[Current Balance: ¥21.00]
[BUFF Remaining: 00:00:29]
The air in the sewer felt like congealed grease stuck to his lungs.
Lu Jin ran blind through the dark, boots grinding over rotten rat bodies and mats of slime. Every breath rasped like a busted bellows. The Holy Resonance rebound that had been propping him up was slipping away; that fake, god-possessed strength thinning out. In its place came the ache—deep, sour pain leaking out from the joints, like a colony of ants had crawled inside his bones and started chewing.
He had to find a hole before he turned into paste.
Up ahead, a maintenance room door loomed out of the dark, half-closed. The rusted metal hung crooked in the frame, its hinges buried under a thick cake of black grease.
Lu Jin slammed into it shoulder first, forcing it open, then kicked it shut and dropped the bolt.
This was the city's gut. Everything A-11 didn't want to look at ran through here.
He slid down the wet wall, legs no longer trustworthy, and fished the Glock 19 and tactical knife he'd stripped off the corpse out of his jacket. His fingers wouldn't come together properly; the nerves twitched and misfired, each movement stuttering.
Didn't matter.
He gritted his teeth and wedged the knife in the narrowest part of the doorframe, blade resting on a thin cord he'd rigged up. The far end of the cord looped through a cluster of scavenged batteries and a packet of stolen magnesium powder he'd taped to the ceiling.
If anyone forced the door, the blade would slice the line and kick the charge.
Cheap sewer-grade flashbang.
Once that was done, he looked back at his phone.
[00:00:03]
[00:00:02]
[00:00:01]
The timer hit zero.
"—ngh!"
No fade-out. No warning. Hell just dropped on his spine.
The bones in his right arm, which Holy Resonance had been holding in place by sheer force, snapped back to their original state with a series of tiny, crisp pops. Misaligned breaks stabbed into muscle. The scarred tissue in his lungs lost its golden duct tape and tore wide open; hot blood flooded his throat.
He collapsed on the moldy mattress in the corner, body knotting in on itself, convulsions ripping through him. He tried to scream, but only wet bubbles made it past his lips. Cold sweat and sewer water ran together into his eyes and burned.
His vision filled with grainy white fizz. That was his optic nerves frying at the edges.
Just as his mind started to slide loose, Deep Space Echo swooped in—its pop-up bursting onto the cracked screen in a flare of red.
[Life Critical!]
[Central nervous system currently undergoing irreversible overload!]
[Recommended Solution: Nanomedical Swarm (Single-use Trial)]
[Description: Rebuilds your neural net in one minute flat. As long as your brain's still in your skull, we can drag you back.]
[End-of-Life Care Price: ¥2,998.00]
[Kind Reminder: Based on your spending habits, this product appears beyond your means. Would you like to consider a convenient 3% daily interest plan, or pledging selected organs as collateral?]
[Countdown: 10… 9…]
Lu Jin dug his nails into his palm until he felt flesh tear. His chest hitched.
In his head, he gave that countdown the finger.
Twenty-one yuan.
He was too poor to buy his own life back.
Darkness rolled over him and swallowed everything.
Wasteland – A-11, Resource Point No. 7.
The subway station lay still, the air full of ozone and old machine oil.
Li Xing tilted her head back and stared at the steel colossus kneeling in front of her.
S-09 "Executioner."
It held the same posture of absolute submission it had taken when the command came down. Multi-barrel cannon pressed to the ground. The huge glass tank housing its brain perfectly still, the gray mass inside no longer twitching at all.
It didn't move.
Right after that divine command had thundered through the station, it had frozen like this. Since then, not a servo had ticked.
Li Xing had no idea that, in another dimension, on Lu Jin's cracked screen, a pop-up labeled [Mech Activation Key (Single-use) | Price: ¥50,000] had quietly vanished when the timer ran out.
No money. The weapon of god's punishment was just scrap.
"Messenger… sir?" she tried. Her voice bounced off the curved ceiling and came back small.
Silence.
"Saint—Saintess, wait!" the old man rasped behind her, suddenly panicked. He was staring at the faintly glowing smear of blue left where the Executioner's bulk had scraped the floor. "That's… Iron Plague! Old-era radiation coolant leak! One touch and your skin rots off the bone!"
Li Xing blinked, then glanced down at her hand.
She'd touched the armor earlier. All she saw now were a few minor scratches in the grime on her fingers. No melting, no smoke. Nothing.
Little Shitou sniffed, eyes stretched wide. "No… that's wrong. Old man, smell it. That's military stabilizer. My dad told me—only the big arsenals before the war used this crazy expensive stuff to keep hardware from aging."
He edged forward, hand shaking as he raised his flashlight.
The beam speared through the gap in the bulkhead door Executioner had forced earlier and slid across the darkness inside.
It landed on something. Little Shitou's breath cut short. He made a strangled sound like he'd just tried to inhale too much air at once.
"Holy… holy—" He choked on his own excitement. "Food. It's… it's food…"
Li Xing bit down on her lip. Her eyes burned.
Of course. It had to be her fault.
Of course God had withdrawn His hand. Her offering had been pathetic. Just an empty wrapper. Who wouldn't feel offended?
"I'll… I'll clean it," she whispered.
She tucked the precious, already-licked-clean nutri-bar wrapper into her chest pocket and tightened the straps of the exoskeleton around her.
Then she did something that almost made the old man faint all over again.
She reached for one of Executioner's armored legs—thick with spikes and sharp edges—and started to climb.
Cold alloy bit through her thin clothes and opened narrow cuts along her arms and shins. Li Xing didn't make a sound. She moved like a stubborn ant on a steel wall, hauling herself up inch by inch until she reached the glass tank.
A thick layer of dust and dried blood coated the surface. Old world filth.
She tore a strip from the hem of her clothes, wet it with spit, and started to scrub.
Once. Twice.
Her movements were gentle, like she believed she was polishing an idol, not wiping grime off a weapon designed to wipe out cities.
As she wiped, she hummed under her breath.
"Sleep now… sleep now… all the hurt flies away…"
Song of Rest.
In the dead pit of the old world, a girl with a ruined body sat astride a machine of extinction and tried, with her scarred hands, to make it a little less cold.
Time lost shape.
Eventually, a section of the glass shell gleamed. Beneath it, a solar sensor plate caught what little light the emergency strips in the station still gave off.
A faint click sounded.
Executioner's brain convulsed.
The gray matter slammed against the inside of the glass in violent pulses, each impact echoing with a dull thud like a trapped animal's heartbeat.
Li Xing jerked back on instinct.
A moment later, a thread of warped, broken electronic sound forced its way out of the mech's damaged speakers—human vowels twisted beyond recognition, but still unmistakable.
"…hurts… so… dark…"
Then the noise cut.
The brain spasmed once more. The dead eye mounted beneath the tank flickered and came online, a tired yellow ring blooming in the gloom.
[System Self-Check: Primary power offline.]
[Backup solar array: Minimal activation.]
[Current Mode: Low-Power Follow (Zombie Mode).]
[Command Source: Contact – Li Xing.]
Hydraulics hissed. Executioner didn't stand—there wasn't enough juice to lift that much metal.
Instead it moved like a beast too tired to rear up, dragging itself forward with both treads and limbs. It scraped along the ground and took a single step.
It stopped, half a meter behind Li Xing.
Waiting.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
God hadn't abandoned her.
He'd heard the song. He'd woken this giant up, even if only enough to shadow her heels.
"We… we're going to find food," she said, wiping her face with the back of her wrist.
She pointed toward the blast door deeper inside the station.
Executioner's massive arm lifted. It didn't fire the cannon. Instead, the chainsaw unit on the other arm revved once and bit cleanly into the locking mechanism.
Metal screamed. The heavy door toppled.
Dust that had been trapped for fifty years billowed out.
The beam from Little Shitou's flashlight swept forward, then froze on the far wall.
There, scrawled in hurried dark strokes, were lines of paint-brown letters:
March 17. Dr. Jacob sealed the main sector. He said we are "necessary sacrifices."
They took Lillian. She only had a fever.
God is dead. Ark is a tomb.
Below the words lay a forest of tally marks, drawn by desperate fingers. The seventh set cut off halfway through.
Little Shitou's voice cracked. "Look… look at that… look…"
He reached toward the stacked boxes in the room beyond, then pulled his hand back like a scared child afraid of snapping a dream.
Floor to ceiling, the chamber was packed with crates. Standard-issue military markings. Compressed rations.
Whole warehouse.
Li Xing couldn't read most of the writing on the walls, but one name jumped out at her.
"Lillian."
She remembered a woman with that name—an "auntie" in a white coat who always slipped her an extra half spoon of nutrient paste when the cameras weren't looking.
Her stomach made a noise like thunder. Her throat, though, felt like someone had stuffed it with cotton.
The packaging on the rations had yellowed. Half of them were probably long spoiled. Out here, that didn't matter. This wasn't food. This was gold. Enough to keep a dozen people alive for years.
Her fingers shook as she cracked open the nearest crate and pulled out a compressed biscuit. It was brick-hard, ugly, dense.
She lifted it with both hands, dropped to her knees, and looked up into the invisible sky.
Her smile almost looked like crying.
"Listener… dinner's ready."
Reality – Lower District, maintenance room.
In the dark, Lu Jin's chest had stopped moving.
The kind of pain he'd just gone through could make a healthy heart misfire. His was already damaged. One more push and the engine would stall for good.
And then—
Right as his heartbeat was about to flatline, his phone lit up.
Not with that cruel red warning light. This time it was a soft halo, pale as cold moonlight.
[Detected: Extreme Gratitude and Sharing Intent from Target Li Xing!]
[Offering: Old-Era Military Compressed Rations (Preserved).]
[Additional Note: This settlement also includes prior soothing and companionship toward S-09 "Executioner."]
[Concept Conversion Triggered…]
The glow seeped through the shattered screen and poured into his filthy chest like water.
It didn't fuse broken bones back together. It didn't knit torn lungs.
Those tricks took power.
This did something else.
It filled the hollow in his gut.
And it laid a hand on his mind.
[BUFF Gained: Holy Resonance · Full Belly (II)]
[BUFF Gained: Nerve Soothing (Sustained)]
[Effect: Pain signal transmission forcibly disabled. Host is being dragged into deep restorative sleep.]
[Emotion Assessment: After-Disaster Gratitude – A- · Urge to Share – A · Peace Conveyance – B+]
[Holy Resonance EXP Settlement: +60]
[Target: Li Xing]
[Holy Resonance Realm: Mortal Echo · Glimmer Stage]
[Level: LV2]
[Growth: 344 / 500 → 404 / 500]
[Progress: Glimmer LV2 (404 / 500)]
Lu Jin's brow smoothed out bit by bit, even unconscious.
A ridiculous thought drifted through the slush of his brain:
On that side, one biscuit bought a life.
On this side, he'd nearly died grinding himself down to be worth twenty-one yuan.
Terrible exchange rate.
His body was still wrecked, joints shifted wrong, lung tissue shredded. He felt like a toy that had been ripped apart and reassembled by a drunk kid. But for now, the pain was gone. He floated weightless in warmth, like sinking into amniotic fluid.
For the first time in years, he fell into a proper, heavy sleep.
He had no idea how long he'd been out when a cold drip slapped his eyelid.
Lu Jin jerked awake.
Same mildew-stained maintenance room. Same sour stink of gas and rot in the air.
But the agony that had been gnawing on him was missing. What replaced it was a deep, pervasive numbness, like someone had wrapped his nerves in cotton.
Still alive.
He forced his left arm to move and grabbed for his phone.
The screen was a spiderweb of cracks. Battery: 4%.
Balance: ¥21.00.
He let out a short, rough sound that might have been a laugh, might have been a cough. His thumb slid over the display and brushed a new icon he didn't remember seeing.
[Ark Database (Fragmentary)]
The icon was a stylized ark wrapped in twin helix patterns, glowing faint blue.
Lu Jin hesitated, then opened it.
A storm of corrupted text and broken files screamed past. Lines of code, incomplete diagrams, whole paragraphs eaten by glitch. Eventually, the scroll slowed and locked onto a single document tagged with [Top Secret].
[Project Codename: S-09 "Executioner" Prototype]
[Lead Researcher: Jacob]
[Chief Neural Engineer: lu… (DATA CORRUPTED)]
Lu Jin's pupils tightened to pinpoints.
He stared at the attached photograph.
It was old, colors washed out. The background: the clean white lab of Ark. Executioner's hulking frame sat on a cradle, mid-assembly.
At its steel feet stood two figures in lab coats.
One was Jacob—sharp features, eyes like a knife blade, exactly as the graffiti implied.
The other man stood slightly turned, holding a familiar circuit board, his expression mild and focused in that way Lu Jin had seen his whole childhood. The angle was bad. The resolution was trash.
Didn't matter.
He would never mistake that face.
His father.
Officially "accidentally deceased." Gone for five years.
Cold swept up his spine, scraping every nerve on the way to his skull. It cut through the sewer chill. It cut through the memory of bone pain.
In the cramped dark, Lu Jin's fingers dug into the phone casing hard enough to make it creak. His eyes lit with something sickly green, like ghost flames licking at the edges of his vision.
"So," he murmured, voice raw, "that's where you've been."