Echo had stayed quiet the whole time, but when she heard what Adolph said, she raised an eyebrow and glanced at Ryan.
He was leaning back on the sofa, eyes half-closed. Despite all the noise, he hadn’t said a word or shown any sign of anger. Even his hand, which had been gently stroking her head, had stopped moving. His whole demeanor was as if he’d fallen asleep. Something felt off.
“Bill, come take a look!” Echo called urgently.
Bill and Adolph immediately turned to Ryan.
Bill rushed over, pulled out the device he’d been holding, and started scanning Ryan without hesitation.
Adolph’s face flickered with emotion, and he quickly stepped aside to give Bill space.
“His liver is failing. Kidney failure’s setting in too,” reported the elderly man with white hair as he arrived, his expression grim.
Hawk and the others, who had just rushed in, stood frozen, their faces dark with concern. They watched as Ryan, now unconscious, was carefully carried to the bed in the other room, surrounded by monitoring equipment. Even in his unconscious state, Ryan’s grip on Echo’s hand remained tight, refusing to let go.
“He was fine just a moment ago-how did it escalate so fast? What did you do to him?” the old man demanded, glaring angrily.
Echo ignored the accusing glares from Hawk and the others and answered quickly, squeezing Ryan’s hand. “We didn’t do anything-just talked.”
“That can’t be it,” the old man muttered, shaking his head. “I used medication to slow the spread through his bloodstream. Something must have triggered increased blood flow to make things worse.”
The moment the old man finished speaking, Adolph-his face still dark-suddenly slapped himself twice without saying a word. He stood silently, looking at the unconscious Ryan, guilt written all over his face.
“Where’s the medicine? The one you’ve been working on?” Echo asked urgently, panic creeping into her voice. She hadn’t expected things to deteriorate this fast, and now Ryan’s organs were failing one after another.
“The blood analysis isn’t done yet,” Bill said grimly.
Both Bill and the white-haired man had been focused on analyzing Echo’s blood to figure out what strange or foreign elements it contained. Only then could they try to replicate or produce a cure. But it hadn’t been that long since they drew the blood, and now Ryan’s condition had taken a sudden, terrifying turn. There was no medicine ready.
Ryan suddenly coughed, the sound breaking the tense silence.
“Cough… cough.”
A trickle of blood slid from the corner of his mouth, shocking everyone in the room. It was a sign of internal bleeding-a clear indication that his organs were breaking down.
Echo’s heart dropped as she saw Ryan’s face turn pale and his breathing become labored. Instinctively, she tightened her grip on his hand.
At that moment, the monitoring device beeped and emitted a mechanical voice, “Lung function deteriorating.”
“Move! Do something!” Adolph and Hawk shouted, now too panicked to care about anything else.
They surrounded the white-haired man and Bill, their faces grim as they urged them to act fast.
Liver failure and kidney failure were already deadly, but lung failure was even worse. Without being able to breathe, Ryan wouldn’t last much longer.
Judging by how quickly his condition was deteriorating, he might not even survive a few more days.
Everyone in the room was now visibly shaken. None of them had ever seen an infection this aggressive, and they were completely unprepared to handle something so bizarre-a mix of a virus, mutation, and radiation. The lack of a proper response left them scrambling, desperate to save Ryan before it was too late.
The old man with white hair had originally worked as a nuclear radiation specialist for the U. S. Department of Defense, but Ryan had personally pulled him into the Dark Family. After all, America’s military industry relied on defense contractors, and Ryan was the biggest player in that game. Getting talented experts like him on his payroll wasn’t a difficult task.
Now, the old man stood there, looking both serious and panicked. “It’s not working. None of it’s working.”
He’d injected several antibodies into Ryan, but the organ failure showed no signs of slowing down. One by one, the monitors flashed red, indicating more systems shutting down. Despite being an expert in nuclear medicine, the old man looked so rattled that he didn’t even know where to place his hands.
“What the hell do I even pay you for? Figure something out, now!” Adolph, standing closest to the old man, snapped. He turned pale with fear and frustration, then grabbed the old man by the collar and lifted him off the ground, yelling furiously.
“Let him go! If you hadn’t messed with the Boss, he wouldn’t be in this state!” Cobra, equally desperate, shouted back.
Though Adolph hadn’t said much earlier, the slaps he gave himself had been an admission of guilt. Seeing Adolph lose his cool now only made Cobra angrier. If anything happened to the Boss, he was ready to settle things with Adolph, no matter what.
“Cut it out.”
“Get the meds to the Boss. Now.”
Hawk and Tiger both jumped in, making the tense situation even worse.
Their words sounded less like actual attempts to mediate and more like a warning. But at least it was enough to keep Adolph and Cobra from arguing further-Ryan’s condition came first. Everything else could wait.
“Get the serum ready, now!” Echo suddenly barked, her voice sharp and commanding. She stretched her hand toward Bill, her expression leaving no room for argument.
“The serum?” Bill and the old man both froze for a moment.
Using a basic serum was a low-level solution-something so severe couldn’t possibly be solved that easily. It hadn’t even crossed their minds to try it. But Echo’s outburst snapped them out of their hesitation.
“What are you waiting for?” she yelled. “Hurry up! You’ve heard of trying anything when the situation’s hopeless, right? Injecting it won’t kill him-just do it!”
Bill and the old man exchanged a glance, then got to work. Bill moved swiftly to draw blood from Echo, while the old man began preparing the serum without hesitation. Echo was right: if the serum wouldn’t make things worse, why not give it a shot?
Watching them work, Echo squeezed Ryan’s hand tighter. She wasn’t a doctor and had no clue how to adjust her blood to make it useful. The only thing she could think of was an old, common-sense idea-if someone gets bitten by a snake, you extract the venom and use antibodies to treat it. She didn’t understand the complexities, but since the medication wasn’t working, it was worth trying.
She didn’t care about losing a little more blood. If she could handle it, there was no reason for anyone else to hesitate.
The blood was drawn, and in just moments, using the most advanced equipment and top medical experts, the serum was quickly extracted.
As silence filled the room-so quiet you could hear a feather drop-Bill carefully injected the serum into Ryan’s body.
It was still silent. Completely still.
Everyone held their breath, eyes glued to the monitors, waiting to see what would happen next.
Would the organ failure continue?
Improve?
Or stop altogether?
Everyone’s nerves were stretched to their limits, hearts pounding in their throats.