin was quick enough to notice the signs and walk to the spot before they could use him as a kicking bag. Yue Lou looked sick, but he was fast to act as well. Those who were too slow on the uptake were kicked so hard that their bones snapped audibly. If Cillin and the others weren't blocking the way at the center, these people would've flown straight to the opposite wall and broke a couple more bones.

The armed force made sure to point their guns at them as they escorted them toward god-knows-where. It was to serve as a message to walk faster and a warning not to do anything stupid, not that anyone was stupid enough to try anything in this situation.

They walked toward the docking bridge, exited the transport ship, and arrived at a large room with a dozen or so smaller, round-shaped rooms. The captives were then split into an equal amount of groups before being pushed inside.

The captives' physical condition was scanned immediately after they entered the rooms. The white coats would then categorize them based on the displayed data. Skulking nearby, Wheeze modified Cillin's data so that he would be categorized as an "inferior test subject". Yue Lou was categorized as an "average test subject", and that was after he had concealed his strength. Under normal circumstances, he would most likely be categorized as a "superior test subject".

Test subjects of different categories were sent to different research bases. Therefore, Cillin and Yue Lou didn't board the same spaceplane.

Meanwhile, Shusag and Czedow were performing their last escort mission. This time, they flew a separate spaceplane that didn't have any captive in it as per dictated in the rules and regulations.

Four spaceplanes took off from the space station and flew to the spaceport on the planet. The escort mission was considered complete only when all of the captives had been taken away, and the handover process was formally completed by Sward.

"A pleasure to work with you, LC Sward!" The base personnel responsible for the handover shot "Sward" a smile and didn't react negatively even though the latter had shot him the usual curt grunt of acknowledgement. After confirming that the documents were all in order, he turned his backs on the escorts and walked away. The latter usually lingered for a short moment before leaving.

After the handover guy had left, Shusag exchanged a glance with Czedow before turning back toward their spaceplane.

Back to Cillin. Cillin and the captives who had been categorized as "inferior test subjects" had been tossed into an escort vehicle and transported to a base. It wasn't where Mo Heng was imprisoned, but it didn't matter. The two bases were fairly close to one another, and the fact that the infiltration was successful was equal to half a victory already.

The researchers didn't lay their hands on them immediately because they were "new". Usually, they waited a couple of days for the test subjects to recover somewhat before officially beginning their experiments.

While passing through a vacant spot, Cillin discovered a fresh stain of blood on the floor that was darker than what was considered normal for a human being. So, he pretended to stumble, made contact with the strange blood and analyzed it.

It was human blood, but the genetic information he gleaned from it showed a helix pattern that a normal person absolutely couldn't possess. There were also obvious signs of forced alteration.

Clearly, the owner of the blood had been modified and injected with a gene drug. It also became clear that the base's primary objective was to research gene medicine.

His batch of newcomers were imprisoned inside a transparent "cage". It wasn't the first time he had seen one of these things, although these ones were even smaller. There was only around one square meter of space, and a lot of equipment had been fitted into the narrow cage to monitor the test subjects and record various data. There was also a number code outside each cage that doubled as the test subject's code.

After all the test subjects had been locked inside their cages, the walls turned completely opaque. It was a one-way mirror of sorts. They couldn't see what was going outside the cages, but the researchers could see inside clearly.

Cillin leaned against the wall in a sitting position and closed his eyes like an exhausted captive would. A patrolling researcher only shot him one look before leaving the area. Most of the test subjects looked like this, so why would he pay Cillin any extra attention?

Meanwhile, at a location no one was looking at the moment, a fully fed and refreshed Wheeze were making its move.

It was too risky to spread it at the research base where Mo Heng was imprisoned, and the one Cillin was currently in because those bases were under heavy surveillance. The same thing couldn't be stated for the other bases scattered throughout the area, however. Also, the bigger the spread, the better the effect would be.

The gray cay thought happily to itself, this is just like catching fishes. The bigger the net, the better the catch!

Glorious mission in paw, it took off toward its first target.