Chapter 26: The First Disciple
The transition from the Wasteland back to Sector 7 was a shift in pressure. The Wasteland was vast, silent, and dead. The city was a claustrophobic cage that wouldn't stop screaming.
Su Yuan stepped off the transit mag-lev, the hiss of the hydraulic doors sealing shut behind him. The air here was different. It didn't taste of ash and bone anymore; it tasted of recycled ozone, frying grease, and the copper tang of unwashed humanity.
He pulled the collar of his coat up. It was a heavy, synth-leather trench coat he'd looted from a dead scav-boss three hours ago. It smelled of tobacco and dried blood, which helped mask his own scent.
He wasn't Su Yuan the student right now. He wasn't the Squad Leader who had just dismantled a Refinery.
He was the Architect.
He checked the time. *0200 Hours.*
The Slums of Sector 7 never slept. They just switched to infrared.
Su Yuan walked the metal gantry overlooking the lower streets. Below, the neon signs flickered—pink, toxic green, warning yellow—casting long, twitching shadows over the crowds.
*Ping.*
A connection request brushed against his mind. It was faint, like a moth hitting a windowpane.
**[ NODE 001: ACTIVE. ]**
**[ LOCATION: THE UNDERMARKET. ]**
Li Wei.
Su Yuan accepted the ping, but he didn't send a message. He just opened the channel, letting his presence bleed down the line. A heavy, static-filled pressure.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Down in the labyrinth of the district, he felt Li Wei's soul flair. It was a spike of adrenaline and pure, unadulterated awe.
Su Yuan followed the signal.
***
Li Wei's territory had changed.
Two weeks ago, this block had been a rot-hole of chem-dealers and flesh-peddlers. The walls had been covered in filth.
Now, the alleyway leading to the basement headquarters was scrubbed. Not clean—nothing in Sector 7 was ever truly clean—but ordered. The graffiti had been painted over with grey primer. In the center of the wall, stenciled in stark white paint, was a single symbol.
A binary tree. The root at the top, branching down into the many.
*My interface,* Su Yuan thought, staring at the crude painting. *He's made an icon out of a UI element.*
Two sentries stood at the heavy iron door. They weren't the usual slum muscle, twitching from stim-withdrawal. They stood still. Their clothes were ragged, but patched with care. They held lengths of pipe wrapped in copper wire.
They saw Su Yuan approaching—a tall figure in a blood-stained coat, face hidden by a hood and a re-breather mask.
"Halt," the left sentry said. No shouting. Just a statement. "This is designated ground. The Code protects us."
Su Yuan didn't stop. He walked until he was chest-to-chest with the man.
"The Code," Su Yuan said, his voice distorted by the mask's vocoder into a low, metallic rasp, "is an algorithm. Not a shield."
The sentry stiffened. He raised the pipe. "Leave, or be formatted."
*Formatted.*
Su Yuan almost laughed. He raised his hand.
He didn't use the *Shockwave*. He didn't need to break bones. He needed to ring the bell.
He tapped the sentry's forehead with one finger.
*Pulse.*
He injected a raw packet of data directly into the man's neural cortex. It wasn't a skill. It was a memory—the sensation of the *SoulNet* connecting, the vast, crushing weight of the ocean of souls Su Yuan carried in his head.
The sentry's eyes rolled back. He dropped the pipe. He fell to his knees, gasping, tears streaming down his face.
"Signal..." the man wheezed. "Carrier signal..."
The other sentry stared, terrified. He didn't attack. He looked at his partner, then at Su Yuan, and slowly lowered his weapon.
"Open the door," Su Yuan commanded.
The standing sentry scrambled to the wheel-lock. The heavy door groaned open, revealing a stairwell bathed in blue emergency light.
Su Yuan stepped over the weeping man and descended.
***
The basement was cold. That was the first thing Su Yuan noticed.
In the slums, heat was a byproduct of life. Bodies, engines, cookers—everything generated heat. To be cold meant money. It meant industrial air conditioning.
The space was a hollowed-out server farm from the pre-Collapse era. Rows of empty server racks stood like skeletons in the gloom.
But the center of the room was alive.
Li Wei sat on a crate, surrounded by twenty men.
They were silent. They were all sitting in the lotus position—or a rough approximation of it. They weren't cultivating Qi in the traditional sense. They were running the *Primary Shockwave Fighting Technique* breathing pattern.
*Inhale: 4 seconds. Hold: 2 seconds. Exhale: 4 seconds.*
The rhythm was perfect. The air in the room vibrated with the collective low-level hum of their exertion.
Li Wei looked different. The bruises from their first meeting were gone. He had filled out, the gauntness of starvation replaced by the lean, ropy muscle of a predator. He wore a clean grey jumpsuit.
He opened his eyes as Su Yuan stepped into the light.
Li Wei didn't stand. He didn't shout.
He simply uncrossed his legs and placed his forehead on the concrete floor. A full kowtow.
"The Architect returns," Li Wei whispered.
The twenty men opened their eyes. They looked at Li Wei, then at the stranger. They sensed the shift in the room's gravity. One by one, they mimicked their leader. Foreheads to the floor.
Su Yuan stood over them. He felt the threads of the *SoulNet* tightening.
**[ CONNECTION DENSITY: HIGH. ]**
**[ NODE 001 (LI WEI): DEVOTION LEVEL 92%. ]**
**[ SUBSIDIARY NODES: 20. ]**
*Devotion,* Su Yuan noted with a mental grimace. *The System creates metrics for everything. Even fanaticism.*
"Rise," Su Yuan said.
Li Wei stood up. His eyes were clear, sharp, and terrifyingly calm.
"We have prepared the buffer," Li Wei said, gesturing to the men. "We have cleared the cache of the surrounding three blocks. The drug dens are gone. The flesh-markets are closed. We recycle the resources. We optimize the population."
"You sound like a machine, Li Wei."
"I emulate the perfection of the Source," Li Wei replied smoothly. "Humans are messy. The Code is clean."
Su Yuan walked past him, inspecting the 'troops.' They were young, desperate men who had traded one addiction for another. They weren't high on chems; they were high on the feeling of power the *Shockwave* technique gave them.
"You've been busy," Su Yuan said. "Expanding the network."
"I have shared the gift," Li Wei said. "Only with those who show potential. Those who can handle the bandwidth."
"And those who couldn't?"
Li Wei didn't blink. "Packet loss is inevitable."
Su Yuan stopped. He turned to face his first disciple.
He saw the blood under Li Wei's fingernails. He saw the cold calculation in the man's stance. Su Yuan had created this. He had given a loaded gun to a man who had been beaten by the world, and he was surprised that the man had started shooting back?
"I didn't ask you to build a church," Su Yuan said quietly. "I asked you to build a network."
"Is there a difference?" Li Wei asked. "A network requires protocols. Protocols require obedience. Obedience requires faith."
He stepped closer to Su Yuan.
"The people here, Architect... they have nothing. The Corpses in the Spire eat gourmet while we eat rat-paste. The gangs take our daughters. The sickness takes our sons."
Li Wei held up his hands. They rippled with a faint, distortion-like energy.
"You gave us a way to bite back. You gave us logic in a world of chaos. If that is not a religion, then god is dead and you are sitting in his chair."
Su Yuan stared at him.
The Logic-Core in his brain spun.
*Analysis: He's right.*
Not morally. Morally, this was a disaster. But strategically?
Su Yuan needed computing power. He needed thousands of minds linked to the Net to decipher the *Genesis Protocol* before the countdown reached zero. He couldn't recruit them one by one. He couldn't convince them with logic.
Desperate people didn't want logic. They wanted salvation.
Su Yuan made a choice. He decided to lean into the curve.
"Faith is inefficient," Su Yuan said, his voice dropping to a low rumble that vibrated the ribcages of everyone in the room. "But it is a powerful carrier wave."
He reached out and grabbed Li Wei's shoulder.
"System," Su Yuan subvocalized. "Authorize promotion. Node 001."
**[ AUTHORITY GRANT: ADMIN LEVEL 2. ]**
**[ PRIVILEGES: SUB-NETWORK MANAGEMENT. SKILL DISTRIBUTION (RESTRICTED). ]**
**[ COST: 50 SOUL POINTS. ]**
"Execute."
Blue sparks arced from Su Yuan's hand into Li Wei's shoulder.
Li Wei gasped. His back arched. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing only the whites.
To the men watching, it looked like a divine transfer of power.
To Li Wei, it was a data dump.
Menus unfolded in his mind's eye. He saw the glowing blue lines connecting him to the twenty men in the room. He saw their stats—their fatigue, their loyalty, their potential. He saw the *Shockwave* technique not just as a feeling, but as a file he could copy and paste.
He fell to his knees, panting, sweat beading on his forehead.
"What..." Li Wei looked at his hands. "I can see them. I can see their... code."
"You are no longer just a user," Su Yuan said loud enough for the room to hear. "You are a Router."
He looked at the twenty men.
"He speaks with my voice. When he gives you a command, it comes from the Root. Disobey him, and you get disconnected."
He let the threat hang there. In this world, disconnection didn't mean losing internet access. It meant losing the power that made them special. It meant going back to being prey.
The men bowed their heads.
"Yes, Architect."
Su Yuan looked down at Li Wei. The man was trembling, drunk on the influx of data.
"Get up, Li Wei."
Li Wei scrambled to his feet. He looked at Su Yuan with a worship that bordered on madness.
"What is your command?"
"Expand," Su Yuan said. "The three blocks are not enough. Take the district. I need numbers. I need minds."
He leaned in close, his mask brushing Li Wei's ear.
"But listen to me carefully. No unnecessary purges. Dead men don't process data. If you waste my batteries, I will revoke your access. Permanently."
Li Wei swallowed hard. The fear was still there, grounding him. "Understood. Integration over deletion."
"Good."
Su Yuan turned to leave.
"Architect?" Li Wei called out.
Su Yuan paused at the stairs.
"What are we building?" Li Wei asked. "Truly?"
Su Yuan looked at the cold concrete, the kneeling men, the shadows stretching out like spiderwebs.
"A mainframe," Su Yuan said. "To kill a god."
He walked up the stairs, leaving the cold sanctuary behind.
***
Outside, the rain had started. It was an acidic drizzle that hissed when it hit the pavement.
Su Yuan walked fast. He needed to put distance between himself and the cult he had just sanctioned.
His head pounded. The connection to Li Wei was stronger now, a thick cable of data pulsing in the back of his skull. Through Li Wei, he could feel the twenty others. A small cluster. A hive.
*It's dangerous,* a part of him whispered. The human part. *You're creating a monster.*
*It's necessary,* the System countered. *The Genesis Protocol is waking up.*
As if summoned by the thought, a text box flickered in his peripheral vision.
**[ ALERT: ANOMALY DETECTED. ]**
**[ SOURCE: PROXIMITY. 50 METERS. ]**
**[ SIGNATURE: GENESIS HUNTER. ]**
Su Yuan stopped dead.
The street was empty. Just the rain and the neon.
*Hunter.*
Not a person. Software. Or hardware running the enemy's code.
He scanned the rooftops.
*Darkness. Rain. A flickering hologram of a dancing girl selling noodles.*
Then he saw it.
Sitting on a gargoyle perch of a crumbling gothic tenement, three stories up.
It looked like a monkey, if a monkey had been skinned and wrapped in chrome. It had four arms and a tail that ended in a camera lens. It was perfectly still, blending into the wet stone.
It wasn't looking at him with eyes. It was painting him with LIDAR.
*The Protocol found me.*
Not the main core. A scout. A crawler sent out to find the source of the anomaly—the source of the unauthorized "SoulNet."
Su Yuan didn't panic. Panic was just unorganized data.
He checked his reserves.
**[ SOUL ENERGY: 42%. ]**
**[ CONNECTED NODES: 111 (90 SQUAD + 21 CULT). ]**
**[ STATUS: COMBAT READY. ]**
He didn't look directly at the crawler. He kept walking, matching the rhythm of a tired slum-dweller.
*Don't spike the network,* he told himself. *Stay low voltage.*
If he spiked his power now, if he used a high-level skill, the crawler would tag him as a Priority Target. It would call the swarm.
He turned a corner into a narrow alley.
The crawler moved.
He heard the click of metallic claws on stone. Skittering. Fast.
It was tracking him.
Su Yuan stopped in the middle of the alley. It was a dead end, piled high with trash bags that smelled of synthetic rot.
He turned around.
The crawler dropped from the roof, landing silently on a dumpster. Its camera-tail swiveled, focusing on Su Yuan. A red laser grid projected from its face, scanning his body.
**[ SCANNING... ]**
**[ IDENTITY: SU YUAN. ]**
**[ STATUS: STUDENT (F-RANK). ]**
**[ ANOMALY PROBABILITY: CALCULATING... ]**
It was deciding whether to kill him or report him.
Su Yuan took a breath.
He couldn't use the *Shockwave*. Too loud. Too obvious.
He needed something quiet. Something internal.
He accessed the file he had stolen from the Wasteland King. The *Wind Control* node.
He hadn't practiced it. He hadn't tested it.
*Theory: Wind is just air pressure. Pressure is just molecules. Manipulate the resonance.*
"System," Su Yuan whispered. "Channel output. Node 91 (King). Target: localized atmospheric compression."
**[ WARNING: SKILL UNSTABLE. ]**
**[ COMPATIBILITY: 40%. ]**
**[ DO IT. ]**
The crawler's mandibles clicked. It prepared to screech—a signal burst to the Spire.
Su Yuan snapped his fingers.
*Snap.*
It wasn't a magic spell. It was a command execution.
The air around the crawler's head collapsed. A vacuum bubble formed instantly, imploding with the force of a hydraulic press.
*CRUNCH.*
The chrome monkey didn't scream. Its head simply crumpled inward, crushed by the weight of the atmosphere. Metal twisted, lenses shattered, and the red light died.
The body convulsed once, then slid off the dumpster, landing in a pile of wet trash.
Su Yuan exhaled, staggering back against the wall. Blood dripped from his nose.
*Backlash.* Using a D-Rank skill with an F-Rank body was like firing a cannon from a canoe.
He wiped his nose with his sleeve.
He walked over to the broken machine. He stomped on the thorax, crushing the central processor before it could send a distress signal.
He crouched down and picked up a piece of the shattered casing.
It was stamped with a logo. A stylized eye inside a pyramid.
The Genesis Corporation.
"You're getting closer," Su Yuan whispered to the dead machine.
He stood up. The rain washed the blood from his face.
He had an army in the wasteland. He had a cult in the slums. He had a network growing in the dark.
But the enemy wasn't sleeping.
Su Yuan adjusted his coat. He walked out of the alley, merging back into the neon flow of the city.
He needed more. More power. More souls.
And he knew exactly where to get them.
**[ END OF CHAPTER 26 ]**