Chapter 90: The Imprisoned Gatomon

Drip.
Drip.

It was not the sound of water falling to the ground, but the faint patter of blood dripping onto the floor.

Ordinarily, such a slight sound would have been almost impossible to hear.

But the place was far too quiet—one might even call it a deathly silence—and Zhao Jie could only breathe heavily in the dim, empty space. He could feel a gash cut across his calf, with a great deal of blood already soaking through his trousers.

“Ah.”

A low groan escaped his lips. Struggling, he sat up and fumbled with both hands toward the wound, only to find them smeared with blood.

“Guess I’m pretty lucky,” he thought, trying to comfort himself.

If that wound had been on his neck, then by now he might already have been dead.

“Where is this place?”

With some effort, he wrapped the wound in the torn clothing hanging from his body and began looking around the dim surroundings.

Clang.
Clang.

An eerie sound echoed in the darkness.

The instant Zhao Jie heard it, his heart lurched. There wasn’t some, some ghost here, was there?

But very quickly, he silently recited the standard creed of reason and drove that superstitious thought from his mind.

What era was this, anyway? Even Digimon existed now—how could there possibly be such filthy things?

Wait…

If Digimon existed, why couldn’t those things exist too?

With that thought, a trace of unease returned to Zhao Jie’s mind.

Clang.
Clang.

Listening carefully, he realized it was the sound of metal striking the ground.

Zhao Jie glanced at the entrance where he had fallen in. The monsters outside might not have come in yet, but that didn’t mean they never would.

He still had to leave as soon as possible.

“Phew…”

Exhaling softly, Zhao Jie moved toward the direction of the sound. He wanted to see just what it was.

Limping along the floor, Zhao Jie noticed that the whole terrain sloped downward, leading deeper beneath the mountain.

What exactly was this place?

That question was born in Zhao Jie’s mind, but then he remembered that Professor Zhou Jie was an eccentric man. It would not be impossible for him to create some other sort of hidden operation inside his own experimental base.

Clang…

As Zhao Jie pressed deeper in, the sound of metal striking metal became clearer and clearer. After rounding a corner, he even discovered a metal chain as thick as an adult’s arm.

Good. It wasn’t a ghost.

Seeing the chain, Zhao Jie actually felt a wave of relief.

Since it was a chain, and since Digimon ran rampant in this world, the thing making that clanging sound was nine times out of ten a Digimon.

And probably a Digimon imprisoned here by Professor Zhou Jie.

What kind of Digimon would it be?

Driven by a trace of curiosity, Zhao Jie continued forward.

Soon, he saw it.

It was Gatomon.

Gatomon, a Champion-level Holy Digimon.

Since becoming a tamer, this was the first time he had encountered a holy Digimon.

But the Gatomon’s condition was far from good. Its limbs were bound by four metal chains as thick as an adult’s arms, and on its forehead there was a crystal radiating dark power.

Zhao Jie had truly not expected to encounter a holy Gatomon imprisoned in a place like this.

Clang. Clang.

Gatomon’s arms kept thrashing about. After hearing Zhao Jie approach, the tormented creature forcefully opened its eyes.

“A human?”

Its voice carried disappointment. It had seen humans before; individual humans were far too weak to help it at all.

“How were you locked up here? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Zhao Jie naturally heard the disappointment in its voice as well, but seeing this imprisoned Gatomon, he felt that being unable to help was only normal, wasn’t it?

“How was I locked up here? Isn’t this your humans’ doing?”

After hearing Zhao Jie’s words, Gatomon looked at the chains binding its limbs and spoke bitterly.

“Ah! Ah! Ah…”

Just as Zhao Jie was about to step closer, the Gatomon trapped by the chains let out a cry of agony, frightening him so badly that he immediately stopped.

The Gatomon’s white-blue fur gradually turned black-purple, and its eyes shifted from their former calm to a fierce, aggressive glare.

“Meow!”

The black-purple Gatomon gave a strange cry. Its earlier weakness vanished completely, replaced by boundless energy.

Had it become BlackGatomon?

Zhao Jie stared in astonishment at the change in the creature and was just about to ask more when BlackGatomon also began to howl in pain.

The Holy Ring on the tail behind it, which represented the power of light, began to blaze with sacred radiance, driving the darkness within BlackGatomon’s body outward.

Buzz…

The powers of light and darkness continued to clash. Right before Zhao Jie’s eyes, the fur on Gatomon’s body kept changing with the surging energy.

More than ten minutes later, the darkness finally receded, and it returned once again to Gatomon.

“Are you all right?”

Looking at the Gatomon that was gasping for breath, Zhao Jie asked softly.

“Do I look like I’m all right to you?”

Gatomon shot him a disgusted glance. It was already in this state; did it look like a Digimon that was fine?

Well…

All right, Zhao Jie decided to skip this awkward topic.

“Gatomon, is there any way out back there?”

“An exit? Were you chased in here by Digimon? Then I’m sorry to tell you, but there’s no exit like the one you’re imagining. This place was built solely to imprison me; there isn’t some secret escape tunnel.”

Gatomon said, sounding a little gleeful at his misfortune.

Sometimes one’s own happiness was built on another’s suffering. So that was how simple happiness could be.

“All right then.”

Zhao Jie felt somewhat disappointed. It seemed he could only hope the rescuers would arrive soon.

“Oh, right. What’s this?”

As he spoke, Zhao Jie reached his hand toward Gatomon’s forehead, where a thumb-sized black, diamond-shaped crystal was embedded.

Just now, that overwhelming darkness had erupted from within this crystal.

Gatomon had not paid it much mind at first, because in its view, the human before it could not possibly touch the dark gene fragment of Apocalymon.

But in the next instant, it widened its eyes.

That dark gene fragment of Apocalymon had actually been lifted right out by the human in front of it.

“That’s impossible!”

Feeling the dark gene fragment of Apocalymon separate from its forehead, Gatomon cried out in shock.

P.S. For every fifty first-day subscriptions, one extra chapter will be added. I have no draft stockpile, so once the goal is reached, I’ll get up and start writing.