Chapter 85
The doors to the conference room slammed shut, and the sounds of debate still echoed against the metal walls.
In the corridor outside the lobby, several senior executives quietly dispersed. There were no recording devices, no public speeches, only hushed whispers.
"They are variables."
The silver-haired political official spoke first, his tone cold and hard, "If we are truly tainted by that 'third force,' they could become weapons at any time... but not necessarily for our use."
Another person scoffed: "So what do you want to do? Lock them up directly? They are battlefield heroes, and the entire army regards them as the last spark of hope. We can't do anything about them openly."
"Just because something can't be done openly doesn't mean there's no way to do it behind the scenes."
The Chief Executive squinted and handed over a dark red chip.
“We have experimental projects—isolation chambers and mental barriers—that can monitor and weaken the erosion of that ‘foreign will.’ We just need to send them in under the guise of ‘medical observation.’”
One of the military officers frowned: "Isn't that tantamount to pushing them to the opposite side? What if they find out..."
"Awareness?"
The Chief Executive chuckled softly, a chill settling in his eyes.
“They are in the spotlight, surrounded by suspicion and fear. Even if they do not resist, they will be isolated sooner or later. Rather than letting that force grow, it is better to lock them in a cage first.”
The corridor fell silent.
Finally, one person whispered a conclusion: "Then let's implement it on a small scale, record it in the medical records, and never let anyone else know about it."
The group nodded, their figures disappearing at the end of the dimly lit corridor.
Meanwhile, in the medical pod.
237, half-asleep, suddenly felt a chill in his heart, as if sensing a coldness approaching from afar.
Sprout 12 sat beside him, clutching the fragment of the long blade, and looked up warily.
He murmured, "...They've got their eyes on us."
The medical ward was quiet in the dead of night, with the lights dimmed to their lowest setting, leaving only the faint flickering of the heart rate monitor.
237 fell into a deep sleep, but in the darkness, his consciousness was suddenly pulled into another void.
There were no physical forms, only layers of whispers, surging in from all directions like a tide:
"...They are afraid of you..."
...They will lock you up...
...You don't belong to them...
The sound is not words, but rather a direct tearing of the mark deep within the soul.
237's heart pounded violently. He saw countless afterimages, like figures from higher levels coldly looking down, holding a sealed cage in their hands.
The whispers continued to seep in:
Their schemes are already clear to me...
"...If you're willing to reach out, I can tear off your shackles..."
In an instant, a giant pupil appeared in the void and slowly opened.
It wasn't a hostile gaze, but rather an indifference as cold as a judgment.
It looked down at him, waiting for a response.
237's breathing suddenly tightened, and sweat streamed down his forehead.
He wanted to refuse, but his throat was invisibly locked.
In that suffocating moment, a familiar light pierced through the dark crack—
The afterimage of Sprout 12.
Like some kind of instinct, his will broke through the black mist, turning into a light pattern that wrapped around 237's wrist.
"...Don't forget, you're not alone."
The sound wasn't loud, but it acted like an anchor, pulling him back to reality.
237 suddenly opened his eyes, his chest heaving violently.
Faint footsteps could be heard outside the medical pod, as if someone was patrolling or checking something.
He didn't make a sound, but simply raised his eyes and met the gaze of Bean Sprout 12, who was keeping watch by his bedside.
After a moment of silence, he whispered:
"They want to imprison us."
Sprout 12 wasn't surprised; she simply pressed the long blade fragment against the edge of the bed and coldly replied:
"Then let them give it a try."
The atmosphere in the hall that morning was even more oppressive than the storm of the previous night.
The high-ranking officials sat around a long table, where postwar data flashed on a projection screen: casualty rates, energy fluctuation curves, and dark readings remaining in the rifts.
The most striking feature is the continuous increase in the unknown energy within 237's body.
“We must take immediate action,” a high-ranking official said coldly, pointing to the pulse curve on the projection screen. “He is no longer just a simple soldier, but an uncertain flashpoint.”
Another person chimed in: "Yesterday's dream recordings detected that his brainwaves resonated with an unknown frequency. We can't take any more risks."
Therefore—medical isolation.
As soon as the words were spoken, the screen suddenly switched to show a design blueprint for a sealed cabin, with thick alloy walls and surrounding suppression arrays, resembling a prison.
A brief silence fell over the hall.
Someone hesitated before speaking: "But he is the key to the counterattack. Without him, the avatar could never have been severed..."
“That’s why he’s even more dangerous.” The high-ranking official interrupted coldly. “We can’t entrust our future to a host that might be ‘used’ by a third force.”
The sound of typing echoed on the desktop; the plan was almost finalized.
--at the same time.
Inside the medical pod, Sprout 12 stood quietly by 237's side, her expression grave.
Through the barrier, he could sense the clamor of the distant meeting and even vaguely catch glimpses of those cold resolutions.
237 leaned against the bed, his expression indifferent, as if he had already heard it.
He whispered, "They're going to lock me up."
Sprout 12 remained silent for a moment, then placed his hand on the fragment of the long blade, which emitted a slight vibration.
“Then let them lock it. We don’t need to stop the first step—once they think they’ve got it, it’ll be easier for them to reveal their true hand.”
237 turned her head and met his gaze.
Are you willing to take this risk together?
Sprout 12 grinned, his smile carrying the taste of blood.
“I am the ember chosen by the Mother Tree, how could I let you carry it alone?”
The lights in the medical pod suddenly flickered, and footsteps approached from afar.
A beep sounded indicating that the metal door had been unlocked.
237 took a deep breath, composed himself, and closed his eyes, looking like a patient too weak to resist.
The 12 sprouts sat quietly, their branches and leaves drooping, like a withered tree on the verge of death.
They knew that this moment of "compliance" was only the first step in their counterattack.
The metal door slowly opened, and a suppression device radiating rune light was pushed in. Cold, hard footsteps echoed inside the medical pod as several guards clad in alloy armor entered, carrying restraint devices.
Their eyes were devoid of any emotion; they regarded 237 merely as an "energy body" that needed to be sealed away.
An executive coldly announced:
"237, according to the high-level decision, you will enter the medical isolation ward until the energy source is clearly identified."
—No room for negotiation, no room for compromise.
237's eyelashes trembled slightly on the bed, but he did not resist. He slowly stretched out his arm, letting the restraint rings be put on. At that moment, the suppression runes on the rings flashed with a cold light, as if to extinguish all fluctuations.
But only he knew that deep within his body, the seed was trembling.
It is not fear, but a response—a response from the distant other side of the rift, a response from a higher order.
The drooping branches of Sprout 12 were almost touching the ground, as if they had completely lost their vitality. But beneath the withered outer shell, delicate roots had quietly burrowed into the ground, reaching the energy pipes beneath the medical pod.
That is the instinct of the free spirit: to find a crack in any cage to grow.
Let's go.
237 spoke in a low voice, hoarse yet strangely calm.
The guards pushed the restraint frame, slowly leading him away. Sprout 12 accompanied him, allowed to enter the isolation chamber as a "companion sample"—in the eyes of the higher-ups, this was nothing more than an experimental subject.
The corridor was blindingly bright. Every footstep sounded like a declaration of the chains of fate.
—However, in the silence of their hearts, the seed and the free seed have already exchanged vows.
237: "They thought I was the one who needed to be quarantined."
Sprout12: "But the ones who will truly take root are us."
As the alloy door closed behind them, the rune array glowed, and the isolation chamber was sealed.
At that moment, the higher-ups outside breathed a sigh of relief, as if the danger had been kept behind a thick wall.
But deep inside the isolation chamber, in a space where darkness and silence overlapped, 237 slowly opened his eyes.
Deep within his pupils, a very fine ray of light flickered, like a new sprout breaking through the soil.
The 12 sprouts swayed gently, making a barely audible rustling sound.
The air in the isolation chamber was stifling, but to the plants, it was not a prison, but a new patch of soil.
Energy pipes, suppression arrays, alloy wall layers... In Root's imagination, these are nothing more than new "bark".
—And a seed, with just patience, can sprout from a crack.
The two looked at each other, and a silent consensus had been reached:
The real counterattack begins from the moment we are "locked in".
Inside the isolation chamber.
The walls gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen, and the halos of runes swirled across the ground, creating seemingly impenetrable energy barriers. The air was heavy, even the sound of breathing was muffled.
237 sat quietly in the center of the bed, her hands bound by restraint rings. Pulsating light spots constantly escaped from her wrists, but were immediately suppressed and swallowed up by the rune array.
To outsiders, he was merely an energy being gradually restricted.
But deep inside, the seed is slowly breathing.
With each breath, faint patterns spread deep within the chest cavity, like roots slowly extending and quietly touching the nodes of the rune array.
Sprout 12 leaned quietly against the wall, its surface still resembling a withered "experimental plant".
However, his drooping branches had silently penetrated into the cracks in the ground, and his fibrous roots had spread to the energy pipelines.
The rhythm of the pipes was like underground water, which he "drank" little by little, and then transmitted back to 237's body through subtle vibrations.
—The first anomaly appeared in the southeast corner of the rune array.
A halo flickered erratically, and the originally smooth energy patterns suddenly developed small breaks, as if some invisible thing had squeezed out a breathing hole in between.
The suppressive force suddenly relaxed for a moment.
At that very moment, 237's fingertips trembled slightly.
The restraint ring emitted a piercing alarm, but then went out as if nothing had ever happened.
The high-level monitoring projection only captured "brief energy fluctuations," which were then categorized by the system as a routine phenomenon of the isolation chamber "adapting."
No one suspected anything.
Inside the cabin, Sprout 12 raised its head, its branches and leaves trembling slightly.
He caught the scent flowing from the crevice—neither the black flames of the fissure nor the radiance of the mother tree's afterimage, but a strange yet familiar rhythm.
It was a call from a deeper level.
237 slowly opened his eyes, and a tiny "ring pattern" appeared deep in his pupils, like a mark of some ancient order.
He didn't speak, but he made Sprout 12 hear him in his mind:
"They thought they had trapped me... but what was truly trapped was their world."
Sprout 12 paused in breathing, then responded in a low voice:
"Then let's... let it bloom in the 'cage'."
Within the dark bulkhead, the light of the rune array flickered once more.
But if you look closely, you can see very fine green buds seeping out little by little along the cracks, like the marks of life left on the cold alloy.
—The isolation pod is no longer a prison.
It has become the first breeding ground for seeds and free-range seedlings.
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