Chapter : 729

The 12th Prince walked right beside him. The 12th Prince wore a long, elegant blue coat. He carried a tall wooden staff. A bright blue crystal glowed at the top of the staff. The blue light pushed the dark shadows away. It provided clear visibility in the ruined corridor.

"This place is a complete disaster," the 3rd Prince stated firmly. He stepped over a smashed computer monitor. "The equipment is destroyed. The glass tubes are empty. The researchers abandoned this sector a long time ago."

"We must keep looking," the 12th Prince replied smoothly. He held his glowing staff higher. "The Emperor gave us a direct command. We must find evidence of illegal Solurius research. We cannot return to the capital city with empty hands. We need solid proof."

Suddenly, a loud screech echoed from the end of the hallway.

Three mutated guards stepped out of the darkness. They were once normal human soldiers. The toxic radiation had twisted their bodies. Glowing green veins pulsed under their pale skin. Jagged bone spikes stuck out of their arms. They held rusted metal spears. Their eyes burned with a mindless, toxic red light.

The mutants roared loudly. They charged directly at the two Princes.

The 3rd Prince did not flinch. He gripped his silver sword tightly. He dashed forward. He met the first mutant in the middle of the hallway. The mutant thrust its rusted spear. The 3rd Prince easily dodged to the left. The spear missed his shoulder .

The 3rd Prince swung his sword in a fast, horizontal arc. The silver blade sliced cleanly through the mutant's armor. The mutant dropped its spear. It fell backward onto the floor tiles. It stopped moving .

The 12th Prince raised his wooden staff. He aimed the glowing blue crystal at the remaining two mutants.

"Glacial Burst," the 12th Prince commanded coldly.

A massive blast of freezing blue magic erupted from the crystal. The ice magic zipped across the hallway. It struck the two mutated guards directly in their chests. The air temperature plummeted instantly. A thick layer of solid white ice formed over the mutants. The ice froze their arms and legs. They were trapped in frozen blocks. They could not swing their weapons.

The 3rd Prince stepped forward again. He raised the hilt of his sword. He smashed the blunt metal pommel into the frozen blocks. The solid ice shattered into a million tiny pieces. The two frozen mutants crumbled into harmless gray dust.

The brief battle was officially over.

The 3rd Prince lowered his sword. He breathed fast. He wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead.

"They are mindless beasts," the 3rd Prince noted calmly. "The toxic radiation corrupted their mana cores . This laboratory is full of them. We are wasting our time fighting broken experiments. We need to find the data servers."

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The 12th Prince nodded in agreement. He pointed his blue staff down a side corridor.

"Let us search the residential wing," the 12th Prince suggested quietly. "The main computer room is smashed. But the researchers had to sleep somewhere. People always hide things in their private quarters. We might find a personal log. We might find a written note."

They turned down the side corridor. They walked past several broken metal doors. They reached a large room at the very end of the hall. A rusted sign on the wall read 'Staff Quarters'.

They pushed the metal door open. The door groaned loudly on its dry hinges.

They stepped into a massive dormitory. Long rows of simple metal beds filled the room. Small gray lockers stood next to each bed. The mattresses were rotten. Thick layers of dust covered every single surface. Spider webs hung from the ceiling corners. The room smelled like old paper and stale air.

"Search the lockers," the 3rd Prince instructed. He walked toward the left side of the room. He used his sword to pry open a rusted metal locker door.

The 12th Prince walked toward the right side. He moved methodically. He did not rush. He inspected the floor. He checked the small desks. He opened a locker. He found an old, broken coffee cup. He found a torn white lab coat. He did not find any useful data.

The 12th Prince walked to the very back of the dormitory. He stopped near a bed in the darkest corner of the room.

He noticed something unusual. The dust pattern on the floor under this specific bed looked different. It looked slightly disturbed. Someone had pushed a small object far back against the wall.

The 12th Prince knelt down on the dirty floor tiles. He did not care about getting his blue coat dusty. He lowered his head. He looked under the metal bed frame. He used his glowing blue staff to light up the dark space.

He saw a small, square object hiding against the baseboard.

He reached his hand under the bed. His fingers brushed against a small metal box. He grabbed the handle. He pulled the box out into the open room.

The box was made of dark gray steel. It was locked with a small, rusted padlock.

The 12th Prince placed the metal box on top of the ruined mattress. He raised his hand. He fired a tiny, concentrated spark of ice magic at the padlock. The cold magic made the rusted metal extremely brittle. He tapped the lock with his staff. The padlock shattered instantly. It fell onto the bed.

He opened the lid of the metal box.

Inside the box, a single item rested on a piece of old cloth. It was a thick, leather-bound journal. The leather cover was worn and cracked. It looked old.

The 12th Prince reached into the box. He picked up the dusty journal. He blew the dust off the cover. A small cloud of gray dirt puffed into the air. He opened the book.

The pages were yellowed with age. The ink was faded. But the handwriting was perfectly legible. It was full of neat, precise script.

The 12th Prince flipped through the pages slowly. His blue eyes scanned the handwritten text. He processed the information.

He saw dates going back several decades. He saw complex, hand-drawn diagrams of Solurius crystals. He saw detailed daily logs tracking massive energy spikes. He saw long paragraphs describing the toxic radiation levels. He saw records of the original mining operations.

He kept flipping the pages. The handwriting grew more frantic in the later entries. The notes described a massive shift in the research goals. The notes detailed the exact inner workings of the illegal facility.

The 12th Prince stopped flipping. He stared at a specific page. His eyes widened in pure, unfiltered realization.

He realized what he was holding. This was not a simple diary. This was not a basic notebook.

This journal contained the detailed history of the entire Solurius project. It held the original, unfiltered records of the disaster. It held the absolute truth about the toxic experiments. This single book held the answers to the Emperor's questions.