The neon-green fluid coursed through Jiang Chen's veins, but it did not bring the warm, rhythmic pulse of Qi that cultivators described in their scriptures. It felt like broken glass. It felt like ice that burned.
Jiang Chen fell from the chair, convulsing on the concrete floor of the Command Bunker. The injector gun clattered away, empty.
[System Alert: Biological Anomaly Detected.][Trying to establish Dantian...][Error. Error. Subject lacks Spirit Root.][Error. Subject Physiology rejects Spiritual Integration.]
The glowing green light didn't settle into his navel to form a core. It erupted from his pores, tearing his skin. It wasn't cultivation; it was a hostile takeover. The essence of the Ghost King, stripped of its consciousness but retaining its hunger, realized it was trapped in a vessel that refused to bend.
"Master!" Old Wu screamed, dropping the locking bar he was holding. He rushed forward, but a wave of necrotic radiation knocked him back, blistering the paint on the walls.
"Stay... back!" Jiang Chen gasped. His voice sounded like it was bubbling through tar.
He looked at his hand. The flesh was turning translucent, revealing the bones beneath. But the bones weren't white anymore; they were turning into black crystal. The mutation was trying to rewrite his DNA, trying to turn him into a ghoul to accommodate the massive energy.
"It wants... to make me... a god," Jiang Chen grit his teeth, blood leaking from his eyes. "I refuse."
Above ground, the citizens of Beiluo looked at the Administrator's Mansion with growing terror.
A pillar of sick, green light was drilling up through the roof of the bunker, piercing the night sky. The air tasted metallic. The streetlights flickered and died.
"Is he ascending?" a factory worker asked, shielding his eyes. "Is the Iron Prince becoming an Immortal?"
"No," a passing merchant, a low-level cultivator, shook his head in horror. "That isn't Ascension. That feels like... a meltdown. The energy is wild. It's eating the sky."
Deep in the radioactive crater to the north, the Earth Shaker Golem woke up. Its sensors detected a massive spike of Yin-Radiation. It didn't recognize Jiang Chen's signature anymore. It recognized a rival Class-5 Entity.
"THREAT DETECTED," the Golem boomed, standing up and shaking off the decontamination drones. "PRIORITY: ELIMINATE INFECTION."
The giant machine began to march back toward the city, its footsteps shaking the fragile foundations of the housing blocks.
Inside the bunker, the battle wasn't metaphysical; it was biological.
Jiang Chen crawled toward the fabrication table. His legs weren't working. The "Ghost Qi" was paralyzing his motor nerves, trying to force him into a meditative lotus position to complete the transformation.
"System," Jiang Chen wheezed. "Override... biological... protocols."
[Cannot Override. Energy density too high. Body is dissolving.]
"I don't want... to cultivate," Jiang Chen snarled. He grabbed a heavy wrench from the floor, using it to drag his body forward inch by inch. "I don't want... to be one of them."
The Ghost Essence flared. A spectral face momentarily formed in the green mist surrounding him—a silent scream of the consumed King, furious that this mortal ant wouldn't accept the gift of power.
Jiang Chen reached the table. On it lay the Titan Mark III Prototype chest piece. It was a heavy, lead-lined unit with a Spirit-Siphon intake valve, originally designed to power the suit.
"If I can't... use it..." Jiang Chen lifted the heavy chest unit with trembling hands. "Then I will... cage it."
He didn't put the suit on. He slammed the intake valve directly against his own chest, right over his sternum where the mutation was brightest.
"Old Wu!" Jiang Chen screamed. "Turn it on! Activate the pump!"
Old Wu, face burned by the radiation, crawled to the console. He saw his master—half-monster, glowing green, skin cracking. He slammed his fist onto the activation button.
VROOOOM.
The Titan chest piece roared to life. The high-powered vacuum pumps engaged.
It didn't suck air. It sucked the energy right out of Jiang Chen's bloodstream.
The Ghost Essence shrieked as it was violently pulled from the biological tissue and forced into the Tungsten-Carbide Containment Cell inside the armor.
"ARGHHHHH!" Jiang Chen arched his back, a scream of absolute agony tearing from his throat.
The green light on his skin began to recede, sucked into the vortex in the center of his chest. The translucent flesh turned opaque again. The black crystal bones stopped spreading.
The chest piece clamped onto him, surgical needles driving into his ribs to anchor it permanently. The System integrated the hardware with his nervous system.
[Foreign Energy Contained.][Cultivation: Aborted.][New Status: Bio-Mechanical Host.]
The green pillar of light outside the mansion vanished instantly.
The Earth Shaker Golem, halfway to the city gates, stopped. Its sensors spun. The "Threat" was gone. The energy signature had vanished behind a wall of lead and math.
"THREAT... NULLIFIED," the Golem rumbled, and powered down in the middle of the highway.
Silence returned to the bunker. The air scrubbers kicked into high gear, sucking away the radioactive mist.
Old Wu lay panting on the floor. He looked up.
Jiang Chen was sitting against the leg of the fabrication table. He looked terrible. His skin was pale as death, dark circles under his eyes. A web of black veins radiated out from the heavy, mechanical device now permanently fused to the center of his chest. The device hummed with a low, menacing green glow.
He wasn't an Immortal. He wasn't a God. He was a man who had bolted a nuclear reactor to his heart to keep from turning into a monster.
"Master?" Old Wu whispered.
Jiang Chen opened his eyes. They were no longer glowing. They were dark, tired, and very human.
"I'm here, Wu," Jiang Chen rasped. His voice had a metallic reverb now—the chest unit vibrating against his vocal cords.
He tried to stand. The weight of the chest unit pulled him forward, but the Exoskeleton Legs of the Titan suit—which he had been building—automatically engaged, locking around his limbs to support him.
He stood up, a mix of flesh and hydraulic pistons.
"The Cultivation failed?" Wu asked, fearful.
"No," Jiang Chen looked at the glowing green circle in his chest. "It didn't fail. I fired it."
He tapped the reactor.
"I am not a cultivator, Wu. I am the Administrator. And this... this is just a battery."
The next morning, the citizens of Beiluo gathered at the City Hall. They had seen the green light. They had felt the Golem move. They were terrified that their leader had transcended, that he would leave them behind or become another arrogant god.
The doors opened.
Jiang Chen walked out.
He didn't float. He walked heavily, the sound of servos whining with every step. He wore a new heavy black trench coat, but it couldn't hide the bulk of the machinery strapped to his torso, nor the faint green glow leaking from beneath the fabric. He wore a breathing mask over his nose and mouth, a tube connecting it to the chest unit.
He looked broken. He looked like a man who had dragged himself through hell and barely made it back.
The crowd went silent. This wasn't the golden, perfect form of an ascended master. This was a scarred, industrial survivor.
"Citizens," Jiang Chen's voice was amplified, sounding gritty and synthesized. "The experiment... had complications."
He looked out at them.
"The Holy Lands believe that power is meant to purify the body. To make it perfect. To separate the god from the man."
He ripped the breathing mask off, letting it hang by the tube. He took a raw, wheezing breath of the smoggy city air.
"I rejected perfection," Jiang Chen roared, his voice cracking. "I chose to stay here! With the soot! With the iron! With you!"
A beat of silence.
Then, a cheer erupted. It was louder than the victory over the zombies. Louder than the execution of Xue.
The mortals didn't want another god. They wanted a human who would bleed for them. And looking at the machine-man on the podium, they saw exactly that.
The Imperial Capital
The Emperor read the report from his spies.
"He rejected the Ascension?" The Emperor frowned. "He had the essence of a Ghost King and a Spirit Beast... and he put it in a box?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," the spy reported. "He is crippled. He requires a suit to walk. He breathes filtered air. He is... an abomination."
The Emperor closed his eyes.
"No," the Emperor said softly. "He is dangerous. A man who rejects heaven to rule the earth... such a man has no ceiling."
"What of the Holy Land?"
"The Holy Land is silent," the Emperor opened his eyes. "Their minds are broken. But the Great Sects are not. They smell blood. They see a crippled warlord."
"Send a warning to Jiang Chen," the Emperor commanded. "Tell him the Sword Saint of the East is moving. And tell him... his 'Abomination' form had better be waterproof."
Beiluo Command Center
Jiang Chen sat in his chair, the chest reactor humming. He was reading the same intelligence report.
"The Sword Saint," Jiang Chen muttered. "Physical immunity. Cuts through steel like paper."
He looked at his hand. He clenched his fist. The hydraulic servos in his gauntlet whirred, crushing the armrest of his titanium chair into dust.
He wasn't a cultivator. He couldn't fly. He couldn't cast spells.
But he had the energy of a Ghost King trapped in his chest, and an entire city's worth of steel at his disposal.
"System," Jiang Chen said. "Open Tier 4: Cybernetics and Robotics."
[Tier 4 Unlocked.][Blueprint: The Dreadnought Chassis.][Blueprint: Neural-Link Drones.][Blueprint: High-Frequency Vibro-Blades.]
"If I am to be a machine," Jiang Chen whispered, the green light from his chest reflecting in his eyes, "then I will be the deadliest machine ever built."