Chapter 66: The Exsanguinated

In Hester's eyes, Sean retreated while fighting at an unimaginable speed, gradually drawing the chelate deeper down the path until he vanished from her sight.

Sean lay prone on the ground, silently counting HESTER'S gunshots.

Hester carried two handguns: one was a standard practice weapon from the base, loaded with fifteen rubber bullets and offering mediocre lethality; the other, a serviceable Beretta 92, appeared to have a magazine capacity of fifteen or seventeen rounds based on its size.

Hester had no other weapons. Once her ammunition was exhausted, she would be reduced to a state of passive defense.

Following eleven sharp cracks, the gunfire paused briefly, though the sounds of hand-to-hand combat continued.

Sean's heart sank—Hester's Beretta 92 was out of ammo.

Her other practice gun should still have fourteen rubber bullets left, but at a distance of about fifteen meters, such rounds couldn't even pierce his flesh and blood. Relying on them to fight the chelate was sheer fantasy...

Sure enough, when the gunfire resumed, it lacked its previous deafening roar.

A chill washed over Sean. Massive blood loss brought on drowsiness, and he truly lapsed into a sense of calm—not the blackouts caused by extreme terror, nor the certainty born of knowing everything. This feeling of nothingness was like intoxication, making him feel transcendent and free.

Sean gave a soft sigh and closed his eyes without resisting.

To die like this wouldn't be bad; at least he would suffer no more terror...

In his mind, Calvin's face suddenly surfaced. Sean furrowed his brow, feeling a pang of sorrow—in the end, I can only leave you alone in this world...

Amidst the haze, Sean felt a warm embrace opening up to him, and he knew it was the wings of death. The pain in his body was growing numb; as death's scythe harvested his life, it also quelled his agony.

A loud crash echoed from a distance, but Sean found it merely annoying, until he felt someone dragging his body beside him, forcing him to reluctantly open his eyes.

He saw Hester's face.

Sean jerked awake, the pain in both his arms suddenly flaring sharp again. He looked down and discovered that Hester had undone her shoelaces and was tightly binding the ends of his severed arms.

The loud crash in the distance continued, sounding as though someone were pounding a war drum with a giant hammer.

"...Where's the chelate?"

"There's a manually triggered partition door over there," Hester answered swiftly. "After I lured it over, I temporarily trapped it on the other side, though I have no idea how long it will hold..."

Sean understood—those massive impacts were the chelate using its immense strength and steel-like hands to batter the partition door.

"Did you... did you undergo secondary awakening?"

"Stop talking."

Hester interrupted Sean's inquiry, hoisted him onto her back, and broke into a sprint toward the safe room.

With an extra person on her back, running wildly once again made Hester feel as though her lungs were burning, but Sean, lacking two arms, was nearly twenty pounds lighter, allowing her to barely manage.

Sean lay weakly against Hester's back. "Why is your speed... so slow again?"

Hester sneered, "Why didn't you lose another pair of legs? Then I'm sure I could run much faster."

Sean sheepishly shut his mouth, yet confusion lingered.

At this moment, Hester was like an ordinary little girl running routinely down a corridor, a complete stranger to the high-speed combatant of moments ago.

Sean pondered alone for a moment, suddenly realizing that Hester probably had not undergone a secondary awakening. Otherwise, the force with which she had just used her shoelaces to stump-bind him would certainly have snapped off another section of his residual arms.

Learning how to control one's own strength during Bullet Time was an extremely challenging skill for all new Silver Needle operatives. Without long-term deliberate practice, very few newbies could master it, and even with initial mastery, losing control due to various factors was highly likely—just like the time Liz had hugged Hester and broken her bones during Bullet Time.

Sean panted, his consciousness plunging back into chaos. He no longer had the strength to dwell on these things.

The safe room was already close at hand.

"Tulan!" Hester shouted.

When she finally stepped through that door, she instantly spotted Tulan lying on the floor.

Tulan was curled up in a pool of blood, her expression agonizing, yet she remained conscious. Hearing Hester's voice, she lifted her head toward the doorway in disbelief.

"Jane...?" Tulan murmured.

Hester laid Sean down in the corner, then swiftly turned to shut the safe room door.

After deadbolting the heavy door, Hester hurried to Tulan's side. "Tulan, how are you?"

"Don't... don't touch me!" Tulan's voice suddenly turned hurried and weak.

Hester quickly grasped the reason: Tulan's abdomen had been sliced almost entirely open horizontally, and many of her internal organs had spilled out through the wound, still tethered by a few slender blood vessels.

Tulan gazed at Hester. Her eyes remained a gemstone-like green, but a silvery rim now encircled her pupils—the hallmark of a Silver Needle operative entering Bullet Time.

"I'm fine," Tulan whispered weakly. "Don't be afraid, I can hold on."

Not far away, Sean, whom Hester had placed against the wall, had completely lost consciousness and lapsed into shock, his body slowly sliding down the wall.

This movement caught Tulan's attention. Seeing Sean's severed limbs, she instantly understood what she and Hester had both endured.

"Jane... that cabinet over there, the second column," Tulan spoke intermittently. "Go... open it."

Hester stood up immediately and went to the spot Tulan had specified—but the cabinet door was locked and refused to yield.

"Is it this one?"

"Yes..." Tulan murmured low, "Enter your... ID."

Only then did Hester notice a numeric keypad in the center of the dark metal cabinet. She rapidly punched in 4623030042403. The moment she keyed in the final digit, the keypad vanished, transforming into a real-time screen reflecting Hester's portrait.

A red bounding box firmly framed the contours of Hester's face. A few seconds later, the red shifted to blue, and Hester heard the sound of gears meshing and rotating as the door sprang open.

"It's a battlefield blood transfusion device... wheel it over to Sean. He looks like... he's not going to make it."

"Shouldn't I give it to you first?"

Tulan shook her head. "I... I'm not suited for this anymore... It will only... accelerate my bleeding..."

Under Tulan's guidance, Hester wheeled the transfusion device over to Sean. She pulled several sterile tubes from the apparatus and secured the circular dome at the end onto Sean's severed arm. Once the device activated, she untied the shoelaces bound around Sean's upper limbs.

Following a synthetic female voice instruction, the micro-mechanical hands inside the device began debriding the wounds. Soon after, milky-white universal blood flowed through the transparent infusion tubes into Sean's body.

Hester quickly returned to Tulan's side, the gruesome scene before her too harrowing to behold. "What more can I do for you, Tulan?"

Tulan managed a faint laugh. "I'm fine. As long as I'm in Bullet Time, I... I can hold on."

"How long does your Bullet Time last?"

"One hour and three minutes... Enough, definitely enough." Tulan's face was as pale as paper, and she smiled slightly. "It's so good... that you're here, Jane. I—I'm so sleepy... Talk to me... talk to me..."