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"Stop!"
Leon's roar came from behind, torn to pieces by the howling wind and the sound of rushing water.
His eyes were locked onto the swaying white figure ahead, his brow furrowed, his face a mask of anxiety and confusion.
Krauser followed closely behind.
There was no expression on his face, only an extremely impatient gloom.
In his view, chasing a defenseless, crazy girl was a pure waste of precious time and energy.
"Damn it! What the Hell does this crazy woman want!"
He cursed under his breath, his lungs burning with a searing pain from the intense running.
Noah ran at the back.
He was like a black shadow gliding across the ground, easily trailing behind the two of them, always maintaining a consistent distance.
His gaze passed over Leon and Krauser's shoulders, landing calmly on the girl fleeing for her life ahead.
Krauser slowed down to run side-by-side with Noah.
Noah glanced at Leon up ahead and asked, "Was Leon always like this during special training?"
Krauser panted heavily, his voice carrying undisguised mockery.
"Ha," he sneered, "that hellhole of ours didn't have such pretty girls for him to fawn over."
The corner of Noah's mouth curled slightly, but he didn't speak again.
Up ahead, Manuela's stamina had clearly reached its limit.
Her speed grew slower and slower, her steps faltering, nearly falling several times.
Finally, after running into a massive circular pipe space that looked like some internal drainage facility, she could no longer hold herself up. Her legs gave out, and she knelt on the ground, leaning against the cold wall while retching violently.
The light here was slightly brighter than in the corridors outside.
Thick concrete pipes formed a massive circular space, dozens of meters in diameter.
The ground was covered in a shallow layer of stagnant water, and the air was thick with moisture and the smell of moss.
Water droplets fell from high above, splashing onto the surface with a "drip, drip" sound, creating an eerie and rhythmic echo in the vast space.
Leon was the first to rush to her side, just about to speak.
"Manuela..."
A voice came from above them.
That voice was exactly the same as the one on the broadcast earlier—gentle and affectionate, yet carrying a type of obsession that made one's skin crawl.
The three of them looked up sharply.
Above the circular pipe space, on the wall about a dozen meters high, was a large observation room.
Behind the thick bulletproof glass stood a man.
He wore a sophisticated white shirt, his frame tall and straight, with shoulder-length black hair.
Large sunglasses covered most of his face, leaving only his well-defined jaw and lips, which bore a sickly pallor, visible.
Javier Hidalgo.
South America's most notorious drug lord.
"Javier!" Leon instinctively tightened his grip on his gun.
Javier didn't seem to hear him, or rather, he didn't care about these intruders at all.
From beginning to end, his gaze remained fixed only on his daughter kneeling below.
His voice came through clearly via the speakers on the adjacent wall.
"My darling, everything I do... is all for you."
His voice was full of grievance and sorrow, like a well-intentioned father misunderstood by his child.
"Two years... for two whole years, you have endured that inhuman pain every day."
"As long as you listen to me, as long as you endure a little longer... you won't turn into one of those terrible monsters. You'll be able to live forever, just like a normal person."
"Until then, you just need to endure, my child, just a little bit of endurance..."
His words ripped open Manuela's deepest wound.
Manuela curled her body in pain, covering her ears tightly with her hands as if she could block out that devilish voice.
In her mind, countless terrifying, bloody images surged like a bursting dam.
A cold operating table.
A white room smelling of formalin.
A cold needle piercing her skin, followed by a sharp pain that felt like it was burning her bone marrow to ash.
"No... no..."
She sat in the cold water, shaking her head in despair as tears fell down her pale cheeks.
Watching his daughter's agony, Javier's face showed no sign of being moved; instead, it revealed an even more fanatical persistence.
He continued in that aria-like tone.
"The person who provided me with the 'veronica' virus said the same thing."
"He said it is a gift from God to humanity, the only path to eternal life! And you, Manuela, you are the first, and the most perfect, lucky one to receive God's grace!"
The veronica virus!
The mention of this name caused the expressions of both Leon and Noah to change simultaneously.
They almost instinctively glanced at each other, seeing heavy shock in each other's eyes.
veronica again!
This terrifying variant of the progenitor virus, created by the Ashford Family, had actually appeared in the South American rainforest!
Krauser stood behind them, completely confused.
He frowned and lowered his voice, asking in his characteristic gravelly tone, "What virus? What the Hell is that?"
But no one had time to answer him.
Because Javier in the observation room was becoming agitated.
He suddenly raised his hand and pointed through the thick glass at Leon, Krauser, and Noah.
For the first time, his voice carried undisguised anger and hatred.
"Look at them, my daughter! Look at these stupid Americans!"
"Do you think they are here to save you? No! They only want to take what belongs to us from you, and from me! To take away the eternal life God gave us!"
"The one who can save you is not these lying invaders! It's me! Your father, the only person in this world who loves you!"
Javier's voice echoed throughout the space, filled with inflammatory rhetoric and a frantic possessiveness.
At that very moment.
Behind them, in the darkness shrouded by the shadows of the pipes, a figure appeared silently.
It was a soldier wearing a full set of black special operations gear.
His movements didn't make a sound; even the splashes in the water beneath his feet were minimal.
He quietly approached the girl who had completely collapsed and was oblivious to her surroundings—Manuela.
Leon and Krauser's full attention was drawn to Javier above, and they didn't notice the deadly danger behind them at all.
Noah noticed.
He didn't even turn his head.
The moment that dark shadow appeared, Noah's calm eyes suddenly became sharp.
He keenly captured the slight, discordant flow in the air.
Without the slightest hesitation.
His physical instincts had already driven him to make the fastest, most direct response.
He stepped forward abruptly, lowering his center of gravity.
Then, pivoting on his left foot, his entire body twisted like a powerful bow being drawn to its limit.
His right leg, carrying immense force, turned into a black blur that tore through the air, whipping backward at an extremely tricky angle!
Whoosh!
The powerful sound of breaking wind even drowned out the sound of dripping water nearby.
The special forces soldier, who had just emerged from the shadows and was preparing to pull Manuela aside, only had time to see a rapidly expanding dark shadow in his eyes.
He didn't even have time to make an expression of shock.
The next second.
Thud!!!
A dull, teeth-aching impact rang out.
The top of Noah's foot struck the man's temple squarely.
The soldier's head caved inward at a terrifying angle.
His strong, rigorously trained body was as fragile as a tattered sack before the terrifying power contained in that kick.
He was kicked clean off his feet and sent flying horizontally.
Crash!!!
His body slammed heavily against the hard concrete wall several meters away, making a heart-stopping thud before sliding down like a pile of mud into the water, splashing up a large amount of water mixed with red and white matter.
His body twitched twice, and then all signs of life vanished.
The entire process happened in the blink of an eye.
It was so fast that Leon and Krauser hadn't even finished turning around.
By the time they saw what had happened, the attacker was already a cold corpse.
Both of them were stunned.
They looked at the back of the man slowly retracting his right leg and standing straight again, their eyes filled with undisguisable shock.
Especially Krauser.
He prided himself on being a master of combat and had absolute confidence in his close-quarters abilities.
But he knew very well that he could never be this clean and efficient, this... terrifying.
The power contained in that kick had completely exceeded the scope of what a human should be capable of.
Just then.
Rumble!!!
A roar countless times louder than the previous flood discharge suddenly came from deep within the pipes.
The entire circular space began to tremble violently.
In the observation room, Javier watched his elite subordinate get killed in a single blow, and the composed expression on his face finally vanished.
In its place was extreme distortion and madness.
He let out a hysterical roar through the microphone.
"Since you want to take her away... then all of you, go to Hell together!!!"
The moment his words fell.
Splash!!!!
Like a flash flood, like the roar of a giant beast.
A terrifying wall of water several meters high, composed of murky river water, suddenly surged out from the corner of the front passage, instantly swallowing the entire circular space with the force of a thunderbolt!
"Run!"
Leon only had time to let out a shout.
But it was already too late.
The power of that violent current was beyond imagination.
In an instant, Leon and Krauser were knocked off balance by the immense force, like two insignificant leaves swept into the rushing torrent, surging toward the other end of the pipe.
"No! Leon!!"
Manuela let out a shrill scream.
She watched helplessly as the man who had been kind to her, protecting and comforting her all the way, was swallowed by the flood, his figure instantly vanishing into the dark waterway.
Immense fear and despair drove her to an impulsive act.
She actually leapt up from the ground, recklessly about to jump into the rushing torrent.
Just as her toes were about to leave the ground.
A hand grabbed her arm, yanking her back with sheer force.
"They'll be fine, don't worry."
Noah's voice pierced through the roaring water, clearly reaching Manuela's ears.
In the observation room, Javier saw his daughter being caught by Noah, and his eyes nearly split with rage.
"Let go of my daughter!!!"
He pounded frantically on the bulletproof glass, making loud thuds.
"You monster! Bastard! Stay away from her!!!"
Manuela's body was trembling violently.
On one hand, there was the worry and fear for Leon and Krauser being swept away.
On the other hand, there was an instinctive dread coming from the hand gripping her arm, a fear that made her very Soul shudder.
She slowly turned her head.
She saw Noah's face.
There was no expression on that handsome face.
There was no emotion in those pitch-black eyes.
She wanted to scream, to struggle, to run away.
But she couldn't.
All her strength seemed to be drained away in that instant.
Her mind was a mess.
She looked up at the demon named "Father" screaming frantically behind the glass.
Then she looked at the bottomless, dark waterway that had swallowed Leon.
Finally, her gaze fell back on the man before her, who made her feel more fear than the demon and the abyss combined.
Her lips had lost all color from fear and began to tremble uncontrollably.
Tears welled up in her eyes once more.
She suppressed the fear of Noah that almost consumed her.
Using all her strength, she squeezed out words from deep in her throat with a heavy sob.
"Take... take me... to find Leon..."
"I... I know the way..."
Javier's roars and the flood's booming seemed to fade away from her at this moment.
Noah looked into her azure eyes, which were soaked in tears and filled with fear and pleading, and remained silent for a few seconds.
Then he nodded.
Having received a response, Manuela felt as if she had caught a lifeline.
She no longer paid attention to her father's heart-wrenching curses and wails from above.
She turned abruptly and stumbled into a darker, deeper corridor to the side that hadn't been affected by the flood.
Their figures soon disappeared into the end of the darkness.
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