Chapter 299: Dr. Hayes Wants Us Dead

One after another, people stood up, each of them looking incredibly eager. Even Simon Hughes and Claire Vance were tempted. If there were no side effects to getting stronger, they naturally wanted to seize the opportunity. After all, relying on oneself was always better than relying on others. This was especially true in the apocalypse, where danger lurked in every corner and a crisis could erupt at any moment. Without sufficient personal strength, even having a legion of subordinates couldn’t guarantee absolute safety. Only by grasping true power in their own hands could they feel at ease. Previously, they had been reluctant out of fear of becoming mindless puppets. Now that this hidden danger was gone, they certainly wanted to give it a try.

Dr. Hayes seemed to have anticipated this scene all along. He didn’t show the slightest surprise, nor did he make things difficult for anyone. “Since you’re willing to trust me, I naturally won’t let you down. Come with me!”

Aside from Hector Grant and his subordinates, as well as Sierra Sullivan’s group, everyone else followed Dr. Hayes through the metal doors.

As the doors swung shut, a young man under Hector’s command looked at him hesitantly. “Captain, are we not going?”

“Yeah, Captain! Are we really not going? There are no hidden dangers anymore, so we totally can! We could boost our combat power!”

Hector didn’t answer immediately. Instead, his gaze slowly swept over the men standing before him. “Is this… what you all think?”

Faced with Hector’s question, the group didn’t quite know how to respond. They were certainly tempted, but they also trusted their captain. Having spent so much time together, they knew exactly what kind of man he was. If he was telling them not to go, it definitely wasn’t because he feared they would become too strong and difficult to control.

“Captain! We’ll listen to you! We’ll do whatever you say!”

“That’s right! We listen to the captain!”

“Captain, we follow orders!”

Looking at the pairs of eyes filled with trust, Hector felt gratified, but his sense of pressure multiplied at the same time. He was shouldering not just their trust, but their very lives. A single wrong decision could put them in mortal peril. Yet, he would never abandon them just because of this pressure.

“Alright!” Hector said in a deep voice. “Since you’ve all said as much, then listen to me. No one is allowed to go in!”

It wasn’t that Hector doubted Dr. Hayes’s abilities. Quite the opposite—it was precisely because he trusted those abilities too much and knew all too well that Dr. Hayes was no ordinary person. That realization made Hector even more determined to keep his men out of that room.

“Yes, sir!” The group stood at attention, their voices loud and their imposing manner surging.

Sierra’s gaze swept across each of their faces, finding nothing but obedience and trust. Not a single person harbored any dissatisfaction or resentment. They truly trusted Hector entirely, just as they had claimed. It was Hector’s good fortune to have such a group of subordinates. But at the same time, it indirectly proved that Hector was no ordinary man either. He was worthy of their trust.

Hector gave the crowd a few more instructions before dividing them into several teams to go about their respective tasks. Once they left, Hector finally looked over in their direction.

“Jayce, Sierra, what do you two think about this?”

Sierra shrugged. “Guessing is useless. We just have to wait for the results.”

Hector thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. “You’re right. Let’s wait and see.”

Sierra thought that when the time came, the doors would naturally open, and they would know the outcome. But the unexpected arrived sooner than tomorrow.

Two days later, late at night.

Sierra had been sleeping, but she suddenly heard an unusual noise. It was the sound of sharp claws scraping against the metal doors. It was a piercing, grating sound, like it was trying to rupture her eardrums. The instant she heard it, Sierra snapped out of her sleep. She immediately sat up and saw that Jayce had already walked over to the door, peering outside through the crack.

“Sierra, what’s wrong?” Candice Tate asked, rubbing her eyes as she sat up.

She wasn’t completely awake yet, but after surviving in the apocalypse for so long, her body had developed muscle memory. At the slightest rustle of grass in the wind, she would instantly get up and prepare for battle. Her proficiency was heartbreaking.

“I don’t know what’s going on either. Wait here for a moment, I’ll go take a look,” Sierra said, already standing up and walking toward the door. “Jayce, what’s happening?”

Jayce turned around, his expression solemn. “Zombies and Aberrant Beasts have started attacking.”

“What?” Sierra exclaimed. Her eyes widened sharply, and she immediately leaned into the crack of the door to look outside.

Outside, sand and dust filled the sky, but she could still vaguely see the zombies and Aberrant Beasts attacking desperately. The laboratory’s exterior walls had been reinforced by Gold Ability Users—and more than once at that—making them exponentially tougher than they had been originally. These zombies and Aberrant Beasts wouldn’t be able to break in anytime soon.

However, if this dragged on, things would change! Staying inside and waiting wasn’t a wise decision. They couldn’t afford to be so passive; they had to seize the initiative. But… their numbers had suddenly plummeted, leaving them with less than a third of their original forces. Previously, fighting together with so many people had only resulted in a draw. Now that they were short so many hands…

Hector had already walked over to the metal doors. “Dr. Hayes, the zombies and Aberrant Beasts have started attacking again! Let half the people out first!” he shouted, then waited patiently.

But as the minutes and seconds ticked by, there was no movement from inside, nor any sign of the metal doors opening. It was as if the people inside hadn’t heard a thing.

Hector frowned and raised his voice again, yelling a few more times in succession. But just like before, his shouts fell on deaf ears, yielding not the slightest response. He beckoned for the Gold Ability Users to open the doors. Yet, even when two Gold Ability Users worked together, they couldn’t force the metal doors open. Not even a sliver of a crack appeared.

At this point, even if Hector didn’t want to believe it, he had to admit that the people inside were deliberately keeping the doors shut.

“Captain! What is Dr. Hayes trying to pull?”

“Yeah! Not opening the doors—does he plan to just watch us die?”

“We’re responsible for protecting his safety, and we’ve never done anything against him! Why is he treating us like this?”

Hector’s face was as dark as deep water. He wanted to know why as well. Could it really be because he hadn’t allowed his subordinates to cooperate with Dr. Hayes’s experiment? When this thought arose, Hector was reluctant to believe it. Yet, he understood that regardless of what he wanted to believe, this was the reality. They had gone against Dr. Hayes’s wishes, and now they had been cast aside as pawns.

“Dr. Hayes, what makes you so certain that if we die, you’ll be able to hold out behind this single pair of doors?” Hector questioned coldly. He was certain Dr. Hayes could hear what he was saying.

Sierra chuckled lightly. “What if the zombies and Aberrant Beasts outside are in cahoots with Dr. Hayes?”

“What?”