Deep under Lower City, the drainage network sprawled like a rusted-out maze. The place carried everything the city didn't want to remember—shit, industrial runoff, and whatever evidence people thought would vanish if they flushed it.
Lu Jin had wedged himself into a dry side pipe, back against a moss-slick wall. Every so often, dirty water leaked through the manhole seams above and tapped his forehead, cold enough to bite.
That was what reality felt like.
Half an hour ago, the [Rhythm Sync] buff had faded, taking the godlike clarity with it. What rolled in to replace it wasn't just the usual gene-collapse ache.
It was like someone had shoved a rusty blender into his ribcage and set it to low.
"Kh… khh…"
He covered his mouth. Warm blood seeped between his fingers. He swallowed the urge to cough again. A few minutes ago, he'd heard the thud of tactical boots walking over the manhole above him, slow and deliberate.
The hound. The guy in the black coat. Nose sharper than the dogs ThunderGod actually bred. He'd circled this block three times already.
Right now, Lu was a rat in the sewer, counting his own heartbeats and waiting to see whether he made it to dawn.
The system cut through his pain first.
A sharp red flash burned across his vision, even with his eyes half shut.
[ Warning! Environmental shift detected! ][ Wasteland A-11 Zone Weather Alert: Class B mixed storm "Acid Bite" has made landfall! ][ Current ambient temperature: -26°C (dropping). ][ Air toxicity: High-risk (corrosive acidic particulates present). ]
Lu's eyes snapped open. His focus dragged onto the Deep Space Echo map.
The wasteland, usually a bland gray smear, had gone pitch black. Wind knifed across the display in thick streaks, carrying strings of something wet that whipped against the ground. Acid rain. The kind that left steel pitted and skin gone.
S-09, as an S-class mech, would lose some paint and complain about it. The three people on the sled, though…
Even with that fake "invisibility cloak" and every rag of clothing they owned, a Class B storm would turn them into freezer meat. Half an hour and they'd start dropping. After that, limbs went from numb to dead.
"Perfect," Lu muttered through his teeth.
He forced his shaking hand to pull up an icon he'd almost forgotten he owned.
[ Portable Single-Soldier Camping Pod (Deployed) ]
He'd blown ¥588 on that thing. A "bargain," according to the app.
The icon wasn't reassuring.
It pulsed with an accusing exclamation mark.
[ Error: Air filter expired (lifespan: 0%). Cannot filter high-density acidic particulates. ][ Current internal heating module: Inactive (additional authorization required). ]
And right on cue, the worst kind of pop-up slid across his sight in a shower of confetti.
[ Sweetie! Your little cuties are about to get the full "pickled-fish" treatment out there! ][ We've detected that your camping pod is the basic model~ It can block some wind, sure, but one leak in a Class B acid storm and you'll be serving corpse-on-the-rocks! ][ Emergency Limited-Time Rescue Pack: ]
– Universal high-polymer air filters (Triple Pack) – Blocks 99.9% acidic dust!– Heating Module Unlock Key (Permanent) – Even if it's a frozen waste outside, it's a beach vacation inside!
[ Original price: ¥1,999.00 ][ Blizzard-Care Price: ¥500.00! ][ Note: Class B storms are lethal, you know! What a bargain, buying life with money! Countdown: 59 seconds. ]
Lu gave a dry cough that tasted like metal and spite.
"Of course," he rasped.
The system didn't see a dying man. It saw a walking blood bag. As long as he had a drop left, it'd keep squeezing.
He flicked his gaze to the top-left corner of the interface.
[ Reality Balance: ¥2,000.10 ]
Two thousand bucks he'd ripped out of ThunderGod's teeth.
"Take it," he said.
His voice came out sandpaper rough, like it had to scrape its way past broken glass.
His fingertip tapped the confirm field. The numbers flipped.
[ -¥500.00 ][ Current Balance: ¥1,500.10 ]
—
Wasteland, A-11 Zone North.
The sky had gone from gray to ink—no horizon, no stars, just a lid. The wind wasn't a howl anymore; it was a constant shrieking note that bored straight into bone.
Black rain hammered S-09's armor and hissed on impact, each drop eating a pale mark into the plating and filling the air with a sour stink.
Li Xing sprawled over Little Rock and the old man, pinning them under her weight. The cheap "cloak" barely covered their backs. Her goggles already showed a spray of tiny etched pits. Every bit of skin she couldn't get under cloth burned like someone had poured boiling water over it.
Listener…
She didn't dare speak out loud, but the words thudded through her chest like a heartbeat.
The sled jerked.
"Ka-tchak."
The metal disc she'd always treated like some sacred relic—the camping pod in its folded state—snapped open without her touching it.
Soft orange light spilled out and carved a hole in the dark.
White panels unfolded like a blooming shell, the pod inflating in seconds into a half-dome that somehow anchored itself to the tank chassis beneath the cargo.
A clean, synthetic voice cut through the storm's screech.
[ Beep— Filter replacement complete. Heating system engaging at full power. Current internal temperature setting: 24°C. ]
Li Xing froze, brain lagging.
A heartbeat later, she moved. Hard.
She grabbed the old man and Little Rock by their collars and all but hurled them through the glowing hatch.
There was a faint hiss as the door sealed.
The world split down the middle.
Outside: a screaming, acid-stinking hell.Inside: four square meters of impossible.
Little Rock sprawled on his hands and knees, his entire body shaking. He didn't dare move.
Beneath him, the floor was soft, a white mat that gave gently under his weight like he was kneeling on clouds. The air carried no rot, no cold metal, no acid, nothing. Just a faint warmth, the sort you got from blankets left too long in the sun.
He stared at his muddy pants and split, swollen fingers and went stiff with a different kind of fear.
"Is… is this a temple?" he whispered, voice breaking. "I… I'll dirty it. I'll get the holy floor dirty… The spirits'll kill me…"
The old man had tucked himself into the corner. His cloudy eyes darted from wall to wall, unable to land. The best house he'd ever lived in was a sheet-metal box back in the shelter, and even that had leaked wind on a good night.
Only Li Xing adjusted fast.
She wiped a streak of grime off her cheek with the back of her hand and stumbled to the clear port set into the pod wall.
Outside, S-09 loomed close, that huge single optic pressed right up against the window. The yellow light behind the lens made it look weirdly pitiful, like a massive guard dog shoved out in the rain while its humans huddled by the stove.
Li Xing flattened her palm against the glass where his armor met it.
Her lips shaped the words.
Guard the place, Big Yellow.
Then she whirled back, the shock in her face turning into something bright. She dug into her pack and dragged out the treasures Lu had dropped on her before—the [High-Energy Compressed Rations (Meat Flavor)]—and the bottles of melted snow they'd been hoarding, now set to boil over the pod's heating node.
"Eat." She broke a biscuit and crumbled it into the steaming water, handing the makeshift stew to Little Rock. "Listener is treating."
He took the box like it might bite him, hands shaking hard enough that the soup sloshed. The smell hit him first: salt, fat, something that had once been meat instead of powdered rat.
He sipped.
The flavor barely registered before his eyes blurred. Tears slipped off his lashes and dropped into the broth.
"Mm… mmh…"
The pod was small. Barely four steps long in either direction. The storm outside hit the walls in waves, made the whole shell hum. And in the very center of that killing field, three refugees in rags sat around a cheap heating unit and a lamp, hands wrapped around hot food.
If you froze the picture right there, it looked like a story told to children who didn't know what hunger felt like.
Li Xing cupped her own bowl. Heat slid down her throat and settled in her stomach like a coal.
She looked up.
A faint point of light blinked on the ceiling—a camera eye, or whatever passed for one in Deep Space Echo's hardware. It wasn't big. It wasn't threatening. It just watched.
She knew he was there.
Couldn't see him, but could feel something close to it: a presence, a weight, the exact opposite of being abandoned.
Her gratitude, her trust, that childish stubborn belief that "He won't leave us" all leaned in the same direction.
Li set her bowl aside.
She closed her eyes and let out a hum.
This time it wasn't a battle beat. Not the wild nonsense tune she'd yelled into the wind.
It was something she'd carried for years without realizing it. A tune she'd made up in a corner of the shelter where no one could see, pretending there was a mother to rock her to sleep. Gentle, slow, steady. The sound of wishing someone would put a hand on your hair and say, "It's okay. Sleep."
The sound itself was simple. A few notes, rising and falling.
What mattered was the name she repeated silently with every breath.
Listener.
Little Rock's crying tapered off. He watched Li's face, the lines of tension smoothing out as she sang. His fear of "dirtying the temple" loosened. What they had wasn't a place. It was that unseen person she was singing to.
He started humming along, tuneless and off-key, but trying.
The old man set his bowl down, knobbly fingers folding together. His mouth moved in a mutter, some half-remembered prayer. He didn't know who he was addressing, not really, but the words "Listener" and "Ear Above" slipped into the stream without him noticing.
Three voices.
Three shaky little signals.
In that tiny pod, they braided together into something bigger. Not because of how they sounded, but because every line of feeling they carried went to the same address.
—
Back in the sewer, the stench of rot and ammonia had sunk so deep into Lu's lungs he barely noticed it anymore. His body was curled tight, every inhale a little explosion in his chest.
Then the chorus hit.
Not the sound. Deep Space Echo filtered that however it wanted.
The effect.
The clammy bite of the tunnel. The weight of damp concrete. All of it peeled away for a moment, like someone had thrown open a door onto a different climate.
The UI over his vision shifted. The usual harsh gridwork faded under a wash of warm gold, the lines turning granular, like they were made of drifting sand. A thin sidebar he'd never bothered with before slid open on its own from the left.
[ Holy Resonance: "Chorus (Prototype)" detected! ][ Scene Trigger: Kingdom in the Storm. ][ Participant Count: 3 (Li Xing, Little Rock, Unnamed Old Man). ][ Emotion Capture: Attachment (S), Awe (A), Calm (A+). ][ Emotion Target: Host "Listener" – Directionality: 100%. ]
The view pivoted.
It dropped into the "Song Source" tab he'd ignored until now.
[ Observed Subject: Li Xing ][ Current Realm: Faint Echo – Glimmer Tier ][ Level: LV3 ][ Growth: 0 / 1000 → 60 / 1000 ][ Emotion Settlement: During this chorus, emotions directed toward the host—attachment, trust, gratitude—have been converted into +60 Growth. ][ Note: All emotional fluctuations directed at the host will automatically accumulate as Growth (not limited to singing behavior). ]
So.
Whenever she laughed because she thought he did something good.Whenever she cried and begged him not to leave.Whenever she calmed down because "Listener is watching."
If those feelings pointed at him, her little bar jumped.
The interface snapped back to his side of the ledger, unfolding a panel he'd only ever skimmed.
[ —Deep Space Echo · Host Resource Panel— ][ Host: Lu Jin ][ Life Grade: D- (Critical) ]
[ Holy Resonance Pool (Reality Side): ]
Available Balance: 27 pointsHistorical Max Debt: -113 pointsCurrent Status: Not Overdrawn
[ Current Holy Resonance Settlement: ]
Source: Three-person chorus within storm shelter, all emotional output directed at host.Total Gain: +60 Holy ResonanceContributors: Li Xing / Little Rock / Unnamed Old ManEmotion Directionality: 100% toward host.
[ Energy Flow: ]
Reality-Dimension Emergency Repair Fee: 60 points (auto-deducted).Note: This settlement has been fully consumed by physical repairs on the reality side and does not enter "Available Balance." ]
For the first time, Lu really saw the machine he'd been feeding.
Holy Resonance wasn't some free-floating heal. It wasn't "magic potion drops from singing."
It was food.
Food scraped out of the hearts of people on the other side. Their fear, their faith, their joy, their bone-deep trust—all weighed, tagged, converted into numbers, then poured into his personal [Holy Resonance Pool]. After that, the app decided how to spend it.
Sometimes it let him buy toys.
Most of the time, it seized it all as "necessary maintenance" before he could even see the pile.
The text updated again.
[ Holy Resonance Gained: +60 (Chorus Crit)! ][ Special Feedback Triggered: Life Incubator (II). ]
Heat rolled down his spine.
His back muscles, which had been tight enough to feel like they'd snap, loosened one fiber at a time. The burning ice in his chest melted, replaced by a heavy warmth that seeped into every nerve.
It was like someone had dragged him out of a snowbank and stuffed him into a dryer-warm blanket. Pain dulled, then slipped under the surface, replaced by a boneless sort of comfort that made his eyelids feel leaded.
The iron taste in his mouth faded. His temperature clawed its way back up from "corpse."
He sucked in a breath that didn't feel like it was lined with razor blades.
Then his gaze slid sideways and caught the timer still sitting at the edge of his vision.
[ Life Remaining: 67 hours 42 minutes 11 seconds (unchanged). ]
A new notification popped under it, cheerfully obnoxious.
[ Settlement Report: Sweetie! Because your body was this close to falling apart just now, all 60 points of Holy Resonance have been forcibly deducted as "Emergency Repair Fees"! ][ Repair Items: Lung hemostasis (30), spinal nerve reconnection (20), core temperature regulation (10). ][ This settlement does not enter the "Available Holy Resonance Pool." Host's current spendable Holy Resonance remains: 27 points. ][ Life Extension Service: Not triggered (because you spent it all on not dying instantly~ Want more time? Gotta pay extra! ) ]
The half-formed smile on Lu's face bent into a bitter line.
"Scammer," he muttered.
Deep Space Echo wasn't a healer. It was a razor-wielding insurance agent. It'd make damn sure you didn't die on the spot, but any extra days? Those weren't charity. Those were premium packages.
Every "big win" just went to patching holes he'd already torn into himself. What actually stayed in his pool was always a pathetic fraction.
Still.
He could feel his fingers again.
Lu sagged back against the slime-slick curve of the pipe. He didn't feel the slime. Or the cold. Or the mosquitoes. His ears weren't full of trickling sewage anymore.
He heard Li Xing's lullaby instead. Little Rock's sniffling. The old man's mumbling prayer.
Echoes from a four-square-meter "kingdom of god" in the middle of a storm.
They were pouring their dependence, gratitude, and reverence into some distant "Listener," convinced he was a god watching over them.
The "god" in question was hiding in a drain, begging for their emotions just to glue his own failing body together long enough to see the next morning.
He lifted his hand and studied his fingers, steady now.
"Stupid girl," he murmured. "You're gonna have to like me a lot more than this."
"Just doing the repairs eats everything…"
His vision went soft at the edges. The accumulated exhaustion of forty-eight hours without sleep finally caught him in a chokehold.
He let it.
In the foul dark under the city, Lu Jin drifted off and, for once, slept like a kid who didn't know what overdue bills or gene collapse were.
Right before he tipped all the way into black, one last line of text flickered in the corner of the interface.
It didn't chime. It didn't flash. It slipped in like a back-end log, then was almost swallowed by the lingering glow of the Holy Resonance readout.
[ Log: Faint noise detected within "Chorus" frequency band. ][ Source Vector: Extreme North – North Star Sector. ][ Emotional Signature: Hostility, Greed, Hunger. ][ Analysis: Suspected hostile Song Source. Emotional target toward host: 0. ][ Warning: The other side is feeding too. ]