Chapter 14: Gravity
The Porcelain Assassin laughed. It was a high, scratching sound, like a knife dragging across a plate.
"Sit down?" he mocked, balancing on the edge of the workbench. "Boy, I am a Stage 5 Shadow-Walker. I can move faster than you can bli—"
[ System Activate: Gravity Field (Level 1) ][ Target: Localized Area (5 meters) ]
CRACK.
The sound wasn't the assassin moving. It was the sound of the sturdy oak workbench beneath his feet shattering instantly.
The assassin didn't jump. He fell. Hard.
It looked as if an invisible, giant hand had just slapped him out of the air. He slammed into the stone floor face-first with a wet thud that shook the dust from the rafters.
"Ghhhk!"
The assassin tried to push himself up. His arms trembled violently. His veins popped out on his neck. But he couldn't move. The air around him shimmered with a heavy, purple distortion.
Jiang Fan took a step forward. He looked bored, but his eyes were cold.
"Level 2," Jiang Fan whispered.
CRUNCH.
The stone tiles beneath the assassin's chest spiderwebbed. The assassin screamed—a short, choked sound—as his ribs groaned under the pressure. He was flattened against the ground like a pressed flower.
"What... what is this magic?" the assassin wheezed, blood trickling from his nose. " gravity... array?"
"Something like that," Jiang Fan said, stopping right in front of the prone man. He looked down. "Heavy, isn't it?"
Jiang Fan glanced at Gu Ling, who was watching with wide eyes, her crossbow lowered.
"She feels this every day," Jiang Fan said, his voice devoid of emotion. "The weight in her legs. The pressure dragging her down. I thought you should experience it, since you like breaking her things so much."
"Jiang Fan..." Gu Ling whispered. She had never seen him like this. He wasn't the lazy, napping boy. He was an executioner.
Jiang Fan crouched down, careful not to enter his own gravity field.
"Who sent you?"
The assassin gritted his teeth, forcing a smile behind his mask. "I... am... a ghost. I have no... master."
"Wrong answer."
Jiang Fan waved his hand. "Level 3."
SNAP.
The assassin's left arm broke. Just snapped under its own weight. The scream tore through the workshop.
"My arm! Ahhh! Okay! Okay!" the assassin shrieked, his will breaking faster than his bones. "It was the Discipline Hall! Elder Mo! He paid me three thousand spirit stones to sabotage the furnace!"
"Elder Mo," Jiang Fan nodded. "Predictable. Old men always play dirty."
"I told you!" the assassin gasped, tears mixing with the blood on the floor. "Turn it off! I can't breathe!"
"One more question," Jiang Fan leaned in closer. "The Black-Rot Oil you put in the furnace. Where is the rest of it?"
The assassin's eyes widened. A sudden, manic look crossed his face.
"It's... inside... me."
Jiang Fan's eyes narrowed. "Don't do it."
He reached out to grab the man's jaw, but he was too late. The assassin bit down hard on his back molar.
CRUNCH.
A dark purple foam instantly bubbled from his lips. His body convulsed once, violently, against the gravity field. Then, he went limp.
[ System Alert: Enemy Deceased. ][ Source: Soul-Rot Poison. ]
Jiang Fan stared at the corpse. He sighed, dispelling the gravity field. The purple shimmer vanished, leaving only a broken body and a ruined floor.
"Messy," Jiang Fan muttered, standing up and wiping his hands on his robes. "Why do bad guys always choose the messy way out?"
Gu Ling rolled her chair forward slowly. She looked at the dead man, then at the destruction around them. Her blueprints—years of research—were confetti. Her furnace was contaminated.
"He destroyed everything," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The cooling arrays. The stabilizers. Even if I fix the furnace, I can't build the new armor in time for the Finals. We have two days."
She slumped in her chair, the fight draining out of her.
"Elder Mo won," she said bitterly. "He didn't need to kill us. He just needed to disarm us. Without the upgrades, my chair is too slow for the Finals. Li Murong or whoever they send next will tear us apart."
Jiang Fan looked at the devastation. Then he looked at Gu Ling.
He saw the defeat in her eyes. It annoyed him. He hated seeing people give up when there was still a lazy workaround available.
"He didn't destroy everything," Jiang Fan said.
Gu Ling looked up. "What?"
"He destroyed the external upgrades," Jiang Fan walked over to a pile of scrap metal and kicked it. "He destroyed the armor plating and the cannons. But he didn't destroy the core."
He pointed at her.
"You're the core."
"I told you, I'm useless without the gear!" Gu Ling snapped, tears finally spilling over. "I'm just a cripple in a fancy chair!"
"Then stop being in the chair."
The room went silent.
Jiang Fan walked over to her. He rested his hand on the back of her wheelchair, right over the mechanism where the spirit-cables connected to the wheels.
"That theory I told you about," Jiang Fan said quietly. "The Mecha-Soul Bind. fusing your nervous system directly to the machine."
Gu Ling went rigid. "That was a theory, Jiang Fan. A hypothesis. I've never tested it. The surgery requires opening my spinal column and inserting Spirit-Silver threads. If it fails, I won't just be paralyzed. I'll be brain dead."
"But if it works?"
"If it works..." Gu Ling looked at her trembling hands. "The chair becomes my body. Reaction time drops to zero. I could control the machine as easily as blinking."
"Do you trust me?"
"You're a lunatic who naps during deathmatches."
"But do you trust me?"
Gu Ling looked into his eyes. They were dark, serious, and surprisingly kind. He had just crushed a man to protect her. He had cleaned her messy workshop (sort of). He had massaged her legs when no one else would touch them.
She took a deep breath. She looked at the ruined blueprints on the floor.
"Elder Mo thinks I'm weak," she whispered. Her gaze hardened. The ice in her eyes returned, colder and sharper than before. "He thinks he can break my toys and make me cry."
She grabbed Jiang Fan's wrist.
"Do it."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," Gu Ling said, her voice turning into steel. "Prepare the table. I'm going to become the weapon."
THE SURGERY
The next six hours were a blur of tension and terrifying precision.
They cleared the main workbench. Gu Ling lay on her stomach, biting down on a leather strap to keep from screaming. She refused anesthesia. She needed to feel the connection to ensure the nerves were bonding correctly.
Jiang Fan wasn't a doctor. But he had the System.
[ Skill Purchased: Divine Precision (Medical) - 1,500 IP ][ Skill Purchased: Spirit-Weaving Needlework - 500 IP ]
"I'm going in," Jiang Fan said, his voice steady.
His hands moved in a blur. He inserted microscopic threads of Spirit-Silver into the base of her spine. It was delicate work—like trying to thread a needle during an earthquake.
"Status?" Jiang Fan asked.
"It burns," Gu Ling gasped through the leather strap, sweat pouring down her face. "It feels like... like ice fire running down my back."
"That means it's connecting. Hold on."
Jiang Fan connected the silver threads to the exposed core of the wheelchair's drive system.
HUMMM.
The chair shuddered. The runes carved into the metal flared to life, turning from blue to a deep, ominous violet.
"The resonance is stabilizing," Jiang Fan muttered, sweat dripping from his own brow. "Connection at 40%... 60%..."
Suddenly, Gu Ling screamed. Her back arched.
"It's too much! The feedback!"
[ System Alert: Patient Stress Critical. Neural Overload Imminent. ]
"Breathe!" Jiang Fan shouted. "Gu Ling, don't fight the machine! Let it in! It's not foreign anymore! It's you!"
Gu Ling gritted her teeth so hard she thought they would crack. She felt the cold, hard consciousness of the machine flooding into her mind. It felt heavy. It felt alien.
No, she thought fiercely. You are mine. I built you. Obey me.
She slammed her mental will against the machine.
CLICK.
The humming stopped. The violet light settled into a steady, rhythmic pulse—matching the beat of her heart.
Gu Ling spat the leather strap out of her mouth. She lay there, panting, exhausted.
"Did... did it work?" Jiang Fan asked, wiping his face with his sleeve.
Gu Ling didn't answer.
She didn't move her arms. She didn't use the joystick.
She simply thought about moving.
WHIRRR.
The wheelchair spun around instantly. It levitated three feet into the air, hovering with perfect, eerie stillness. The mechanical spider legs on the back unfolded slowly, flexing like biological limbs.
Gu Ling slowly pushed herself up. She looked at the chair. She could feel the floor beneath the wheels. She could feel the air currents hitting the metal frame.
It wasn't a chair anymore. It was her lower body.
She looked at Jiang Fan. Her eyes were glowing with a faint, violet light.
"Jiang Fan," she said. Her voice echoed slightly, layered with a metallic resonance.
She flicked her mind. The chair shot forward, stopping inches from his face with zero inertia.
"I feel... everything."
Jiang Fan grinned, collapsing onto a stool. "Congratulations, Senior Sister. You are officially a cyborg."
"A what?"
"Never mind. Just don't go Skynet on me."
Gu Ling smiled. It was a terrifying, beautiful smile.
"Let's go to the Finals," she said, revving the mana-engine of her new body. "I have a bone to pick with an Elder."