Chapter 299 - 298: Asher is Like a Demon of Slaughter

Chapter 299: Chapter 298: Asher is Like a Demon of Slaughter

Asher sat lazily on the floor, leaning against the wall. "Well, I’m not your dad."

"..." Walter Carter’s face fell, and he angrily raised his gun to shoot Asher.

"Mr. Carter, we can’t kill him now. He knows too much—he must be one of us. I’d bet he’s the president of the Astraeus Group. Let’s hand him over to The Resistance and trade him for a chance to get off this ship. We need to leave before those desperate masses outside start killing everyone."

Walter Carter’s secretary hurriedly stopped him, her voice tight with anxiety.

Walter Carter narrowed his eyes. "You’re right..."

He had acted on impulse. "Hand him over to the leader of The Resistance in exchange for a chance to get out of here."

"President Carter, what about us...?" The others panicked.

"What’s the rush? Once I’m out, I can bring people back to rescue you," Walter Carter said, trying to placate them.

Asher sneered. "And what if you don’t come back? After all, everyone here trusts you so much."

Asher was sowing discord.

"Yeah! What if you don’t come back?" someone demanded. It was clear Asher’s words had hit their mark.

"Hmph. If I say I’ll come back for you, I will. And even if I don’t, what can you do about it?" Walter Carter sat in his wheelchair, gun raised, glaring at them. "So, you have no choice. You have to trust me. Our only chance of survival is if one of us makes it out alive."

He loved this feeling of superiority, of having everything under his control.

"Kill him. Whoever hands me over to The Resistance gets to live. A chance like this comes once in a lifetime." The corners of Asher’s lips curled upward.

Walter Carter fired a shot at Asher.

The smile never left Asher’s lips. The bullet struck the wall just beside him.

Asher knew they didn’t dare to actually hit him.

I was in the air vent above, lying on my stomach and watching everything unfold in the medical bay.

When I saw Walter Carter’s shot go wide, the tension gripping my heart finally eased.

My clenched fists slowly relaxed.

’I couldn’t rest easy with Asher down there by himself. I had to at least keep an eye on him. I would never let him face this danger alone.’

’Zeke Shaw and the others have already gone back to rescue Madeline Quinn. As long as they hide in their room, they’ll be safe for the time being.’

’We had stashed some food and water earlier, and I had Zeke and the others take it back with them.’

After Walter Carter fired his gun, no one dared to make a sound.

But Asher knew that the will to survive would amplify the worst in human nature.

Sure enough, less than three hours after I’d hidden in the air duct, they turned on each other.

Someone took an opportunity when Walter Carter’s bodyguard was distracted, snatching his gun and pressing it to Carter’s temple.

The man was another one of the tycoons, a younger one, maybe around forty years old.

He sneered. "Walter Carter, you’re old, and your heart is giving out. You don’t have many days left. You should leave this chance to survive to the rest of us."

Walter Carter’s face was grim as he tightened his grip on the gun in his hand.

Walter Carter’s bodyguards and the other man’s bodyguards all warily aimed their guns at each other.

BANG! Suddenly, a bodyguard near Asher’s gun accidentally went off. Startled, the others opened fire too.

In an instant, more than half of the armed bodyguards were cut down.

Walter Carter raised his gun and shot the man behind him, who fired back at the same time. Both collapsed into a pool of blood.

With no one left to be cautious of, it was as if Asher had unleashed his true nature.

He just sat there, smiling like Satan himself, risen from Hell.

’Just a few words... and he had eliminated every threat.’

Reaching down, Asher picked up a blood-stained gun from the floor. He rose to his feet and slowly approached Walter Carter, who was dying, but not yet dead.

Walter Carter slumped in his wheelchair, staring at Asher with a mixture of rage, shock, and terror. "Who... who in the hell are you?"

Asher looked down at Walter Carter and sneered. "My true identity... You won’t get the chance to find out."

"You... you’re not human... You’re a devil..." With those words, Walter Carter breathed his last.

"AHH!" Walter Carter’s secretary shrieked in terror, dropping to the floor and clutching her head. "Don’t kill me! Please, don’t kill me! I didn’t do anything! He made me do it all! I’m begging you, don’t kill me!"

Asher aimed the gun at her.

Watching from above, I grew nervous, afraid Asher would actually kill her.

But he only gestured with the gun, and the woman fainted dead away.

Asher sneered and glanced back at the other tycoons, who had long since started screaming and scrambling for cover.

The remaining bodyguards didn’t dare make another move, hiding along with them.

They were short-handed now, with limited guns and ammunition. More brutal killings were still to come; whether any of them would survive was anyone’s guess.

Asher rolled his shoulders, then looked up toward the vent opening and held out his arms. "Jump."

The murderous aura around him vanished without a trace the moment his eyes met mine.

He tucked the gun behind his back and smiled at me.

I rolled my eyes. ’When did he realize I was here?’

I was a little annoyed. ’Guess I’m not as smart as he is...’

I kicked open the vent’s maintenance hatch, dangled my legs over the edge, and looked down at Asher. "When did you know I was here?"

"You were making a bit too much noise up there. Not exactly a little mouse," Asher teased, his voice indulgent.

I huffed.

"I wasn’t planning on dealing with them so quickly. I wanted to play with them a little longer, but you just had to be disobedient..." Asher sighed, feigning helplessness, as if he didn’t know what to do with me.

’If I weren’t here, he probably would have let Walter Carter hand him over to The Resistance. He wanted to infiltrate their ranks.’

’But with me here, he was afraid of complications. He couldn’t—and wouldn’t—allow any harm to come to me.’

’It seemed... I was his one and only variable.’

’When he’d used just a few words to trick these people into killing each other, his eyes had burned with feverish confidence. He seemed to know exactly how things would play out, certain that events would unfold precisely as he predicted, without a single misstep.’

’But I was the one thing he couldn’t factor into his predictions.’

’It was as if my very presence made him afraid.’

’He was terrified I might get hurt in one of his scenarios. Even if the probability was one in ten thousand, he wouldn’t dare take that risk.’

"Cece..." he called to me again.

Trusting him completely, I jumped, and he caught me, holding me securely in his arms.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and whispered, "Asher, are we going to die on this ship?"

Asher looked down at me. "We won’t."

’Because he would never let me die.’

"Are you the president of the Astraeus Group?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

"My hand hurts..." Asher started faking it again.

He carried me out of the medical bay, and despite complaining about his hand, he refused to put me down.

Outside, it was as quiet as ever, as if the entire floor were deserted.

"Brother, people are going on a killing spree out there, and you two are in here flirting." Killian Lancaster was leaning against the wall around the corner, covered in blood and smiling like a lunatic.

"What are you doing here?" I frowned.

"Waiting for you." From behind Killian Lancaster, Ace stepped out, his hands and face also covered in blood.

"I’ve eliminated all threats on the way back," Ace said in a low voice. "We can proceed to the VIP section for a meal."

When Ace spoke of eliminating those people, he was completely emotionless, as if he had merely taken care of some simple inconvenience.

THUD! Suddenly, the cruise ship lurched violently.

The sound of an impact came from outside.

"Everyone on the ship, listen up! Release the hostages and surrender our people immediately, or... we’ll sink this vessel." A voice boomed from outside.

It was The Genetics Organization.

They were in a standoff with The Resistance.

"Those lunatics want to sink the ship," I said, on high alert.

"Not yet," Asher said, looking confident. "The Genetics Organization can’t afford to let all of Meridia’s elite die here, especially not the president of the Astraeus Group."

Killian Lancaster grinned. "That’s right. The president of the Astraeus Group is the organization’s biggest financial backer... Now, who could that be? Brother... who do you think it is?"