The rain in Sector 9 didn't fall; it dripped, a greasy, lukewarm drizzle that coated everything in a fine sheen of industrial grime. I moved through the narrow alleyways, my Aetheric Overlay painting the decaying walls with urgent red lines—fissures in reality.
[QUEST: TRACK THE JAGGED TREMOR]
[OBJECTIVE: LOCATE THE SOURCE OF THE RESURGENT MALICE. PROBABILITY OF HOSTILE ENCOUNTER: HIGH.]
"Hostile encounter," I muttered, dodging a stream of raw sewage from a burst pipe.
"Right. Because that's what I needed: a magical fistfight in a garbage dump while dodging an audit and a billionaire heiress."
[DAO MESSAGE: HOST, THINK POSITIVELY. AT LEAST YOU AREN'T WEARING A SUIT. YOUR DISGUISE AS A 'WET RAT' IS HOLDING UP PERFECTLY.]
I rounded a corner, my nose twitching at the smell of fermenting synth-waste. And then I saw him.
Zhou Min was standing in the middle of the alley, oblivious to the rain. He was staring at a rusted, discarded drone, his eyes burning with that familiar, predatory gold. He stretched out a hand, and the drone didn't just activate; it began to disassemble itself, its metallic shell peeling back to reveal the intricate wiring underneath.
"The patterns," he hissed to himself, his voice a low growl. "I remember the patterns. The energy... it's all here. Hidden in the waste."
I stepped out from behind a overflowing dumpster. "Lost something, friend?"
Zhou Min spun around, his golden eyes locking onto me. For a second, he saw the Sovereign—the man who had imprisoned him in this pathetic life. Then, his nascent power wavered, the "Normalization Filter" in his own mind distorting my aura into something... less.
"You!" he snarled, pointing a shaking finger at me. "You're that insolent child who keeps... keeps making things too stable! I saw you in the news. The bridge! You stopped it! I was counting on that chaos!"
I stared at him. He looked like a drowned rat, his cheap synth-clothes clinging to his skeletal frame. His power was raw, uncontrolled, and terribly inefficient. He was a god-king trapped in the body of a starving data-clerk.
"Chaos?" I asked, affecting a tone of bewildered innocence. "Are you talking about the new traffic patterns, sir? My Institute is trying to stabilize those. It's a nightmare for commuters."
[DAO MESSAGE: HOST, YOUR FACIAL EXPRESSION OF 'CONCERNED CITIZEN' IS SO AUTHENTIC, I ALMOST BELIEVED IT MYSELF. 10/10.]
Zhou Min sputtered, his golden eyes flickering. He lunged, a desperate, clumsy grab that lacked any of the old Director Zhou's calculated grace. "You mock me! You think I don't remember the taste of power? The taste of... golden dew!"
He tried to unleash a blast of raw energy, but it fizzled into a pathetic spark that only managed to short-circuit the rusted drone's last remaining circuit. The drone clattered to the ground, dead.
I looked at the smoking drone, then at Zhou Min, then back at the drone. "Did you... did you just kill that poor drone, sir? That's at least a 50 Yuan fine for vandalism, you know. The Sector 9 regulations are very strict on public property."
Zhou Min stared at me, his face a mixture of rage, confusion, and utter impotence. The sheer, mundane absurdity of my accusation seemed to short-circuit his burgeoning power. He finally just crumpled to the ground, shaking with frustrated fury.
The Council's Web: Lin-Gong Tower
While I was having an existential crisis in an alleyway, Lin Yue's father, Lin Tao, was having a very different kind of meeting in his penthouse office.
The room was bathed in the soft glow of a thousand data-streams. Across from him sat two silent figures shrouded in robes woven from an ancient, almost forgotten fiber—the Elder Council's Envoys.
"The Zhao Audit on Li Ren was... retracted," Lin Tao stated, his voice calm but with an undercurrent of irritation. "An unprecedented move by the Elder Council. My daughter tells me Li Ren is a 'Vibrationist'—a harmless eccentricity."
"Miss Lin is... observant," one of the Envoys replied, their voice a synthesized whisper that felt like it came from the walls themselves. "But even she only sees the surface. The 'Anomalous Stabilizations' surrounding Subject: Li Ren predate his birth. The bridge incident was merely the latest in a century-long pattern."
The other Envoy projected a holographic map of the city. Tiny, golden dots appeared—the "Anchors" I had placed since I was a child. "He is a 'Foundation Weaver.' A living counter-force to the 'Great Ebb'. And if he is allowed to act without oversight, he could unravel the entire Anchoring."
Lin Tao's eyes widened. "Unravel? But he's maintaining stability. He's working against the chaos."
"Chaos and order are two sides of the same coin, Chairman Lin," the Envoy said, the white crane sigil flashing briefly on their robes. "We cannot allow any single entity to possess unchecked influence over the fundamental reality. Not even a 'stabilizer.' We need him integrated. We need him controlled. Starting with the gala."
Back in Sector 9, I watched Zhou Min curl up into a fetal position, muttering about "golden dew" and "Yuan fines."
[QUEST COMPLETE: JAGGED TREMOR LOCALIZED. SOURCE IDENTIFIED: ZHOU MIN (DORMANT)]
[REWARD: DAO HARMONY +0.03%]
[DAO MESSAGE: HOST, YOUR COMEDIC TIMING IS IMPERIAL-GRADE. HOWEVER, THE ELDER COUNCIL IS NOW ACTIVELY PLOTTING TO PUT YOU ON A LEASH. I BELIEVE THE GALA IS NO LONGER A REQUEST. IT IS A COMMAND.]
I sighed. My fake 'Vibrationism' had bought me time from Lin Yue, but it seemed the real powers that be found "eccentricity" far more suspicious than actual magic.