Chapter 120 Live-Stream Explosion

Chapter 120 Live-Stream Explosion

"Signal transmitter."

James picked up a small circuit board and soldered a thin wire onto it. His movements were steady, hands perfectly still, like he'd done it a hundred times before.

Wesley's mouth fell open.

"You know how to solder circuit boards?"

"Matthew taught me."

Wesley's mouth stayed open.

He watched James put the components together one by one, smooth and effortless, like snapping together a LEGO set.

In less than twenty minutes, a signal transmitter the size of a palm was done.

James pressed the button on top. The indicator light came on, blinking green, like a heartbeat.

He picked up his phone and glanced at it.

Signal bars appeared. One. Two. Three.

Full bars.

Wesley's eyes went wide.

"Boss, how do you know how to do everything?"

James ignored him.

He opened his messaging app and sent Matthew a message.

"We're locked in the top floor of the Royal Hotel. Door's locked, signal's jammed. Can you get a location on us?"

Matthew replied fast.

"Already got you. Boss, I'm picking up your transmitter's signal. You're on the hotel's top floor. At least fifty signal sources moving around you — bodyguards, most likely."

"Can you get a drone in?"

"Emberlyn's airspace is locked down tight. Regular drones won't make it through. But we could use the stealth ones — that custom batch we ordered from the Novarian arms factory. Radar can't touch them. A hundred units. That enough?"

James thought for a second.

"That's enough."

"Two hours out."

James slipped his phone back into his pocket and dropped onto the sofa, crossing his legs.

Wesley stood there, looking completely lost.

"Boss, what are you two talking about? What drones? A hundred of them?"

Xavier leaned against the wall, arms folded, and answered for James.

"We're getting out. Not through the door — through the window."

Wesley walked to the window and looked down.

Five floors up. Hard stone pavement below. A pack of bodyguards watching like hawks. He stepped back, face drained of color.

"Xavier, you're not serious."

Xavier said nothing.

The corner of his mouth curved up slightly. He'd realized he had a bit of a mean streak — especially when it came to watching Wesley look scared half to death.

Two hours later, the sun started to sink.

Emberlyn's evenings were beautiful.

The sky shifted from blue to orange, orange to purple, purple to deep red, like someone was dragging a giant brush across it, stroke by stroke.

Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows and turned the whole living room gold.

But James had no interest in the sunset.

He sat on the sofa with his laptop open in front of him.

The signal transmitter hadn't just restored the phone signal — it had also tapped into the hotel's WiFi network. The hotel had cut off the external connection, but James used the transmitter to get around their firewall and connect directly to the dark web.

Matthew sent a message.

"Boss, drones are here. All hundred of them, hovering three thousand feet above the hotel. Radar can't see them. Say the word and I'll bring them down."

James replied.

"Hold. Wait for my signal."

He closed the laptop, stood up, and walked out to the balcony.

The evening breeze came through, carrying the dryness of the desert and the faint smell of palm trees.

Beautiful place. Terrible people.

James took a breath of fresh air, then turned and went back inside. He opened the laptop, logged into the dark web, and pulled up the live stream interface.

This time James wore no mask, used no voice changer. Just his own face, his own voice. He glanced at the camera, confirmed the image was clear, and hit the "Go Live" button.

In the dark web stream, the viewer count started climbing from zero.

Ten. A hundred. A thousand. Five thousand. In under a minute, it broke fifty thousand.

The comment section exploded — every language imaginable, all crashing together like a boiling pot of soup.

"Wait, is that—"

"That's James! He assembled a C6 bomb on his last stream!"

"But — isn't this M's account?!"

"Sharp eyes! This IS M's account!"

"Hold on, did someone hack M?"

"Are you insane? That's M. Nobody hacks M. These are clearly the same person. I always wondered how some nobody could build a C6 — and now you're telling me James IS M? Everything makes sense now. I actually tried to bribe James once, offered him money for the formula."

"God help me. At least you just tried to pay him. I was planning to kidnap James and force the formula out of him. Thank God I never went through with it."

Some people who still hadn't caught on kept flooding the chat.

"He's not wearing a mask!"

"Where is this? Looks like a hotel."

"That's the Emberlyn Royal Hotel! I've stayed there! I recognize those curtains!"

James watched the comments scroll across the screen. His expression didn't change.

He waited until the viewer count hit a hundred thousand before he spoke.

"Everyone. Long time no see."

His voice was calm, like he was saying hello to old friends.

The comments went even more insane — scrolling so fast you couldn't read them.

"I'm not here to sell a formula. I'm not here to show off."

James picked up a small cylinder from the table and held it up to the camera.

It was much smaller than a C6 — about the size of a AA battery. Silver casing, smooth surface, no markings.

"This is the C6-mini. Cute, right?"

The chat answered immediately.

"Adorable!"

"Sure, it's tiny — but it can still kill people, right?"

James smiled, cold and sharp.

"The C6-mini has one-twentieth the blast power of a C6. Small and pretty, but more than enough to take out a room."

He set the C6-mini back on the table, then pulled a small remote from his pocket. One red button.

"I've placed one C6-mini in each of thirty rooms here at the Emberlyn Royal Hotel. One of those rooms will be detonated in ten seconds. If you don't believe me, pull up the hotel's news channel."

He pressed the red button.

The comments froze for one second.

Then came flooding back.

"Insane. This is insane. I love it."

"He's serious — I just checked the news! A room on the seventh floor of the Royal Hotel just blew. No casualties, but an entire wall is gone!"

"He actually put bombs in the hotel!"

"Call the police — no, just RUN!"

James watched the comments and let the corner of his mouth lift slightly.

"Don't panic. They're C6's little cousins — small blast radius, won't kill you. But... if you're unlucky enough to be staying in one of those rooms, well. No guarantees."

Then James closed the stream.