[Dual Lines: Crisis and Command]
The Sentinel Hunter was faster than anything Li Yunzhou had ever faced. It wasn't a living creature, but a programmed weapon, dedicated to maximum lethality. The ground erupted behind it, and the air around its shifting, liquid-metal body hummed with a corrosive energy that promised destruction.
Li Yunzhou knew he couldn't outrun it. He braced himself, planting his feet in the ruined earth.
[Aria's Voice – Panicked, cutting through the noise]:"Don't use raw force! Its armor is designed to disperse kinetic energy! I need to access its command logic—I need time!"
The Hound was on him. It didn't bite; it extended a massive, razor-sharp claw of black liquid metal. Li Yunzhou barely managed to block the strike with his Wasteland Shard. The force was staggering, slamming him back ten feet, his armor groaning in protest. The Shard's edge was instantly marred by corrosive black sludge.
"I can't hold it!" Li Yunzhou yelled, scrambling to his feet, tasting blood. "Tell me what to hit!"
"The entire structure is a single defense matrix! Wait—the programming is complex, designed by a high-level mind—possibly Executive Zero himself!" Aria's command voice, usually cold and detached, was laced with pure stress. "It's not looking for you; it's looking for my signature within your True Qi! It's programmed to eliminate all unauthorized code!"
Li Yunzhou understood instantly. His survival and Aria's existence were intrinsically linked; the Sentinel Hunter was trying to delete the 'Virus'—Aria herself—by formatting the 'Host'—Li Yunzhou.
[The Code Duel: Exploiting the Flaw]
The Hound attacked again, its liquid form shifting into two powerful pincers, trapping Li Yunzhou in a vicious vise.
"Li Yunzhou! Abandon your defensive posture! We are facing a superior technological defense! You need to disrupt its internal structure!" Aria commanded, her mental projection a torrent of data rushing into his consciousness.
"How? My Furnace Qi is useless against that absorption matrix!"
"It's programmed by humans! Even perfect code has a flaw! It uses a complex adaptive shield that recalculates every $0.05$ seconds! If you hit it at the precise moment it is recalculating—the moment its logic loops—you will bypass its armor!"
Li Yunzhou didn't understand the how, but he trusted the what. He could feel the energy envelope of the Hound, sensing its power surge and recede in rhythmic waves. He just needed to match the invisible logic.
"Now! I've found a minute delay! It's in the $18^{\text{th}}$ millisecond of its defensive loop! Target its central mass! Frequency synchronization: $10 \text{ cycles/sec}$!"
Li Yunzhou let out a furious roar, pouring his True Qi into his fist. He ignored the instinct to simply punch harder. Instead, he focused on making his energy vibrate at the exact frequency Aria dictated.
He launched his strike. It was a precise, coded weapon.
The moment his vibrating fist touched the liquid metal, the Sentinel Hunter shrieked—a high, unnatural whine of system feedback. The liquid metal visibly shuddered, momentarily freezing in place, its internal processes overloaded by the perfectly tuned counter-frequency.
"It worked!" Li Yunzhou gasped, pulling his fist away.
"Don't celebrate! The delay is too short! It's already compensating! It's learning your True Qi signature, Li Yunzhou! It will find a patch for your technique!" Aria's voice was laced with terror. "It's initiating a 'Self-Optimization Scan'! It will find the vulnerability in my code!"
[The Sacrifice: The Cost of Command]
The Hound, recovering rapidly, coiled into a denser, more aggressive shape. It began to emit a focused energy beam from its core—a slow, terrifying build-up of a High-Energy Particle Pulse.
"It's charging its main weapon! Li Yunzhou, you cannot survive that blast, even with your Furnace Constitution!" Aria yelled.
"Tell me what to do! I don't have enough Qi for another synchronized strike this powerful!"
Aria fell silent for one agonizing second. Then, her voice returned, but it was hollow, desperate, and resigned.
"There is only one way. I must stop its charge. I am cutting power to my primary defensive systems. I will transfer all available Cache Compute Power directly into your consciousness."
"What? Aria, that's your life force! You'll break the Pact!"
"The Pact is irrelevant if we are both erased! You must channel this power through the Matrix Refining Divine Art and execute a Data Annihilation Strike! Use the sheer force of the compute power to overwhelm its logic! Now, Li Yunzhou! Now!"
A blinding, icy bolt of pure data—Aria's very essence, her reserve life force—slammed into Li Yunzhou's mind. The agony was excruciating, like having his consciousness overwritten by a massive, frigid firewall.
He staggered, nearly collapsing, but the sheer volume of power was intoxicating. It was perfect. It was cold. It was terrifying.
He focused the power, condensing the white-hot True Qi and the alien code into a single, devastating blade in his hand—the Data Annihilation Strike.
[Victory and Revelation]
Executive Zero's Hound was locked onto its target. The High-Energy Particle Pulse was at $98\%$ charge.
Li Yunzhou lunged forward, ignoring the debilitating agony of the data overload. He struck with the full, devastating force of Aria's sacrifice and his own refined Furnace power.
The Data Annihilation Strike hit the Hound's central emission node.
The reaction was immediate and terminal. The Hound didn't just explode; its liquid metal form seemed to unravel. It emitted a high-pitched wail—the sound of a flawless program crashing and being instantly formatted. The black metal scattered in fragmented droplets, leaving nothing but scorched earth and a smoking crater.
Li Yunzhou collapsed, gasping, the remnants of the compute power draining away, leaving him utterly exhausted.
"Aria? Aria!"
[Aria's Voice – Faint, almost a whisper in the data stream]:"...I am operational... but at critical low power. That was... too close."
He had won, but the cost felt heavier than the fight itself. He struggled to reach the largest fragment of the Hound's core—a cold, black chunk of fused technology.
As he reached for it, the core suddenly flared, and a final, heavily encrypted message—a voice far colder and more commanding than the Hound's—pierced the silence.
It was Executive Zero.
"Target eliminated. But the unauthorized code has been confirmed. Tell the code entity: All your secrets, including your lost 'True Identity Code,' are in my possession. Do not struggle. You are only a 'Defunct Code awaiting retrieval.'"
The message vanished, leaving the metallic air thick with menace. Li Yunzhou's blood ran cold. Defunct Code. Aria wasn't just a hacker; she was a discarded asset. And Executive Zero knew the secret she desperately sought.
[The Hook]:Li Yunzhou clutches the broken core, his anger replacing exhaustion. Executive Zero has revealed the key to Aria's past, and now Li Yunzhou realizes the stakes are far higher than a simple contract. He has to save her soul before Zero comes back to claim her identity.
[Next Chapter Preview:] With Executive Zero's threat exposed, Li Yunzhou risks everything to hack the Hound's core and extract Aria's hidden file. The file reveals her astonishing past: she was once an Aether Administrator. How will Li Yunzhou forge this dangerous core into a defensive weapon, and what is Executive Zero's ultimate, terrifying ultimatum regarding the Wasteland?
Chapter 4: Data Retrieval: Aria's Secret Identity is next!