And so it went. The flesh grew back, she cut it away. It grew back, she cut it away again. After repeating this several times, the blackened, rotting flesh became scarcer and scarcer. Cutting away chunks of meat turned into shaving it off. Finally, Gavin Todd passed out once more.
Seeing that this was enough for now, Flora Bloom looked up and signaled for Neal Wallace to place the man into the wooden barrel.
Neal Wallace expertly placed Gavin Todd into the wooden barrel. The deep blue water continued to pour in, rising past Gavin Todd’s neck.
The operating room had a drainage system, so Flora Bloom wasn’t worried in the slightest. The deep blue water in the barrel was constantly being replaced; new water flowed in as the old overflowed. The overflowing water was a horrifying, scalp-numbing black.
"Cynthia Grant, what are you spacing out for? Keep pouring the spiritual water into him and don’t stop!"
After several rounds of this treatment, Gavin Todd’s face was still pale, but the new flesh growing on his leg was no longer as black as it had been.
Moreover, the color of the water overflowing from the barrel was also gradually lightening.
"Alright, stop!" Flora Bloom’s command was for Cynthia Grant. Cynthia obediently handed the spiritual water back to Flora Bloom.
"Flora, what is it? He’s not awake yet."
Flora Bloom watched as Robin Grant shaved another piece of flesh from Gavin Todd’s calf, then spoke.
"I have my reasons."
She fully intended to recruit Gavin Todd, which was why she was saving him. However, she knew that Gavin Todd was currently a member of the Todd family, and getting him to join her team would not be so easy.
Neal Wallace and Robin Grant lifted the man onto the operating table. Flora Bloom observed Gavin Todd’s condition from the side. ’Is he recovering too quickly? I hope people outside won’t notice anything unusual.’
Cynthia Grant and Neal Wallace said nothing. Robin Grant frowned, watching for a moment. Then, with the dagger he had yet to return to Flora Bloom, he suddenly slashed Gavin Todd’s calf once more.
The action left Flora Bloom and the other two juniors completely stunned.
"Grandpa, what are you doing?!"
"His injuries are too severe. If he recovers this quickly, it’ll arouse suspicion! Plenty of superpower users out there were killed by the black scorpions. If someone with ill intentions decides to compare, this little girl, Flora Bloom, will be easily exposed."
"But you can’t just carve another chunk of flesh off his calf!" Cynthia Grant stared at Gavin Todd’s leg. Her own grandfather had just used the dagger to gouge out a piece of meat so large that the bone was now showing. She swallowed hard, trying to process her shock.
"Gauze and iodine, pass them to me. Cynthia, come over here. I want you to treat and bandage his leg as you would a normal wound." Robin Grant handed the dagger back to Flora Bloom and made way for Cynthia Grant.
He looked over at Flora Bloom and saw her looking back at him. "It seems my young friend Flora has something to say to me?"
The elder and the youth stepped away from the others, heading to Robin Grant’s private office and closing the door. As a precaution, Flora Bloom surrounded the exterior of the office with a mist of water. The two of them talked inside for nearly half an hour before emerging together.
After the Adler family’s team of superpower users had cleared every corner of the base, the Todd, Wallace, and Grant families arrived one after another. Her summoned flying, fat mantis had already devoured more than half of the black scorpion corpses around the base. The Thorne family, which specialized in research, quickly sent people to collect the corpses, but they were intercepted by Flora Bloom, who had just left the temporary hospital.
The Thorne family conducted research; the lab conducted research. To Flora Bloom, research was an inherently dark business. ’It’s possible,’ she thought, ’that the Thorne family has some connection to the lab, and even to the Doctor.’
"You can’t take these black scorpion corpses." After she spoke, Flora Bloom directed Vert to lift the scorpion corpses onto the roof of the Adler family’s villa, leaving them right there out in the open.
The Thorne Family Head was dead, but the family itself wouldn’t collapse so easily. The person they sent this time was a Level 3 Wind Ability user. Enraged by Flora Bloom’s obstruction, he immediately launched a Wind Blade at her.
Unfortunately for him, Flora Bloom had entered the Middle Level, and the power of her water shield had undergone a fundamental change. A deep blue shield of water, large enough to protect all three of them, materialized before her.
The Level 3 superpower user’s Wind Blade was immense, looking both incredibly powerful and agile. But against Flora Bloom’s thin shield of water, it did little more than scrape the surface, kicking up a few deep blue splashes before vanishing without a trace.
"Instead of wasting your time here, you should hurry back to the Thorne family. See if you can suck up to the newly chosen Family Head for a better position. If you’re late, you won’t get any scraps at all."
After this incident, the Thorne family’s standing among the original five great families plummeted in the eyes of the public. Meanwhile, the Adler family, already powerful and dominant, saw their own status skyrocket. There was a growing sense that they were on the verge of unifying the entire base under their rule.