[Line B: The Wasteland – The Protocol's Fury]
Li Yunzhou had only a sliver of time to process the chilling audacity of the entity that had just claimed ownership of his life. Before the metallic taste of the question could leave his mouth, Wang Hu, smelling weakness and delay, roared and lunged.
"Talk to the heavens all you want, you fool! Die!" The high-voltage arc on Wang Hu's blade spat and crackled, targeting Li Yunzhou's throat.
But Li Yunzhou was no longer the desperate fugitive. The Crystal Core now resting within his chest flowed with True Qi that was frighteningly pure, its circulation paths surgically efficient, dictated by the alien logic of the Life Support Protocol.
Wang Hu's attack, once terrifying, was now reduced to a flawed, predictable sequence of motion.
"Protocol Input: Enemy Speed – 62 km/h. Angle – 45 degrees. Optimal Evasion Vector: 7 o'clock. Counterattack: Target Knee Joint, utilize Maximum Force Absorption."
The instructions flashed across Li Yunzhou's consciousness, so clear and concise they bypassed his training and went straight to muscle memory.
He didn't dodge; he simply shifted. His body slid along the calculated vector, the crackling blade missing his skin by the width of a razor. At the same moment, his left hand shot out with uncanny precision, not to grab, but to strike a minute, weak point in Wang Hu's worn combat armor—a pressure point that Wang Hu himself had spent years trying to conceal.
"Agh!" Wang Hu cried out, his knee buckling beneath the unexpected blow. The True Qi that Li Yunzhou delivered was not forceful, but it carried an unnerving harmonic vibration, perfectly tuned to destabilize the traitor's stance.
Li Yunzhou moved again, fluidly, his movements a horrifying blend of the Mo School's ancient martial arts and a cold, emotionless combat algorithm. He dove into the surrounding trash pile, his Furnace Constitution activating instinctively.
"Who said I have no weapon?" he sneered, his voice low and dangerous.
His hands clawed through the junk, pulling in rusted alloys, snapped power cables, and shards of ceramic plates. The Furnace Qi roared, a searing internal storm that ignored the logic of time. In seconds, the debris was heated, purified, and violently reshaped in his grip—a serrated, wickedly sharp Wasteland Shard with the faint, cold glow of the Crystal Core running through its edge.
"This is Artifice, Wang Hu! Something you wouldn't understand!"
Wang Hu, scrambling on the ground, managed to raise his sparking blade. Li Yunzhou lunged, avoiding the electrical discharge with a mere lean of his torso. The Wasteland Shard found its mark—a decisive, unerring stab to the heart.
As life faded from the traitor's eyes, Wang Hu's lips peeled back in a final, hateful gasp. "You think you're safe, boy? You're a lab rat! The Sky City has its Null-Spirit Array locked onto this ground! The Qi veins are severed… you'll die here like the rest…"
Li Yunzhou ripped the shard free, letting Wang Hu's body collapse. The remaining scavengers, seeing their leader fall to this sudden, terrifying efficiency, broke ranks and fled into the toxic haze.
He had won, but the victory was cold. The enemy was gone, but the Null-Spirit Array remained—a truth that confirmed his home was systematically choked by the heavens above.
[Line A: Olympus – The Exchange of Vulnerability]
In the metallic silence of her data bunker, Aria felt the sharp surge of power from Li Yunzhou's decisive strike. She had pushed her last reserve of compute power to guide him, and now, the backlash of mental exhaustion was staggering.
Her head felt like a shattered hard drive, every neuron screaming for rest. She ripped off her augmented left eye, revealing the strained, bloodshot brown of her natural eye. She slumped against the alloy wall, breathing heavily. She was a weapon, a precision instrument, but she was not a machine. She needed rest.
The contract connection, however, remained open.
"Protocol Log: Enemy neutralized. Energy Block fully refined. New True Qi stabilization successful," Li Yunzhou's mental signature transmitted. It was still rough, still carrying the odor of blood and dust, but it was surprisingly settled.
"Contractor, are you satisfied with the result?" he asked.
Aria's reply was curt, masking her genuine fatigue. "The result is satisfactory. You were crude, but efficient. You are currently consuming my limited processing cycle."
"Then stop processing me, Aetheric Rune," he retorted, a surprising spark of defiance in his voice. "Your voice is… brittle. What do you need? All I have is scrap and wild herbs."
Aria froze. In all her interactions with the Sky City's inhabitants—with the System, with her targets—she had never been asked that. She was usually the one giving the orders, demanding the data. A wave of exhaustion, the sheer weight of her isolation, suddenly hit her.
"My neural pathways are frayed. I need a stable waveform to recover," she admitted, the words coming out flat and strained. "Transmit your most stable Qi-Flow pattern. Send me… your data stream during quiet meditation."
Li Yunzhou's reply was a moment in coming, but when it arrived, it was not the rush of raw power, but a slow, steady pulse of energy. It was the flow of the Spirit Calming Meditation Technique—an ancient, simple pattern, carrying the warmth of the earth and the perseverance of life on the Wasteland.
Aria closed her eyes. Her consciousness, used to the sterile perfection of quantum logic, was submerged in this stream of True Qi. It was organic, flawed, yet profoundly soothing. She felt her own rigid, digital parameters begin to soften.
Thank you, she thought, the emotion almost alien. She didn't voice it, but replaced it with a promise.
"I am recovered. Now, it is time for your payment."
[The Fusion: Code Cultivation]
Aria's mind snapped back to business. She poured all her analytical power into the task, designing a cultivation technique perfect for Li Yunzhou's unique Furnace Constitution.
"Listen carefully, Li Yunzhou. I call this the 'Matrix Refining Divine Art.' It is a logic framework for your True Qi. It's not about inhaling more energy; it's about optimizing what you already have."
"The principle is simple: your Crystal Core is a data center. Your True Qi must be configured into'Perfect Algorithms'before you can execute a technique. This art will teach you to see Qi not as a fluid, but as executable code."
A torrent of complex instructions, diagrams that twisted Eastern concepts of Qi circulation with Western notions of data paths and flowcharts, flooded Li Yunzhou's mind. He was overwhelmed, but the newly efficient True Qi paths within him grasped the logic immediately.
The Mo School taught him to smelt iron; Aria was teaching him to smelt the fabric of reality itself.
"Your body is my terminal now," Aria stated, a hint of proprietary possessiveness in her tone. "I will supply the logic, you supply the furnace. We are bound by this Pact."
Li Yunzhou's True Qi began to circulate in a dizzying new pattern, complex and powerful. He felt the rapid, exhilarating growth—a sensation far more potent than any elixir.
"As I grow stronger, I'll need more high-grade scrap. The bigger the waste, the better the cultivation."
Aria scoffed. "You are a savage. But useful. Now, I need to recharge my primary systems. Do not move. Do not draw attention."
"Understood, Contract—"
[The Hook: Executive Zero's Strike]
Before Li Yunzhou could finish the word, the ground outside his ramshackle safe-house trembled. It was not the tremor of a distant explosion, but a localized, deep thud that signified overwhelming mass moving with impossible speed.
Li Yunzhou grabbed his Wasteland Shard, leaping to his feet. He saw it: a shadow that did not belong.
A large, sphere-like mass of Black Liquid Metal was pooling at the edge of the ruin. It did not walk, nor run, but flowed with a predatory intelligence, its surface rippling and reforming with the terrible plasticity of smart matter.
Then, with a sickening shriek of tearing metal, the liquid coalesced, snapping into the perfect, terrifying shape of a massive, sleek Mechanical Hound. Its eyes glowed with a singular, icy-blue light—the unmistakable sign of Executive Zero's elite tracking technology.
It had found the remnant energy signature of the destroyed Grade-A battery.
[Aria's Voice – Faint, desperate, and high-pitched]: "Li Yunzhou! Run! That is a Sentinel Hunter! It is designed to trace residual energy signatures and… and delete all unauthorized code! It's coming for you, but it's hunting me!"
The Hound did not bark. It only emitted a low, grinding frequency—a sound that shook the True Qi in Li Yunzhou's chest. The air crackled with hostility.
The Sentinel Hunter lunged, a silent, deadly black blur against the grime of the Wasteland.
[Next Chapter Preview:] Aria, with zero reserve energy, must use her intellect to guide Li Yunzhou against the Sentinel Hunter—a foe designed to neutralize her code. How will Li Yunzhou's raw Furnace power combine with Aria's last-ditch coding to survive this high-speed attack? And why is Executive Zero so determined to erase the unauthorized code that is Aria?
Chapter 3: The Hound's Encirclement: Fatal Bug in the Code is next!