Chapter 302: Chapter 290: The Choice of Hostage
The red light on the recording pen blinked steadily. After hearing its contents, everyone in the room suddenly fell silent.
Zane Locke and Lucia, who had just processed what they heard, turned deathly pale.
"No! I have to get my hands on Shelly today. I’m going to torture that little bitch for stealing my man!"
"She’s in Flora Bloom’s villa. How are you going to get her? Forcing your way in will only put them on their guard!"
"Then what should we do?"
"First, let Tianna Bloom deal with that big problem, Flora Bloom, then we’ll make our move! Things on that end should be just about ready. No one knows a sister like her sister. Let them kill each other. That way, you can pin the miscarriage on Shelly and make Joel Bloom feel eternally guilty.
If you’re smart, you’ll know a man’s guilt is more than enough to ensure you a comfortable life on their team."
Everyone present exchanged glances, suppressing mocking smirks as they looked at the two people from the recording’s conversation, Lucia and Zane Locke.
Lucia suddenly scrambled off the bed and crawled to Joel Bloom’s feet. "Joel, don’t listen to this! It’s not real! Your sister set me up to harm me! I didn’t do it!"
Meanwhile, Zane Locke’s expression flickered erratically as he stared in terror at Flora Bloom’s relaxed, smiling face. "You... how do you have this recording?"
A moment of silence came from the recorder, but it wasn’t over. After a short pause, Lucia’s voice, somewhat intimate yet reluctant, could be heard.
"I just had a miscarriage. I can’t..."
"Tch, why are you playing innocent? You’re the one who came looking for me, aren’t you? That blockhead Seth Warren is clueless about women and couldn’t stand you, so you set your sights on my power and methods, right? Anyway, the baby’s gone now. You’re a superpower user; your body’s perfectly fine! Don’t pull that crap on me!"
"That’s more like it! What’s so great about Joel Bloom, anyway? All he has is a pretty face. In the apocalypse, what good is being handsome?"
Seth Warren’s face was flushed, and he refused to even look at Lucia. One night, Lucia had suddenly come to his room and shamelessly climbed into his bed, naked. After he rejected her, she had turned right around and gone to Zane Locke.
Joel Bloom violently threw off Lucia’s hand. "You disgust me."
"Joel, don’t be like this. I know you still love me."
"Have you no shame, Lucia?" Cynthia Grant pulled Joel Bloom behind her, then turned to Zane Locke. "Captain Locke, I didn’t realize your tastes were so extreme. You won’t even spare a pregnant woman? Or was it just because she used to be with Joel Bloom that you..."
Cynthia Grant’s words were loaded. Before she could finish, Zane Locke, his face pale, frantically shook his head. "No, no, no, it’s not like that! It was her! That woman, Lucia, seduced me first! She hates Flora Bloom’s guts, but she wanted to go back to your team because you have enough supplies to eat well. But as long as Flora Bloom is around, she could never go back, so she came to me to find a way to deal with you all."
Flora Bloom wore an indifferent expression. "I couldn’t care less what deals you two have, but bringing harm to my family crosses a line." As she spoke, an axe materialized in her hand. She advanced on Zane Locke, who backed away in terror, completely forgetting he was a Middle-Level Wind Element superpower user.
"No, no, no, I honestly had no idea what she was doing today! If you’re going to kill someone, kill her! It has nothing to do with me, really! Nothing at all!" Zane Locke’s eyes darted around the room, scanning everyone, before suddenly fixing on Jade.
"Jade, I... I really didn’t know she was going to pin the miscarriage on you! Look, I’m so sorry. Please, ask Flora Bloom to let me go!"
Zane Locke sidled closer to Jade as he spoke. He was getting extremely close. The room was small; if he was fast enough, he could grab Jade and take her hostage before anyone could react.
’Flora Bloom and her people were formidable. Even as a Middle-Level superpower user, he wasn’t confident he could handle them. But with a hostage, everything would change!’
Closer, and closer.
Meanwhile, Lucia, still huddled at Joel Bloom’s feet, had her eyes darting about as she desperately tried to think of a way to escape. ’If I can’t get out of here,’ she thought, ’I’m dead for sure this time.’
’Joel Bloom was just a short distance away, but Cynthia Grant stood between them. Cynthia is a superpower user, and not a low-level one; taking her hostage would be impossible. After the miscarriage, my own body is frighteningly weak. In this room, besides the ordinary human Joel Bloom, I have no other choice.’
’From my many... intimate encounters with Zane Locke, I had carefully noted that he often tucked a dagger into the back of his waistband, off to the side.’
’But how could I get the dagger and then quickly take Joel Bloom hostage?’
While Lucia was still weighing her options, Zane Locke made his move. Back when they were thrown into the water prison by Morgan Sterling, Lucia had learned that Jade had awakened a superpower. But Zane Locke didn’t.
He suddenly lunged for Jade. Before anyone could react, he was already behind her, one hand grabbing her arm, the other closing around her neck.
But just as he was about to tighten his grip on Jade’s throat, he felt a sudden chill on his own neck. A piercing pain that seemed to slice through his very skin vanished as quickly as it came.
Then, he suddenly felt as if all the blood in his body was flowing in reverse. His hands and feet grew ice-cold, and his strength vanished.
Finally, he fell backward, stiff as a board, and hit the ground.
Jade quickly moved behind Caleb Bloom, patting her chest with lingering fear. "Phew." She looked at her daughter and husband and asked hesitantly, "He... he is... dead, right?"
Flora Bloom broke out in a cold sweat for her mother, Jade. After awakening her Space System superpower, her mother had fallen into a coma. When she woke up, no one knew if the so-called second-element awakening had been successful. However, her Space System superpower had improved by leaps and bounds after some martial arts instruction from Sherman Lynch. Her precision had gone up by more than just a single notch.
On top of that, aside from helping Ethan Monroe with the cooking, Jade, as Flora Bloom’s mother, had become the second-most idle person on the team.
The hunting squad wouldn’t take her, and the logistics department wouldn’t let her do menial chores. Even minor tasks like tidying up the house were completely handled by Maeve Preston, Shelly, and Lisa.
So, in her free time, she practiced her spatial slicing on the leaves of a tree, training to improve her precision and learning how to split more leaves at the same time.
And that was what led to the scene just now.
Zane Locke, a Level 3 Wind Element superpower user, had his life ended by a single, simple spatial slice to the throat from Jade.
Even though she knew it was self-defense, Jade was still shaken and deeply disliked the act of killing. However, the psychological pressure wasn’t as severe as it had been when she’d killed someone in the water prison.
Seeing this, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Even Flora Bloom’s heart was racing as she watched her mother. "Mom, you were amazing! You’re even more incredible than me!"
Outside of a few core members of Flora Bloom’s group, no one knew that Jade was a superpower user. After witnessing this scene, a chill ran down the spines of the onlookers.
This was especially true for Sepherdine. He was thankful he had never considered making an enemy of Flora Bloom; Jade’s combat ability alone was enough to wipe out half of his team in an instant.
Sepherdine’s expression remained open, not showing excessive surprise at Jade felling Zane Locke in a single move. He simply smiled at Flora Bloom. "Captain Bloom, your team is truly full of talented people. I hope we can cooperate soon and go out to secure some benefits for the base together."
