Seriously?!
Jill Young really wanted to squint and throw out a sarcastic comment, but things were urgent right now. In the end, she chose to trust her mom unconditionally and asked decisively, "How do you treat this disease?"
Susan Morrow's answer made everyone tense up: "There's no cure for this disease—not right now, at least not for me. I can only see scattered fragments of memories, not the full picture, and definitely not the key technical details. But I did learn one important thing: your aunt was the lead researcher back then, and she ran the project. She knows all about this stuff."
Jill nodded at that. Her aunt wasn't just a witness to all this—she'd been right at the core, at the most crucial spot. So even if Mom only saw bits and pieces, the intel she had was way more precise than whatever Donald Zade could offer.
Jill looked at Susan Morrow. "Is there any way to help my cousin?"
"I don't know if there's a way to truly cure this genetic collapse, but I do know one thing for sure: she saw this coming a long time ago, so she left a backup plan in her lab." Susan Morrow rubbed her temples, looking serious. "Her lab is called Tiberius. I can't promise that going there will fix everything, but I'm certain it's the only place where Jonathan might have a shot at survival."
Jill's gaze instantly grew distant and thoughtful.
Tiberius—again with Tiberius. Jill had heard that name over and over.
Back when things first started getting interesting, Jill saw that name for the first time at the SD Syndicate base in Eastern Ukraine. She and Nina hacked into SD's internal system together and found a record of a zombie sale—the buyer was none other than the Tiberius Laboratory. Ever since then, Jill knew that lab was no ordinary place.
Later, she picked up all sorts of bits and pieces:
She knew her aunt, Susan Soo, had once been the chief at Tiberius.
She knew Donald Zade had served as Tiberius's director, but during his time in charge, he never produced any real results. The 'super soldiers' on that Pacific island? All leftovers from her aunt's era as chief.
She knew her cousin Jonathan Black, and other Zade sons like Donald, got their physical strength from the research at that lab. Jonathan was different from regular humans, able to break through to the second level of Dragon Elephant with his life energy, and now facing the crisis of genetic collapse—all thanks to the lab's work.
Just recently, the white room she saw on the SD Syndicate's big ship, the knockoff Iron Blood, and that slaughterer who finally succumbed to genetic collapse—they all might've come from Tiberius.
Most important of all, maybe Aunt Susan Soo's death was tied to all this too.
And that experiment's codename? Probably PROJECT-X. The name was buried deep in Jonathan and Susan Morrow's memories, always just out of reach, impossible to pin down.
A million clues and connections—all pointing straight at the lab. Tiberius was shrouded in a surreal, ghostly fog, impossibly deep and mysterious, hiding endless secrets. Somehow, this lab was tied to her family’s fate, from the freezing north to the blazing tropics. No matter where they ran, they just couldn’t get away from it.
Jill knew she had to find that lab, hunt down a possible cure, and grab hold of any hope for saving Jonathan. She also needed to uncover the truth behind Susan Soo’s death—the truth buried by time.
Meanwhile, Dream Monroe’s eyes flashed with a glimmer. She could sense it clearly: fate’s threads were all leading to that lab. No matter what, she had to go there.
"Everyone listen up, we’re now in battle mode," Jill ordered decisively. "Finish all prep work within eight hours and stand by for my next command!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Bobby Brooks and the girl with glasses responded crisply.
Eight hours. The whole Eternal Night Holdings Group kicked into high gear.
The intel department started gathering every scrap of info, trying to predict the current state of the Tiberius Laboratory as accurately as possible. Charlie marched off to Prison Island with a face like thunder to interrogate Donald Zade, hoping to lock down the lab's location.
The medical team began a thorough assessment of Jonathan Black’s condition, hoping to put together a 'death countdown' to guide everyone’s next steps—but that was easier said than done.
The intel stuff was way too complicated for Jill, so she poured most of her energy into the medical side. The stronger the Zade sons, the faster the genetic collapse, so she decided to try the opposite—refining Jonathan’s life energy.
Jonathan thought back carefully and realized he’d recently started showing signs of breaking through to the fifth level of Dragon Elephant. The moment those signs appeared, his heart stopped for the first time and he fell into a coma.
Normally, training is like rowing upstream—the higher you go, the tougher it gets, and every step is harder than the last, until you finally reach the top. But Jonathan was like a comet sucked into a black hole, falling faster and faster, heading straight for total annihilation. A month ago he’d just broken through the fourth level, and now, only a month later, he was about to hit the fifth. That kind of speed just wasn’t normal.
So, stopping Jonathan from getting any stronger seemed like the right move.
But after trying over and over, the results were disappointing. Jill found that the Grand Refinement Technique could only temporarily gather Jonathan’s blood energy in his lower abdomen, slowing his progress, but it couldn’t actually lower his physical rank. Jonathan was still alive, not a zombie—the technique just caused pain, not results. If she went all out with the Grand Refinement, Jonathan would probably die from the pain before he ever lost his strength.
This chapter isn’t over yet ^.^ Click next page to keep reading!
So, the Grand Refinement Technique was only a stopgap. If they wanted a real solution, they had to see what they could dig up in the Tiberius Laboratory.
A few hours later, the intel department came back with their initial results—and they weren’t great.
First off, the Tiberius Laboratory that Donald Zade ran? They knew exactly where that was—in Texas, USA. Charlie had already grilled Donald before, and after another round of threats and bribery, they could confirm his intel was legit. Just give him a map of America, and he’d point right at the spot and say, "That’s the lab."
Jill was just about to wave her hand and storm the place when Charlie poured ice water on her excitement: knowing the location was useless. The reason was simple—the Tiberius that Susan Soo ran and the one Donald Zade ran weren’t even the same place. Heck, they weren’t even the same lab!
"Two labs with the same name? Are you kidding me?" Jill fumed. "If that loser’s got nothing but bad news, he can just sit tight and wait to die!"
"He doesn’t know much, really. Here’s the gist," Charlie summed up. "The Tiberius Laboratory was once the Zade Family’s core project, and their rise today is thanks to the foundation laid by the lab almost thirty years ago. Later, for reasons unknown, the lab was abandoned, and Zade built a new one. The new lab kept the name and research direction—biochem and medical—but after all these years, it still hasn’t produced results anywhere near the old lab’s."
"None of that helps!" Jill slapped the table. "I just want to know where to find this lab! Look, the old Tiberius couldn’t have been run by my aunt alone—there must’ve been tons of random staff. Even if they weren’t researchers, even if they just delivered lunch or cleaned toilets, as long as I can find someone to show us the way, everything else will fall into place! What I need now is a guide—a real old hand. Got anyone like that?"
"I know someone." Jonathan Black looked pale, fully aware of the crisis he was facing. But instead of despair, this tough, no-nonsense mob boss showed a kind of fierce determination that was hard to describe.
"Who?"
"An old guy who used to work at Tiberius as a researcher. I met him at my mom’s funeral. Later, Donald Zade took him away, and now he’s probably in Zade’s hands. We kind of know where he is thanks to Donald’s testimony, but I think there’s a good chance the Zade Family’s laid a trap. We’re just not ready yet." Jonathan stared at Jill, expression grave.
Jonathan’s words might’ve sounded vague, but nobody in the room was clueless—they all got what he was really saying.
Tiberius was the Zade Family’s foundation, and it probably held a ton of top-secret intel about them. If Jonathan—a Zade son who’s always hated the family—got his hands on any dirt, things would get messy fast. Last time Jonathan set foot in Kansas, Donald Zade nabbed him on the spot—right time, right place, right people. It was a warning, plain and simple.
What does that mean? Two things: First, the Zade Family had tabs on Jonathan’s every move. Second, they really didn’t want anyone poking around about Susan Soo.
Last time was just a slap on the wrist, and back then, the Zade Family didn’t bother with a little outcast like him. But now, if Eternal Night starts throwing resources at chasing down the Tiberius Lab, the Zades might hit back—hard.
When that happens, all-out war will be right around the corner.
Going head-to-head with a deep-rooted, sprawling, and secretive powerhouse like the Zade Family would be a terrible move for a rising group like Eternal Night.
But since when has Jill cared about playing it safe?
"If it’s a fight they want, bring it on! Are the Zades really ready for me? If they tick me off, I’ll charge in solo and flatten their whole clan!" Jill’s resolve was as tough as steel and rock. "This time, I’m not just curing your disease—I’m getting to the bottom of what happened twenty-seven years ago! Aunt Susan’s revenge will be paid, blood for blood!"