GA-17’s earliest memory began on an ancient battlefield.
Countless enemies surged toward her from every direction—dragons soaring through the sky, war golems on the ground, all threatening to drown her like a tidal wave.
She fought mindlessly until she collapsed from exhaustion and died.
This battle repeated every single day for GA-17.
Even before she possessed anything that could be called memory, she already knew how to fight, as if combat had seeped into her very marrow and been etched into her soul.
Her mentor, Lianshan Xianzhe, was a woman with purple hair and a perpetually gloomy expression.
GA-17 rarely saw Lianshan Xianzhe smile.
Aside from after each battle, her mentor seldom spoke to her.
And on the rare occasions when she did address GA-17, her gaze was always strange.
That feeling—it was odd.
It took GA-17 a long time to realize that it wasn’t the look one gives a person.
In her mentor’s eyes, she was never truly human.
She was more like an object.
Yes, like an object.
GA-17’s only knowledge of the outside world came from her mentor’s books, but she only read them in secret, never daring to let her mentor find out.
Because once, she had humbly asked her mentor if she could have some books to read, saying she wanted to understand the world outside.
The look in her mentor’s eyes that day had made GA-17 never dare to bring it up again.
Her mentor said the outside world had nothing to do with her, and she should just do what she was supposed to do.
Fine.
GA-17, with a sense of grievance, continued her daily cycle of fighting, fighting, and more fighting.
But the desire for the outside world was like a seed buried in GA-17’s heart, gradually sprouting as time passed.
GA-17 once overheard a conversation between her mentor and another Xianzhe.
From their talk, GA-17 learned that Lianshan Xianzhe was highly skilled in things like Spatial Replication and Life Creation.
The famous Deep Blue Battle Mage unit, once renowned throughout Deep Blue, was founded by Lianshan Xianzhe herself.
GA-17 recalled her own daily training, which also took place on some kind of battlefield—was that all due to her mentor’s techniques?
In the few memories GA-17 could call recollections, her mentor had a morbid possessiveness over her own research successes.
Whenever someone touched her patents, her mentor would bristle like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, ready to fight tooth and nail.
GA-17 didn’t understand, but she dared not make a sound.
GA-17 was terrified of her mentor.
That fear was bone-deep, as if going against her mentor would result in something terrible.
Though GA-17 didn’t know what exactly would happen.
But wasn’t the unknown the scariest thing?
And so, day after day, GA-17 lived in a deathly silence.
Her mentor was busy with her own affairs and never spoke to her, and GA-17 didn’t dare to start a conversation.
Over time, GA-17’s perception of time grew sluggish.
Yesterday felt like today, today felt like tomorrow—every day was exactly the same.
The boundary between experiencing one day and one month began to blur.
The only time GA-17 found interesting was when someone else came to visit.
Because then, even though her mentor never looked happy, she would occasionally reveal bits of information about the outside world that GA-17 desperately wanted to know.
GA-17 relied on these scraps to slowly expand her understanding of the world.
“How’s your progress over there?”
“Not ideal.
Routine skills have already reached their peak.
The envisioned compatibility with a new ability system is still nowhere in sight.
Additionally, the personality construction is a complete failure—too much curiosity.
She doesn’t need that level of curiosity.”
“So the next round of experiments is about to begin?”
“Within the next couple of months.”
GA-17 pretended to be uninterested in the conversation as usual while pricking up her ears.
What did he mean by “personality construction is a complete failure”?
What did he mean by “doesn’t need that level of curiosity”?
GA-17 felt a little wronged inside.
‘But this is just how I am. It’s not something I could decide.’
By then, the seed in GA-17’s heart had already taken root and sprouted, ready to break through the soil at any moment.
It only needed a trigger.
One day, Lianshan Xianzhe went out to attend the Magic Council.
Perhaps feeling confident in GA-17’s performance, she didn’t bother to restrict GA-17.
On a whim, GA-17 seized this opportunity and pushed open the door to her mentor’s laboratory, which she was never allowed to enter.
Her mentor’s laboratory was like a magnificent palace, lined with alchemical machinery and computational cores that she couldn’t understand.
GA-17 felt as if she had discovered a new world.
She ran barefoot across the mirror-smooth marble floor.
Until she reached the far end of the lab.
In an inconspicuous corner.
Everything that came into view shocked GA-17’s nerves of reason.
At the deepest part of the lab, there were seventeen cultivation pods, each containing a girl who looked exactly like her.
The numbers on the pods identified them.
From GA-00 to GA-16.
GA-17 suddenly understood what the “next round of experiments” referred to.
“You…”
The sudden voice startled GA-17.
These earlier experimental subjects—some missing limbs, some only half a body, and some even with half their heads crushed.
But they were all still alive!
Living in such a hideous state.
“What number are you?”
A relatively intact experimental subject spoke to her.
“Obviously, she’s number seventeen.”
Another chimed in.
“If you calculate the timeline, it’s almost her turn to join us.”
“What do you mean?”
GA-17 stammered.
“When the subject is confirmed mature and developed, the mentor conducts a true, real combat test,” the discarded experimental subject told GA-17.
“Not simulations from historical fragments, but real fights where every cut draws blood.”
“The mentor will record our data one last time.”
“Our powerful healing abilities will constantly mend our wounds during the real battle.”
“Even when we’re exhausted, we can’t rest. To measure our limits, the battle never stops.”
“Even as our bodies grow heavier and our movements slower.”
“Even as our dodging speed decreases and wounds begin to appear on us.”
“Our physical constitution won’t let us die easily.
The fight will continue.”
“And the mentor will watch coldly the entire time.”
“Watch as we drain our last drop of strength in fear, tortured beyond human shape.”
“Thanks to being the mentor’s excellent works, this process usually lasts several days.”
“Then, when you are completely squeezed dry of your last bit of value, you end up among us.”
The subject grinned maliciously.
“Or, if you’re a little unlucky, like her.”
The subject gestured with her eyes toward the poor girl who had lost half her head.
“We are the prototype artificial weapons created by Lianshan Xianzhe.
We are not protected by Deep Blue’s laws; we have no rights.
The meaning of our existence is to accumulate data, iterate constantly, and eventually produce a new generation of the Artificial Legion.”
“Just like the Deep Blue Battle Mages.”
“That’s the reason we exist.”
“That’s… heeheehee hahahahaha!”
The subject suddenly burst into hysterical laughter.
GA-17 backed away in terror—one step, two steps, then fell to the ground.
“Heeheehee hahahahaha!”
The other subjects who could still laugh joined in.
Even one whose vocal cords had been torn produced a maddening, ugly “gurgling” sound.
GA-17 scrambled out of the laboratory on all fours.
Closing that door, facing all that was familiar, GA-17 felt a bone-deep terror.
Everything made sense now.
Why she only had memories from the past year.
Why she possessed combat skills as if she were born with them.
In countless suffocating days, she had been sharing a room with these versions of her own fate.
Separated by… such a short distance.
GA-17 suddenly felt a cramp in her stomach.
And soon, she would become like them…
When that time came, would there be a new GA-18, naive and ignorant, to go through another round of experiments?
And would she herself become crazy, discarded in a corner of the lab?
Her mentor returned.
She still only spoke when recording data, still wore that cold gaze that regarded her as an object.
As if everything GA-17 had seen in the lab was just a nightmare.
But GA-17 knew it wasn’t a dream.
On countless late nights, GA-17 hugged her knees and trembled.
No…
She had to escape.