Chapter 556: The Vengeful Queen Maria
At this moment, Maria was no longer that fierce, ruthless Queen; she looked more like a helpless woman.
"I'll do my best." Eddie stood up and gave a cold laugh at the charging Ivan-type Tyrant.
Just before they collided, he burst into even greater speed—so fast the Ivan-type Tyrant couldn't react. Eddie stomped on the monster's knee from behind; no humanoid creature could block that strike.
The Tyrant, blasted from behind, dropped to one knee. Eddie pulled his Desert Eagle and fired a round straight into its goggles.
Bang! The Desert Eagle's massive kinetic energy tore the Tyrant's eye apart at close range, and the monster let out an instinctive howl of pain.
Badly wounded, the Tyrant flailed its arms wildly, as if trying to drive away any nearby threat.
The goggles were vital for an Ivan-type Tyrant's combat efficiency. Without them it didn't lose control, but it couldn't lock onto surroundings; its onboard computer had no protocol for this.
Another Ivan-type Tyrant pulled a fresh rocket launcher and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger—eradicating its own kind along with everything else.
Eddie sprinted over, grabbed Maria and Kathy, and dragged them behind cover.
Boom! The rocket turned the frenzied Tyrant into a burning corpse; it knelt, then seemed to crash.
The last remaining Tyrant reloaded its launcher, aimed at a patch of moving grass, and sent another warhead flying.
The rocket shot into the grass, but under magnetic influence it curved right back, blasting the prone Nikolai into the air. Both legs blown off, he could only scream on the ground—pain even a battle-hardened veteran couldn't endure.
The other Tyrant produced a first-aid spray and began treating Nikolai's wounds. Compared with Raccoon City, these bodyguard-model Ivan-type Tyrants had clearly gained intelligence.
But brains were no match for a rocket right then! Hilda tossed her sniper rifle; Eddie caught it mid-air, spun, and sighted on the healing Ivan-type Tyrant.
He squeezed the trigger; an accelerated sniper round punched through the Tyrant's goggles and out the back of its skull.
Facing a cheat-level Eddie, even a competent Ivan-type Tyrant still went down in one shot.
Nikolai, losing too much blood, began to slip into shock—dizzy, seeing double.
Maria's beautiful eyes blazed with hatred. She raised the pistol, ignoring Nikolai's plea. He had led the raid on her village; whatever he'd taken, the murders were undeniable.
Bang-bang-bang! Maria kept pulling the trigger until Nikolai's head was a twisted mess, then finally stopped.
"Mother, did you see? The butcher who killed you is dead—by my own hand!" Maria screamed to the sky, tears streaming.
"Watch out!" Eddie dashed over, shoved Maria aside, and kicked the supposedly crashed Tyrant that had just rebooted, sending it flying.
Maria's heart was still racing. "Thank you, Eddie."
"How about calling me Husband?" Eddie grinned wickedly.
"There'll be a chance. I'll keep my promise. Let's get out of here first." Maria lowered her head, a little shy. She wasn't one to break her word.
Besides, girls raised in this environment kept life simple: cling to the man who could keep you alive. Survival was truth; dignity? The dead have no dignity.
After Eddie left, the two Ivan-type Tyrants had restarted—only to have their innards crushed to fragments under magnetic pressure, control chips destroyed.
No surface damage, yet their insides were already pulp.
Nikolai had it worse—reduced to a heap of shredded meat.
Hilda quickly located the Helicopter Nikolai's group had planned to escape in. "The aircraft's clean, no traps. I cracked their fingerprint system with software."
Umbrella Helicopters were treacherous: only an employee's fingerprint could start them; otherwise the pilot would be instantly electrocuted.
In the computer room of Goddess Island, her daughter Mampel was clicking away in high heels; the one cracking the Helicopter lockdown was her.
Because January had been knocked out and needed rest, daughter Mampel was stuck covering the shift alone; maybe it was Eddie, but they both loved every style of stilettos.
Maria boarded the plane. "We can't go back to the village—it would bring disaster. We have to leave."
The group reached a fringe town, found a cottage nearby.
Kathy was reporting in; Chris and the rest had tailed Diogo's tracks straight to Glenn Arias, yet still no sign of bioweapons being sold.
Intel only flagged Arias as a brilliant biologist—everything else was blank.
Back inside, Kathy found Eddie smoking while cutting into a steak. "Eddie, what now? Chris is watching Arias, nothing new yet."
Eddie took a drag. "Maria, what do you know about Arias?"
By now Maria had recovered. "He's from our village, close friends with my father. For reasons of his own he became a drinks trader. When he was with the Western Federation he fell for a girl; another big family wanted her too."
"They fought, Arias lost, every holding in the Federation was stripped, and he was humiliated. The girl never showed again; rumor says she's aid staff in Mexico, handing out relief to disaster victims."
"Another spat over a woman? Classic femme-fatale. What happened next?"
Hilda stood by the window, quietly watching for any threat, indifferent to gossip.
Chapter 557 – Sarah Is Not Auntie, She's Sis
"To pay back the man who stole his holdings, Arias turned him into a junkie; none of his cronies got away. If this bioweapons sale is real, it's a trumped-up charge—we don't traffic that stuff."
Eddie went silent. "You people play rough: turn your enemies into addicts—brutal."
"That's nothing; selling your rival's women to Africa is worse."
"Sounds like you've done it."
Maria shook her head. "I'm a woman—I get it. I haven't, but I've seen it. Some people aren't worth saving."
"I know—men or women, some are good, some are bad, and some are beyond reason."
Kathy caught the undercurrent: a woman who loved and hated boldly, in a place where the people were just as bold.
"Eddie, what do we do now?"
"Eat, drink, wait until tomorrow."
Next morning Arias staged a wake for the quiet, grim deaths in his village.
Eddie linked up with Chris; agent Kevin showed as well.
"Kevin, why are you here?"
"Probing the mass suicide. The dead youths' parents were Prosecutors and a Senator— can't bury the case, have to find the truth."
Eddie spotted a tracker on Kevin. "The Federation tracks you?"
"Rough location. When we head out, Satellites keep tabs so we don't drop off the map."