Chapter 476 Abandoned Factory, Abyss Entrance

Chapter 476 Abandoned Factory, Abyss Entrance

The Abandoned Steel Mill No. 7.

The rusty iron gate hung half-open. When the wind blew, it made a harsh, grating screech like the groan of someone dying.

The air was thick with the corrosive smell of rust, motor oil, and some kind of volatile chemical. Breathing it in brought a sense of ominous dread.

Sophia and Nicholas got out of the car.

"Lock it down. Don't let a single fly get out." Nicholas gave the order to his assistant.

The assistant had already cleared the perimeter with his team. The Martinez Group's most elite security personnel blended into the night like shadows, silently taking up positions at every vantage point and possible escape route.

This place was less a factory and more a graveyard of steel. Massive crane arms jutted into the ground at odd angles. The broken-down buildings looked like gnawed skeletons, casting sinister shadows in the moonlight.

"Picking a place like this—afraid people won't know there's something shady going on?" Sophia's voice was low but especially clear in the dead silence.

Nicholas didn't respond. He just walked beside her, positioning himself to keep her in the safer spot.

The two of them entered the largest main building.

Inside it was empty, with only a few giant machines stripped down to their shells, covered in a thick layer of dust.

Sophia suddenly stopped walking.

She didn't look at the obvious machinery. Instead, her gaze fell on the very back of the building—on an unremarkable concrete wall.

"What is it?"

"This wall. It's too clean."

The wall looked no different from anywhere else, but something felt off. A strange sense of familiarity, like looking at an old painting through frosted glass—blurry, but undeniably there.

She walked over and reached out, her fingertips slowly tracing across the cold, rough surface of the wall.

Nicholas followed behind her and also noticed something unusual. The color of this wall was just slightly newer than the surrounding walls, and the dust was more evenly distributed, as if it had been deliberately cleaned.

Sophia's hand stopped at an inconspicuous corner where there was a barely visible scratch that almost blended into the wall itself. She pressed lightly with her fingertip.

A dull mechanical grinding sound started up. The entire wall slowly slid open from the center, revealing a pitch-black entrance.

A narrow metal staircase, just wide enough for one person, spiraled down into the unknown depths below.

Cold air rushed out from the passage, carrying an even stronger smell of chemicals.

"If this collapses, we're going to end up as a pair of doomed lovebirds down here." Sophia was still in the mood to joke.

Nicholas said nothing. He just gripped her hand tightly and went down first, with Sophia following close behind.

The passage was long. The stairs were open-grate, and every step made your heart tighten. After about five minutes, their feet finally touched solid ground.

The space opened up before them.

This was a massive underground area, far larger than they'd imagined.

"Quite the operation."

More than a lab, this was an underground base. Row after row of stainless steel lab benches held various petri dishes and glassware scattered about. Most had been abandoned, but in some corners, equipment indicator lights still flickered with a faint glow.

On the walls, painted in red spray paint, were blooming white orchids—one after another. The shapes were identical to the pendant on Yasmin's bracelet and to that crystal carving.

"Yasmin's taste really never changes." Sophia let out a cold laugh. These graffiti marks were like bloody brands, declaring who owned this place.

In the center of the lab stood a massive cylindrical glass incubation chamber. The chamber was empty, but on the inner walls were traces of fine, pale yellow powdery marks. Under the light, you could faintly make out the outline of pollen.

Sophia's breathing hitched.

She slowly walked toward the incubation chamber, as if pulled by some invisible force. Her gaze fell on a lab bench in the very corner of the room.

Unlike the rest of the cluttered space, this bench had only a closed laptop and a blue folder covered in dust.

She walked over, blew the dust off the folder, and revealed three words written in pen on the cover.

Gordon.

Her hand trembled slightly as she opened the folder. Inside wasn't a lab report but a diary. The handwriting was elegant and forceful, recording the final madness of a genius biologist.

"Within the gene sequence of the 'Moon Beauty,' there exists a peculiar active factor. It seems capable of resonating with specific neurons in the human cerebral cortex. Theoretically, it could serve as a key to awakening deep memories..."

At the same time, Nicholas had already powered on the laptop. He bypassed several simple physical locks and directly plugged in the special USB drive Big Cat had given him.

The screen lit up, skipping the tedious startup process and going straight into a hidden backend system.

The system contained only one encrypted file, code-named "Project Phoenix."

Sophia flipped through the diary, reading aloud in a voice devoid of emotion: "...The idea of memory transplantation is too insane, but what about 'revival'? Awakening those innate talents and memories that have been sealed off by trauma..."

"Project Phoenix." Nicholas's voice came from behind the computer, the two phrases echoing each other.

Sophia didn't stop turning pages, her fingertips ice-cold.

"...The test subject showed severe rejection reactions. We must find a perfect 'vessel,' a carrier that is compatible at the genetic level, a... brand-new life form capable of bearing divine power."

These words were like scalpels, cutting open a bloody truth she had never touched.

Nicholas's fingers flew across the keyboard, forcibly cracking the password. The file opened. Inside was a massive amount of experimental data and genetic maps, densely packed and unsettling to look at.

He scrolled straight to the end and found a final test subject report.

"There's a genetic comparison report here," he looked up at Sophia. "Sample number: Q-77."

Below the report was a DNA sequence comparison chart. One of the DNA samples used for comparison was very familiar to him. It was data left behind from years ago when Sophia had a comprehensive physical exam at the Martinez family.

The two DNA sequences were a high match.

Nicholas's body went rigid.

He slowly raised his head and looked at Sophia in the distance. She was standing there, holding that old diary, moonlight filtering through the grate of a ceiling vent and casting mottled light and shadow across her.

She seemed to have also reached the last page of the diary. Her whole body had gone still.

Nicholas slowly turned the laptop screen toward her.

Sophia's gaze moved from the diary, across the abandoned instruments and blood-red orchid graffiti, and landed on that bright screen.

On the screen, beneath the words "Project Phoenix," was that clear DNA comparison chart.

On the last page of the diary, Gordon had written in an almost manic hand:

"I found it... I finally found it... the perfect vessel. She will be my continuation, an existence beyond mortals, my... Phoenix."

Sophia looked at the genetic sequence on the screen, then looked down at the words "perfect vessel" in the diary.

She suddenly laughed—a light, cold sound.

"So I'm the prize?"

Nicholas stood up, walked over to her, took the diary from her hands, and tossed it onto the lab bench.

His gaze swept across the computer screen and finally landed on Gordon's name.

"He deserved to die."