The city made its second mistake.
It assumed Qin Mian would endure.
It assumed pain, pressure, and structural necessity would keep her still—pinned in place, reduced to a load-bearing constant while everything else was erased around her.
It was wrong.
The Moment She Stops Enduring
Qin Mian stopped screaming.
That was the warning no system registered in time.
Her breathing slowed—not because the pain faded, but because something inside her locked into place. Her Anchor no longer flared wildly or resisted blindly. It compressed inward, folding power and pressure into a single, unstable core.
Her heartbeat slowed again.
Too slow.
Her eyes opened.
They were clear.
"…No," she said softly.
The word did not shake the chamber.
It shook the equation holding it together.
The Anchor Pushes Outward
The city registered the surge a fraction of a second later.
ANCHOR OUTPUT: ABNORMAL
VECTOR: INVERTING
Containment fields flared instinctively, tightening around her body.
Too late.
Qin Mian did not push against them.
She pushed through them.
Not with force.
With reference.
The Anchor rewrote its relationship to pressure, treating the city's alignment constraints not as walls—but as load paths.
And load paths could be reversed.
The First Backlash Hits the City
Somewhere far above, a district lost gravity for half a second.
Buildings didn't collapse.
People didn't fall.
But every structure groaned at once as stress redistributed violently through foundations never designed to feel pushback.
Analysts shouted.
"Subgrid spike!"
"No—this isn't output—this is rebound!"
"Where is it coming from?!"
The answer was immediate and terrifying.
FROM HER.
Qin Mian Feels the World Push Back
Pain detonated through Qin Mian's body as the rebound surged outward.
Blood filled her mouth.
Her spine arched violently as bones screamed under impossible stress.
She cried out—but did not stop.
"I told you," she gasped, teeth clenched as tears streamed down her face.
"I won't let you erase them."
The presence beneath the city reacted instantly.
Not with suppression.
With alarm.
Structural feedback exceeding tolerance.
Anchor stability degrading.
"I don't care," Qin Mian whispered.
And meant it.
Above, Erasure Grids Fail
The erasure grid stuttered.
Paths that should have sealed remained open. Corridors that should have collapsed held for seconds longer than predicted.
Seconds mattered.
Yin Lie felt the change like a punch to the chest.
"…She did something," he breathed.
Kai stared at her visor as red zones flickered uncertainly.
"This shouldn't be happening," she said.
"Those grids don't pause."
But they did.
Not because the city hesitated.
Because the city was being pushed back.
The City Tries to Correct the Correction
Containment escalated instantly.
ANCHOR INSTABILITY DETECTED
CORRECTIVE MEASURE: FORCED DAMPENING
Pressure slammed down on Qin Mian again—harder, sharper, no longer pretending to be gentle.
Her vision shattered.
She screamed as something tore in her side, pain white-hot and consuming.
But the Anchor didn't collapse.
It refused.
The rebound surged again.
This time wider.
Reality Buckles in the Kill Zone
Yin Lie felt gravity shift violently.
Hunters stumbled as the floor lurched beneath them, their predictive firing patterns collapsing as space itself desynced from their models.
One unit fired—and missed by meters.
Another tripped as the corridor twisted sideways.
Yin Lie didn't hesitate.
He surged forward, distortion screaming as ice and warped space ripped through the disoriented squad.
Bodies fell.
This time, they stayed.
The Director Finally Raises Her Voice
"Enough."
The Director's command cut through every channel.
"Cease erasure in Sector Twelve. Now."
Operators froze.
"Director—if we disengage—"
"We are damaging the foundation," she snapped.
"And that damage is no longer theoretical."
Her eyes locked onto Qin Mian's vitals.
"They're feeding back," she said quietly.
"She's no longer absorbing. She's reflecting."
Qin Mian Breaks a Rule She Didn't Know Existed
The pressure became unbearable.
Her body shook violently, blood soaking into the floor beneath her.
She felt herself slipping—not into unconsciousness, but something worse.
Fragmentation.
Her thoughts scattered.
Her Anchor screamed.
"…Lie," she whispered weakly.
The resonance answered instantly.
Not from the city.
From him.
That connection—thin, burning, impossible—held her together for one more breath.
And with it—
she pushed again.
The City Is Forced to Yield Ground
Erasure grids peeled back.
Not fully.
But enough.
Containment fields loosened just enough to stop the feedback from tearing deeper into the foundation.
The city retreated a step.
The first step it had taken backward since its creation.
Yin Lie Reaches the Edge
Yin Lie slammed his hand into the final barrier.
It cracked.
Just a hairline fracture—but real.
He laughed, breathless and feral.
"She's not stopping," he said.
Kai didn't smile.
"She won't survive this," she said quietly.
"I know," Yin Lie replied.
And pushed harder.
The Cost Catches Up
Back in the chamber, Qin Mian's strength finally failed.
The rebound collapsed inward, slamming back through her body.
She screamed as pain consumed everything.
Bones fractured.
Something in her chest gave way.
Her vision went black at the edges.
But even as she fell—
the Anchor remained active.
Holding.
Stabilizing.
Wrongly.
End of the Chapter
The city pulled back—not out of mercy, but necessity.
Erasure paused across multiple sectors.
Hunters stalled, confused by shifting geometry.
The Director stared at the damage reports in silence.
Qin Mian lay broken and barely conscious, her body failing—but her Anchor burning brighter than ever.
Yin Lie stood inches from reaching her, bloodied, shaking, power tearing him apart from the inside.
And both of them understood the truth at the same time:
This was no longer about escape.
This was about how much of the world would break
before one of them finally did.
The city tried to pretend this was still manageable.
Internal simulations recalculated at frantic speed, stripping out failed assumptions one by one. Predictive models collapsed and rebuilt themselves, only to fail again seconds later. What had once been a clean equation now resembled noise—unstructured, aggressive, impossible to smooth.
For the first time, the city's confidence ratings dropped below acceptable thresholds.
That alone triggered panic.
Containment fields flickered as power was rerouted unevenly. Entire blocks lost synchronization with the core grid, their physics lagging behind the rest of the city by fractions of a second. Doors opened too late. Floors responded too slowly. Systems that relied on perfect timing began to miss.
Yin Lie felt those misses.
Shots that should have killed him grazed instead. Barriers sealed a moment late. Hunters hesitated—not because they chose to, but because the city failed to tell them what came next.
"She's breaking your timing," Yin Lie whispered, realization cutting through the pain.
Far below, Qin Mian trembled violently, consciousness slipping in and out. Every breath felt heavier than the last, her body no longer keeping up with what her Anchor demanded of it. Blood pooled beneath her, warm against cold metal, but the pressure did not stop.
The foundation held.
Not gently.
Relentlessly.
And somewhere deep within the city's logic, a new conclusion began to form—slow, unwanted, and terrifying:
This situation could no longer be solved cleanly.