The alley air felt like old grease smeared over his lungs, thick with sewer gas and burned knockoff tobacco.
The broken neon over the door gave one last dying hiss and went dark. The dead-end fell into shadow. Only three cigarette tips glowed in the corner, blinking in and out like hungry red eyes.
"Thirty grand."
The guy talking was their leader—a two-meter slab of cheap aftermarket metal. His entire right arm had been ripped off and replaced with an industrial hydraulic clamp. Low-grade oil leaked from the joints, dripping into the puddles at his feet and spreading into rainbow stains.
He spat his cigarette out. The ember bounced off the dusty toe of Lu Jin's shoe.
"Leave what you've got in your jacket," he said. "Or leave your life. Your choice."
Lu Jin leaned against the cold bricks.
His lungs worked like a busted bellows, every breath scraping through scar tissue. Pain crawled along the inside of his ribs with each inhale.
His eyes, behind their lenses, stayed calm.
He didn't look at the clamp that could crush his skull like a paper cup.
He glanced back, just once. The mouth of the alley was blocked by the other two—one skinny with wired-up fingers, one carrying extra muscle in his shoulders and not much in his head.
"Thirty thousand in life-support money," Lu Jin said. "I'm not giving up a cent."
He adjusted his glasses and let out a quiet sigh.
If he couldn't run, then he just had to remove the problem.
"Actually," he murmured, thumb tracing the edge of his phone screen, "I've been meaning to find some free test subjects. See how nerve conduction delay looks outside a lab."
His focus slid past the thugs and locked onto the translucent panel hovering in the top left of his vision.
[Adrenaline spike detected. Entering combat state.]
[Warning: Your physical rating is D- (frail). You currently resemble an ant attempting to challenge a tank.]
[To avoid leaving your cloud-adopted daughter widowed in approximately sixty seconds, the system proudly presents—]
A riot of colors slapped across his retinal display along with a blaring horn jingle.
[Battle Hype · Atmosphere Pack (Premium)][High-intensity combat emotion detected! Would you like your cloud-adopted girl to sing for you and provide maximum Holy Song support?]Includes:– [Full-holo filter: Saintlight Hero]– [BGM: Ride of the Valkyries]– [Auto slow-motion highlight reel]
Cost: [Holy Resonance Energy 15 points]
(Friendly reminder: higher production value means higher-quality Holy Song feedback!)
"The cheapest one," Lu Jin muttered through his teeth. "As long as it makes her sing."
Every yuan he hadn't spent was Li Xing's treatment budget. And this parasite wanted him to blow the equivalent of six hundred on a cosmetic pack.
[Tsk. Energy reserves below taste threshold. Poverty detected.][Recommended: Basic Battle Emotion Booster (includes low-fidelity BGM + soft-focus filter only). Cost: Holy Resonance Energy 5 points. Redeem?]
The hydraulic thug's patience ran out. His heavy steps chopped the puddles, throwing cold spray across Lu Jin's ankles. Oil stink and nicotine breath closed in.
"Redeem," Lu Jin said. Just two clipped syllables.
[Holy Resonance Energy: 21 → 16.]
[Redemption successful. Loading buff…]
His phone buzzed once in his pocket.
—
A-11 Wasteland Zone.
Li Xing sat in the camping pod with her knees pulled to her chest, watching the little floor bot throw itself against the corner again and again. It bumped, reversed, bumped, reversed—dumb, determined, harmless.
The transparent dome above her went dark without warning.
Music exploded in the pod. Harsh, grand, full of hiss and pops, like someone forcing an old battle symphony through a dying speaker.
A moment later, an image took shape on the black dome—a low-resolution wash of gold.
A figure stood in endless shadow, facing three looming shapes with claws and fangs. His face was a blur, but the feeling that rolled off him was familiar.
The listener.
He was fighting. For her. Somewhere else, in another sky.
Li Xing's breath came sharp. The tremors in her shoulders stopped.
Her fingers closed in the fabric over her chest, close to her heart.
She opened her cracked lips, and a melody she knew better than words crawled up from somewhere deep in her throat.
An old, harsh tune. The one she'd hummed in the lab while watching the other kids die one by one.
The Hunt Song.
—
Lower City, reality.
The hydraulic clamp swung for his shoulder.
The instant before it hit, the world slipped.
Time didn't actually stop, but it loosened around the edges. Movements stretched out, like he was watching them through a thick pane of glass.
No. He was the one who'd accelerated.
Li Xing's voice slid into his ears through no speaker he could see, clear and cold and cruelly beautiful. Each note jabbed into his brainstem like an injection of pure stimulant.
[Temporary buff acquired: Holy Song – Frenzy.]
[Nerve reaction speed +200%. Pain perception -50%. Duration: 30 seconds.]
[Side effect warning: capillary overload.]
Red spiderwebs burst across the whites of his eyes. Heat spiked behind them.
In his slowed-down view, the clamp dip was clumsy, the thug's entire side opened up. Lu Jin saw the line of vulnerable flesh under the metal shoulder, the tension where muscle met implant.
He didn't throw a punch.
His right hand already held something between index and middle finger—a sliver of silver metal.
The micro-probe he'd "forgotten" to return to Old John. Five centimeters long, half a millimeter thick. Built to touch neural traces that machines couldn't reach.
This wasn't a street fight.
This was surgery.
Lu Jin stepped sideways. The clamp passed so close that oil mist brushed his cheek and slammed into the brick behind him with a crack that sent dust raining down.
At the same moment, his hand flicked.
The probe slid into the exposed spot under the thug's arm, a faint pressure against a cluster of nerves.
The motion barely disturbed the air.
The effect was anything but subtle.
The cyborg giant shrieked. His voice broke halfway, pitching up into an animal sound. The mechanical arm that could hoist half a ton went dead weight on the spot, cables spasming, the whole limb dragging him sideways.
He dropped to one knee, whole body jerking as the scrambled signals from shoulder to spine misfired in every direction at once. Words got chopped to pieces in his throat.
The other two froze.
They stared at their boss—who should've smashed this pale D-class invalid—now kneeling in the gutter, helpless.
Lu Jin stood in the middle of their confusion, tilted his head back slightly, and nudged his glasses up his nose.
Warmth slid down from his nostrils. Two narrow lines of blood traced the curve of his mouth and dripped from his chin.
He smiled.
No kindness there. Just the cool, distant curiosity of someone studying a specimen on a tray.
"Half a second of delay," he murmured to himself, voice low, almost thoughtful. "Can still tighten that."
"Kill him!"
The other two thugs snapped out of it, yanking out spring knives as they lunged—one from each side.
In Lu Jin's boosted perception, they were walking catalogues of mistakes.
Left: old damage in the knee. Every step betrayed it.
Right: no guard on the side of the neck, center of gravity too far forward.
Li Xing's song climbed higher inside his skull, a blade of sound cutting through the alley gloom. His heart hammered like it wanted to jump out of his chest. Blood roared like hot water through his veins.
If he was going to be a mad doctor, might as well commit.
He didn't retreat.
He went in.
He dropped his weight, letting the knife on his left pass over his shoulder. As he slid past, the probe in his fingers changed angle, kissed the tender spot along the bad knee.
A quick twist. Controlled force.
Something deep in the joint gave with a nasty, muffled crack.
The man's leg folded in on itself. Pain ate every word he could've screamed; all that came out was a ragged gasp as he collapsed, clutching at his knee, useless.
The last thug stared, knife shaking.
Two bodies on the ground in under ten seconds. The "sick kid" who should've been an easy payday stood there with blood on his face and steady eyes.
Lu Jin turned to him.
The way he looked at the man—measuring, marking cut lines—stripped away any illusion of dignity.
"Get lost," Lu Jin said.
No shout. No threat. Just a quiet instruction.
The thug bolted. He dropped his knife, slipped in the puddle, scrambled back up, and fled for the mouth of the alley without daring a single backward glance.
[Combat concluded.]
[Rating: S (Precision Surgery).]
—
The Hunt Song cut off mid-phrase.
The buff went with it.
"—ghk!"
Pain punched him in the lungs. The alley spun and he went down hard, muscles refusing to cooperate, the wet ground soaking his clothes.
The bill came due.
Forcing a D-level wreck of a body into that kind of performance was basically begging to die. His right hand—moments ago as precise as a scalpel—had gone pale-blue at the knuckles, fingers twitching on their own, no real strength in them at all.
Pain climbed him in waves, nerve by nerve, like someone had grabbed every live wire in his body and twisted.
He pulled in air in harsh, broken gulps. Each breath dragged knives along his scarred lungs.
He wasn't a fighter. Not really.
He was a terminal patient with a predatory app, tap-dancing on the edge with borrowed drugs and adrenaline.
His left hand found his jacket. He fumbled inside and closed his fingers around the stack of folded bills, squeezing until his bones hurt.
Still there.
At least the money was still there.
His phone lit his face with a new wash of color.
[Target "Li Xing" emotional surge detected: worship / battle fervor / dependence!]
[Holy Song Energy settlement in progress…]
[Target: Li Xing | Holy Song Realm: Mortal Echo · Faint Light tier]
[Level: LV1]
[Growth: 43 / 200 → 96 / 200]
[New Holy Song form registered: "Hunt Song" (battle-state amplification · short burst).]
[Current singing efficiency: 1.1 → 1.2]
On the feed, Li Xing was practically bouncing in the pod, eyes bright, watching the low-res hero on her dome win. Golden-red motes poured off her like sparks.
This time, the energy didn't seep into him gently.
It hit like a mouthful of hard liquor.
It surged down his arm, hammered into his chest, and ignited.
Heat flared under his sternum, spreading outward in a rush that scoured the ache from his limbs. The heaviness from exertion washed out of his muscles. Color crept back into his cheeks, an odd, almost feverish flush.
[Large Holy Song feedback acquired!]
[Physical stamina restored: 40%.]
[Temporary status gained: Intimidation Aura (faint).]
Lu Jin sucked in air. Real air. It flowed smooth. The stabbing edges dulled, replaced by something almost like strength.
So this was Holy Song.
As long as that girl kept singing—as long as she believed in him—he could crawl through this carnivorous city and maybe, just maybe, drag both of them out the other side.
"Scammer," he muttered.
He wiped the blood from his mouth, feeling the faint hum of the new aura under his skin, and looked at the screen again. Li Xing was kneeling toward the projection, bowing so hard her forehead almost hit the floor, mouthing thanks to the unseen "god" who'd saved her.
"Five points of energy," he said under his breath. "For one song and half my life back."
The laugh that slipped out was half relief, half fury at how perfectly the system had calculated the price.
"So far… I'm still coming out ahead."
He braced against the wall and pushed himself upright, tucking the probe back toward his pocket.
The phone screamed.
The sound cut through the alley like an air-raid siren. His whole interface snapped to red.
[High-energy alert! High-energy alert!]
[Abnormal weather data detected in A-11 Zone!]
[Acid rain cloud layer undergoing crystalline fusion reaction!]
[Disaster tier upgraded: "Acid Rain" → "Crystal Storm."]
Lu Jin's gut knotted.
The feed from A-11 sprang up. Outside Li Xing's camping pod, the drizzle of black rain stopped in an instant.
The sky began to shed something else.
Slivers of ice-blue crystal fell from the clouds, each shard thin and sharp enough to cut bone. They spun as they dropped, catching the dead light.
The first one hit the pod's shield.
The sound was a clean, vicious crack that made his teeth hurt.
The warm orange barrier around the pod flowered with a single white line. It crawled outward in front of his eyes, splitting into smaller lines, tracing a spiderweb across the whole shield.
[Warning: Camping Pod shield integrity will reach zero in 10 minutes.]
[Immediate intervention required. Failure to act will result in your cloud-adopted girl's death during the Crystal Storm.]
Lu Jin watched the cracks spread, the flush still fading from his face, the ache in his bones already forgotten.
"Of course," he whispered. "They don't even let you breathe between rounds."
He tightened his grip on the phone until his fingers hurt and started looking for a way to buy ten more minutes of life.