Honestly, Li Pan realized he himself hadn't quite been seeing things clearly.
He'd always thought Monster Company were just junk collectors—warehouse guys.
Joke's on him. They were the real big shots of the multiverse.
Fleet stomps and all that—doesn't even need saying. Power you can buy with money doesn't count as "true power." And sure, their stockpile of "Monsters" comes partly from an early monopoly—others simply didn't have the resources.
But now they can even mass-produce Apostles—rolling out something like Pharaoh that can go fifty-fifty with true demons on the occult side and top-tier "Mercury-type" tech on the science side.
It's proof enough that Monster Company's own tech is first-tier across the worlds.
And even so, Monster Company isn't the ruler of all heavens—just one seat on the Safety Committee.
Looking out over the golf course carpeted in blood and body parts, Li Pan could only stand there in mute silence.
Strong. Too strong. The limits of this machine—he couldn't even see them. And from just a glimpse of psionics, he could tell this whole system's ceiling wasn't much lower than a full-blown cultivation world.
Having a superpower system would already be bad enough—but the tech is just as advanced. If people learned this is what they're rebelling against—a committee like this—no wonder so many give up and hide in a well and never climb out again…
0113: "Oh, 0791, you're pretty strong. Interested in coming work for me? I'll slot you in as a division head."
Li Pan sighed."Come on, A-Three, don't joke. This isn't me—it's gear diff. Fine, I admit it, your Unit-01 is cracked. Definitely Grade-8 tech."
This wasn't just "a single suit solos a fleet." It was extinction-class. Maybe "crush the planet in one hand" was a stretch, but wiping out terrestrial primates? More than doable. Grade-8 fits.
0113 chuckled."Don't sell yourself short. Even a great prototype needs the right pilot.
"Your vitality, willpower, psionic potential—they're all way beyond human. Even among Company cadres you'd rank among the elite.
"Heard you were a mid-stream pick, but with this skillset, division head is easy. So? 0791's getting destroyed anyway. Come to my org."
Li Pan shrugged."Oh? What's the pay? And your 'division head' isn't some acting post, right?"
0113:"Temps are a Company-wide system—HQ sets pay, not me. But perks…
"How about we put you over Babylon? Sheba works too. Pick any of the god-realms under my remit."
Li Pan: "Yo, straight to 'ruler of a realm'? That generous?"
0113 kept chuckling."You can pilot Pharaoh. If I literally made you a Pharaoh, so what?
"To date, everyone who got in has been digested. You're still lucid—new record.
"Be my Lord of Babylon. I'll file it to HQ—if 01 okays it, it's done."
"Wow—Lord of Babylon, huh? Nice, ni—hang on. 'Digested'? Side effects?"
0113:"Right—your body is Pharaoh/Unit-01's fuel. Based on prior tests, after five minutes, body and soul fuse with Pharaoh.
"But who told you to run a whole Bomb-Ball tournament? I got so into watching I forgot to remind you."
"Damn it! Kinda important to mention! You just wanted your test hours!"
Okay, so forget a grand boss battle with the Fabius prince for now.
Spooked he'd get digested if the brawl dragged on, Li Pan bolted back to the Company to try to dismount and reset.
Good news: one silver key later, the sarcophagus opened. Maybe thanks to his Nine-Yin body-forging and the scales' protection, Pharaoh had indigestion. Li Pan wriggled free—but a lot of his muscle and fat had been dissolved, the coffin full of orange-red oil that looked suspiciously like him.
And unlike sliding in, getting out was a pain. Those "silver tapeworms" had to be pulled back out of every nerve. They didn't want to let go—like barbed needles hooked into the meat. Yanking them felt like scraping nerves with a steel blade—like pulling your own tendons out of your flesh.
No wonder this God-tier suit—while busted AF—was still a prototype and couldn't be mass-produced.
By the time he'd peeled himself out, his pores had been cored end-to-end; he looked like a honeycomb, tiny holes everywhere—pure nightmare fuel. Even he wanted to puke. He hurried to the Archive for a reset to calm down.
The reset shocked him too.
He'd slimmed down a whole size—went from burly, scaled bay-croc to scrawny lizard.
And his true qi—his true qi! Nine-Yin protective qi—emptied out!
So: half an hour in the prototype cost two silver keys and literally burns life and qi. Grade-8's price tag is no joke.
And like 0113 said: damage to the body can be rolled back with the Archive, sure. But the memory of having your nerves flayed? Still crisp as ever. Once he stopped, the pain and exhaustion of the whole night hit at once—he slumped in the office chair, panting.
One day and night—eight silver keys burned.
He was done. Let the world end already…
"Driiing!"
For god's sake, let me breathe…
"Driiing!"
"What!"
0113: "It's almost three. No time left if we don't keep testing. I'll loan you two more keys. Back in the saddle."
"Hell no! Look at me! You want me to die in your toy? You think I'm brain-damaged?"
0113: "Oh, can't hack it? Don't worry—I've got drugs."
Li Pan: "…"
0113 airdropped a crate.
Twelve syringes in total—three each of red, yellow, blue, purple.
Li Pan: "And these are…?"
0113:"You should've used three already—wait, what? You've never used Company enhancers? All those Monsters you ran were just you raw-dogging it? Your life is stupidly hard to kill…
"Short version: blue clears the head—restores reason. Yellow restores stamina and energy. Red repairs bodily trauma. Purple awakens bestowed psionics.
"Civilians/temps take one. Cadres or Apostles can take two. If two don't hit? Then slam all three."
So basically, when you're so fried that even resets won't steady you, the Company still has ways to squeeze more productivity out of you, right?
Got it. These managers are all whip-crackers—if you're not dead, they'll use you till you are.
On a normal day he'd have walked. I make 2,500 a month, and I'm supposed to juice up to work overtime for you?But now—glancing up at the dreadnought—Li Pan gritted his teeth and jabbed all twelve.
Immediate effect.
Blue: super-black-ice + painkiller. One shot eases the headache. Two—mind sharp. Three—heart like still water.
Yellow: full tonic. One—fatigue gone. Two—energy overflowing. Three—flagpole at dawn.
Red was the wild one. Three shots—muscles bulged. He swelled two or three sizes.Like inflating a shriveled balloon—veins and muscle cords popped; he was about to burst.
Red + Yellow + Blue maxed—he felt like he could slay gods and demons bare-handed; vampires and werewolves were… fertilizer.
The psionic amp? No obvious feeling—maybe this world lacks native psionics; likely just a battery for Pharaoh/Unit-01.
Anyway—this is tech. This is drugs.
Good. Reset stacked, full HP, peak stats, everything juiced. Time to work.
Li Pan re-deployed Unit-01. Pharaoh.Li Pan—sortie!In the blink of an eye, a god descended above the Night Tower.
After the Bomb-Ball massacre, the vamps had already scattered; the tower held only over-timing office drones.
Yeah—end of the world tomorrow, so what? If you don't work overtime, how do you pay your loans?
He didn't bother the peons. A blink of Pharaoh's eye and he had Prince Maxim's location. No elevator—he dropped straight down, duang-duang-duang-duang, punching through hundreds of underground levels into the Well of Slumber.
The Well was a vast tunnel; coffins lined niches along the stone walls.
It stored vamps who'd died non-naturally in battle, or those at risk of "blood hunger" who needed to sleep it off.
Even for Night-clan vampires—after too much killing and madness, you sleep underground to reset.
Monster Company just resets you and gives you meds… sigh. Different corporate cultures.
At the very bottom lay a great subterranean hall—stained glass around the walls, depicting the clans' histories; on the floor a ring-shaped magic array with the letters A V M engraved.
This was the mausoleum of the prince-rank vampire governors.
Truth be told, vamp princes are heavy hitters in the heavens. But the flaw of Blood's Lament means they always risk going feral.
So only one prince rules per century. In the last decade, the next prince is awakened and slowly regains strength and sanity underground.
Like tides coming and going—the new grows strong, the old weakens, then sleeps to recover reason and avoid the inevitable madness.
Every Night-ruled world cycles three princes like this. If the rotation breaks, succession crisis.
Maybe the elder snaps, can't cow the realm; maybe the new one can't recover in time from nightmare sleep.
None of that is the Company's problem.
All the Company wants is Prince Maxim—dead.
Pharaoh.Li Pan: "Die."
BOOM!
First meeting—no small talk. Out of respect, Li Pan swung the flail straight down on the man half-reclined in his blood-bath.
The superman blow hit air.
Cloaked in blood-red, the man hovered, skin still knitting, bathed in viscous milk-thick blood. Golden eyes stared, unreadable. Clearly freshly awake; his skin hadn't finished growing.
Li Pan looked up at the prince—and shut his eyes a moment.
Strong…
Truly strong—his qi, his spirit, his power—absurdly strong.
In the spirit view, the prince himself was a pillar of light filling heaven and earth—easily a hundred-thousand-soul psionic rating—surrounded by layers of weird sigils, a magic lattice orbiting the light, which the Heka Crook couldn't grab.
In the material view—no point underselling it—vampires as a combat chassis are no joke. A prince is rated Grade-7. Lower than Pharaoh's eight, but that's not a raw damage gap. Grade-7 means: no psionics or nukes—no single "mass extinction button"—but capable of city-level, even planetary administrative-district level damage and casualties.
So yes—a prince-rank vampire, though an ancient knight, an ancient monster, an ancient superman—pure melee style—could, in theory, literally punch humanity to extinction.
So the Night Council doing a political cut-out is about their limit. They really couldn't suppress him, let alone gift wrap him for the Company…
But in front of Unit-01? He's still not there yet.
"Ora ora ora ora!"
Li Pan slid the Heka scepters into the collar at his back and went pure crystal fists! Every shot a True-Dragon Break!
(0113: "Huh?! Use the psionics, man!")
Prince Maxim didn't run. He'd sat through his brood being slaughtered, saving his strength for this fight!
"GRAAAAAH!"
Blood-Beast Transformation! The Fabius bloodline—two-stage transform even at prince rank!
THOOM-THOOM-THOOM!BAM-BAM-BAM!
In an instant, Grade-7 and Grade-8 supermen were sky-to-earth—locked in!
Pure fists. Pure violence. Pure male will to win!
Clashing! Roaring! Colliding!
(0113: "Aaaah—my prototype!")
Once both sides' stats get stupid, every move is mountain-splitting, sea-boiling. Technique? Who cares.
One black, one crimson—two blurs racing and smashing through the Well's tunnels!Punch punch punch! Ram ram ram!Launched? Get back! Smashed? Smash back!When narrow paths meet—the bold wins!
True-Dragon Break!"Ahhhh—!""Raaaaa—!"BOOM!
After hundreds of traded haymakers—
The winner:
Pharaoh.Li Pan.
Yeah, unsurprising…
Maxim's combat chassis wasn't much worse than Pharaoh. Straight fight, they'd go fifty-fifty—need three to five hundred exchanges to decide it.
But 0113 couldn't bear losing his machine—especially that pricey "hat." So when they'd brawled from the depths back to the surface, the rat shot an orbital slug into Maxim's back—blew half an arm off.
Li Pan took one opening—Friendship Shatters Face Meteor Fist—full connect!
He pulped Prince Maxim.
The head went shooting like a meteor into the high atmosphere; Li Pan had to chase it down…
Yeah… oddly bland win, honestly.
He boxed up Maxim's head, reset back at the Company, then headed to the bathroom and scrubbed both Prince Fabius's and Tokugawa Nagamatsu's skullcaps clean—made them into a matched pair of cup-bowls.
"'Pharaoh/Unit-01' recovery complete. Thankfully, undamaged," 0113 called. "0791—eight o'clock is almost here."
Right. He'd made it.
Hope 01 reads the sincerity in this apology…
Li Pan looked at the gift box, wiped the blood from his hands, and took one last look at Night City from the manager's office window.
"A-Three… that 'Lord of Babylon' offer—still good? Can I bring more family along?"
0113: "Of course—bring who you want. As long as 01 signs the deployment… Hm? Meeting's called. 0791, you're named to attend."
Sigh… meeting it is. End of the world and still we have to meet…
No mystery—had to be about the Collector's site.
Compared to that, Tokugawa and Fabius were fleas—you swat them on the way by. The Collectors were the real existential threat.
Li Pan straightened his files, forced his mind awake, entered the conference room, and flipped on the lights.
And—whoa. Besides 01 and 0113, managers from other worlds filled the round table. A formal session of all twelve.
As usual, 01 opened:
"Subsidiary 0791, Fourth Managers' Session. Report on Collector Association site S68 in 0791.
"Per Company regs, reporting manager and eleven managers by seniority present.
"Meeting is now in session."
Li Pan was ready—signed the cover sheet, stood:
"The locals who offended the Company—I've disciplined them personally. The instigators' heads are here as an apology. I ask your forgiveness for their offense—"
Before he could finish, 01 tapped the table.
"I've read your report. No need."
He waved a hand; a Death Notice appeared before each manager.
Li Pan blinked, opened his copy, and heard 01:
"Our Ops veteran 01044—killed in the line of duty during 0791 travel assignment—assault on ACA (Antique Collectors Association) site S68. Body confirmed brain-dead."
…What? 01044? Actually dead-dead?Just from a look? She really got herself killed?
What about pull the plug, reincarnate, etc.?
Even the managers murmured:
"Dead? On assignment?"
"01044? The 'Sage'?"
"Hacked?"
"But the Archive…"
01 shook his head. "Archive did not trigger."
Silence.
Li Pan stood there, stunned, as 01 continued:
"The Collector who killed 01044 cannot be spared. Establish Project ACAS68. All managers present must dispatch at least one cadre to 0791 to participate in apprehending the target Collector. Alive."
Li Pan: "Uh, but I'm about to get 'Corrected'…"
01 waved: "0791 Correction is postponed. First, find and identify the killer of 01044."
You've gotta be kidding… You say "no Correction" and that's that? At least look at the cup-bowls! What did I bust my ass for all night?
Before he could swallow it, 01 stuck the knife in deeper:
"Capturing the Collector is priority one. Whoever nabs 044's killer becomes 0791's General Manager."
Li Pan gaped. "H-Huh? Then what about me?"
01, crisp as ever:"You? Transfer to 0113? Denied.
"You're the only one who made contact with the Collectors. Until capture is complete, you remain Acting GM on site and provide support.
"Assist successfully and I'll make an exception—convert you to full-time. After that, whether you stay or transfer is up to you. Any other questions?"
Li Pan opened his mouth—none.
Fair enough—he was only acting. Good enough for minding the warehouse, but lacking for fighting the Collectors. HQ parachuting a real GM and sidelining him would be normal. The workplace is cruel.
But early conversion? Not bad. Salary would jump tenfold.
And he suddenly realized: 01044's kamikaze stunt… somehow defused the end-of-the-world Correction crisis.
Old man loses his horse, who knows if it's bad or good?
01 rapped the table.
"Everyone—our war with the Collectors starts now. Prepare contingency plans. Be ready to mobilize. Dismissed."
Managers one by one killed the lights. Only 0113 remained.
"Shame, 0791. Looks like you can't be Lord of Babylon—yet."
"Oh, that's fine…" Li Pan was a little dazed. "So… really no Correction?"
0113 smiled. "If 01 says postpone, it's postponed. He'll squash bugs when he remembers.
"But I'm taking my ship. Figure the rest out yourself.
"By the way—you grabbed a bunch of locals and sent them onboard. What do you want done with them?"
Li Pan: "Huh? Oh, the Tokugawa clan? Useless now… slit their bellies and drop them from low orbit."
0113: "All right then."
They shut off the lights and left the conference room.
.
.
.
⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
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