Li Pan read Ye Corp's notice. Not one mention of that Prince Maxim. He was speechless.
They were pulling the same stunt again—pin it on the interns, cut off a tail to save the body. These people just never get it, do they…
Still, after watching what happened to House Tokugawa, the Ye Council had at least, however grudgingly, taken a stance: a political severing from House Fabius—even conjuring up a "Demon Party." Roughly speaking, they were green-lighting the company to move.
Fine. Mop up the small fry first; bag the prince at the end.
After all, these vampire princes exist to enforce "stability" for their committee and to serve as Ye Corp's face on Earth. They're wearing Grade-7 implants—on paper, humanoid strategic weapons capable of wiping out this plane's humanity.
Right now Li Pan had burned through every last cheat key. If he had to go bare-handed against a vampire prince, he'd lose for sure.
Huh? Why was that Grand Duchess such a pushover—letting herself get smacked without fighting back? Who knows. Maybe she really was old. Maybe, like that Yulia, she just… liked it that way?
And anyway, once you hit a certain level, "combat power" is a nebulous number—good only for theoretical reference.
This world's rule-set keeps everyone inside a ceiling. Getting instakilled and then instakilling back is perfectly normal. That's why even someone like Li Pan—cultivating divine arts, wielding a divine weapon, battle-hardened—still flips the car now and then. Call it Fate.
That said, the vampires' power curve really is weird. Too young? Weak. Too old? Also weak. Haven't fed in a while? Underpowered. Fed too much? Also underpowered. Sleep-deprived? Can't perform. Overslept? Can't perform either. In a word: mercurial…
On the flip side, there are knights like K—riding the rising edge of their peak—so a few underperformers don't define the whole.
Doesn't matter anyway! If you can't win, cheat. If you can't do it yourself, call backup. Drop a dreadnought on their faces. Warehouse full of monsters. If the Company wants you gone, you're gone.
He tossed Rama a verbal thumbs-up—"You saved the boss's life; I'll send you a red envelope tomorrow"—then sprinted to his desk and hammered out keystrokes, rushing a report: "Regarding the Investigation of the Collector's S68 Site in Plane 0791." He shot it to HQ, hoping to snag a quick key as a safety net. The roaming mobs were getting ridiculous; without a cheat in hand, he couldn't relax.
Of course, he wasn't about to write that the giant infant who one-shot 01044 then kowtowed to him three times begging for mercy. Some things you can brag about and folks will nod along; some things, if you write them down, they'll think you're unhinged. So he hand-waved it: fast-forward to "used a key, opened a door, escaped." Everything else unknown.
He worked through the tasks, sent the report—no fax back yet—and tried calling 01044 to sync stories. She didn't pick up.
Heaven and earth be my witness—this time the two of them were a duo versus Belial, and Li Pan opened with a double-joker, went all-out, kept telling 01044 to stop monologuing and pull the trigger. She chose to push it and wiped. Who else is to blame?
It was after midnight. Less than eight hours until Purge. He had to move. He started dialing.
"Hey, 0113—you got the Great Flesh, right?"
Li Pan had been brawling since 8 a.m. His body had shattered and been reset twice. He was exhausted to the point of vomiting.
The 0113 GM sounded unhurried, almost leisurely:
"Mm. Inspected it. The goods are decent. I'm good on my end—we can wire payment now… though, this account you gave is a Ye Bank account, right? You sure you want it there?"
Li Pan sighed.
"Yeah, just do that. I checked contract law—I only own one company. A default in the tens of millions would nuke my citizen credit rating. I'd get blacklisted by the tax bureau, hassled nonstop, my QVN link restricted—and forget reincarnating to another world…"
0113 didn't care either way. "Okay. You'll have funds tomorrow. By the way, those two temps of yours can't hold on. You should prepare to delete their files."
"Huh? What's going on?"
He grabbed the desk phone, checked daily logs while rifling through the incoming faxes.
Because he'd casually asked Eighteen and heard the Ashiya team had gone well, and the "Great Flesh" had been delivered, he hadn't pressed further.
Tokugawa Nagamatsu's bunker had been heavily fortified—surrounded by elite Tokugawa troops and royal guards—with a Great Tengu as his personal bodyguard: the previous Hattori family head, grandfather of the current Hanzō. So Ashiya's capture op stalled for hours at first.
There's a combat-cap limit in this patch: Ashiya Rikudō plus a flock of shikigami fought the Iga contingent to a clean fifty-fifty—master vs. master, equals meeting on a narrow path.
When they hit the wall, Li Pan reset their status.
Ashiya Rikudō returned to full. Shuten Dōji joined the fray. The Iga side collapsed on the spot. With orbital fire support, Ashiya's squad carved a bloody path, not only bagging Tokugawa Nagamatsu alive but also cutting down the previous Hanzō and sealing the Great Tengu for good…
As expected of Ashiya Rikudō—the top onmyōji. Earning 2,500 a month as a temp is beneath him…
But the Shiranui squad? They failed their infiltration. Again. And again. And again.
Not exactly a surprise…
In short: Muko first tried a Water-Style infiltration through the hot springs to steal the "Great Flesh Jar" and got spotted by Iga ninja.
Even with Li Pan's help, Shiranui had received a big boost in cultivation, but she didn't have a Shuten Dōji or Nine-Tailed Fox cheat on her. Meanwhile Iga had eight Great Tengu in total; the Hakone main camp had one on garrison.
A mere "mortal jōnin" like Shiranui Muko couldn't endure a blow from a full-fledged demon king. She got one-shot—splattered. If Li Pan hadn't happened to reset her earlier, she would've died again.
Yamazaki Ayato fared no better. He struggled up through the Hakone volcano only to be discovered by Iga the moment he surfaced. Against a Great Tengu, even with the Monster Prayer Beads, he lost—rage, rampage, loss of control. Reset didn't help; now he's literally Yamazaki the Stone Man.
Shiranui Squad: wiped.
By that standard, Kotarō trading blows with a Great Tengu didn't look so bad…
A small mercy: the officer in charge at Hakone base was Okubo Jūbē—one of the few who got it.
So instead of killing Shiranui and Yamazaki, he released them—and, on the advice of Madam Saitō, voluntarily handed over "the jar the GM wants," arranging a shuttle to carry the gravely wounded Shiranui Muko and the petrified Yamazaki to the orbital ship to seek a settlement with the Company.
Seeing sense, and with the dreadnought only here to pick up cargo, 0113012 let it slide—no bombardment of the Hakone garrison. People choose their own fates.
0113: "Both are too deeply contaminated by monsters—clear signs of Apostle-ization. Under Company policy they should be deleted. But they're your staff; what's your call?"
Li Pan hesitated, scanning 0113's monster reports. Yamazaki the Stone Man needed no explanation: the Eclogite-and-Gabbro Prayer Beads file stated plainly that long-term use requires amputation; if you don't, you end up like Yamazaki—skin, bone, and muscle petrified into eclogite and gabbro. Heart like basalt, blood like lava. Barely human in outline. Only a faint brain-stem activity remained—and if he hadn't been flung to low orbit, away from ground influence, he would've triggered a full Apostle descent already.
Shiranui Muko was worse. She'd eaten a Tengu punch. The reset fixed the lethal trauma, but the Tengu's yokai energy lingered in her body. Severe internal injury: major internal burns, organ failure, continuous internal bleeding. Unless that yokai energy is removed, another reset won't keep her alive for long.
To make matters worse, when she stole the Great Flesh jar, she seems to have been infected by the Great Flesh itself. She'd been suppressing it with the Sealing Arts, but badly wounded and now outside the Hakone barrier, she can't hold the contamination. She's in deep shock; her limbs show massive fungal infection; skin putrefying. The photos look like a melting rubber doll—muscle and fat already dissolving. Soon she'll be a sticky lump of sentient meat like the Great Flesh.
In short: both are in horrific shape…
"…Can we still save them?"
He hadn't expected it to be this bad. Honestly, that hot-spring job was "deliver the package"—"casual" difficulty in his mind. Yet it turned into a bloodbath. No wonder temps are treated as expendables…
0113: "0791034 has already merged with the Prayer Beads. In an hour he is the Prayer Beads. 0791035 has two forces battling within; she can last up to eight hours.
A reset only restores the shell. Residual monster energies inside drive Apostle-ization; that trend can't be reversed.
Even if we purge the energy, once someone's been altered, unpredictable mutations remain. Worse, such mutated humans make even better containers to other monsters…"
Li Pan sighed, pulling the two files from the Archive Cabinet and walking toward the Shredder.
"Yeah, yeah. A broken vase can't be made good as new…"
Enough of this back-and-forth between life and death. Better a clean end…
0113: "They can be repaired. It's just not cost-effective for temps."
Li Pan paused, gingerly pulling the folders back from the maw.
"Look, A-Three—finish your sentences. Don't give me half a tutorial."
0113: "Oh, you're the 'doesn't read manuals' type. Fine. In day-to-day operations, staff inevitably get contaminated by monsters. People slide into Apostle-ization often.
As long as they're not possessed, full employees can redeem keys to request body modification. The Company will tailor an implant conversion to their contamination status—effectively sealing the monster by using the employee's body as its container.
After that, unless the employee dies, the monster can't be reclaimed. Such staff are treated as core assets/cadres, receive extra stipends—but they can't voluntarily resign. If they lose control or betray us, they become mission targets: retrieve the monster, delete the file."
Li Pan frowned. "Why is that perk only for full-time employees?"
0113 chuckled.
"Heh. A 'perk'? You know how brutal the full-hire selection is.
Full employees are people with irreplaceable expertise. Letting them die is wasteful, so the Company spends big and takes risks to salvage them.
But it's just repair. The scars may vanish, but the pain doesn't. Plenty of folks can't even die when they want to. Compared to that, dying might be kinder—save up and reincarnate.
Temps? Consumables. Why jump through hoops to fix them?"
Fair enough. They're a company, not a charity…
Li Pan thought for a beat. "But in theory, temps can be converted too, right? What's the procedure?"
0113 didn't care about another subsidiary's HR:
"Whether someone's worth salvaging is up to the GM. Approve it and it's fine. I'll be extracting the Great Flesh that fled into 0791035 anyway; I can lend a hand.
But 0791001, a reminder: every world can only bear a limited number of Apostles. The more Apostles, the more unknowns. The more things line up outside wanting to squeeze in. Naturally, higher risk of world-line collapse, and Purge gets harder.
If you try to save everyone, all you'll do is cause a bigger catastrophe and more deaths. You'll have to make trade-offs. Handle that balance carefully."
"Approved! Do the surgery!"
He didn't hesitate. Just earlier, when confirming the report over the phone, both of them clearly didn't want to die—cries of "Help," "Save me," "I don't want to die" wailing in the background like a haunting. They probably didn't have a spare hundred billion for reincarnation.
As for the world's "balance"…
Heh—whatever!
Li Pan was over it.
Look at this dump, 0791. The subsidiary's been rebooted thirteen times. Belial alone has reincarnated two or three rounds—and now something new has been born, seemingly with an organization behind it!
This isn't a hairline crack in a vase anymore. The gap's widened to a tureen's mouth.
It's gonna be Purged sooner or later. Might as well recruit a few more Apostles who can fight. If his people keep failing missions and need him to bail them out, he's the one who suffers.
0113: "I'll arrange it. But 0791, why are you still hanging around? Want me to send a shuttle for you?"
Li Pan finally remembered why he'd called in the first place.
"A-Three—do you have any airmobile troops aboard? Androids, robots, drones—anything is fine.
A man keeps his word. I'm going to wipe House Fabius off the map now. Lend me some manpower."
0113 snorted.
"Ah, the gut-slitting sacrifices? I admit that's entertaining. Fine—we've got time left. Do as you like.
I don't have ground forces; who knew we'd end up at Purge day. But there is a shipborne SMS unit—a Tech Division testbed, loaded for trials.
Want to take it for a spin? Help me with the field test."
"We've got SMS too? Hell yeah!"
0113 was game. "012, drop Pharaoh/Unit-01."
A meteor drew a line across the night, descending—not landing, but hovering—over the company's roof pad.
At first Li Pan thought "Pharaoh" was just a codename. When he stepped outside, he realized it was literal.
It looked less like an SMS and more like a gigantic mummy coffin: a massive black crystal sarcophagus—of the same stuff as the pyramid-like flagship.
The coffin itself was carved into a colossal pharaonic figure—regal robes in gold-inlaid alloys, twin golden crowns, arms crossed upon its chest like a grand mummy.
The black crystal face only hinted at human contours—no clear features—just that prismatic, opalescent black under starlight, as though deep eyes hid within the shadow, peering through the void of space to gaze down upon all beings.
"What the hell is this…"
Li Pan broke into goosebumps. The scales on his skin all trembled.
0113 crooned,
"Heh-heh. This is an SMS—Tech's artificial Apostle. Pharaoh/Unit-01. Go on—open it with a silver key…"
"Oh—about that," Li Pan said. "I'm out of keys. Lend me one? I'll pay you back after the op… don't be stingy, I'm test-piloting for you."
0113: "…"
And so, having freeloaded a super-flagship, an Apostle, and a silver key from 0113, Li Pan opened the black mummy coffin…
"What the—what is this…"
It was all worms. Silver tapeworms, packed tight inside, writhing like a field of sea grass, whispering shaaa-la-la-la…
0113 chuckled.
"Don't be afraid. Not worms—a living neural link. Wear it like a second skin. Very light."
"Uh… no thanks. Gross," Li Pan said.
"Hey! You opened it and now you say gross? Get in!" 0113 snapped.
"It's really gross. And are you sure I can take it off once it's on?"
"No idea. We haven't tested that. If you can't, use a silver key."
"Oh, so about that silver key—"
"Fine, fine—another one. Now hurry up and test my unit!"
Right. He took a deep breath. This was the rig he'd asked for; he'd bite the bullet.
Li Pan slid into the coffin and pulled the lid shut.
.
.
.
⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
💥 High-voltage cyberpunk. Urban warfare. AI paranoia.Read 30 chapters ahead, only on Patreon.
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