Zhongma Fortress

As the soldiers prepared to lift out the heavy wooden crate from the ground, Gen. Kitano barked his orders "Careful you bastards! This is worth more than your entire lives combined".

A few of the recruits fumbled while handling the crate and carefully lifted it as directed by Dr. Yoshio Shinozuka. The soldiers carried out their orders as they passed a long and narrow corridor dimly lit yet hauntingly glistening hallway leading to an elevator shaft towards the basement of the building accompanied by Dr. Shinozuka. On reaching the designated floor, the elevator opened with a hiss as the soldiers marched out with the crate followed by the doctor.

"Gently place it in the middle and open it carefully," Shinozuka ordered.

The soldiers, now sweating profusely more from fear than their hard work, moved carefully towards the edges of the crate with crowbars to open it. As the wooden crate opened and fell from the seams, the item inside radiated an unearthly aura that left the men speechless. Dr. Shinozuka's eyes glistened with a demonic lust that was noticeably much different from his usual gleaming eyes. A few moments later another figure in a decorated military uniform entered the room from the opposite side. Upon his arrival, the men had straightened up further and saluted knowing full well what the man was capable of.

"I hope everything is in order Dr. Shinozuka, as per our agreement," the man said.

Shinozuka was so transfixed by the gaze of what lay in front of him he had momentarily forgotten that he was in the presence of the mastermind behind the operation.

"Oh! I beg your pardon Gen. Ishii I still cannot believe that we have finally found it."

Gen. Shiro Ishii had long waited for such a prime opportunity and he had delivered what Shinozuka had demanded from him despite having second thoughts. Ishii suddenly reminiscences the day he had first met this mad doctor who had been babbling about some obfuscated and esoteric occult ritual ceremony along with the way to turn the tides of war. On any other day, he would've dismissed such ideas as a fever dream but the previous week his army had suffered heavy losses from the allied forces which had left him distraught without any viable options.

He had mused to himself "Why not? What further harm could it be hearing to the ramblings of a madman after all?"

Dr. Shinozuka had been a prestigious army medic in the Japanese Imperial army but his latent passion for myths and legends added further ingenuity to his idiosyncratic inhumane 'experiments' which he had a notorious penchant for. Shinozuka had been a known associate of Gen. Kitano and through his acquaintance, Ishii had the pleasure to meet him. Gen. Kitano used to tell the stories he had heard from Shinozuka that albeit uncomfortable, at times had fascinated Ishii and he had wanted to witness it personally whether it was all a hokum or the real deal. Shinozuka had discussed in great detail, a perilous expedition into the heart of the ocean where an uncharted island lay hidden beyond mere mortal realms that had kept guard a secret of unimaginable proportions carefully hidden for countless millennia. Ishii, ever the hard-boiled skeptic and a man of pure rationale were initially dismissive of such fairy tales but with no other alternatives to win the war, he had succumbed to the whims of a madman.

"Countless legends have spoken about this mythical island rumored to harness an ultimate power lost to the sands of time" Shinozuka had exclaimed. "If my predictions are correct which they always have been in the past, then we are about to embark upon a journey like no other and it will change the course of mankind's history".

That exchange alone had enthralled Ishii to commandeer a unit of the elite soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army at his disposal forming Unit 101 to navigate the expedition. Upon a much strenuous battle with Mother Nature charting through unknown waters amidst the turbulent ungodly storms at sea and losing his precious few men they had arrived at their fabled destination.

Shinozuka had jumped with unrestrained elation, gleeful like a child who had witnessed the birth of the universe exclaimed "Finally... I knew it, no more mere fantasies or tall tales...it's all true. Gentlemen we have arrived on the fabled No Man's Land and we are about to rewrite history".