The micro laser scalpel hummed against Zero's neck like a mechanical wasp preparing to deliver death. Five hours and forty-seven minutes until his brainstem would be reduced to biological soup—not exactly ideal surgical conditions, but I'd worked with worse odds in field hospitals where mortar shells provided the background music.
The bomb chip was buried deep in his cerebellar cistern, wedged between vital neural pathways like a malignant tumor designed by someone with a PhD in sadistic engineering. One microscopic slip of my hand and I'd turn Zero into a drooling vegetable before the explosive could finish the job.
"This is going to hurt like hell," I warned, positioning the laser with the precision of someone defusing a nuclear warhead while riding a roller coaster.
Zero's response was a soft hum of acceptance that made something dangerous twist in my chest. "I trust you, Doctor. Completely."
*Famous last words. Also, stop looking at me like I'm your personal savior.*
I made the first incision, parting skin and muscle with the delicacy of someone performing surgery on a butterfly's wing. Zero's body went rigid as steel, but he didn't make a sound—just gripped the bedsheets with white-knuckled determination that spoke of years conditioning himself to endure pain in silence.
**[LIVESTREAM - VIEWERS: 15,247,891]**
→ @BloodRose_666: LIVE BRAIN SURGERY TO REMOVE A BOMB I'M HYPERVENTILATING
→ @ChaosQueen: The precision while working on a ticking time bomb is absolutely insane
→ @ShadowLord donated 5,000,000 credits: "MOST INTENSE MEDICAL DRAMA IN HUMAN HISTORY"
→ @OmegaLover: Zero's absolute trust in him is breaking my heart into pieces
→ @Anonymous_7749: This is better than any medical show ever made
I worked deeper through layers of neural tissue, following the chip's electronic signature like a bloodhound tracking a scent. The device was crude but brutally effective—a kill switch designed to liquefy the brainstem when activated. Whoever had installed it clearly valued function over finesse, efficiency over elegance.
My fingers were steady as a surgeon's should be as I navigated around critical nerve clusters, each movement calculated to avoid permanent damage to the delicate architecture of Zero's hybrid brain. His breathing hitched with each probe, muscles trembling with suppressed agony, but he remained perfectly still, trusting me with his life in a way that felt both humbling and absolutely terrifying.
I was millimeters from the chip, so close I could see its metallic surface gleaming under the surgical light, when the facility's intercom crackled to life with the sound of approaching doom.
"Dr. Shen An," Adam's voice filled the room like poisoned honey mixed with broken glass. "Such touching dedication to your patients. How... romantically heroic of you."
I didn't pause in my work, but my jaw tightened with barely controlled rage. "Busy right now, Adam. Call back when hell freezes over."
His laughter was the sound of children's nightmares given voice. "Oh, but I think you'll want to hear this little announcement. You see, I've been watching your amateur surgery with great interest. Such skill, such precision, such naive confidence. It would be a terrible shame if something were to... complicate the procedure."
The countdown timer on Zero's neck suddenly flared blood red like a warning from hell itself.
**[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL EMERGENCY - PROTOCOL OVERRIDE]**
**[TERMINATION SEQUENCE ACCELERATED BY EXTERNAL COMMAND]**
**[TIME TO DETONATION: 5 MINUTES 00 SECONDS]**
**[CHIP STATUS: DEFENSIVE MODE ACTIVATED]**
**[WARNING: ANTI-TAMPERING MEASURES DEPLOYED]**
"What the actual hell—" I started, then watched in absolute horror as eight razor-sharp claws erupted from the chip like mechanical spider legs birthed from a nightmare. They buried themselves deep into Zero's brainstem with wet, tearing sounds that made my medical training scream in protest.
Zero's scream was inhuman—a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that seemed to tear through the air itself and lodge in my bones. His body convulsed like he was being electrocuted, back arching in a perfect bow of suffering as the claws dug deeper, seeking vital neural pathways to sever and destroy.
**[LIVESTREAM CHAT]**
→ @BloodRose_666: THE CHIP IS FIGHTING BACK LIKE A LIVING THING THIS IS NIGHTMARE FUEL
→ @ChaosQueen: THOSE CLAWS ARE LITERALLY IN HIS BRAIN I'M GOING TO BE SICK
→ @ShadowLord: Adam just turned this into a death trap in real time
→ @Anonymous_0001: Five minutes to save him or they both die horribly
→ @OmegaLover: The way Zero is suffering I can't watch but I can't look away
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Adam's voice dripped with satisfaction like blood from a fresh wound. "The chip is designed to defend itself when tampered with by unauthorized personnel. Those claws will systematically shred his nervous system if you try to remove them. But I'm feeling magnanimous today—I'll give you a choice that will define both your futures."
The countdown hit four minutes and thirty seconds, each second ticking away like a heartbeat racing toward death.
"Kneel," Adam commanded, his voice echoing through the speakers like a divine decree from a malevolent god. "Kneel before the camera like the pathetic insect you are, beg for my mercy with tears in your eyes, and I might consider deactivating the device. Your precious pride, or his worthless life. Choose quickly, Doctor. Time is rather literally running out."
Zero's convulsions were getting worse, blood frothing at his lips as the claws systematically destroyed his neural pathways with mechanical precision. But even through the mind-breaking agony, he managed to grab my wrist with trembling fingers that felt like ice.
"Don't," he gasped, voice barely a whisper but carrying the weight of absolute conviction. "Don't kneel for him. Don't give him that satisfaction. Just... just kill me quick. Please. Make it clean. Don't let him win."
*Like hell I'm letting either of you win this sick game.*
I looked at Zero—this broken weapon who'd been turned into a person, who trusted me enough to choose death over seeing me humiliated, who was willing to die to preserve my dignity—and felt something fundamental snap inside my chest like a wire stretched beyond its breaking point.
My glasses came off with deliberate precision, and I set them aside like a gunslinger preparing for the duel of his lifetime.
"Adam," I said, voice deadly calm with the kind of quiet that preceded hurricanes. "Your technology is absolute garbage, your engineering is amateur hour, and you're about to find out exactly why I don't kneel for anyone."
**[SYSTEM ALERT: MASSIVE PURIFICATION ENERGY SURGE DETECTED]**
**[POWER LEVEL: SSS-CLASS - BEYOND MEASUREMENT PARAMETERS]**
**[ABILITY EVOLUTION: MICRO-MANIPULATION (DIVINE MODIFICATION)]**
**[WARNING: REALITY DISTORTION FIELD ACTIVE]**
Golden threads erupted from my fingertips like liquid starlight, invisible to the naked eye but blazing with power that made the air itself hum with barely contained energy. I didn't just invade the chip—I became it, my consciousness flowing through circuits and processors with the precision of a digital god rewriting the fundamental laws of physics.
The claws were titanium-steel alloy, supposedly indestructible by any conventional means. But at the molecular level, everything had weaknesses—stress points where atomic bonds could be severed with surgical precision, where matter itself could be convinced to simply... stop existing.
Three minutes and counting.
I worked faster than humanly possible, my enhanced abilities allowing me to perceive and manipulate matter at the quantum level where reality became negotiable. Each claw was a puzzle of metallurgy and malice, but I was better at puzzles than whoever had designed this elaborate death trap.
Two minutes remaining.
The first claw crumbled to dust like it had aged a thousand years in seconds. Then the second. The third and fourth followed, their molecular structure unraveling under my assault like sand castles in a hurricane made of pure will.
One minute left.
Zero's convulsions were slowing as the pressure on his brainstem eased, the mechanical torture devices no longer shredding his neural pathways. Blood still flowed from the wounds, but the immediate threat of neural destruction was passing like a storm moving out to sea.
Thirty seconds.
The last claw dissolved into component atoms, and I grabbed the chip itself—a piece of technology that had cost someone millions to develop and install, now reduced to expensive scrap metal by my righteous fury.
Twenty seconds.
With a surge of purification energy that made the lights flicker, I severed every connection, burned out every circuit, and reduced the entire device to a smoking piece of junk that would make a decent paperweight.
Ten seconds.
I yanked the dead chip from Zero's skull and held it up to the camera, letting Adam see his precious kill switch reduced to a pathetic piece of melted metal and shattered dreams.
Five seconds.
I dropped the chip into my glass of whiskey, watching it dissolve like an antacid tablet in acid.
Zero.
The countdown hit zero with a pathetic beep, like a smoke detector with a dying battery.
**[LIVESTREAM EXPLOSION]**
→ @BloodRose_666: HE JUST DISARMED A BOMB WITH PURE WILLPOWER AND SPITE I'M SCREAMING
→ @ChaosQueen: THE MOLECULAR MANIPULATION WAS LIKE WATCHING A GOD WORK
→ @ShadowLord: Adam just got schooled by superior technology and bigger balls
→ @Anonymous_0001 donated 50,000,000 credits: "MOST EPIC BOMB DEFUSAL IN RECORDED HISTORY"
→ @OmegaLover: The way he saved Zero I'm crying actual tears of joy
I held up my middle finger to the camera with the kind of professional courtesy I reserved for particularly incompetent colleagues who'd just tried to murder my patient.
"Your tech is absolute garbage, Adam. Maybe try a community college course in basic engineering before attempting murder next time. Also, go fuck yourself with a rusty scalpel."
The intercom went silent, but I could practically feel Adam's impotent rage radiating through the speakers like heat from a furnace.
Zero stirred on the bed, his eyes fluttering open with the slow awareness of someone returning from the edge of death and finding paradise instead. When his gaze found mine, something shifted in his expression—a recognition that went deeper than gratitude, deeper than relief, deeper than anything I was prepared to handle.
"Master," he whispered, voice thick with devotion that made my skin crawl and my heart race simultaneously. "You saved me. You chose me over your pride. I'm yours now. Forever and always."
**[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: HIDDEN QUEST COMPLETED WITH PERFECT SCORE]**
**[SUBJECT 06 - ZERO: AWAKENING LEVEL 50% ACHIEVED]**
**[SPECIAL ITEM ACQUIRED: HACKER'S KEY (S-CLASS LEGENDARY)]**
**[NEXT AREA UNLOCKED: THE ABYSS DEPTHS]**
I looked at the dissolving chip in the whiskey glass and realized I'd just destroyed what was apparently a very expensive and important key. But before I could fish out the remains, the sound of military boots in the hallway made my blood run cold as arctic wind.
The door exploded inward in a shower of splinters and smoke. Black-clad figures poured through the breach like death incarnate, assault rifles trained on us with military precision that spoke of serious training and serious intent to kill.
"Freeze! Hands where we can see them! Move and we paint the walls with your brains!"
I looked down at Zero, who was already tensing for violence despite his injuries, his body coiling like a spring loaded with lethal intent. His eyes held a question that needed no words, a promise of beautiful carnage if I just said the word.
I smiled—the kind of expression that had made my medical school professors deeply nervous about my career prospects.
"Zero," I said softly, voice carrying the weight of divine permission, "want to test your new upgrades?"
His answering grin was all teeth and promised violence, beautiful and terrible as a fallen angel preparing for war.