For that $5 million.
Number 13 finally reached the flashing red light, beside an old sluice gate. The gate was at the end of the passageway, made of brass, and severely corroded. Its corners were marked with a German stamp indicating the time and the name of the factory that forged it—the year was 1912, almost a century ago. Back then, German forging techniques were the best in the world. Shipping this gate across the ocean to the United States must have been expensive.
1912—a long, long time ago.
Number 13 grasped the handle of the gate, wondering what he would see if he opened it. That unsettling feeling returned, as if opening the gate would trigger something terrible.
Everything seemed perfectly normal, but he felt an urge to abandon the 5 million dollars and flee the way he had come.
“Brother.”
He felt a shiver run down his spine and quickly turned around. There was no one behind him, just the sound of rippling water. Was it an auditory hallucination? He had no brother; he was an orphan, alone from beginning to end.
He leaned against the gate and accidentally pressed the handle down.
“Ah!” he screamed.
The moment the gate opened, he lost his balance, falling along with tens or hundreds of tons of saltwater, like a small kayak rushing down Niagara Falls. Number 13 closed his eyes tightly, and with a splash, he was enveloped in bubbles. He plunged into the water.
No. 13 slowly opened his eyes, then they widened.
He saw something completely unexpected, he saw a turtle, a curious turtle, and it also stared at him with wide eyes.
Although the turtle was slow, it soon lost interest in No. 13, who could neither eat nor play with it, and swam away with its flippers. No. 13 stared blankly at the turtle’s back as it left, and pressed his forehead. He suspected that his brain was damaged. A few seconds ago, he was in the underground passage of the academy, and the next moment he was in the sea? He floated to the surface and looked around. The towering glass walls surrounded the light blue water in the pool. The glass walls were embedded with light blue lights. The ice blue light refracted and changed in this world composed of glass and water, creating a very sci-fi atmosphere. There really is a huge waterfall not far away, gushing out from a gate dozens of meters high and hitting the artificial granite cliff. The part of the cliff that is out of water is extremely steep, but the underwater part is very flat, with seaweed, shellfish and corals growing slowly. Anemones wave their tentacles that are as pink as baby fingers, and brightly colored starfish and small fish are drilling around in the middle. The translucent school of fish comes like a gust of wind, circles around No. 13, and then leaves like the wind.
“An… aquarium?” Number 13 realized he had fallen into an aquarium tank.
“Speaking of such a big pond, isn’t it too much to just raise some sea turtles and anemones? Shouldn’t they raise a…” No. 13 shivered at the thought, and a chill suddenly flowed down his back.
“Shark?” This was the second half of the sentence.
He had once visited an aquarium in Brooklyn, accompanying the cheerleading captain from his high school who liked marine creatures to see the turtles. Afterward, the cheerleading captain never went out with him again, so he never returned to the aquarium. Now, he was seeing the aquarium from the perspective of a sea turtle, and it felt completely different from viewing it from outside the glass.
Number 13 slowly turned around. Behind him, a pair of eyes the size of ping-pong balls were staring at him curiously. It was a real great white shark, seemingly eager to prove it was a young shark capable of chewing. The shark slowly opened its mouth, revealing rows of teeth like thorns.
No. 13 looked at his hand in despair. This was the most unlucky day in his life. His hand was scratched by the gate when he fell, and a faint red color was oozing out. Everyone who has watched the “Discovery Channel” program knows that sharks will go crazy when they see blood. Even if you are a piece of wood, as long as you smell blood, it will pounce on you and bite you. Besides, No. 13 is really a good dish.
“Come on… come at me!” Number 13 said shakily.
“Brother…” A faint boy’s voice echoed in the air.
“Please, you are not calling me, are you?” At the end of his life, No. 13 actually thought that the world was so funny. Why could a shark actually speak?
The shark’s bloodshot eyes suddenly revealed a strange expression. This was the first time that No. 13 felt that he could actually see expressions in the eyes of fish. The shark slowly closed its mouth and moved its fins and tail, but it was not moving forward, but retreating silently. The distance between it and No. 13 gradually increased, like a vicious wolf approaching. When facing a wild boar, it retreated in a planned manner. When the distance was about 10 meters, the great white shark suddenly turned around, dived underwater at high speed, and dived into the artificial reef cave. Almost in an instant, red blood mist surged up from the reef cave, and then a big fish that was bitten to death was thrown out.
No. 13 did not understand what was going on. He only saw the pair of shark eyes that could show expression flash in the reef cave. It seemed to look at him with great fear, and then slowly disappeared. It seemed that the shark was terribly afraid of him, so it occupied the big fish’s lair and hid itself there.
But what was there to be afraid of? No. 13 felt his whole body, and there was not even a weapon left that he could use. At this time, he touched something in his pants pocket, a tin bottle, with a gray surface and patterns of lions and trees all over it. It looked like something with a history. The bottle stopper was sealed with a melted gray tin, and it would make a sound of water when shaken. There seemed to be half a bottle of liquid inside. No. 13 didn’t know what this thing was for. It was sent to him by his employer together with his mobile phone before the mission started. He only said to carry it with him and follow the operating procedures at critical moments. But no operating procedures were sent, and No. 13 almost forgot about it.
“Never mind.” No. 13 thought for a moment, put the gray tin bottle back into his trouser pocket, climbed up the artificial granite wall, and climbed out of the glass wall next to it.
“Cassell College, Water Ecology Tank No. 7, Primary Inhabitant: Pliosauroidea.” He read the sign on the glass wall.
Number 13 had no idea what “Pliosauroidea,” derived from Greek, meant, so he simply assumed it was the scientific classification of the great white shark. Thus, he misunderstood who was predator and who was prey in that massive saltwater tank, unaware of the true owner of the tank.
He carefully made his way through the passages between the glass walls. After who knew how long, he finally saw a sign at the end of the underwater passage: “Ice Cellar!”
6. Go to War
The leader of this mission was standing silently by the mosaic window of Odin Hall.
Not far from him, two second-year students holding Uzi submachine guns kept their hawk-like eyes on the outside, ready to fend off an attack at any moment, while being completely oblivious to the twelve people clustered behind them. Even if they concentrated on looking, all they would see was a faint, dark, blurry current in the air, like ghosts.
The eleven people pressed closely to the leader, almost glued to him, shuffling step by step into Valhalla.
Walking like this was extremely uncomfortable, but they had no better option. The field of “Yanling: Dark Light” was only a two-meter radius around the caster. They gathered together like petals around their captain, the central flower.
The captain looked at two photos hanging side by side on the wall.
“Ye Sheng, Cassell College Execution Bureau, Assistant Commissioner. XXXX.03—XXXX.10.”
“Sakatoku Aki, Cassell College Execution Bureau, Assistant Commissioner. XXXX.12—XXXX.10.”
The boy and girl in the photos were both Asian. The boy had a sunny smile with a hint of mischief at the corners of his lips, while the girl had a gentle face and warm eyes, her soft bangs covering her forehead—a girl-next-door look. Clearly, these two photos were cropped and enlarged from the same group graduation photo, both in graduation gowns, with the same dim yellow sunlight in the background, and in the distance, the ancient and mysterious Valhalla.
The other eleven people did not understand why the captain stopped to browse through the photos of past dragon-slaying heroes, but they could only wait; they all knew the captain’s temperament.
The captain silently sighed, walking along the central aisle toward the statue of Odin, the faint dark aura drifting along the path.
Everyone in Group B kept their eyes fixed on the outside, except for the boy in the white suit sitting on an oak bench, resting with his eyes closed. He had hair as bright as gold, holding a black hunting knife in his hand, with two massive silver “Desert Eagles” placed on the seat next to him. They were customized pistols with engraved ebony grips inlaid with ivory, the family crest in pure silver positioned at the center of the grip.