Chapter 42 Mine

The metal floor of the punishment chamber was covered in murky pools where dead ice had melted away.

The blizzard had finally fallen silent.

Only the cold air seeping from underground fissures remained, carrying with it the lingering scent of blood.

Alexander's massive body had completely relaxed.

The indiscriminate violence that had consumed him earlier had receded.

He lowered his broad back and bent his injured right knee, dropping to one knee beside Vivienne.

At that moment, he resembled a wounded apex predator, slowly recovering from near death.

He turned his rugged face sideways, pressing his nose against her palm.

Each heavy breath brushed across the delicate skin of her wrist.

His hands hovered in the air.

His fingers twitched uncontrollably.

He dared not touch her pale skin.

Instead, he traced the crimson symbols beneath her collarbone through mere millimeters of air.

Obsession and overwhelming fear intertwined in his bloodshot eyes.

Just minutes ago, he had nearly cut her artery.

The memory flickered, and the muscles along his back began to spasm violently.

Vivienne didn't pull back.

Her gaze lowered.

Her fingertips slid down his rigid jawline.

Across the corded tendons in his neck.

Stopping above the left side of his chest.

The dark-gold vine-like scar that had once raged beneath his flesh now lay quiet and still.

Her palm pressed against his chest, sensing every muscle in his body locked under extreme tension.

Vivienne leaned slightly closer.

"Remove all the thorns protecting you," she said calmly.

Alexander's Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed dryly.

He closed his eyes.

The violent biofield around him contracted rapidly.

The terrifying energy compressed inward, forming a perfectly sealed sphere that enveloped them both.

Amid the ruins, it created an absolute thermal barrier.

Outside the polar lead door, the nuclear drive shaft had been offline for four hours.

By environmental calculations, every carbon-based lifeform inside should have crystallized into frozen remains.

On the homepage of the global darknet, a blood-red banner flashed:

POLAR DEATH COUNTDOWN

At the same time—

Inside the holographic conference chamber.

Wall Street and Europe's financial elites watched the live data streams.

"She crossed the line," said a multinational chairman, rotating a cigar between his fingers.

"The Lazarus empire is too large for one woman to handle. And she actually thinks she can control that monster."

The supercomputer system codenamed Carrion was fully deployed.

Thousands of forced-liquidation commands flooded the network.

Dark-pool funds and offshore assets belonging to the Lazarus Family were being surgically dismantled and consumed.

Several kilometers away, in a windbreak trench on the frozen wasteland—

Blood dripped from the aide's split forehead.

He clutched the last military-grade tablet still transmitting a signal.

On its screen, the Lazarus defensive network was collapsing.

Green profit zones flipped one after another into dark red.

The aide finally lost strength and collapsed into freezing water.

Around him, retired soldiers sat in silence.

No supplies.

No heat.

No command structure.

One mercenary with a missing arm removed the magazine from his assault rifle and tossed it into the snow.

Everyone was waiting for Wall Street's cleanup crews.

Deep underground.

Alexander dug through the rubble and recovered a tactical cold-weather coat.

His movements were surprisingly gentle.

The towering man shook off the dust before draping it over Vivienne's bare shoulders, straightening the collar.

The extreme cold and system overload drained all color from her fingertips.

Alexander lowered himself to one knee again.

Those hands, capable of tearing apart reinforced blast doors, lifted her icy foot.

He pulled the nylon laces of her combat boot through each metal eyelet—

One loop after another.

Tight.

Perfect.

Vivienne leaned against a twisted steel wall.

Red text flashed across her wrist terminal:

Asset Separation: 80%

She glanced at the screen, a faint glimmer of cold amusement in her eyes.

Alexander finished tying the last lace.

Vivienne grabbed the strap of his tactical vest and pulled him close.

Their chests pressed together.

Through the resonance of the blood covenant, she activated the terminal's deepest audio-capture function.

No reverse-engineering code.

No complicated intrusion protocols.

She simply recorded the synchronized rhythm of their heartbeats—the most primitive signal imaginable.

She merged it with the data stream from Subject Zero's mutation gene.

Together, they became the highest-level master key on the global network.

She pressed Enter.

A tidal wave of data surged through undersea fiber-optic cables, racing straight toward Wall Street.

At that same moment—

Inside the holographic conference chamber, a corporate chairman's finger hovered over the final liquidation authorization.

The cursor froze.

Every holographic display instantly collapsed into static.

The consumption progress bar of Carrion stalled, then reversed—

Rapidly—

Until it hit zero.

No alarms sounded.

No emergency warnings appeared.

Instead, a deep, steady rhythm filled the speakers.

Thump.

Thump.

A living heartbeat.

The chairman's wrist jerked; ash from his cigar burned through his trousers.

Silence consumed the room.

Then—

BOOM!

The remaining half of the lead door exploded outward.

It flew across the ice field and crashed more than a hundred meters away.

A violent psychic field erupted from the underground complex, pressure overwhelming everything nearby.

Vivienne stood at the facility's shattered exit.

She had seized the highest communication authority on the planet.

Her cold voice, fused with the heavy heartbeat, traveled to every major financial center:

"He belongs to me. Touch him and I'll bury every one of you."

The deep-sea virus hidden beneath the heartbeat frequency shed its disguise.

It flooded directly into Wall Street's backbone servers.

New York.

London.

Geneva.

The highest-level alerts activated simultaneously.

Trillion-dollar firewalls were powerless before Subject Zero's synchronized master key.

Core server facilities overloaded, sparks flying.

The elites who had been dividing assets moments earlier watched helplessly as every account dropped to zero.

Negative balances cascaded like avalanches.

Luxury offices erupted with chaos.

Within ten seconds, the ruling financial aristocracy had been annihilated.

Back at the underground ruins.

The soldiers who had been waiting to die slowly raised their heads.

A figure emerged from the shadows.

The man's silhouette resembled a mountain, shielding the woman beside him.

No one knew who knelt first.

Knees slammed into solid ice.

Veteran mercenaries lowered their heads into the snow.

The sheer weight of the retaliation silenced every observing darknet force.

Snowstorms howled.

The two stood side by side atop the ruins.

The aide stumbled from the trench, communicator flashing red in his trembling hand.

“Miss Vivienne!”

“Wall Street and the Council have launched a counterattack!”

“They just signed a blood pact with the Mafia!”

“They've already destroyed seventeen of our underground relay warehouses in Europe!”

He swallowed blood.

“They've issued a maximum-level joint kill order.”

“Every major assassin organization is deploying toward the Arctic.

They'll pay any price to trap us in Siberia.”

The air seemed to grow colder.

Alexander stepped forward, shielding Vivienne.

Blood still flowed from his injured leg.

Muscles along his back rose into a threatening silhouette.

His crimson eyes scanned the horizon, murder in every glance.

Vivienne pushed his arm aside.

She pressed the communicator's disconnect button.

Her indifference cut sharper than the polar storm.

“Why panic?”

Her voice remained level.

“They blew up seventeen of my warehouses.”

“I'll dig seventeen mass graves in Wall Street.”

“And bury every one of those old bastards inside them.”