Chapter 357: The Music That Summons The Devil In The Heart, “Rhapsody of a Rainy Night”

It had only been four hours had passed since the first case was identified, but the virus had gotten to all nine big research bases already. The patient zeros had almost all mobility, and they felt as hopeless as their own test subjects. It was because their biggest hope, the task force made of the greatest minds in virus research on this planet, had succumbed to the virus themselves.

It takes only an instant for a person to leave a state of life and enter a state of death, but this virus seemed intend on prolonging the process as much as possible. They could feel the virus robbing them of their control inch by inch, and there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop it. It didn’t rob them of their consciousness, but that only made the suffering and waiting for death to claim them that much worse.

The nine big research bases weren’t the only ones who were experiencing problems. The good news was that it wasn’t a virus outbreak. The bad news was that the space station and the patrol fleets were experiencing severe signal interferences, and it had reached the point where they couldn’t even send out a request for help. The electromagnetic interferences had actually begun before the virus outbreak, but at the time they thought that it was simply a result of unusual stellar activities or exceptional electromagnetic storms and paid it little heed. Now though, they were really starting to panic.

The persons-in-charge of the nine research bases, the patrol fleet captain, and the space station’s chief administrator were all working their asses off to keep the situation under control right now. They were the highest leadership of this planet, and it was their responsibility to maintain control no matter what. Specifically, the PICs would keep their respective bases under control, and the patrol fleet captain and the space station chief administrator would prevent anyone from escaping to space.

Right now, everyone in the patrol fleet and the space station were thanking their stars that they weren’t on the planet. Although the nine research bases usually stuck to their own researches, that hardly meant that there wasn’t any communication between them at all. Occasionally, personnel would even travel from one base to another via spaceplanes. In their opinion, that had to be how the virus had spread to all nine research bases. The situation wouldn’t have deteriorated nearly as much if they had entered lockdown sooner… or so they thought.

The patrol fleet captain wrote all his thoughts into his report so that the technicians could send them to the higher-ups after the communications equipment were fixed. He thought he might get a promotion from this.

The guy would’ve been lynched if his thoughts were known to the people on the planet. As an outsider, he couldn’t even begin to imagine the panic that was besetting everyone in the nine research bases. The only reason things hadn’t broken down completely was because the guards were still maintaining order. Although Cillin had set loose some groups of failed test subjects, there were ultimately more guards than there were failed test subjects, not to mention that the researchers were no combatants.

Speaking of which, the PICs were starting to suspect that someone was working against them. For starters, someone had released the failed test subjects from their confinement to create more chaos. Two, the drugs that were normally used to suppress them had suddenly failed without reason. The effects were either greatly diminished or completely useless.

When the researchers analyzed the blood samples that were recovered from the dead bodies of the failed test subjects, they discovered that they had all developed a certain level of drug resistance. They could’ve chalked it up as an coincidence if it was just one type—after all, it wasn’t uncommon for a test subject to undergo unusual biological changes after an experiment or ten—but the reality was that the failed test subjects had developed drug resistance to nearly all of their suppressants. Even if they weren’t completely immune, the suppressants’ effects were much more diminished than before.

There was no way this could’ve happened naturally!

So, the question became whodunit. Who had the ability to release the test subjects from their cages? Who had the ability to make them resistant to their suppressants in such a short time? And finally, could they be the ones behind this virus outbreak?

Most researchers believed that someone was behind the anomaly surrounding the failed test subjects, but not the unknown virus. Maybe it was because they were overly confident in their abilities, but they didn’t believe that anyone was capable of creating such an overpowering virus; one that they couldn’t even begin to cure. If even Miracle couldn’t figure this out, who else could possibly create such a thing?

Their arrogance wasn’t completely misplaced, however. The personnel of Miracle quickly showed why they were a galaxy-famous corporation in GAL. Dissenting researchers were suppressed by force, and charismatic figures stepped out to calm panicking minds. Their efforts were also aided by the fact that the virus outbreak, while bad hadn’t yet entered the worst case scenario. In the end, they were able to turn the situation around and even set themselves on the path of improvement.

But of course, Cillin wasn’t going to let them recover this quickly.

The leaders were heaving sighs of relief inside their heads and enjoying a tiny bit of reprieve when suddenly, a music started playing not just on the nine research bases, but also the patrol fleet and the space station.

The sounds of raining and the soothing tune that accompanied it was something everyone in the galaxy had heard before. It was the opus magnum of a composer from several hundred years ago called “Rhapsody of a Rainy Night”.

The rhapsody described the composer’s transformation from shyness to burning passion during a roman