Chapter 293: Chapter 281: Obstacles in Recruitment
Mirefall. The lab. The "doctor." ’Just what did these people do,’ Flora wondered, ’to make a perfectly normal human start shedding its skin like a snake?’
They watched Jack Locke curled up on the ground. The scales below his navel squeezed against each other as a transparent snakeskin peeled off his body, piece by piece, layer by layer.
Jack Locke was like a soulless puppet. His face was devoid of pain, his body free of tension. He looked as if this was completely normal and not at all painful.
And yet, the transparent shed skin was clearly streaked with blood and carried a thick, strange, coppery stench.
Flora Bloom gestured for Cynthia Grant to leave with her. The moment they stepped out of the villa, the oppressive atmosphere was swept away by the fresh outdoor air. Cynthia Grant looked unwell, and Flora Bloom had to take deep breaths herself to suppress the churning in her stomach.
"Flora... is that... still human?"
Flora Bloom was suddenly overcome with such dejection that she didn’t want to speak. A normal Beast Type, though their evolutionary breakthroughs were agonizing, was still fundamentally human—and a very powerful human, at that.
Annelise Locke was an undeniably powerful existence after breaking through to the Middle Level. But Jack Locke? Flora Bloom didn’t know what he had suffered in that lab, but she was certain of one thing: he was no longer just a Beast-type Adept. ’And as for being human... is he still?’
"I don’t know."
Even after ten years in the apocalypse, after growing accustomed to seeing humanity shatter every moral boundary, to the endless infighting over resources, to a world devoid of compassion, Jack Locke’s ordeal still managed to weigh heavily on her heart.
If Jack Locke was no longer human, then what must have been going through the minds of the doctor and the lab staff—the very people who had turned him into *this*—as they experimented on him?
In a society ruled by law, people abided by reason and contracts, never daring to cross the moral line. In the natural world, all life followed the principle of survival of the fittest, eliminating one another. The weak were meat for the strong; there were no limits.
Now, nature remained the same. But humanity? Humanity had adopted that same law of the jungle. It was kill or be killed, a world with no limits, so morally broken that people treated their own kind like test subjects from the bottom of the food chain. It was bloody and cruel.
Even though they both knew in their hearts that this was the apocalypse and there was no returning to the harmonious society of the past, Jack Locke’s fate truly stirred their deepest feelings of revulsion.
Humanity, which had once proudly considered itself the apex of the food chain, had now stooped to fighting for scraps like the lowest creatures, even resorting to killing and devouring the untainted souls of their own kind.
In this apocalyptic world, no sanctuary remained.
With heavy hearts, Flora Bloom and Cynthia Grant walked to the recruitment area inside the isolation gate.
The sight that greeted them left them dumbfounded. Why was there a massive line, like something you’d see at a busy market? They walked up behind Ethan Monroe and saw two men pinned under his foot, their bodies overlapping as they howled in pain.
They even recognized one of them.
It was Emil Preston, one of the men she had brought out of the hospital, along with Mark Sterling and another man called F.U.
She’d seen the other man before as well. He was the husband of that woman she’d run into on her way back the other day—the one who begged for help, only to try and drag Flora down with her, hoping Flora would take her daughter’s place.
Those two together were like rotten fish paired with rotten shrimp—a match made in filth. Unsurprisingly, Flora Bloom ignored the two men struggling under Ethan Monroe’s foot, walked over to the small table, and picked up the stack of completed registration forms.
"May Underwood?"
"Li Huanhuan?"
"Chloe Thorne?"
"Ruby Rooney?"
"Shirley?"
"..."
Flora Bloom’s face darkened as she read through the forms. SLAM! She slapped a hand on Ethan Monroe’s table and demanded, "Old Monroe, why are all these applicants women?" Men clearly made up the majority of the long line, and every one of them looked furious.
Seeing Flora Bloom, Ethan Monroe scrambled to his feet. "Flora Bloom, what are you doing here?"
Ethan Monroe’s expression faltered. "Why don’t you go rest over there? I’ll be done here in a jiffy!"
Flora Bloom nodded, walked over to a patch of grass, and sat down cross-legged, her eyes fixed on Ethan Monroe. "Don’t worry, take your time. I want to see just how you’re handling recruitment, and why it’s only women."
The moment Flora Bloom finished speaking, Ethan Monroe looked as if he wanted to say something but ultimately held his tongue. He simply gestured for the next person in line to come forward and fill out the forms.
However, Flora Bloom’s arrival gave a few of the men in line the outlet they were looking for, and they suddenly stepped forward.
"You’re Flora Bloom? The leader of this team?" a man from the line stepped forward. He was a little over five-foot-seven, and Flora’s spiritual power sensed that he was actually a Second-level Superpower User.
Flora Bloom gave the man an indifferent glance. "I am. Do you have something to say?"
"What kind of recruitment process is this? Do other factions make Adepts line up and fill out forms? No! They invite them in, treat them to good food and drink! So what’s the deal with you people? Making us wait in this long line is one thing, but then this fatso," he pointed at Ethan, "had the gall to reject my buddy!" the man declared, his face flush with righteous indignation.
"Exactly! I bet this recruitment is fake! You’re just putting on a show. The truth is, you’re just gathering women for the men in your group to... relieve their stress on! Hey, all you ladies and girls, I’m telling you, don’t fall for it! You’ll get sold off and still be counting the cash for the people who sold you! You’ll end up working in a brothel!"
As the man’s accusations hung in the air, the women who had just submitted their forms looked as though they’d been dropped from heaven to hell. Their expressions turned wary as they stared at Ethan Monroe and Flora Bloom.
"What? Is... is it like that? I-I’m not signing up anymore!" A woman rushed forward, snatched the stack of papers from Flora Bloom’s hand, pulled out her own form, and scurried away in fear. The sight of her practically fleeing for her life ignited a panic among the other women.
"What? You’re really recruiting for... that?" a round-faced girl asked, her eyes wide with alarm. "No wonder the benefits sounded so good! Three meals a day and a bottle of water... it must all be a lie, right? Forget food and water, I’ll probably end up losing my life! I’m not signing up! I want to go home!"
Seeing the miserable look on Ethan Monroe’s face, Flora Bloom pretty much understood what was going on. She stood up, walked over to him, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Old Monroe. Let me handle this."
And so, a blanket of mist descended, enveloping the entire queue. When the crowd realized they were trapped in the disorienting fog, they began to scream in panic. Some even cried out for help.
Within Flora Bloom’s mist domain, she was the master. She could not only manipulate magnetic fields to disorient and trap people within, but also maximize her own and her teammates’ combat abilities.
Her voice echoed through the mist.
"To everyone who came here to sign up, I am the master of this villa complex inside the isolation gate. I am also the leader of this team. My name is Flora Bloom. I assume you all know who I am."
