Kill to evolve: A system that demands blood
Chapter 41: Rescued

Chapter 41: Rescued

Chapter 41

Ronan’s knees buckled.

He dropped to one, gasping as if the air had turned to smoke. His vision blurred at the edges, and his body—his own damn body—felt foreign. The clones stood like sentinels around him, their movements mechanical but precise. Every breath they took felt like a countdown.

And the boss... he was silent now. Watching and waiting.

This can’t be happening. No way was he going to end up as a fucking vessel.

Ronan gritted his teeth and forced himself to crawl forward, muscles trembling. Every inch felt like a mile. His system wasn’t just being suppressed, it was glitching. Shifting between command protocols he didn’t recognize. Like someone else was holding the remote.

His eyes darted toward the tanks, empty now. Wires and fluid spilled across the floor, reeking of chemicals and old blood. The suppression field was anchored somewhere, but he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t even feel it. That scared him more than the clones.

"Still moving?" the boss mused, voice drifting lazily through the speaker. "I must admit... I didn’t expect you to remain conscious this long. But to be honest, I can’t wait to see what being in your body would feel like. I’ve long awaited this moment, when I would finally claim my perfect masterpiece."

Ronan forced himself to his feet, one hand braced against a nearby console. His fingers twitched, itching for a weapon, for anything. But all he had was his will, and it was fraying.

"Why do you do this? Why experiment on humans and turn then into weapons? Why exactly?" Ronan struggled to ask, breath heaving.

"Simple, I hate being powerless. I want to rule, I want to own...I want to be worshiped. I deserve everything....I deserve to own a healthy body, I deserve you!" The boss growled, his voice growing more emotional.

"I could trigger it now," the boss continued, almost thoughtfully. "Strip away what’s left of your consciousnesses, and finally own your body."

Ronan’s jaw clenched. "Then why haven’t you?"

Silence.

Then, the bosses brows furrowed...but he quickly masked it with a smirk. "I just enjoy watching things fall apart. Great hobby isn’t it?"

This man was insane. Anyone who would see him, a frail man strapped to a chair with dozen tubes connected to him while his life is barely hanging, all they would feel was pity. But after seeing this, whatever mentality this man had, he had absolutely gone insane beyond help.

"You’ll regret not ending this sooner." Ronan muttered through gritted teeth.

Just then, a soft chime echoed through the room. Something shifted in the air, and Ronan staggered back as a sharp pulse sliced through his head, then another. His system surged for a brief second, then shut down.

Complete silence.

Ronan blinked rapidly, eyes adjusting to the dim glow of emergency lights now flickering overhead. The main power had dropped.

"What did you do?" the boss demanded. For the first time, there was strain in his voice.

"I didn’t do anything," Ronan muttered, falling against the wall. His system was dead, not suppressed, not locked. Dead.

But so were the clones.

One by one, they twitched, glitched, their eyes rolled back, their limbs jerked uncontrollably. Whatever signal they’d been operating under, whatever hive link the boss used was cut.

Ronan didn’t celebrate, he barely stood.

Because that meant someone else had interfered.

A low rumble filled the air, and suddenly, the far wall exploded inward in a hail of steel and smoke.

Shrapnel rained across the lab. The sound of boots hitting the floor followed immediately, rushed and heavy.

Ronan squinted through the haze, heart catching in his throat. Had someone come to save him? But who, he hadn’t told anyone where he was going.

And right then, Myles stepped through first, rifle in hand, face set like stone. His gear was scorched and scratched, eyes burning with fury.

"Target in sight," Myles barked. "kill every last one of them and save that fool."

Ronan’s eyes widened, Myles? What was he doing here? How....

Behind him, Mila moved like a shadow, her twin daggers glinting as she slipped through the wreckage with her teleportation ability, precise and silent.

Dez, another squad four team member brought up the rear, dragging in a massive pulse cannon, muttering under his breath, "Told y’all this place would be crawling with freak science."

And there was Karla, already sprinting toward Ronan before he could collapse again.

"You look like shit," she said, sliding under his arm to keep him upright. Her voice was tight, shaken. "But you’re still breathing, so I’ll bitch at you later."

Ronan’s throat tightened. His body screamed, and his mind barely held on, but his chest burned with something raw and unexpected. His mind swirling with different emotions.

"Y-You guys—how did you—"

"Thank your system," Myles cut in, stepping between Ronan and the clones that had begun twitching on the floor again. "it sent us your location and mentioned you were in danger, we figured you were trapped, already dead or stupid, I mean...what the hell were you thinking coming here all by yourself?"

it was obvious myles was pissed with Ronan.

"Guess it’s stupid," Dez muttered, leveling his cannon at one of the malfunctioning clones.

The boss’s voice crackled through the overhead system, thick with venom. "You think they can save you? You think this changes anything?"

Myles raised his head toward the control room, sneering. "Yeah. We do."

He opened fire.

Bullets tore through the lab. One of the clones attempted to move, jerky, glitching—but was ripped apart by Dez’s cannon blast. Mila darted forward, slashing another clean across the throat before it could twitch.

"You can’t destroy what I’ve created!" the boss screamed. "This is my legacy!"

Siena, the squad captain, stormed in behind the others, flanked by smoke and fire like the world itself bent to her command. "Not anymore," she said coldly.

Karla was already pulling Ronan toward the exit. "Yeah? Legacy’s on fire, asshole."

Ronan stumbled, then caught himself. "We need to take the core offline. The suppression field, it’s anchored to something in the sublevel. If we don’t destroy it, the system might reboot and trap us all inside. That man has the power to manipulate systems."

"Already on it," Mila called from a nearby terminal, fingers flying as she typed away. "Give me sixty seconds."

"I’ll buy you time," Myles said, stepping between her and a slowly rising clone. "Let’s see what happens when you fight the clones of the fool we came to save."