Chapter 169: Flayed Alive in Seven Cuts
Chapter 169: Flayed Alive in Seven Cuts
Evans jerked in surprise, looking down as he tried bending his knee a couple of times.
Then he immediately braced his hands against the floor and sat up.
Stable. Just like before the injury.
Gasps echoed through the hall—more than one person.
The military envoys who'd been bombarding Wayne with verbal artillery moments ago were now attendees at today's meeting.
Now they watched a man with a severed leg stand up within ten seconds, without an operating table, with nothing but a pair of blood-soaked hands.
Evans looked down at his restored leg, then at Wayne, swallowed hard, and dropped to one knee.
Wayne didn't tell him to rise. Instead, he turned toward Lucius.
Lucius lay on the floor. When Evans had stood up, his face had already gone pale.
Now Wayne's finger pointed behind him, so he started crawling backward.
"Evans."
"Yes, sir."
Wayne lowered his voice to speak to Lucius. The hall was deathly silent—not even a whisper of wind.
"He said he'd twist off my daughter's head. So let him experience firsthand whether it hurts when your neck gets severed."
Morrison picked up a broken high-frequency vibration blade from the floor and handed it over.
The blade was only half there, the fractured edge showing metallic grain.
Evans took the handle, stood up, and walked toward Lucius.
---
Lucius fell backward, sliding across the floor on his elbows, bloody scraps of paper still in his mouth.
"You can't do this. I'm a member of the UN Global Biosafety Committee."
Evans didn't stop.
"I have diplomatic immunity." Lucius's voice changed. "No sovereign nation can punish me."
One slash. Lucius's right hand—still gripping the broken blade—was severed at the wrist.
It flew through the air, hit the wall, bounced back, and fell to the floor.
His mouth hung open for two seconds before the scream came.
Evans didn't give him a chance to finish screaming. The second slash landed on his left shoulder.
The uneven cutting surface of the broken blade snagged in the muscle—Evans had to pull to sever it completely.
The commanders from various nations stood outside. Some turned their heads away. Others didn't. But no one spoke.
Rivera faced the events in the hall, but his communicator rang three times without him answering.
After the third slash, Lucius could no longer make sounds—only the wet pop of bursting bubbles.
Evans crouched down, drove the broken blade into his chest, pulled it out, drove it in again. Four times total.
Each time the blade withdrew, it carried things that shouldn't be outside the body.
No one in the hall spoke. The only sound was Lucius's blood dripping onto broken glass beneath him—a faint patter.
After the seventh slash, Lucius was no longer a complete person.
Evans stood up, threw the broken blade to the floor—metal striking concrete—then turned and knelt before Wayne again.
"It's done."
Wayne stood at the entrance. Before him was a wall of kneeling bodies.
Beyond that wall lay a city of three million people. Beyond the city, a retreating fleet.
He spoke.
"From now on, there is no international law here. Only one set of rules—my family's rules."
No one answered, but the kneeling figures bowed their heads even lower.
Rivera turned and saluted Wayne.
---
Wayne headed toward the elevator. Morrison followed. Evans and the underground kingpins stood as well.
Fewer and fewer people remained outside the hall, but no one would leave before Wayne did.
Fourth floor. Patient room.
Jenny sat up and removed her oxygen mask. Her face looked more flushed now. Emily sat beside her, helping her drink water.
The moment Wayne entered, Jenny noticed immediately. She stretched out her small hand. "Daddy."
Wayne sat on the bed. Jenny burrowed into his arms and kissed his chest without saying anything.
Emily leaned against Wayne's shoulder.
Outside the window, the helicopter engines had gone silent. Sunlight streamed through the glassless window, illuminating the family of three.
Veronica stood outside for a moment, then gently closed the door.
In the hallway stood only a white-haired doctor and Morrison.
For once, Morrison wasn't cursing. He leaned against the wall and slipped his phone into his pocket.
The white-haired doctor wrapped three layers of bandages around his hand, then spoke to Morrison.
"The patch on Jenny's lower back is still there. If we don't replace it soon—"
"You think he cares about that right now?" Morrison cut him off.
The white-haired doctor fell silent.
Nothing happened for the next three days.
Lucius's body was placed in a black bag and carried out.
A new glass door was installed in the hall. The fourth-floor patient room received new medical equipment.
Jenny's gene-lock signal remained stable—thanks to the patch she wore at her waist.
It had replaced the original hardware chip's function, and was even more secure.
The white-haired doctor ran seven tests. Each result was better than the last.
On the third afternoon, Jenny circled the garden three times.
When she fell, she picked herself up and kept running. Emily chased after her.
Wayne stood at the fourth-floor window, looking down.
The sun was bright. Jenny's voice carried through the entire building.
The communicator rang.
Wayne answered Isaac's encrypted channel.
"Chief, there's something I need to tell you."
Isaac's speech had slowed—abnormal for him. He only spoke this way when uncertain whether to speak at all.
Wayne didn't rush him.
"When we took over the Eden Council's database."
"All the data was preserved. Bell didn't delete it when he left."
"But at the lowest level, there's a folder Bell didn't encrypt."
Wayne switched the communicator to his other hand.
"Encryption level three tiers higher than Bell's clearance. Automated."
"Activated when the Council's core data comes under complete unauthorized control."
"Meaning?"
"The file was never meant for Bell to see. It was placed at the bottom level to appear only after Eden Council dissolved."
Wayne leaned against the window, looking down. Jenny had fallen again. Emily laughed beside her.
"You opened it?"
"Inside was a set of coordinates. Pointing to the deepest part of the Arctic ice shelf. With twenty years of observational data."
"Observing what?"
"Beneath the ice, there's a space—about three football fields in size. Something's inside."
Isaac paused two seconds. "Alive."
Wayne said nothing.
"Twenty years of observation show its vital signs haven't changed."
"For eighteen years, barely any activity."
"But starting last year, noticeable energy fluctuations every three months."
"Increasing amplitude."
Wayne said coldly, "Not Eden Council's concern."