After handing over the card, the nurse didn’t say another word and just walked out. She knew someone like Natalie would definitely go. There was no need to push her into it. Once Natalie showed up at the lab, she’d get a hefty payout.

Of course, everyone she’d referred before had been terminally ill patients. They were desperate to live, so they’d naturally agree to experimental treatments. But Natalie was different–she was completely healthy.

The lab had said they needed several healthy test subjects, and they’d tripled the payment for this type of referral. The money was too tempting to pass up. Natalie would be her first healthy experimental subject.

When Natalie took the business card, she felt a wave of hesitation. She worried it might be some kind of pyramid scheme, but when she looked it up online, the laboratory actually existed.

The website didn’t go into detail about what they did, but she noticed that several renowned experts and scholars had joined this research institute. Natalie’s curiosity was piqued.

If the experts at this research center could really cure her condition, then once her skin problem was fixed, she’d be able to make it big even without Jameson. She figured it was worth checking out at least. If it turned out to be sketchy, she could just leave.

Since it was broad daylight, Natalie immediately called for a private car to take her to Consla Laboratory. The trip took two hours.

She found herself standing before towering gates that were at least six feet high. There wasn’t a security guard in sight, but she spotted a black security camera mounted above.

On the other side of that camera, a woman in a white lab coat watched Natalie arrive. She buzzed open the gate and picked up her phone. “Our lab rat is here. Go out and bring her in.”

When the door opened, Natalie felt uncertain but stepped inside anyway. She had no idea she was walking straight into hell.

Peter, a member of the Dark Organization who’d come from Ustrana, couldn’t do anything to stop what was happening. He’d been under surveillance for days because he’d opposed continuing the experiments.

They monitored his every move, and if Peter tried anything reckless, he’d probably end up as another lab rat himself–trapped here with a fate worse than death.

So until Bruce arrived, Peter kept his head down and stayed out of it. But he had to admit, the old bastard had completely lost his mind. Before, they’d used sick test subjects for experiments. Now they were using perfectly healthy people.

Even though Peter was a killer, this situation made his skin crawl.

In the isolated testing area, Subject 009 was showing signs of evolutionary regression. Dense, monkey–like hair had sprouted from his hands, his fingernails had grown long, and he’d become completely unhinged. He kept slamming himself against the door until he was a bloody mess, then collapsed on the floor.

Soon after, experts in hazmat suits, masks, and protective goggles entered to examine and document his condition.

The subject wasn’t dead.

While this experiment turned people into monsters who even carried dangerous viruses, it at least kept someone alive who would have died within three months. They had given him a chance to keep living.

If they could just reverse his atavistic changes and eliminate the virus in his system, their Immortality Project would be complete. When that happened, human lifespans would extend to 300-500 years, and no terminal illness would threaten their lives anymore.

This would absolutely mark a giant leap forward in human evolution.

If Joseph, the financier backing this Immortality Project, was a selfish freak, then these experts helping with the experiments had sacrificed their moral conscience for the sake of science.