System S.E.X. (Seduction, Expansion, eXecution)-Chapter 307: The Logistics of Vengeance

"Die in peace? That’s too easy, Albert," Ethan said.

Albert frowned, confused. "What could you possibly want from someone like me?"

"Obedience," Ethan responded, his voice icy and authoritative. "In exchange, I will give you something you never thought possible. I will give you the exact location, the means, and the support to rescue your mother from that prison. And not only that... I’ll give you the chance to watch every member of the Blackmoon family and every Scavenger who laughed while they beat your family burn to the ground. I’m offering you vengeance, Albert. Real vengeance."

Albert’s eyes widened. The spark of hope, something he had buried a decade ago, began to fight against the darkness in his gaze. His hands clenched into fists on his knees.

"If you can do that... if you can really get her out of there..." Albert swallowed hard, his voice regaining a strength he hadn’t known he possessed. "My life, my knowledge, and everything I am belongs to you. Tell me what I have to do."

Ethan stood up and sent the pistol back into his inventory, a gesture that sealed the pact.

"First, open the doors to the next five centers. We’re going to dismantle this empire link by link," Ethan said as he walked toward the exit. "Jason, get ready. We have a new guide."

Albert stepped out into the main corridor, but he stopped dead in his tracks. The silence of the facility had been replaced by the wet thuds of execution and the cold, rhythmic mechanical sounds of rifles cycling. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Ethan’s fifty soldiers were moving through the halls like shadows. The medical staff who had lied, the technicians who had looked the other way, and the guards who had enjoyed their power—they were all being systematically eliminated. Some screamed, others crawled across the blood-slicked floor, and a few tried to run into the frozen darkness outside, but there was no escaping their executioners.

"But sir... this... it’s a massacre," Albert said, his voice trembling as he watched a doctor he had known for years fall to a single, clinical shot.

Ethan didn’t look back. He kept walking toward the exit, his boots leaving dark prints in the snow and crimson. "You, of all people, should know what these individuals did here, Albert. There is no way I can let them walk free after the horrors they’ve facilitated. You understand that, don’t you?" Ethan said.

Albert didn’t respond. He simply lowered his head, the logic of the wasteland sinking in. In this world, mercy was a luxury that only the weak—or the dead—could afford.

Jason approached, wiping a fleck of blood from his tactical vest. "Boss, the team is prepping the Scavenger trucks we found in the motor pool. They’re fitting the heavy snow chains and checking the heating systems now. We’ll need the extra space to transport the prisoners and the cargo while keeping everyone from freezing to death during the transit," Jason said.

"Perfect. Make sure the heat is cranked up. I don’t want to lose my ’investments’ to the cold before we get back," Ethan said.

The mobilization was a masterpiece of military discipline. The rescued civilians, wrapped in thick blankets found in the stores, were herded into the heated transport trucks. The captured genetic soldiers were shackled in reinforced cages, and the stolen supplies were packed tightly. Within thirty minutes, the convoy was idling, exhaust fumes rising like ghostly plumes into the Arctic air.

Ethan climbed into the lead SUV, motioning for Albert to sit in the front with him. As the engines roared and the convoy began to crawl out of the burning outpost, Ethan turned to his new guide.

"The next five plants won’t be as easy as this one. They’ll be expecting reports. Tell me, Albert, how do we get inside the next facility without turning it into a meat grinder before the gates even open?" Ethan said.

Albert stared at the GPS map on the dashboard, his mind working through the protocols he had lived by for years. "The next site is a specialized ’Conditioning Center.’ They are paranoid. But every twelve hours, they expect a status handshake from this facility via an encrypted burst signal. If I send the signal and tell them we’re sending an unscheduled shipment of ’High-Value Assets’ due to a localized heater failure here, they’ll open the main blast doors to receive the cargo," Albert said.

The second facility fell with the same brutal efficiency as the first. Thanks to Albert’s codes, the gates slid open without a single shot fired from the watchtowers. Once inside, Ethan’s men became a whirlwind of steel and lightning. There were no survivors among the Scavenger staff, but the victory felt hollow; the holding cells were empty, and the laboratories had been stripped of their most vital data.

As they finished clearing the halls, the sky turned a bruised, oppressive purple. The wind began to howl, picking up speed until the air was thick with blinding white powder.

"Boss, we have a problem. This storm is a category four and rising. It’s too dangerous for the Falcons to stay in the air—the rotors will icing up in minutes. And the trucks? If the snow keeps piling up at this rate, the convoy will be buried before we hit the main road," Jason said.

Ethan stood in the center of the courtyard, his coat snapping violently in the gale. He looked back at the facility they had just conquered—a jagged concrete monolith that seemed to swallow the light.

"We stay here for the night. Fortify the perimeter and get everyone inside the heated blocks," Ethan said.

"Copy that. I’ll set up the watches. But Boss... you alright? You’ve been staring at that ventilation wing for five minutes," Jason said.

Ethan narrowed his eyes. His Qi-Scanner was fluctuating wildly, picking up erratic signals that didn’t match human or animal patterns. The air felt heavy, not just with cold, but with a lingering, suffocating malice.

"I feel something strange about this place, Jason. It’s like something dark is watching us from the walls," Ethan said.

"It’s a human experimentation lab, Boss. The whole place is a graveyard. It’s bound to feel a little spooky," Jason said.

Ethan shook his head, his hand moving instinctively toward his chest where his Qi was most concentrated. "No. This isn’t just memory. This is a presence. Burn the bodies outside immediately. I want the main courtyard lit up with fire. I feel ’shadows’ moving in the corners of my vision... we need to clear the air before we sleep," Ethan said.

The soldiers began dousing the piles of Scavenger corpses in fuel, the orange flames struggling against the white-out conditions. As the fire roared to life, casting long, dancing shadows against the facility walls, Ethan felt the "eyes" on his back grow even more intense. Something was in the storm, or perhaps, something had been left behind in the deep basements of the lab.

The night was a hellish contrast of white and orange. The facility was no longer a sanctuary; it was a pyre. Despite the freezing storm, Ethan had forbidden anyone from sleeping inside the concrete walls.

"Burn it all. Use the spare timber from the crates and douse it in fuel. I want this place to burn until morning. No one sleeps inside. Everyone stays in the trucks," Ethan said.

"But Boss, the storm is freezing out here. The trucks’ heaters are struggling," Jason said.

"I don’t care. That building is cursed. Stay in the vehicles and keep the engines running. I want that fire to light up the entire valley," Ethan said.

The flames roared, fueled by gasoline and wood, casting a flickering, violent glow against the falling snow. Ethan stood outside, leaning against the side of his SUV, his eyes fixed on the burning structure. He was on the first watch with a few other soldiers, their rifles slung but ready.

Then, something impossible happened.

Ethan felt a sudden, heavy lethality in his eyelids. For a man with his genetic enhancements and Qi cultivation, staying awake for days was a trivial task. His stamina was beyond human. Yet, a thick, sweet fog seemed to settle over his brain.

His chin slowly dropped toward his chest. His breathing slowed.

In a strange, out-of-body sensation, Ethan’s consciousness seemed to drift upward. He saw himself in the third person, standing by the truck, his head hung low as if in a deep, unnatural slumber. Around him, the other guards were in similar states, slumped against the metal frames of the convoy.

From his spectral vantage point, Ethan watched his own body standing perfectly still in the snow. Behind his sleeping form, the building continued to burn, but the flames began to move strangely—not flickering with the wind, but dancing in rhythmic, purposeful patterns.

A dark, oily shadow detached itself from the smoke of the burning lab. It didn’t have a solid form, but it possessed a terrifying presence that chilled Ethan’s soul more than the Arctic wind. It began to crawl across the snow, moving toward the sleeping Ethan.