The severed steel muzzle of Steiner’s submachine gun was still smoking on the tiled floor.
Chu Lingxiao’s radiant Thousand-Mile Sword-Talisman avatar stood motionless, her crimson sword-blade hovering half an inch from Steiner’s neck. The blistering heat from the projected Nine-Phoenix flame caused the mercenary commander’s collar to char and curl into black ash. Behind Steiner, twenty heavily armored mercenaries lay sprawled across the hospital tiles, groaning in agony with their rifles twisted into iron knots.
“Don’t move,” Chu Lingxiao’s projected voice echoed flat and deadly. “If you breathe too hard, my blade will decide your fate.”
Steiner swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the glowing sword-light.
Behind the barricade of surgical carts, the crisis was far from over.
Dr. Marco lay on his back beside an overturned gurney. Dark venous blood was pooling rapidly beneath his left thigh where a serrated steel fragment had sliced through his femoral artery. His lips were turning blue, his pulse erratic and fluttering.
“Marco!” Dr. Elena cried, rushing to his side and pressing two sterile gauze pads against the wound.
Blood immediately soaked through the cotton, welling between her fingers.
