Giordano stared at Bianca as if seeing her for the first time. "Wait, what do you mean? Yellow Stage? Seriously?"

  Bianca's golden ice had dissolved into the air, but what they had witnessed remained etched in everyone's memory like a brand of fire. Ripa clutched his injured shoulder, staring at Bianca with a grimacing expression. The Glacial's carcass lay behind them, its heads cleanly severed by Bianca's strike, bluish-black blood gushing in spurts. A surgical cut—none of them would ever have been able to make a cut with such precision. There was no doubt: Bianca Ruggeri was truly a [Yellow Stage].

  "Injuries first," Bianca said, deliberately ignoring the question. "Then explanations."

  Giordano was still stunned with amazement when he activated his KryoWatch and, after fiddling with it a bit, produced two small blue pills. "Kryopills," he said, tossing one to Brando, who caught it mid-air. "They only work for us Bearers, but they perform miracles. Try it and see."

  Brando examined the pill as if he held a precious pearl in his hands. It was cold to the touch, as if it had just come out of a freezer. He put it in his mouth, and it tasted like candy. Once swallowed, the effect was immediate: a beneficial chill spread through his stomach, reaching the wound in his side within seconds. The pain diminished and soon disappeared completely.

  "Incredible!" Brando exclaimed in astonishment. "How do they make these?"

  "What did you think, Brando?" Giordano replied forcefully. "That Glacials are only good for killing? Actually, you can get a lot from their carcasses. When technologically processed, their skins and innards can even have beneficial effects."

  Brando's face turned pale.

  "You're telling me I just ate a Glacial?"

  "Well, yes." Giordano shrugged. "I know, it's disgusting. But what can you do? Extremely high cost-benefit ratio, don't you think?"

  Brando snorted. He had eaten plenty of disgusting things in his life at the orphanage, but never a pill extracted from Glacial limbs. There were worse things in life. At least it tasted good.

  "Here." Giordano tossed the other pill to Ripa, who also caught it mid-air. "And don't say I never do anything for you."

  Ripa took the pill with a grunt that could pass for thanks, then swallowed it too. He immediately began to feel better. Right after, Giordano turned back to Brando with a reproachful look.

  "You were a real idiot, Brando," Giordano told him. "Running toward us without even thinking. You could have gotten yourself killed."

  "Maybe I would have saved your asses," Brando retorted. "Which is exactly what I wanted to do. In the end, I ended up down here too."

  "We might not have ended up down here if—"

  "Silence." Bianca cut into the conversation with a sharp voice. "Look."

  The light from their KryoWatches revealed something strange. Looking more carefully at the tunnel that stretched before them, it wasn't a natural tunnel at all. The walls weren't made of rock or ice, but of rusted metal. And pipes and cables ran along the ceiling exactly like veins.

  "What the hell..." Giordano murmured.

  "That's impossible." Ripa blurted out. "Pits are always organic."

  "But this is completely artificial," Brando finished.

  Rusty moved restlessly at his feet. The puppy kept his third eye fixed on something further down the corridor, and his fur stood up like needles.

  "What is it?" Brando bent down toward him. "Do you sense something, Rusty?"

  In response, Rusty emitted a strange metallic woof, unlike anything Brando had heard from him before.

  "I don't like this," Giordano said tensely. "I really don't like this at all."

  "Let's move," Bianca ordered. There was something strange about her behavior. It was as if she already knew this place, a detail none of them missed.

  The group moved through the corridor as their footsteps echoed not on ice, not on rock, but on metal. The walls were covered with condensation from the cold, and occasionally they encountered areas where the metal had rusted.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  After a short traverse, they stopped in front of a massive door. Faded Academy symbols were stamped on the metal, but they weren't the same ones. How strange.

  Ripa stepped forward. "Allow me."

  He positioned himself and kicked the massive metal door with great force. The impact was like thunder in a cavern, and the door gave way, crashing to the ground. A new structure appeared before them. Everyone pointed their KryoWatch lights into the darkness of the place, and what was revealed made everyone's blood freeze, without exception.

  "Fuck," Giordano whispered.

  The room was enormous, resembling an amphitheater of metal and glass. Rows of cryogenic capsules extended in all directions like crystal coffins. Most of them had shattered glass, and whatever they had contained was long gone. Additionally, cables hung from the ceiling. At first glance, they could have been mistaken for exposed entrails.

  "It's a laboratory," Ripa said with an unusually tense voice. "A fucking laboratory right at the edge of the outside world."

  "Perfect. Just perfect." Giordano approached a console nearby. "You know, in horror movies, it's always in places like this that people die in creative ways."

  Bianca, meanwhile, stood frozen at the threshold. Her face showed something undecipherable.

  "Hey," Ripa turned toward her. "Are you okay?"

  "We shouldn't be here." Her voice trembled slightly. "This place shouldn't exist anymore."

  "Why? Do you know something?"

  "No," she answered too quickly. "It's just a feeling."

  "A feeling?" Ripa took a step toward her. "Like your 'feeling' about being a Yellow Stage?"

  Bianca changed suddenly. Fury entered her eyes, and in less than a millisecond, she materialized an ice blade and pointed it at Davide Ripa's throat.

  "Watch how you speak, Ripa," she hissed. "You know nothing about me."

  However, Ripa didn't seem scared at all. He looked at her with the eyes of a tiger.

  "Exactly. We know nothing about you, and that's the problem. You keep secrets from us as if we were children who need protection."

  "Guys..." Giordano began.

  "How dare you?" Bianca's eyes flashed dangerously as she pushed the cold blade even closer to the giant's throat. "Who do you think you are?"

  "A Ripa. A member of the Ninth. But that's not the point—I have nothing to hide. And you, Ruggeri? What are you hiding?"

  "ENOUGH!" Brando's voice interrupted the argument. "Fighting won't get us out of here."

  Silence fell in the laboratory. Ripa and Bianca stared at each other like snakes ready to strike.

  "Look at this," Giordano said, breaking the tension. He had managed to activate an old terminal. "There are files on something called 'Deviation Project.' It talks about subjects and tests."

  "What kind of tests?" Brando asked.

  "I can't read much. It's all corrupted. But it keeps mentioning something about Cold Veins and... controlled mutations?"

  Bianca moved so quickly that she seemed to teleport next to Giordano. Her eyes rapidly scanned the screen.

  "Turn it off," she ordered.

  "But—"

  "I said turn it off!" She forcefully shoved Giordano aside and shut down the monitor herself. Meanwhile, Rusty had moved toward the center of the room, attracted by something. His third eye now glowed with a feverish light.

  "Hey, little one," Brando called. "Where are you going?"

  The puppy stopped in front of a central capsule, larger than the others. It was covered in dust and grime but appeared less damaged. Brando approached, and there was something strange about that capsule, as if it emitted a frequency that only he and Rusty could perceive.

  He ran a hand over the surface, wiping away years of dust. And suddenly, an inscription emerged.

  SG73. CODE NAME: KARANTI

  The world seemed to stop for an instant. That name. The same name the entity in the Daedalus had used for him.

  "Bianca." His voice was hoarse. "What does this mean?"

  Brando turned toward the girl. She had a dark expression on her face, one of fury. Bianca stared at the inscription with an expression he had never seen on her before. Pure shock.

  "How..." she whispered. "How is this possible?"

  "You know, don't you?" Brando took a step toward her. "You know what KARANTI means."

  Bianca backed away. For the first time since he had known her, she seemed truly shaken.

  "Not here," she said. "I can't talk about it here."

  "Why not?"

  "Because all of this shouldn't exist anymore!" Her voice cracked. "These experiments were all destroyed. The Protector personally ensured that—"

  She stopped abruptly, bringing a hand to her mouth.

  "The Protector?" Ripa approached. "What does the Protector have to do with all this?"

  "Guys." Giordano held what appeared to be an old diary. "You should see this."

  The pages were yellowed and fragile, but some fragments were still legible. Brando approached to read.

  "Day 647. The experiments on the Deviants are proceeding according to parameters. The subject KARANTI shows compatibility superior to what was predicted. The Cold Veins seem to respond in such a way..."

  The rest of the page wasn't legible. Then Giordano began to flip through it, managing to understand bits and pieces.

  "According to these notes, the laboratory was working on something called the 'Deviation Project.' They were studying Cold Veins and trying to modify them."

  "That's why there are capsules everywhere," Ripa said, looking around. "They were containment capsules."

  A shiver ran down Brando's spine. The broken capsules, the scattered documents, the abandoned instruments... everything spoke of experiments that shouldn't have existed.

  That's when it happened.

  Bianca doubled over with a strangled cry. Her body trembled as if she were trying to contain something too large.

  "Bianca!" Brando moved to approach her.

  "NO!" The scream resonated against the metal walls. "Stay back!"

  Her skin had begun to change, with dark patches spreading like ink beneath her surface. Her green eyes then began to glow with an unnatural light.

  "It's the laboratory," Bianca gasped, her voice oscillating between human and something else. "It's awakening something."