This... seemed to be their barracks. "Is this your headquarters or your barracks?" Theresa asked. "Both." "All those b*stards are here?" Her eyes lit up. Sage shook his head. "I'm not sure. The decision-makers are scattered all over the place." Hearing that, Theresa refocused. "When will they come here?" "I don't know." With a soft beep, Sage used his SS-Rank card to unlock a door on the fortress-like building in front of them. The moment the heavy mechanical door slid open, Theresa saw an elevator descending downward. He hadn't spoken a single word since they entered, and her whole body grew tense. The moment she stepped inside, countless infrared beams and surveillance devices locked onto her. Keeping her expression cold, she followed him in and descended together. The elevator had only one button. To Theresa, the ride down felt impossibly long, which meant the headquarters of the Starborn Order was buried very, very deep underground. … Three minutes later, the elevator doors slid open. A straight corridor stretched out before Theresa. The floors were pure white, the walls were pure white, and the ceiling was high and pure white. Square, sterile, and endless—nothing but emotionless white everywhere she looked. She followed Sage step by step down the long hallway, and with each step, she could feel the hidden cameras watching from every direction. She knew very well that at this moment, every move she made was being monitored by the people of the Starborn Order. The corridor stretched about five hundred meters. After walking such a long distance, Sage pushed open a door in front of her. The next second, a bright, open sky appeared before her. It felt as if she had stepped outside into warm sunlight, blue skies and white clouds overhead. Yet, she was deep, deep underground—when they came down, it had been snowing heavily outside. There was no way the sky she was seeing now could be real. Theresa lifted her head and studied it carefully before confirming that the "sky" was actually a curved dome over a hundred meters high, pieced together from countless electronic screens. The screens were simulating a bright, cloudless day—and in front of her was a laboratory filled with an overwhelming sense of futuristic technology. Five experimental pods stood before her. Inside each one floated a human body marked with a number. Theresa felt as if she'd stepped into an entirely new world as she stared at each of the test subjects inside. Suddenly, she spotted someone familiar. A man lay silently inside one of the pods with his eyes closed. His entire body was submerged in fluid, and tubes were plugged into him everywhere. His skin was deathly pale with no trace of blood. A long scar ran across his chest and pierced straight into his heart. Theresa still didn't know his name, only his number—5587. He was the man she had stabbed... and the man who had returned the favor by twisting open a water bottle for her. Theresa stood there staring. Then, the man who had kept his eyes shut suddenly snapped them open. He revealed a pair of grayish-white, corpse-like eyes—the eyes of a zombie. "Hrghhh—rrraaah—" When Theresa saw this, her heart skipped a beat. A hard-to-name emotion spread across her face. "What are these?" Sage turned his head and gave the pods behind him a glance. "These are high-level test subjects. They're the top candidates selected by the Divine Academy every year." "B*stards!" A surge of anger shot through Theresa's chest. "Do you people have no humanity at all? If someone locked you in here, how would you feel?"Sage adjusted his glasses. "That's a question you should ask them." He continued walking. After passing the five pods, another large door appeared in front of him. When it opened, the world on the other side changed completely. The bright, sunny sky vanished and turned into a vast sea of stars. The pure white floor beneath her feet shifted into solid black. Theresa felt as if she were standing inside the galaxy itself. In front of her was an enormous conference table. Seated at the table was the glowing figure of an old man. It was a holographic projection. When the old man saw Sage approaching with someone in tow, he nodded in approval. "Well done, Ten." With Decision Maker Three dead, the others had shifted up in rank, making Sage the tenth. When he saw the hologram, he lowered his head respectfully. "Decision Maker One." Decision Maker One? Theresa's eyes sharpened. The Starborn Order had ten decision-makers in total. Decision Maker One should be the most senior of them all. One's gaze landed on Theresa. In the next second, his holographic body vanished from the seat and reappeared right in front of her. His aged eyes shone with overwhelming delight as he looked at her. "You've finally arrived."