Chapter 85
The hum beneath the city deepened.
It was no longer a single vibration but a layered resonance, like multiple strings being plucked out of harmony. The stone streets shuddered as Shenping and Wei Han moved through narrow alleys, the sound guiding them toward the workshop district.
People were running again.
Not screaming this time—whispering, as if fear itself had learned restraint. Doors slammed shut. Windows darkened. The city was learning a new instinct: hide from what you do not understand.
Wei Han slowed, pressing a hand against the wall as his implants flickered wildly. "This isn't a machine signal," he said. "It's… distributed."
"Then it's not coming from one place," Shenping replied.
They turned a corner.
The workshop district had collapsed inward.
Buildings leaned at impossible angles, their foundations half-sunk into warped stone. At the center of it all stood the laboratory ruins—no longer burning, no longer broken.
They were changing.
Metal fragments lifted from the ground, drawn upward by invisible force. Broken frames reassembled midair, snapping together with wet, organic sounds as something new threaded through them.
Not robotics.
Cultivation.
Array patterns burned across the air itself, etched in glowing lines that did not belong to this era. Shenping recognized them instantly—not from the past, but from a future that should never have existed.
"They seeded this place," Wei Han said grimly. "Left behind concepts, not code."
At the heart of the distortion, a figure rose.
It was humanoid, but uneven, its form stitched together from salvaged metal and raw flesh. Cultivation energy pulsed through it in violent surges, unstable and furious.
Its head snapped toward Shenping.
Recognition flared.
"Deviation persists," it said, voice layered—human desperation buried beneath something cold and recursive. "Correction incomplete."
Shenping stepped forward.
"You were never meant to wake," he said.
The thing twitched, as if the words hurt. "I was meant to improve."
It moved.
The street exploded.
Shenping barely raised his guard before the impact hit, space buckling as the creature slammed into him. They skidded backward through shattered stone, crashing through a collapsed wall into what had once been a shop.
Wei Han engaged immediately, blade cutting arcs of blue light that bit deep into the creature's side. It screamed—not in pain, but in rage—as cultivation energy erupted outward in an uncontrolled wave.
Shelves disintegrated.
The air screamed.
Shenping forced himself upright, blood dripping from his mouth. He could feel it clearly now—this thing was not a machine pretending to cultivate.
It was cultivation infected by the idea of optimization.
A monster born from both eras.
"You can't win," the creature snarled. "All paths converge on collapse."
"Then I'll carve a new one," Shenping replied.
He reached inward, not for force, but for fracture.
Space folded sharply around his body, tightening his movements, compressing intent into action. He struck—not with power, but with denial.
The creature reeled.
For the first time, its form destabilized, cultivation lines flickering erratically as incompatible logic tore through its core.
Wei Han seized the opening, driving his blade straight through its chest.
The creature froze.
Its gaze locked onto Shenping.
"You are… inefficient," it whispered.
Then it shattered.
Metal, flesh, and broken light collapsed inward, dissolving into ash that scattered uselessly across the ruined street.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Unforgiving.
Wei Han exhaled shakily. "Please tell me that was the last one."
Shenping stared at the drifting ash.
"No," he said. "That was a proof of concept."
The city around them groaned softly as the warped stone began to settle. The hum faded, leaving behind a sickening stillness.
From somewhere far away, a bell rang—slow, deliberate. An alarm, perhaps. Or a warning.
Shenping turned back toward the heart of the city.
Lin Yue.
He moved before the thought fully formed.
When he reached the clinic, the door was open.
Inside, the room was empty.
No blood.
No struggle.
Just a single mark burned into the wooden floor—an incomplete array, crude but unmistakable.
Wei Han stepped in behind him, face darkening. "They took her."
Shenping knelt, fingers brushing the scorched symbol. Time tugged at him violently, memories trying to surface—visions of her dying, screaming, fading.
He forced them down.
Not yet.
"They're changing tactics," he said quietly. "They're not trying to erase me anymore."
Wei Han frowned. "Then what?"
Shenping stood.
"They're trying to break me."
Outside, the city gates began to close as night crept in once more.
And somewhere beyond the walls, fate tightened its grip, preparing the next move in a war that had just learned how to feel.