Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 233: For Your Majesty (48)

Dragon Raja 5

In a prison on a deserted South Pacific island, many high-risk hybrids were wearing arterial locks. They were free to wander, chat, sunbathe, and even occasionally camp out on the other side of the island. However, someone on the island controls their arterial locks. If they lose control, their hearts will explode. The design was so ingenious that disassembling them will cause a direct explosion.

“I’ll be in control of the remote. I’ll give it to Caesar when he returns. No one can hurt you except the two of us,” Schneider said slowly. “Are you willing to put your life in our hands?”

Abbas was silent for a long time, “I can only give up my life, Snow’s life is not mine.

“It’s just a minimally invasive surgery. It can’t even be called a surgery. A physical examination would be more accurate,” Schneider said patiently. “You should have heard about what happened to the crew members. Those giant snakes might have brought in some kind of virus, and it could infect everyone on this ship. We need to examine everyone who came into close contact with the snakes.”

    ***

Snow looked at him coldly, with hostility in her eyes.

The girl had gotten her polar bear skin back, and tied it up like a little Inuit hunter, with a few long-handled grenades she had found in the ammunition depot tied to her belt.

She probably already knew that most people on the ship did not trust her and was ready to leave the ship at any time to venture into the ice and snow.

However, when Caesar and Abbas discovered her, she was indeed a little Inuit hunter. Although she was afraid in her heart, the fear did not overwhelm her. She even dared to fight the polar bear in the geothermal well.

“We have physical examinations every year, but I’ve never heard of anesthesia injections,” Snow said coldly. Her English was barely enough to understand.

Schneider had previously explained the procedure to her in detail, including general anesthesia.

“Of course, a normal physical exam isn’t necessary, but we’re looking for a virus humans haven’t encountered before. It might only inhabit certain Arctic animals. It might even have come from the Land of the Setting Sun. If this plague continues to spread on the ship, everyone on us will die,” Schneider said. “Captain Abbas and Captain Rebalko have already completed the physical exam. You’ll be awake in two hours. It’ll just be a few more tiny puncture wounds.”

Abbas stood by the window, gazing at the vast black sea outside, without saying a word. He turned around at this moment, lifted up his winter coat and tight T-shirt, and saw that there were still some spots on his body that were bleeding slightly, but the wounds that were exposed were indeed small holes that could be ignored.

When she saw those wounds, Snow seemed slightly moved, and her expression of strong resistance faded slightly.

“Snow, we’re in a very dangerous situation. You saved everyone on the ship, and I believe you, but that doesn’t mean everyone on board does. We have to find the cause of the illness, and we have to convince those superstitious crew members, otherwise none of us can escape the curse of God.” Schneider said softly, “Now I can be frank. We are here to kill the thing you call ‘God’. If that thing continues to live, it will kill many people, just like it killed your father.”

“You want to kill God? No one can kill God!” Snow widened her eyes in surprise.

“We’ve killed many so-called immortals. Compared to them, your so-called gods are no more special.” Schneider stared into Snow’s eyes. “I once saw it on the bottom of the Greenland Sea. My broken body is thanks to it. But I survived, and I want to make it regret this. You also survived it. Do you want to stay away from it for the rest of your life and never set foot in the Arctic Circle? How about coming with me to kill it? For your father.”

Everything he said before was so gentle, like an elder who is patiently guiding others. But when he said this, his tone suddenly changed, and black flames seemed to be burning in his pupils.

No matter how he hides it, that hatred will pierce his mask like the black horns of a devil when it is touched.

Snow stared at him blankly for so long that even Schneider felt a little embarrassed. He didn’t know if it was his unintentional display of emotion that frightened Snow, or if the Inuit girl simply didn’t understand the long string of English words.

Snow finally nodded, “I agree.”

Professor Schneider breathed a sigh of relief, glanced at Abbas, knocked on the cabin door, and Percy pushed it open and came in.

“The lady has agreed to the medical examination plan and asked our doctor to prepare it within two hours,” Schneider said.

Percy bowed slightly to Snow, “There’s just one small problem. Our doctor is a man. I hope Miss Snow doesn’t mind.”

Minimally invasive surgery requires toplessness, and the surgeon performing the surgery couldn’t be the Yamal’s ship’s doctor, but someone from Cassel College. He was also a licensed American physician, and he’d seen enough of his patients’ sexual needs to be handled with aplomb. But since the patient was a young woman, and an Inuit, it was best to explain these things upfront.

“It’s okay, but Abbas has to wait outside the ward,” Snow said.

Schneider and Patsy looked at each other.

“If my father were still alive, it should be my father watching over it,” Snow added.

Schneider was stunned for a moment. Snow’s dependence on Abbas was really like that on a father or brother.

Abbas leaned against the wall of the ward, listening to the clanking of metal inside. It was the doctor sterilizing surgical instruments.

According to Snow’s request, he had to wait outside the ward, even though it was meaningless, as he was Schneider’s accomplice.

Minimally invasive surgery is indeed real, but it’s not a physical exam; it’s the installation of an arterial lock. The doctor would make a tiny incision in Snow’s body, allowing a sterile platinum filament to pass through and wrap around the arteries surrounding her heart. The entire procedure is easier than getting dentures, and Snow would hardly notice any changes afterward. The control device is a thin, fingernail-sized piece hidden at the edge of her ribs, and the entire device weighs only a dozen grams.

A person with an arterial lock implanted can live with it for the rest of their life without any problems, but someone with a remote control can kill you at any time.

Abbas had originally rejected Schneider’s suggestion, but was shaken by Schneider’s words.

Schneider asked, “If Xia Mi were still alive, would you install an arterial lock on her?”

Yes, Xia Mi, a taboo word for Abbas. To this day, Abbas is still unsure whether the girl existed or was an elaborate hoax from beginning to end.

If time goes back to the night before the Beijing subway incident, would he choose to let Jörmungandr go? Abbas asked himself repeatedly, and finally he said to himself that he would still make the same choice, because that was Jörmungandr, the Dragon King Jörmungandr.

Maybe Xia Mi really existed and was a personality that emerged from the Dragon King’s schizophrenia, but he could not let go of the world-destroying mad dragon just to keep Xia Mi’s illusion.

He once firmly chose to stand on the side of humanity, and he must go down this road to the end because he had paid too high a price for it.

He believed in Schneider and Caesar and hoped that Snow was just an ordinary girl.

He reached inside his winter coat and pressed hard on a certain rib, feeling a tiny bit of pain. He had indeed undergone that minimally invasive surgery, and the arterial lock was working silently inside his body.

He requested not to be given anesthesia during the operation. He clearly felt the platinum threads entering his body and slowly wrapping around his arteries like the tentacles of a poisonous spider.     

This was the price he paid for his lies. He had deceived the Inuit girl, no matter what his reasons were.