Chapter 161: Who Told You I Tried My Best.

"Wait." The white-haired doctor raised his voice. "Once we disconnect the machine, Jenny's immune system will fail within twenty-four hours."

"I know."

"You know, and you're still cutting it off."

"My lab can take her." Lucius interrupted him, his tone flat and emotionless.

"We have better safeguards. Once she's transferred, her survival rate won't be any lower than where she is now."

The white-haired doctor fell silent—not because he was convinced, but because that phrase 'won't be any lower' had shut him up.

In other words, he couldn't be sure Lucius's method was better than his own.

A guard approached the equipment, hand hovering over the power socket, waiting for orders.

Emily froze, gripping something by the bedside. "You have no right to touch that machine."

Lucius shifted his gaze to her face, held it for three seconds, then took two more steps forward until he stood right in front of Emily, less than three feet between them.

His voice was soft. "Your grandmother's already dead. You have no one left to rely on. Understand?"

Emily said nothing.

Lucius raised his hand, fingers slowly moving toward her cheek.

Morrison took a small step forward. The guards turned in response, weapons at the ready.

But Morrison didn't advance any further. His breathing quickened, yet he couldn't move.

Because if he actually did something, those two bodyguards could turn everyone in this hallway into ground meat.

And if Lucius pulled out that document again, this whole place would be finished.

Lucius said, "According to the equipment readings, your husband is currently in a vegetative state."

He glanced sideways at Wayne. "A disposable tool. Once you're done using it, it's worthless. What are you even doing here?"

Jenny's ventilator made weak, rhythmic sounds—the only sound in the hospital room.

Lucius withdrew his gaze, now less than an inch from Emily's cheek.

"So what's the point of this brain-dead person existing?"

"Your daughter can only survive if she's in my facility. But if you want to trade for your daughter's chance to live, you'll have to wear what I like tonight."

The white-haired doctor stepped back, bumping into the doorframe. His fingers fumbled blindly over the emergency kit's clasp, unable to find the latch.

Morrison's jaw clenched white. "You—"

He didn't finish.

Every piece of medical equipment in the room exploded.

Not just one—all of them. The cardiac monitors, the EEG machines, Jenny's gene-lock maintenance device—all burst with blinding white light.

Data overflowed the display windows. The machines' humming turned to shrieking, then stopped completely.

Sparks flew from plugs and outlets. The power cut automatically. The room went dark except for a single emergency light casting cold white illumination.

Lucius's hand stopped.

Both bodyguards spun around. After scanning the room, their tactical neural chips erupted in cascading alerts.

One guard immediately stepped back, pointing at the wall. "Signal's bad. Can't pinpoint the threat."

The other guard said, "Biomagnetic interference. Field strength's too high—equipment's useless."

Lucius frowned, turning toward Wayne's bedside.

Wayne's eyes snapped open. No blue light.

His left eye had no color at all—completely black, deep, deeper than the darkness in the room.

Not because it was too dim, but because it was absorbing the light.

Morrison startled. The white-haired doctor gasped. Even Emily's fingers gripping the bed rail loosened slightly—in that instant, shock made her forget to maintain her grip. Her fingers unconsciously relaxed.

The guards' retreat wasn't tactical—it was pure physiological instinct.

The alert frequency from their neural chips had exceeded maximum allowable levels. They clutched their heads, crying out in pain.

"Neural frequency interference—can't calculate—can't calculate!"

The white-haired doctor crouched down, picking up the tablet from the floor. Some data remained visible. One look told him everything.

"The brainwave graph shows neural signals... the equipment can't read them."

Morrison asked him, "What does that mean?"

"The flat EEG doesn't mean his brain is dead." The white-haired doctor's voice trembled slightly.

"It's because the E-7 chip combined with his own nervous system is producing a frequency too high for the instruments to register."

He paused. "The medical system classified him as brain-dead... No, it's that his neural frequency is too high—beyond what our equipment can measure."

Lucius stood by the bed without retreating, his expression unchanged.

But the hand that had been reaching for Emily now hung at his side.

He spoke, his voice still steady. "You're awake."

Wayne said nothing. He sat up in bed slowly—not from weakness, but because there was no need to rush.

The two bodyguards exchanged glances, then attacked simultaneously without hesitation. Their genetically modified muscles gave them speed under point-two seconds—faster than human reaction time.

In the underground market, that advantage had made them unbeatable.

Wayne raised his right hand—the one with broken finger bones. Fast. A blur cut through the air with a sharp whistle.

Something seemed to tear apart, then stitch back together. The sound echoed once through the room before vanishing.

Both guards' heads exploded simultaneously, like watermelons split in half.

The headless bodies slid forward from momentum before crashing heavily to the floor with a tremendous noise.

Blood splattered across Lucius's white suit, streaming from collar to knee.

No one in the room spoke.

Morrison stared at the corpses for three seconds, closed his eyes, then opened them again, confirming what he'd seen was real.

Two hundred million dollars' worth of genetically modified Adjudicator guards. Three times human speed.

Downstairs, they'd turned a dozen of the Underground Royalty's elite fighters into pulp. Now their heads were on the floor.

From start to finish—less than one second.

Wayne remained on the bed, right hand resting on his knee. The injured fingers showed no new wounds.

He hadn't left the bed's edge.

Lucius stared at the floor for a long time before finally raising his head. His voice changed for the first time, becoming almost unrecognizable—soft, yet trembling unmistakably. "You..."

"Three times reaction speed?"

Wayne spoke calmly, as if verifying data, looking at Lucius.

"Who told you that when I killed people before, I was using my full strength?"