?Chapter 1424:


    Katelyn watched her closely, noting the flicker of fear in her expression. Her curiosity deepened.


    This person was powerful enough to terrify Sophia like this. Who could it be?


    But just then—in a dark, shadowy room in Yata, packed with surveince equipment, a monitor disyed the conversation between Katelyn and Sophia.


    A man wearing a ck mask mmed his fist on the table. The impact echoed through the room, making the objects on the table tremble. His piercing eyes burned with fury as a distorted, electronic voice filled the space.


    “Sophia cannot be allowed to live. Kill her.”


    The subordinate behind him immediately nodded. “Understood.”


    A shadow fell across the table as the subordinate lifted a remote control, his thumb pressing down with deliberate precision.


    Sophia’s words to Katelyn died in her throat as her body suddenly went rigid. Horror bloomed in her eyes as crimson veins began to spider through the whites, like cracks in porcin.


    The wrongness of the situation hit Katelyn like a physical blow. “What’s wrong?” she demanded,unching from her chair, her heart thundering against her ribs as she watched Sophia’s transformation.


    Katelyn’s mind raced. The pill should have been harmless—every test had confirmed it. Yet Sophia’s condition was deteriorating before her eyes, life draining away with each passing second.


    “Save me!” The words tore from Sophia’s throat as she clenched her jaw, her eyes boring into Katelyn’s with desperate intensity. Her body convulsed as veins bulged beneath her skin like ropes, her face contorting into a mask of such profound agony that it chilled Katelyn to her core.


    In that heartbeat of horror, Katelyn’s trained senses caught something—a whisper of sound so faint it was almost imaginary.


    Lɑτ??τ cнαρτ?rs ??n g??l??ov?l??.??o??


    Beep, beep. The sound was gossamer-thin, a ghost of a noise that would have slipped past anyone less attuned to danger.


    Understanding struck her like lightning. “Vincent! There’s a bomb inside her! Hurry!”


    Vincent had been their shadow, vignt just beyond the doorway. Bang! The door flew open under his boot as he burst in, authority ringing in his voice. “Bring me a scanner! Now!”


    The steady beeping was more than sound—it was time slipping away, counting down Sophia’s remaining moments.


    “Heart…” Sophia forced the word through teeth clenched against overwhelming pain as heat zed through her chest like molten metal. With the swift precision of a striking snake, Katelyn snatched up a scalpel and sliced through flesh.


    Vincent swept the scanner over Sophia’s trembling form, searching for the deadly device nestled within.


    They moved as one unit, their faces masks of concentration as seconds bled away. The bomb’s location revealed itself on the scanner, and Katelyn’s de carved a path through tissue with surgical precision.


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