Chapter 25: The Wasteland King
The Refinery didn't look like a building. It looked like a autopsy of the industrial age.
Great bundles of rusted piping spilled from the cracked concrete skin of the structure, hanging like entrails over the blackened soil. The main tower punched five hundred meters into the smog, a skeletal finger accusing the sky.
Su Yuan stopped.
The crunch of fifty pairs of boots behind him ceased instantly. The silence that followed was heavy, wet, and smelled of oxidized copper.
"Why are we stopping?" Chen whispered. The boy was breathing through his nose, shallow and rhythmic. The *Bestial_Sense* patch was running hot in his cortex.
"Choke point," Su Yuan said.
He looked at the path ahead. The road narrowed, squeezed between two collapsed cooling towers. The ground was littered with debris that offered perfect cover for shooters, but terrible footing for a march.
"It's a kill box," Sergeant Kovacs grunted, stepping up beside Su Yuan. The big cyborg's sensors were sweeping the heights, his rotary cannon humming as the barrels pre-spun. "If I were holding this rock, I'd put snipers on the gantries and heavy repeaters in the rubble."
"There are no snipers," Su Yuan said. He closed his eyes for a second, consulting the *Daemon_Instinct* running in the background.
It wasn't giving him a visual. It was giving him a texture. The air felt... prickly. Like the static on an old CRT monitor.
"No snipers," Su Yuan repeated, opening his eyes. "Vultures."
"I don't see birds," Kovacs said.
"You won't. Not until they want you to."
Su Yuan checked his internal interface.
**[ SOULNET STATUS ]**
**[ CONNECTED NODES: 90 ]**
**[ SIGNAL STRENGTH: OPTIMAL ]**
**[ ANOMALY DETECTED: HIGH-FREQUENCY RADIO BURST ]**
The signal was faint, bouncing off the rusted iron of the towers. It wasn't a communication signal. It was a control carrier wave.
Someone was driving the birds.
"Move up," Su Yuan ordered. "Tight formation. Scavengers in the middle. Shields up."
The students obeyed without question. The forty Scavengers—his new, vacant-eyed thralls—shuffled into the center, protected by the ring of armed cadets. They didn't look afraid. They looked lobotomized.
They marched into the shadow of the towers.
The wind died here, cut off by the walls of steel. The only sound was the drip of condensation falling from fifty years of height. *Plink. Plink.*
"Welcome to the court," a voice boomed.
It didn't come from a loudspeaker. It came from the air itself, amplified by Qi, resonating off the metal surfaces.
Kovacs snapped his cannon up, tracking movement on a rusted catwalk forty meters above.
A figure stood there.
He was tall, draped in a cloak made of iridescent, oil-slick feathers. His face was gaunt, the skin pulled tight over sharp cheekbones, and his eyes were covered by a visor of red glass. He held a long, jagged staff that pulsed with a dull, rhythmic light.
The Wasteland King.
"You bring gifts," the King said. His voice was scratchy, like dry leaves skittering on pavement. "Fresh meat. Clean water. And batteries."
He pointed the staff at the Scavengers.
"Leave the porters. Leave the supplies. The rest of you may walk back to the sand. I am feeling generous today."
"Contact front!" Mei shouted, raising her rifle. "One target. High ground!"
"Hold fire," Su Yuan said.
He stepped forward, separating himself from the group. He looked up at the King.
"You're the exile," Su Yuan said. His voice wasn't amplified, but in the silence of the kill box, it carried. "Banished from Sector 4 for illegal biological experimentation. Use of unauthorized neural links on fauna."
The King tilted his head. "I am not an exile. I am a pioneer. The City is a cage for small minds. Here, I am the apex."
"You're a bandit with a bird fetish," Su Yuan said flatly. "And you're blocking my path."
The King laughed. It was a hacking, wet sound.
"You have spirit. I'll keep your skull. The rest goes to the flock."
He slammed the staff down on the grating.
*SCREECH.*
The noise was deafening. It wasn't a sound; it was a data-spike.
From the hollows of the cooling towers, from the rusted vents, from the dark sky above—they dropped.
Not five vultures. Hundreds.
A black cloud of feathers, rotors, and razor-beaks blocked out the bruised light of the sun. They swirled like a tornado, the noise of their engines creating a physical pressure wave that kicked up the dust.
"Open fire!" Kovacs roared.
The canyon exploded with light. Plasma bolts tore into the cloud, vaporizing birds, but for every one that fell, three more filled the gap.
"Shields! Interlocking shields!" Chen screamed, his voice cracking.
The students slammed their energy bucklers together, creating a dome of blue light over the group. The vultures hammered against it, a rain of metal and hate. Sparks flew as mono-filament beaks chewed at the energy fields.
"The shield won't hold!" Mei yelled. "Generators are overheating!"
On the catwalk, the King watched, arms spread wide, conducting the slaughter like an orchestra.
"Feed, my pretties," he whispered. "Feed."
Su Yuan stood outside the shield.
A vulture dove at him, claws extended.
Su Yuan didn't dodge. He didn't blink.
*Now.*
He accessed the back door he had left open.
During the fight in the ruins, when he had crushed the scout vulture, he hadn't just destroyed it. He had briefly interfaced with its receiver. He had found the frequency.
It was a crude network. A master-slave configuration. All the birds were receiving commands from the staff on the catwalk.
He couldn't hack the staff. The encryption was D-Rank—too complex for his current processing power to break in seconds.
But he didn't need to hack the sender. He just needed to overload the receivers.
*SoulNet: Data Dump.*
*Target: Local Frequency 440.Hz.*
*Payload: Infinite Loop.*
He pushed.
He took the raw processing power of ninety human minds—the panic of the students, the emptiness of the scavengers—and he compressed it into a single, screaming signal.
He broadcasted a logic bomb. A mathematical paradox.
*Calculate Pi to the last digit.*
The signal hit the flock.
The effect was instantaneous.
The swirling tornado of birds seized. Hundreds of rotors locked up simultaneously. Neural chips fried, smoke pouring from eye sockets as the cheap processors inside the birds tried to solve an unsolvable equation.
They didn't swoop. They dropped.
It rained metal.
*Thud. Thud. Crunch. Smash.*
The ground shook as tons of biological and mechanical dead weight slammed into the concrete. The noise was apocalyptic—the sound of a machine dying all at once.
Silence returned.
The ground was carpeted in broken wings and twitching bodies.
Su Yuan stood amidst the wreckage, brushing a stray feather from his shoulder.
He looked up at the catwalk.
The Wasteland King stood frozen, his staff raised, the red light pulsing erratically.
"What..." The King's voice trembled. "What did you do to my children?"
"I turned them off," Su Yuan said. "You should have updated their firewalls."
Kovacs lowered his cannon, staring at the carnage. "Holy hell."
Su Yuan didn't wait for applause. He moved.
*Flowing Mercury Steps.*
He didn't run toward the stairs. He ran toward the wall.
He sprinted up the vertical face of the cooling tower, his boots finding purchase on rivets and rust, gravity seeming to forget him for a few seconds. He was a grey blur, defying physics.
The King snapped out of his shock. He swung the staff.
"Die!"
A blade of wind—invisible, pressurized air capable of slicing steel—erupted from the staff.
Su Yuan saw the air distortion. The *Daemon_Instinct* painted a red trajectory line in his vision.
He didn't try to block. He dropped his weight, sliding under the wind blade as it carved a three-inch gash in the concrete wall behind him.
He pushed off the wall, launching himself at the catwalk.
He landed five meters from the King.
The King snarled, abandoning the staff's ranged attacks. He drew a serrated machete from his belt, the metal glowing with heated Qi.
"You're just a bug," the King spat. "An F-Rank bug."
He lunged.
The King was fast. D-Rank cultivation meant his muscles were denser, his nerves faster than a standard human. The machete was a blur of orange heat.
But Su Yuan wasn't fighting alone.
In his mind, ninety souls were processing the King's movements.
*Shoulder drop. Weight shift. Swing incoming: Horizontal left.*
Su Yuan stepped inside the arc.
The heat of the blade singed his tactical vest.
He placed his palm on the King's chest.
It looked gentle. Almost intimate.
"Shockwave," Su Yuan whispered.
But he didn't just release the vibration. He combined it.
He cycled the *Flowing Mercury* Qi into his hand, turning the rigid shockwave into a fluid, penetrating ripple.
*Technique Synthesis: Mercury Impact.*
*BOOM.*
It wasn't a loud noise. It was a dull *thump*, like a heavy book hitting a carpet.
The King's back bowed outward. The iridescent cloak shredded as the force exited his body.
He didn't fly backward. The energy didn't push him; it went *through* him.
The King dropped the machete. He fell to his knees, eyes wide behind the red visor. He coughed, and blood—dark and mixed with organ tissue—spattered the grating.
"My... cultivation..." he wheezed. "I can't feel my core."
"I scrambled it," Su Yuan said, standing over him. "Vibrational disruption of the meridian network. Temporary, but painful."
The King looked up, hate warring with fear in his gaze. "Kill me, then. The Spire will put a bounty on you. The Burrows will hunt you."
"Kill you?" Su Yuan tilted his head.
He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small, metallic disk. A neural interface jack. Scavenged tech.
"Why would I waste a D-Rank processor?"
The King's eyes widened. "No. You can't. That's... that's forbidden tech. That's Slaver gear."
"It's a networking tool," Su Yuan corrected.
He grabbed the King by the hair, forcing his head back.
"Don't!" the King screamed, thrashing weakly. "I have credits! I have codes to the vaults! I can give you the Refinery!"
"I don't want the building," Su Yuan said cold. "I want the admin rights."
He jammed the jack into the data-port at the base of the King's skull.
*CLICK.*
The King stiffened. His back arched, a silent scream trapped in his throat.
Su Yuan placed his hand over the jack.
*SoulNet: Override.*
*Target: Cultivator D-Rank.*
*Defense: High.*
*Brute Force: Engage.*
Inside the mental realm, Su Yuan saw the King's mind. It was a fortress of jagged glass and wind. Strong. But isolated.
Su Yuan brought the ocean.
He smashed the ninety minds of his network against the King's walls.
*Submit.*
The glass cracked.
*Submit.*
The walls shattered.
The King gasped, his body slumping forward. The red light in his visor died, replaced by a steady, pulsing blue.
**[ NEW NODE ACQUIRED ]**
**[ CLASS: ELITE (D-RANK) ]**
**[ PROCESSING POWER ADDED: +15% ]**
**[ SPECIALIZATION: WIND/CONTROL ]**
Su Yuan exhaled. The headache that had been building behind his eyes vanished. The addition of the King's mental capacity was like upgrading from a dial-up connection to fiber optic. The *Genesis Protocol* hummed, the "Reformatting" timer adding a glorious two days to the countdown.
He stood up.
The King remained on his knees. He looked up at Su Yuan. The arrogance was gone. The personality was... muted.
"Awaiting instructions," the King said. His voice was flat.
"Stand up," Su Yuan said. "Clean yourself off."
The King stood, wiping the blood from his mouth with a mechanical indifference.
Su Yuan looked down at the squad below.
Kovacs was staring up at him. The Sergeant had seen the whole thing. He had seen the slaughter of the birds, the unnatural speed, and the cold-blooded enslavement of a human being.
Su Yuan jumped.
He landed in a crouch in front of Kovacs, the impact cracking the pavement.
He stood slowly.
"Target neutralized," Su Yuan said. "The route is clear."
Kovacs looked at the King on the catwalk, then back at Su Yuan. He took the cigar out of his mouth. His hand was shaking slightly.
"You put a collar on him," Kovacs said quietly. "That's a violation of the Geneva-2 accords. That's a hanging offense in the City."
"He was a terrorist," Su Yuan said. "I pacified him. He's a prisoner of war now. Asset forfeiture."
"He's a zombie, Su Yuan. You wiped him."
"I repurposed him." Su Yuan stepped closer. He looked into the Sergeant's single organic eye. "We have a mission, Sergeant. We need power to clear the Refinery. I just secured a heavy weapons platform. Do you want to file a report, or do you want to survive the day?"
Kovacs stared at him for a long time. The wind howled through the dead towers, sounding like a mourner.
Finally, Kovacs jammed the cigar back into his mouth.
"I didn't see anything," Kovacs grunted. "Just combat trauma. Sometimes the enemy gets confused."
"Good," Su Yuan said.
He tapped his comms.
"Asset 1," he subvocalized. "Bring the birds back online. The ones that aren't broken. We need air support."
On the catwalk, the King bowed.
"Yes, Operator."
A dozen vultures, the ones that had merely crashed rather than shattered, began to twitch. Their rotors spun up with a broken, whining sound. They lifted into the air, circling the King not as predators, but as satellites.
Su Yuan turned to the students.
They were staring at him with a mixture of awe and absolute terror. They had felt the surge in the network. They had felt the moment Su Yuan crushed the King's mind. They knew, instinctively, that the leash around their own necks just got a little tighter.
"Chen," Su Yuan said.
The boy jumped. "Yes! Yes, Su Yuan?"
"Point man. Take us inside."
"Right. Yes. Moving."
The squad moved out, passing the pile of dead birds.
Mei lingered for a moment. She looked at Su Yuan, then at the King standing silently on the bridge.
"Is there a line you won't cross?" she asked. Her voice was barely a whisper.
Su Yuan adjusted his gloves. He felt the *Genesis Protocol* watching him, calculating, judging.
"Lines are for people who have time to draw them," Su Yuan said. "I'm on a deadline."
He walked past her, into the dark throat of the Refinery.
Behind him, the Wasteland King followed, floating on a cushion of wind, a broken angel guarding a monster.
***
The interior of the Refinery was a cathedral of rust.
Shafts of grey light pierced the gloom through holes in the roof, illuminating dust motes that danced in the stagnant air. The smell was stronger here—chemical rot and ancient grease.
Su Yuan walked in the center of the formation.
He was running diagnostics on his new toy. The King—*Node 91*—was a treasure trove.
It wasn't just the raw processing power. It was the database.
The King had lived here for five years. He knew every corridor, every vent, every nest of Razor-Backs.
Su Yuan downloaded the map.
**[ DOWNLOADING: REFINERY_SCHEMATIC_V4. ]**
**[ OVERLAYING PATHFINDING. ]**
A 3D map bloomed in Su Yuan's mind. He saw the route to the Core Control Room. He saw the hidden stash of cooling rods they had come for.
And he saw something else.
Deep in the basement levels, far below where the mission parameters sent them, there was a heat signature.
It wasn't a reactor. It was too rhythmic.
**[ UNKNOWN ENERGY SOURCE DETECTED. ]**
**[ SIGNATURE MATCH: GENESIS FRAGMENT. ]**
Su Yuan stopped.
A fragment.
The *Genesis Protocol* wasn't just software. It was a shattered god, scattered across the physical and digital realms. If there was a piece of the original code down there...
"Change of plans," Su Yuan said.
Kovacs stopped. "We're fifty meters from the objective. Grab the rods and bug out."
"The rods are bait," Su Yuan lied smoothly. He pointed to a rusted blast door on the left wall. "The sensors picked up a massive thermal spike below. If we pull the rods without stabilizing the sub-level reactor, this whole place goes nuclear. We'll be vaporized."
"I don't show a spike," Kovacs checked his wrist comp.
"That's because your sensors are Spire-issue crap," Su Yuan said. "My... associate... has better eyes."
He gestured to the King.
The King nodded robotically. "Thermal runaway imminent. Sub-level 4. Probability of containment failure: 94%."
Kovacs paled. He looked at the massive structure around them. If this thing blew, it would take out half the Wasteland.
"Damn it," Kovacs hissed. "Why is nothing ever easy? Squad B, secure the exit. Squad A, on me. We're going down."
Su Yuan suppressed a smile.
Deception was so much easier when you owned the witnesses.
They pried the blast door open. It groaned, revealing a staircase that spiraled down into suffocating darkness.
"Lights," Kovacs ordered.
Beams of white light cut the dark.
Su Yuan took the lead.
As he descended, the *Protocol_Omega* file in his brain began to vibrate. It wasn't fear. It was hunger.
It sensed its own kind.
*Feed me,* the System whispered.
*Soon,* Su Yuan promised.
He stepped into the dark, the heavy boots of the King echoing behind him like the footsteps of fate.
The Wasteland was just the tutorial. The real game was buried in the dark.
And Su Yuan had just levelled up.