Chapter 202: Blood & Contingency

Outside the residential suite, the narrow concrete hallway was filled with acrid black smoke, the deafening report of heavy gunfire, and the nauseating stench of scorched flesh, rot and ozone.

Ah Hua stood planted like a living iron pillar in front of the suite door, his machine gun glowing red-hot from continuous fire as brass shell casings rained down onto the carpeted floor. Beside him, Guo Jiong, his tactical vest torn and slick with sweat, fired his sidearm in disciplined three-round bursts, suppressing two crawlers trying to scale the walls.

Suddenly, a strange, sickening hum echoed from the ventilation duct directly above the doorway, vibrating through the metal frame.

CRASH!

A crawler, nearly twice the size of the standard variants, burst through the metal ceiling frame in a shower of plaster and twisted iron. Embedded deep within its chest was a pulsating, sickly yellow energy core, casting a harsh light down the claustrophobic corridor.

The yellow-core variant moved with unnatural, terrifying speed. Before Ah Hua could swing the heavy, overheated barrel of his machine gun upward, the beast lashed out with its elongated, mutated arm. Its razor-sharp, jagged talons shattered the weapon’s receiver in a shower of sparks and drove deep into Ah Hua’s right forearm and wrist, slicing through fabric, muscle, and bone with horrific momentum.

"ARGH!"

Ah Hua let out a gut-wrenching roar of agony, the sheer impact driving his shoulder back against the steel doorframe with a loud, metallic thud. But despite the blinding pain tearing through his nerves, his frontline instincts took over completely. Harnessing his enhanced physical strength, Ah Hua clamped his left hand like a vise around the beast’s throat, dragged it down to the floor with immense brute force, and smashed his boot straight into its chest.

THUMP!

The yellow energy core shattered into glowing, brittle shards under the weight of his heel, killing the mutated variant instantly as its body twitched and went limp.

Ah Hua collapsed against the wall, gasping for air in ragged, painful gulps, his right arm dangling limp and ruined at his side. Guo Jiong rushed to his side, his face going deathly pale as he looked down at Ah Hua’s wound under the pulsing red emergency lights.

Where the creature’s venomous talons had torn through the flesh, black, toxic lines of rapid mutation were already crawling up the veins of Ah Hua’s forearm at an alarming, visible speed, spreading toward his elbow like dark, poisonous ink under his skin.

"Ah Hua! Hold still! Don’t move!" Guo Jiong barked, his hands moving rapidly as he unclipped his leather belt and wrapped it tightly around Ah Hua’s biceps, hauling on the strap with all his weight to create an emergency field tourniquet. "Hold on, brother! Keep your breathing steady!"

"It’s... it’s burning..." Ah Hua gritted out through tightly clenched teeth, heavy beads of cold sweat pouring down his pale, contorted face as the black infection fought aggressively against the pressure of the tourniquet, inching closer to his upper arm.

Rapid, heavy footsteps thundered down the hallway. Lin Qing rushed into the corridor, her sidearm drawn and ready, flanked by Lu Feng and Marcus. With three swift, precise shots, Lin Qing and Lu Feng eliminated the last two straggling crawlers down the hall before taking in the scene.

Lin Qing’s sharp, analytical eyes instantly locked onto Ah Hua slumping against the wall, his blackening veins inching dangerously close to his elbow despite Guo Jiong’s frantic efforts.

Lin Qing didn’t waste a single second asking questions or assessing trivial details. She knew the terrifying, fatal potency of a yellow-core mutation—everything would be completely useless once the dark lines reached a main artery and circulated to the heart.

"Guo Jiong, pin his left shoulder!" Lin Qing commanded, her voice dropping into a calm, ice-cold tone that demanded absolute obedience without hesitation. "Marcus, hold his legs flat!"

"Lin Qing, what are you—" Guo Jiong started, but seeing the grim, unwavering determination in her eyes, he immediately slammed his hands onto Ah Hua’s left shoulder, pinning him firmly against the concrete wall while Marcus dropped to his knees to immobilize his legs.

Lin Qing unholstered her blade with her right hand and pulled a high-heat military cauterizing torch from her utility belt with her left.

"Ah Hua, look at me," Lin Qing said, her eyes meeting the big man’s pained, sweat-drenched gaze. "It’s past the wrist. If I don’t take the forearm right now, it hits your heart. Bite down on your vest collar."

Ah Hua looked down at his rapidly blackening arm, then back at Lin Qing. He didn’t hesitate or argue. He pulled the thick, padded collar of his tactical vest between his teeth and gave a single, firm nod.

"Do it," Lu Feng said grimly, stepping up to assist Guo Jiong in holding Ah Hua’s upper torso rigid.

Lin Qing ignited the cauterizing torch with a sharp click, the intense blue flame whistling in the cramped, smoky hallway. With absolute, surgical precision, she brought the blade down in a swift, powerful, unyielding stroke just below the elbow, severing the infected tissue clean from the healthy bone.

FLASSSHHH!

Before the blood could spill onto the floor, Lin Qing swept the intense heat of the cauterizing torch directly across the severed surface, sealing the open blood vessels instantly in a cloud of thick, sterile smoke.

Ah Hua’s body jerked violently against Guo Jiong and Marcus, a muffled, agonizing scream escaping his throat as he bit clean through his thick vest collar. His eyes rolled back from the sheer, overwhelming shock of the pain, and his frame went limp as he passed out into unconsciousness, the black infection completely halted at the cauterized stump.

Lin Qing immediately kicked the severed, blackening forearm down the hall away from the squad and shut off the torch. She pressed two fingers firmly against Ah Hua’s neck, checking his pulse—weak, but steady and rhythmic.

"The infection is stopped. He’s stable," Lin Qing said, her breathing steady as she wiped a smudge of soot from her cheek with the back of her glove. "Guo Jiong, help Marcus carry him inside the suite. We need to get him off this bloodied floor immediately."

"Understood!" Guo Jiong nodded, his eyes filled with profound respect and relief for Lin Qing’s lightning-fast composure under pressure. Together with Marcus, they lifted the heavy fighter and pushed open the suite door.

As Lin Qing and Lu Feng stepped inside behind them, expecting to find traumatized, weeping children in need of rescue, they stopped dead in their tracks at the threshold.

The living lounge was dead silent.

Hanging three inches off the floor against the concrete back wall was Lu Ning. She was completely immobilized—her path blocked by Gu An’s shimmering forcefield, her limbs pinned by Su Xiao’s telekinesis, her feet encased in Xiao Mei’s solid frost, and her entire torso bound tightly by Han Ye’s ink-black shadow tendrils.

In the center of the room, five-year-old Han Ye stood quietly, his dark eyes turning calmly to look at his mother and Lu Feng. Beside him, Gu An, Su Xiao, and Xiao Mei stood in perfect tactical formation, their small faces calm and composed.

Lu Ning, shivering violently from her fever and the intense, localized cold of the frost, raised her bloodshot, tear-stained eyes to look at her older brother. Seeing Lu Feng step into the room in full gear, a desperate, hysterical spark of hope flared in her distorted mind.

"Brother..." Lu Ning whimpered, her raspy, broken voice cutting through the quiet room as tears cut clean streaks through the grime on her face. "Save me... these monsters... they tried to kill me! Look what they did to me! Help me, brother... please... take me away from them..."

Lu Feng stood at the threshold, his rifle lowered at his side. He looked at his sister—her filthy clothes, her unhinged, feverish face, and the residual spatial phase energy still clinging to her skin. Then he looked at the four young children who had been forced to defend themselves against her spiteful, cowardly attack.

A wave of profound, absolute coldness washed over Lu Feng’s heart. There was no anger left in his eyes, no disappointment, and no sorrow. There was only total emptiness.

He slowly walked across the frost-covered floorboards, his heavy combat boots clicking with quiet, deliberate cadence until he stood directly in front of her trapped form.

Lu Ning squeezed her eyes shut, sobbing in frantic relief. "I knew you wouldn’t abandon me... I knew you loved your little sister—"

CLANK!

Lu Feng didn’t reach out to comfort her or break the children’s restraints. Instead, he pulled a pair of heavy, lead-lined power-dampening magnetic cuffs from his tactical belt and snapped them violently around Lu Ning’s frost-bound wrists.

The heavy anti-awakening restraints locked into place with a sharp electrical chime, completely severing her internal energy flow and neutralizing her physical phasing power.

Lu Ning’s eyes snapped open in absolute, disbelieving shock. "Brother...? What... what are you doing?!"

Lu Feng didn’t answer her. He didn’t even look her in the eyes. He turned his back on her completely, looking toward Lin Qing and Han Ye.

"She is no longer my sister," Lu Feng said, his voice flat, hollow, and devoid of any human warmth. "She is a threat to the Research Center. Treat her as a hostile traitor."