Chapter 62: Could it be…?

Meanwhile, on the other side, Kiz was also exploring.

After walking for a while, she discovered a passage leading underground.

Kiz carefully made her way down.

Then, she found a massive basement, and within this basement was a conspicuous room…

What is this place?

When she entered the room, she found rows of metal shelves holding various containers filled with unknown liquids and organs.

What shocked Kiz even more was that some containers held infants.

At this, Kiz’s eyes widened, and her fingers tightened slightly.

This… this place is definitely a laboratory.

But this kind of inhumane experiment… who could have done it?

She then stepped forward to examine the containers closely, noticing a label on each one. They bore numbers and dates.

The most recent date was thirty years ago… meaning this place… this laboratory had been abandoned for at least thirty years.

Next, Kiz continued deeper inside.

In the depths of the basement was a room larger than the previous ones, containing an operating table. On the table were remnants of dried blood.

A row of cabinets stood nearby.

She looked closely; inside were various instruments, now heavily rusted.

Then, she opened a drawer beneath the cabinet and found a stack of documents… written in the Common Language.

[Experiment No.: 074]

[Subject Source: Orphanage]

[Experiment Purpose: Test Holy Light Compatibility]

[Experiment Process: …]

But the writing after that was too blurry to read.

However… the words “Holy Light Compatibility”…

A bad premonition stirred within her.

Those inexplicable memory fragments troubling Elia, the fragmented scenes she described, and her extraordinary talent for the Holy Light.

Could it be…

She didn’t dare to think further.

Kiz took a deep breath to calm herself, then prepared to go back and find Elia.

However, just as she stepped out of the basement, she heard the sound of footsteps.

She saw Elia running over from the other end of the corridor, calling out, “Kiz!”

“Elia!” Kiz spoke almost simultaneously with her.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, as long as I’m not dead. What about you?”

“I’m fine too.”

The two, looking at each other, could see the concern in each other’s eyes.

Elia took out the scroll of parchment and said, “I found this over there.”

Then Kiz handed the documents she had found earlier to Elia.

As Elia looked at the file, her face grew paler and paler, her voice even trembling: “Holy Light compatibility… experiment… Could it be…”

At that moment, Kiz gently took her hand.

“Elia.”

Elia looked up at her.

“Are you… okay?” Kiz asked.

Elia was silent for a few seconds before whispering, “These… are very similar to what I saw in my dreams before… Could it be an experiment? I… I couldn’t be…”

The white room, a group of children, men in white robes, infants floating in unknown liquid… and in her recent dream, the scene of a child exploding before her eyes… Putting it all together…

A cruel guess surfaced in her mind, and an instinct drove her to resist accepting this truth.

Seeing Elia clearly on the verge of breaking down, Kiz quickly pulled her into an embrace and said softly, “Don’t think about it… No matter what happened in the past… I’ll be here by your side.”

After that, Elia fell silent, just holding her tightly.

It was only after a long while that she pulled away from Kiz’s embrace and said, “Let’s continue exploring deeper… There might be other clues.”

Kiz nodded and said, “Okay.”

Afterwards, the two continued exploring deeper.

They discovered that the underground space of this Temple was far larger than imagined. Besides the level containing the laboratory, there were several more floors—it was quite impressive.

This second level was more like a living area.

Hmm… There were quite a few small rooms here.

Elia then pushed open the door to one of the rooms and looked inside.

The bed in the room had yellowed sheets, and the cabinet beside the bed held a few tattered pieces of clothing.

She picked up a piece of clothing to look at.

This clothing is quite small… Is it a child’s size?

At that moment, Kiz also walked in and looked at the clothes, saying, “Many children lived here.”

“Mhm… It’s very likely they were subjects related to that experiment.”

After saying that, Elia put down the clothes and continued searching the cabinet. Then, in the bottommost layer, she found a notebook… and it was a diary.

She then opened the diary and skimmed through it.

The handwriting inside was very childish—clearly written by a child.

[Day One: They brought me to a white house. There are many children like me here. They said we would become very powerful.]

[Day Five: An older sister disappeared. They said she went to a better place. But I know she didn’t. She didn’t go anywhere… because I heard her screams.]

[Day Ten: Today it was my turn for a check-up. They put an iron ring on me and told me to close my eyes. My head hurt a lot, but I didn’t dare make a sound. Because if you make a sound, you end up like that sister.]

[Day Thirty: I can make light come out. They say it’s Holy Light, and that I’m very powerful. But I miss Mom so much… I want to go home…]

The diary ended there.

Elia turned to the last page, only to find a line of text that had been forcefully scratched out… though a few words were still faintly visible.

[…They lied to me… There is no home… There never was…]

Elia closed the diary, shut her eyes, and deeply furrowed her brow.

Kiz, who had just walked over, saw her expression. Without saying a word, she just tightened her grip on Elia’s hand, quietly staying by her side.

After some time, the two continued their exploration downward.

The third level was even more eerie than the previous two. There were many iron cages here, and some cages bore traces of human struggle.

Kiz crouched down to examine the marks, saying, “These traces are very old… at least a hundred years.”

Looking at the cages, more images flashed through Elia’s mind.

Cages… iron doors… chains… and a pair of eyes staring intently at her from the darkness.

She shook her head violently to dispel the images, then patted Kiz’s head and said, “Let’s keep going.”

At the far end of the third level was a massive iron door.

What surprised them was… carved on the door was a mark in the shape of a Holy Grail… the symbol of the Holy Grail Order.

“The Holy Grail Order? Why would they have something here… Could it be…”

Elia’s fingers tightened slightly.

At that moment, another guess formed in her heart.

Kiz came to her side and asked softly, “Well? Shall we go in?”

Elia took a deep breath and said, “We’ve come this far, let’s go in.”

The door wasn’t locked; it opened with a gentle push.

In the center of the hall behind the door stood a huge container filled with a transparent liquid… and floating within it was… a girl.

The little girl looked only about seven or eight years old, her skin terrifyingly pale, her golden hair slowly drifting in the water.

Elia’s pupils contracted sharply.

That child… looked remarkably similar to her…