The infrared camera over the convenience store door blinked once.
Its red indicator cut through the rain, a small, cruel eye staring down at the sidewalk.
"Wooo—woo—"
Sirens rolled in from somewhere up the street, blurred by the weather. In the New Era, a D-class citizen killing three armed men on camera—self-defense or not—didn't get a trial.
You got scrapped.
A line slid across the corner of Lu Jin's vision, cold and neat.
[Notice: Real-world risk level ↑][Remark: D-class individual involved in violent incident → passive clearance probability: 87%.]
"Eighty-seven percent…"
He glanced at the three bodies lying in the rain, then up at the camera eye glowing over the door.
D-class. Even dying came with a success rate.
He bit his tongue. Copper hit his mouth. The jolt of pain snapped his mind back into focus just enough for him to move.
Not far. Not fast.
Just far enough.
Lu Jin pushed himself away from the store's entrance, legs unsure, and staggered into the narrow alley beside it. The wet brick bled grime onto his hoodie as he slid down the wall, ending up next to an overflowing trash bin that smelled like rot and cheap fried food.
One more step and he'd have fallen under the streetlight, right where every patrol camera could get a clear angle of his face.
Here, at least, the dark kept him.
Rain poured off the roofline in a solid sheet, a curtain between the main road and the alley. Sirens grew louder, a smear of noise under the storm. Red and blue flashed in the puddles near the curb but didn't quite reach into this crack in the city.
Lu Jin dragged in air. Each breath scraped its way out of his chest like something hooked there was dragging back.
Two more prompts nudged their way into his view.
[Suggestion: Evacuate to low-population zone immediately.]
[Warning: Current physical condition does not support high-intensity running.]
"Shut up…" He rasped it, barely pushing air behind the words.
He knew the numbers better than the system did. If he bolted now, he wouldn't make it to the end of the block. His lungs would finish the job before the cops even had to pull the trigger.
So he stayed in the shadows and did the only thing left that he could still control.
He looked at his phone.
Deep Space Echo's live feed jumped into focus, dragging his sight out of the alley and flinging it somewhere else entirely.
Wasteland. A-11 Zone.
Half a subway station lay broken open on the surface, concrete teeth jutting from the ground. The entrance down into the dark yawned in front of Li Xing, a hole so black it looked like it wanted to swallow people whole. A wind blew up from the depths, thin and cold.
"Screee—screee—"
Three shapes slipped out of the shadows near the stairwell, low to the ground.
Mutated rats. Dog-sized. Their fur had fallen out in patches, skin underneath hardened along the spine into plates. Their front teeth had gone metallic, catching what little light there was.
They spread out, forming a half-circle. No way forward.
Little Rock sucked in a breath that sounded too loud in the ruined station. "S-sis…"
He didn't finish.
Because he realized the girl in front of him didn't feel like the same person anymore.
A minute ago, Li Xing had moved like a scared kid trailing behind an adult—hands tucked in, shoulders hunched, steps careful. Now she stood straight inside the exoskeleton frame, shoulders level, breathing steady. Her eyes fixed on the threat, empty of fear, as sharp as blades.
"Switching mode… combat," she murmured.
The Wasteland Wolf exoskeleton picked it up. The power spine along her back gave a tiny shiver, like something inside was bracing itself.
Then she moved.
No posing, no warning.
The Thunderstorm nail gun came up so fast the movement blurred, even outpacing the exoskeleton's own targeting assist.
"Left. Right. Center."
Her voice barely rose above normal speech. It still sounded like an order.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.
Metal nails ripped through the air, clean and simple.
All three rats froze mid-leap. For one strange instant they just hung there, jaws open.
Then the impact hit.
The force threw them sideways, slamming their bodies into the station wall with enough momentum to punch three fresh craters into the concrete. Chunks of stone dropped to the ground.
They didn't even make it to the floor under their own power.
The whole thing took less than a second.
Little Rock just stared. His thoughts stalled.
Li Xing exhaled once.
She lowered the gun with controlled ease, exoskeleton responding to her like a second set of muscles. Her posture softened; the sharp line of her shoulders melted into something smaller.
"Handled," she said, tone calm. "No more danger."
Little Rock forced his throat to work. "S-sis… you, uh… just now, that…"
Li Xing blinked.
The edge vanished from her gaze. Her usual softness slipped back into place as if someone had flipped a switch. She shifted her grip on the nail gun, almost hugging it.
"The Listener taught me," she said quietly.
Then she turned to the invisible audience. Her eyes brightened, pupils tight in the dim light. Pride sat there, obvious and fragile in the same breath. Waiting.
"I… I did good, right?"
Deep Space Echo didn't leave her hanging.
[Detected: Observed Target "Li Xing" performed overwhelming combat display against low-threat targets and attributed success to "divine guidance."]
[Emotion Profile: Battle Achievement B · Attachment A–]
[Holy Resonance EXP: +40]
[Observed Target: Li Xing]
[Holy Echo Realm: Mortal Echo · Faint Light Stage]
[Level: LV2]
[EXP: 134 / 500 → 174 / 500]
[Progress: Faint Light LV2 (174 / 500)]
Reality. Back in the alley.
A patrol car roared past at the mouth of the lane, siren cutting the night. The wash of red and blue slid over the wet brick and trash, passed over Lu Jin's shoes, grazed his face.
They didn't stop.
For one breath-long moment, the weak cone of a streetlamp's light fell on him, hauled him up from the edge of blackout.
Then the lamp above the alley mouth let out a sharp pop.
A flare of electricity, a burst of light, and the bulb broke itself.
It had been flickering for minutes already, power surging up and down. Down here, infrastructure was as sick as the residents. The storm just finished what time had started.
At the same time, the convenience store's external camera blinked, its red recording light flaring one last time.
A faint hiss followed.
Rain snuck in through a crack in the plastic housing, across corroded wiring. The circuit didn't argue for long.
The red dot went dark.
The whole stretch of street sank into a heavier kind of night.
Two more lines edged into the corner of his vision.
[Remark: Real-world environment has suffered signal interruption from non-system factor.]
[Suggestion: In the real world, reduce high-exposure behaviors on your own to avoid triggering clearance mechanisms.]
No miracle. No divine hand.
Just bad wiring in a bad neighborhood finally giving up.
For Lu Jin, it was all the miracle he needed.
Rain drowned out the sirens. The darkness swallowed blood, water, and three ruined bodies as if they'd never been there.
The alley closed around him, not gently, but firmly. Like a door pushed shut.
"…That girl," he muttered.
The words came out thin, a mix of air and a strained laugh. "Really knows how to pick her timing."
He forced his head up to look at the screen again.
Li Xing still stood at the subway entrance on the feed, grinning at the camera. The smile she tried to draw onto her face was crooked and stiff, but she held it like it might matter somehow.
For him, it did.
It was enough to make a dying man hold on for one more second.
"Ha…"
Lu Jin lay back in the muddy water and stared up at the sky he couldn't really see, letting the rain rinse the blood off his face.
"This girl… saved my life again."
He fumbled for the phone, fingers numb, and checked his balance. What little remained in his account glowed back at him.
He smiled anyway. It was ugly and thin.
As long as he was still breathing, there was always one more move to make. One more bet.
He braced his hands against the ground and started to push himself up, ready to slip out of this place before the universe changed its mind—
—and the feed shifted.
Wasteland. No. 7 Resource Point.
The old man who'd carried the Ark key all this way clutched the black metal box tighter, knuckles white against darkened skin.
For years, the thing had done nothing. Just lay cold against his ribs like a brick.
Now, as soon as they stepped past a certain invisible line near the depths of the station, the box came to life.
Red light bled out from the engraved double-helix across its surface.
"Beep—beep—beep—"
Warning tones rang loud in the hollow station, bouncing off cracked tiles. Dust shook loose from the ceiling with each pulse.
The twin spirals on the casing began to spin, faster and faster, like gears that had finally found their missing teeth. A wave rolled out from the box, invisible but heavy, racing straight down into the hidden levels beneath their feet.
Deep Space Echo howled into Lu Jin's face.
[Warning! Warning!]
[Detected: S-class energy surge!]
[Correcting data: No. 7 Resource Point is not an abandoned storage depot! It is a live containment facility operated by the "Ark" organization!]
[Guardian has been awakened!]
The ground under Li Xing's feet shuddered. Debris rattled. Cracked tiles split further, a low groan working its way up from the supports.
From the darkness at the far end of the station, two points of blue lit up.
They hung in the air like lanterns, far too high off the ground for any living thing that used to belong on this planet. Metal scraped against metal, a grinding, rising note as something enormous unfolded itself in the shadows.
The outline stepped forward one fraction at a time, each movement sending tremors through the broken platform.
Lu Jin stared at the red-black warning window taking over his entire screen.
Whatever little color War Fever had brought back to his face drained out again.
"…You've got to be kidding me," he croaked.
His voice scraped over the word.
"Scammer. You called that a C-class resource point?!"