Dumping The Ice King His Mini-Tyrant novel Chapter 421

Dames stared at Selene, wide-eyed, his hands fumbling to cut through the rope binding Altair. Without freeing Altair, there was no way he could get out of the cabinet.

Altair suddenly broke into a fit of coughing, unable to suppress it any longer. Selene quickly shrugged off her jacket, poured the last of the water from her thermos onto it, and wrapped the damp fabric around Altair’s head to shield his nose and mouth.

Half of Altair’s face disappeared behind the makeshift mask, but his sharp, dark eyes—full of panic—peeked out, fixed on Selene as she struggled to untie him.

“Selene, you need to get out. Now!” Adrian’s voice blared through her phone on speaker, the edge of anxiety unmistakable.

There were no cameras in the upstairs room, so Adrian sat in the car outside, eyes glued to his laptop. All he could see on his end was the security feed from the second-floor hallway. He had only Selene’s conversations with Dames, piped in through her phone, to piece together what was happening inside.

Even as he spoke, Adrian’s long fingers flew over the keyboard. The main security system hadn’t been damaged—the missing footage from the second floor meant someone had set the system to record without saving. But Adrian had installed a backdoor in the security chip; it could temporarily store the last hour of footage as a backup.

The cold glow from the screen lit up Adrian’s lean features, casting a shadow over his eyes. He waited for his custom program to finish crawling through the system and start streaming footage from the auditorium.

Just then, Selene’s voice crackled through the phone beside him. “Altair’s trapped. Adrian, guide Dames out of the hall first!”

She was coughing too, her lungs burning from the acrid smell thickening in the air. The carbon monoxide level was already at a dangerous high. They couldn’t stay here much longer.

“I’ll send backup right away!” Adrian replied. “Get Dames and get out—now!”

Selene clenched her jaw, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the ropes. “I can’t leave Altair behind!”

Staying alive was more important than anything.

And she felt the same about Altair. How could she leave him—bound and helpless in a smoky cabinet—while she escaped?

Altair couldn’t even speak, let alone save himself.

Dames pressed a handkerchief over his mouth and nose, his face grim. Flashes of his recent time with Altair played through his mind—how Altair always gave way to him, even pretended to be sick to skip out on the elite classes so Dames could shine. But every time Dames faced a tutor alone, he still heard them praise Altair, holding him up as the standard.

“Mom!” Dames’ voice trembled. “If it came down to just one of us—me or Altair—who would you save?”