Chapter 473: Life After Military

A broad hand closed over Sarah’s other shoulder. Bryan was smiling emptily, which felt a little threatening.

"Sit this one out, ladies," he said pleasantly. "Flight-types should fight in the air, ground-types should fight on the ground. We already got the air covered."

He hooked a thumb toward the outside, where somewhere outside the building, Chronos and Julius were already moving.

"Bryan—" Iris called.

"I’d love to argue more, babe."

Bryan said, already crouching, reaching under the nearest of the two large ruined sofas. His arm went rummaging, touching all over the place. When it finally stopped at some point, a click sound was heard, and a long matte-black case was grabbed.

"But I have a delivery to make."

He stood, tucked the case under one arm, and was gone through the breach in the wall before Iris could say anything more.

Bryan had gone after Julius and Chronos, leaving Iris, Sarah, Thiago, Pete, and the writhing in pain Helena at their wits’ end.

The fat, segmented thing, the length of a forearm, soft-bellied and glistening wet with its mouth a wet crown of hooks.

Another cluster of mutated larvae crawled at the edge of the places where they put mines to breach. Then a slow, awful sheen of them, pulling themselves over the rubble to approach them.

"Damn it," Iris cursed and racked her sidearm. "How is it that they never cease to exist?!"

"Make way."

Pete said as he began pulling a cluster of grenades out of Helena’s discarded harness.

"Burn line at the breach and herd them back into the rubble where the footing’s bad.

Thiago reminded, "Don’t let them spread under the furniture, or we’ll be flushing them out one cushion at a time. We have limited cartridges here... Unless you know close combat."

Sarah stared at the holographic screen, glitching so hard she could barely see the feed anymore, and then decisively turned her back on it.

Because there was nothing she could do for Catalina from in here. However, there were a great many things she could do for the people bleeding in here.

"I’ll cover this side," she said as she fired again, her aim was getting better and better as she shot one after another.

Thiago had treated battlefield wounds in multiple continuous wars and ranked Helena’s condition in front of him third from the worst.

Helena was now lying on the ground, gray-faced, refusing to die in this ridiculous situation. The severed left arm was increasingly becoming a big problem.

The cauterization had looked clean at a glance. As a soldier with no prior medic experience, Chronos and Helena had both assumed the heat of the cut had sealed it properly. But underneath the burnt flesh lies the real troublesome problem.

The blackened surface of the vessels had not closed all the way down. Worse of all, some blob of obviously green blood at the edges was not cleaned properly.

The remains clashed with the new warm blood, instinctively sending white blood cells to heal the edge of the not-burnt flesh. A faint, oily discoloration was creeping out from the wound’s uncauterized edges.

"It’s infected," Thiago told Helena, plainly.

"I know," Helena said through her teeth. "I tried to flush it out."

"It’s just the edges," Thiago scowled as he tried to scrape the burnt flesh that was infected, "You should’ve at least wiped it down or something."

Helena rolled her eyes, breathing hitched as Thiago did his scraping, "Chronos’s already like that—ha-haat! Do you think I—ARgha!—Have extra—urrrgggh!—mind to think—taaahh!—wiping a damn thing!—HAAH!!"

"I’m just saying that if you already thought about burning it seal, might as well make it easier for the person who will cure you, right?" Thiago, emotionless, continued scolding her.

"UGGHH!!—such a nag." Helena’s forehead began sweating harder than before.

Thiago said, "If nagging could help, I wouldn’t be having such a headache like this."

"Just heal—AAAHHH!!!—damn it!"

Sarah, who tried to remain focused on eliminating the larvae coming Thiago’s way, began to worry about Helena’s groans.

She asked, "Is she going to be okay?"

Thiago didn’t look at Sarah and replied with his hands moving undisturbed, "That still remains something to be debated about."

Sarah became concerned about Thiago and asked after firing another larva dead, "Why?"

"Simply put, it’s going to be okay for a few hours. Good enough time, and surely the medic will arrive any time soon. "

Thiago said, taking a simple stretch after he finished scraping.

"What I don’t know is if this part of the arm would hold out well enough to a prosthetic, or if it will need another cutting."

Sarah’s eyes widened, and she asked, "Can’t the arm be reconstructed nowadays?"

"Look here."

Thiago pointed at the freshly scraped wound for Sarah to see.

"This flesh was badly infected by Zerg blood. Her genes over here are already badly contaminated, so she would risk transforming into a hybrid. After all, even if we already had a lot of information about Zergs, that’s just the tip of the iceberg."

Thiago then pointed at the fresh flesh that was changing its color. It was not because of discoloration but because of the remaining droplet of Zerg blood that was hidden in there with no way to flush out.

"As time passed by, the contamination would reach god knows where. We managed to slow it down with extraction liquid, but it’s a high-ranking zerg’s blood. There was no way it would back down that easily, especially since the high-ranking zerg is still alive outside."

Thiago looked at Sarah and said seriously.

"So, the only safe way to save her life was to cut as far as the contamination had spread. And to ensure that there wouldn’t be a possibility that the regenerated arm would be a contaminated one, she’ll have to live with a prosthetic her whole life."

Sarah felt bad for Helena. After all, she knew that Helena was a general. Now, Helena probably had to resign from her position or even live a civilian life after this.