Apocalypse Villainess? Nah, I'm Nice

The course of events can sometimes be incredibly subtle.

When Marcus Monroe saw the fragments of iron shackles and glanced at the demolished laboratory—now a pile of ruins open to view—he was somehow reminded of the underground lab in Norgate. A thought struck him, and he immediately called over the team’s Earth Ability User to give him some instructions.

At the same time, he began calling over members of The Research Institute’s Guard to ask if they had found any survivors.

If they had told him the truth, he would have certainly gone to the medical department for a look, and he would have found Paige Summers... But as fate would have it, they had been instructed by Vice Dean Sawyer to conceal the existence of any survivors.

Furthermore, Seth Walsh’s face was smashed beyond recognition. As for the others, like Professor Warren, they were strangers to him and had no apparent connection to Paige Summers.

And so, Marcus Monroe and his team discovered the underground laboratory that would shock all of Central City, but they missed the best chance to find Paige Summers!

When they found the underground laboratory, a number of terrified and bewildered researchers were still inside. The main laboratory building was not far above them. When the explosion occurred, many experimental instruments in the underground lab had also shattered, so they naturally knew something had gone wrong. But they were unclear on the specifics, and the fact that Professor Warren and the others never showed up only intensified their fear.

When Marcus Monroe and his people came down, the researchers actually breathed a sigh of relief.

This laboratory wasn’t just researching the Youth Recovery Potion; it was also conducting several studies that couldn’t see the light of day.

For example, combining the genes of Mutant Beasts with humans to create beings with the formidable bodies of Mutant Beasts and the minds of humans. Another was the fusion of humans and Zombies, creating beings that retained human intelligence but possessed the immortality of Zombies... and so on. When the surviving researchers revealed the contents of these experiments, it shook not only The Research Institute but the entire upper echelon of Central City!

They were especially horrified when they saw the new species that were neither human nor Mutant Beast, the artificial Zombies kept as test subjects in a cave, and even a female Superpower User who was six months pregnant—and the one who impregnated her was a Mutant Beast. Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads!

It was too shocking, too horrifying!

They hardly dared to imagine the impact on humanity if such experiments were to succeed!

Fortunately, not a single one had been completed.

But over several years of experimentation, far too many Superpower Users had already died. When the approximate number was reported, everyone was outraged!

Later, through the interrogation of Administrator Hayes, they learned that the laboratory was backed by Silas Dudley and Seth Walsh, and that they were the ones who had sent the Superpower Users there...

Once again, everyone was struck speechless.

The fact that Silas Dudley needed the blood of Superpower Users was something they had tacitly accepted.

But they never imagined that Silas Dudley had procured far more Superpower Users than they knew, and that the amount of blood he needed wasn’t actually that large. He had thrown most of the Superpower Users into this underground laboratory to conduct these anti-human experiments!

And what he wanted to do was self-evident!

Silas Dudley’s ambition had caused Astoria to suffer enormous losses. They had lost so many Superpower Users, and their own indulgence had allowed his plans to proceed unimpeded.

If not for the various activities and organizational efforts by Paige Summers and Marcus Monroe this time, which convinced them to launch an encirclement operation against the Noble Houses led by the Dudley Family, these experiments... would have continued for who knows how much longer!

The shockwaves from the revelation of these experiments were so immense that almost no one paid attention to the Youth Recovery Potion project.

Professor Warren had been personally in charge of this experiment, and very few people knew about it. Most of those who did had gone to watch Paige Summers’s procedure and were blown to smithereens along with the professor.

Among the remaining researchers, only two had a vague idea about it.

But seeing as no one asked, they were sensible enough to keep their mouths shut. A good number of Superpower Users had died in that experiment, and they didn’t want to add to their own list of crimes!

And because of this, Marcus Monroe once again missed the chance to find a clue related to Paige Summers.

Just then, something truly terrible happened to him.

He could no longer feel Paige Summers’s presence!

This made him feel a very real, tangible fear.

’Silas Dudley disappeared at the same time as Paige. Could he have taken control of her? Did he see his lab being discovered from the shadows and kill her out of pure spite?!’

As the thought crossed his mind, he quickly dismissed it.

’Impossible!’

’Paige would never die!’

He told himself firmly.

’She must still be alive. The connection between them was only severed for some reason!’

’That has to be it!’

Soon, he found another possibility in Administrator Hayes’s confession.

According to the confession, Silas Dudley had sent several batches of test subjects out of Central City. The specific location was unknown, but the general direction was north.

Marcus’s mind immediately jumped to what he had encountered in Norgate. He realized that the group of unidentified people in black, who were connected to Nora Lowell, were probably Silas Dudley’s contacts there!

He felt a vague sense of relief.

’That’s it. Everything Silas Dudley had in Central City was destroyed. If he captured Paige, he must have taken her with him and left this place to go find those people!’

And so, after thoroughly searching the underground laboratory and finding no other clues, he took his men and once again set out on the road to Norgate...

By this time, nearly a month had passed since the laboratory explosion.

Paige Summers was still in the medical department of The Research Institute.

Vice Dean Sawyer had initially hidden her existence, intending to wait for her to wake up. He wanted to be the first to ask what had happened and see if it was detrimental to The Research Institute so he could plan his response.

But Paige Summers remained in a coma. A full-body examination revealed nothing particularly unusual about her body, except that all her bodily functions seemed to be dormant. Even her breathing was weaker than a normal person’s. In other words, she was in a vegetative state, and it was hard to say when she would recover.

As such, Vice Dean Sawyer lost interest in her, assuming she was just a Superpower User who hadn’t been experimented on yet.

But just throwing her out wasn’t an option. After all, what if someone found out he had hidden her? So, he simply had her moved to a small sickroom, where she was put on a daily IV drip to meet her basic survival needs.

At that time, Paige Summers was still in a wretched state.

Her hair was singed and uneven, and her face and body were covered in a mixture of blood and dirt, as if coated in a thick, earthy shell that obscured her original appearance.

In that chaotic situation, no one had the mind to take proper care of her.

It wasn’t until a few days later, after Vice Dean Sawyer had moved her to the small sickroom and it looked like she would be staying long-term, that a few nurses finally couldn’t stand the smell anymore and decided to clean her up.