The transition was violent. Unlike the slow dissolution of the Ash-Plains, the rift to Sector 116 felt like being shoved through a pressurized pipe.
Renji hit the ground hard, the sensation of wet, cold asphalt soaking into the knees of his trousers. The silence of the stasis zone was instantly replaced by a cacophony that made his head throb: the rhythmic hum of mag-lev trains, the distant wail of sirens, and the persistent, artificial pitter-patter of rain.
"Is this... Tokyo?" Darius gasped, stumbling out of the rift behind Renji. He looked around at the towering skyscrapers draped in colossal holographic displays.
"No," Lyra said, her spear already leveled at the end of the alleyway. "It's a costume. Look at the colors."
Renji stood up, wiping oily water from his face. Lyra was right. The neon signs weren't the warm, chaotic glow of his memories. They were a piercing, monochromatic green and sterile white. Every screen displayed the same rotating set of symbols: a gear, a stylized eye, and a bar graph that was slowly climbing.
[LOCATION REACHED: SECTOR 116 — NEO-SHINJUKU] [SYSTEM ALERT: UNIDENTIFIED DATA DETECTED IN SECTOR.] [SCANNING... SCANNING...]
"The drone," Renji whispered. He grabbed the Rewritten Eye as it drifted through the closing rift. He jammed his thumb onto its lens, forcing his own red-tinted code into its processor. "Cloak us. Now."
The drone let out a digital whimper, and a thin veil of shimmering red pixels expanded, wrapping around the trio. To any passerby, they would appear as nothing more than a glitch in the city's visual rendering—a smudge of static in the rain.
"Stay close," Renji commanded.
They stepped out of the alley and onto a main thoroughfare. The "citizens" of Neo-Shinjuku moved in perfect, eerie unison. Thousands of salarymen and students marched across the crosswalks, their faces blank and illuminated by the blue HUDs hovering inches from their eyes.
ASSET #9,221,004 CURRENT TASK: OPTIMIZED CONSUMPTION HARVEST READINESS: 91%
"They don't even know," Darius whispered, watching a woman sit on a bench and "eat" a holographic meal that didn't exist, her jaw moving in a programmed loop. "They think they're living their lives, but they're just charging the batteries."
"That's how the Industrial Harvest works," Lyra explained softly. "Stress, hope, hunger, and satisfaction—the System simulates it all to refine the soul-energy. By the time the Harvest starts, these people will be nothing but high-grade fuel."
Renji felt a surge of cold fury. He remembered the long nights he'd spent in his own office, the feeling that he was just a part of a machine. Seeing it literalized here was like looking into a mirror he wanted to shatter.
"Where is the source?" Renji asked, his eyes beginning to burn.
He activated the Architect's Cipher, and the world changed. The neon buildings faded into transparent wireframes. Beneath the streets, he saw massive, pulsing veins of glowing blue energy. All of them originated from a single point: a spire in the center of the city that dwarfed every other building.
[CORE DETECTED: THE REFINERY SPIRE] [ADMINISTRATOR: OVERSEER KAIROS]
"The center," Renji said, pointing. "Every soul in this city is being piped into that tower. If we break the tap, the System loses the entire harvest."
"And if we break the tap," Lyra added, "we'll have every Peacekeeper in this sector on our heads. Look."
At the corner of the street, a patrol of armored units in white-and-green plating stood guard. They weren't the shambling Geists of the Ash-Plains. These were Peacekeepers—biological assets reinforced with System hardware.
One of them turned, its helmeted head tilting as it sensed the ripple in the air caused by Renji's cloak.
[DETECTION PROBABILITY: 34%... RISING...]
"We can't fight our way through the front door," Renji said, lowering his center of gravity. "We need to go sub-surface. Darius, find me a maintenance hatch. We're going to follow the veins."