Chapter 881
Monsters and Madmen
Chapter 881 Monsters and Madmen
"Experiment?" James was stunned for a moment, then flew into a rage: "You used my mother as an experiment?!"
"What do you know!"
Victoria, the older sister, slammed down her wine glass, which clattered against the table with a jarring sound.
Victoria abruptly stood up, her face flushed an unnatural red, and said angrily, "Mother did it voluntarily! And Father, and me! We all participated voluntarily!"
James exclaimed incredulously, “You say Mother was willing, why didn’t I know? Why did no one ever tell me?!”
"Haha, who doesn't yearn for immortality and eternal youth? Only a fool like you would be blind to the truth of the world!"
Victoria's chest heaved rapidly as she looked down at her brother with a disdainful gaze and said:
"James, if you weren't so naive, fragile, indulgent, and irresponsible... you would have joined our plan long ago!"
"Your mother has really spoiled you! You hide under our wings, enjoying the best resources, but you're unwilling to take on any responsibility at all!"
Do you think it's easy to maintain this family, to maintain everything we have now?
Victoria was so agitated she almost poked her finger into James's nose, and she shouted fiercely, her pent-up resentment seething inside:
“My father is almost eighty years old, and he still works until late at night every day! Jonathan and I are working overtime every day, and we are overwhelmed with problems dealing with those formidable competitors!”
"And what about you? You paint as you please, drink excessively, indulge in debauchery, and fool around with women of dubious origin! And you still have the nerve to spout nonsense in front of us!"
She practically screamed, letting the most crucial secret slip out:
"It is precisely because you are so foolish and incompetent that Father must not grow old and weak, and that is why we have always supported the Prometheus Project!"
“Victoria!” her husband Jonathan shouted, but it was too late.
James turned pale from the reprimand, his eyes darting around, unable to speak.
But Elana, Victoria's daughter, who had been observing coldly all along, calmly asked:
"Prometheus? What's that? The god in mythology who stole fire from the gods?"
Her gaze swept over her family members one by one: "Grandpa, Mom, Dad, what exactly... are you hiding from us?"
Seeing that it was his daughter asking the question, Jonathan's eyes softened slightly. He took a deep breath and said:
"That was a project in a drug research laboratory, aimed at breaking the limits of human lifespan; it was a very ambitious scientific concept."
Elana gave a cold laugh, crossed her arms, stared intently at her father, and uttered a chilling pronouncement:
"fraud!"
Jonathan's face stiffened.
At this moment, Richard spoke up: "Since you're all so eager to know, then I'll tell you the truth..."
His voice carried a strange, ethereal quality, as if it came from a dream.
Upon hearing this, James and Elana immediately looked over, and even Sophie, who had been trying to keep a low profile, looked up.
"Father!" Jonathan's alarm bells rang, and he quickly called out to stop him.
But Richard raised his hand, interrupting him with an unquestionable gesture, and said slowly, “No, Jonathan, it’s time for them to know… the great cause we’ve fought for! You are all Harrington, the ones who will inherit my cause, and you can’t remain ignorant of it forever.”
Jonathan's lips moved, sensing that what he said made sense, but deep down, a stronger intuition was screaming at him, warning him not to let the old man continue talking at this moment!
However, his long-standing obedience and awe, as well as the fact that he had only married the other party's daughter, prevented him from speaking.
Jonathan suddenly felt an urge—he wanted to grab the ashtray on the table and smash it hard on the head of that domineering and willful old man!
The man pinched his palm hard, using the pain to suppress the sudden surge of dangerous impulse within him.
Richard, however, seemed to have flipped a switch, and words flowed out uncontrollably:
"Children, do you know? Magic really does exist in this world! Wizards exist! And those legendary things... the Philosopher's Stone is real too!"
“But fate, fate has not favored us. The blood of a wizard does not flow in my veins. My children, none of you do either…”
His voice suddenly rose, filled with resentment and bitterness:
"That's why we need Project Prometheus! Magic, immortality, transcending the boundaries of mortals... this is true power... we must seize it!"
Richard spoke in a somewhat indistinct tone, his eyes filled with reminiscence and a hint of unfocus. At this moment, he still looked young, but he completely resembled a man in his seventies or eighties.
He began by recounting his first encounter with the power of a wizard when he was a child.
“I was just a little boy then. The SS arrested my parents, and I was hiding behind a rock. I saw everything…”
He shuddered, seemingly still gripped by the fear of that moment, but this was quickly replaced by a strange sense of excitement:
"Then... a wizard appeared. He suddenly appeared out of thin air, and just by waving a small wooden stick, everything caught fire... Later I learned that he was holding a magic wand..."
He described how the little boy grew up in hardship, receiving help from many people, betraying those who helped him for survival and profit, and finally seizing an opportunity to grow from a homeless child into a ruthless predator.
“Then those people found me.” Richard chuckled. “They claimed to have a plan that had been going on for over a hundred years—a new plan to steal the heavenly fire—and invited me to join them. We were like-minded…”
"Of course, I provided funding, and as allies, they also gave us a lot of help. Why do you think family businesses can grow so fast? It's because a lot of resources and intelligence only circulate within our alliance!"
“We fund research, capture those monsters, analyze their powers… In recent years, we’ve even begun to truly grasp the power of time! Soon, very soon we will…”
"Capture? Monster?"
Sophie's face turned deathly pale. Combining this with the previous "experiment," she instantly had some terrifying associations and suddenly felt like vomiting.
She covered her mouth and murmured softly, "God... what have you all done?"
James felt like his world was collapsing. He asked bluntly, "Are you doing human experiments? With those... those wizards?"
The mere mention of wizards filled him with utter absurdity. He didn't want to believe it, yet he dared not disbelieve it.
“Human experimentation!” Richard angrily rebuked, his face full of self-righteousness: “Those monsters may look like humans, but they are completely different species from us!”
Victoria nodded and said, "Pigs and humans share up to 90% of their genes! Do you really think pigs are your kind?"
After she finished speaking, she seemed to think her analogy was brilliant and even chuckled.
James was trembling violently: "So...so you really did it?"
He glanced at his father, then at his sister who seemed unconcerned about the matter, and at his brother-in-law Jonathan, who remained expressionless and tacitly accepted everything.
An overwhelming chill swept over him. He pointed at the people he considered family, his voice trembling with fear and anger:
"You bunch of lunatics! You're the real monsters!"
(End of this chapter)