There was no time for idle chatter; your gaze was fixed on the metal sphere in the girl's arms. Dragon's blood dripped to the ground as the metal sphere began to reassemble itself, its rusty casing flipping like scales and a spiky mechanical spine extending from the girl's hand. 'Save... it...' Exhausted, the girl's crystal prosthetic eye flicked twice before she collapsed onto your workbench completely.
'Warning!' The eerie voice suddenly became urgent. 'Someone has hacked into my external surveillance! It's the 'New Crimson Lotus' cleaners. They're not here for the girl, but for the 'Dragon Heart'!" Mr Zhang, given your current physical condition, if you activate 'Hunter Mode' now, your humanity level will plummet below the safety threshold. Are you sure you want to get involved?' At that moment, heavy footsteps could be heard outside the watch repair shop. Three humanoid silhouettes clad in black combat suits slowly emerged from the rain. The blood-red monoculars in the centre of their helmets gleamed coldly and they wielded high-frequency vibrating blades — the 'cleaners', specifically created to harvest illegal prosthetic bodies. "Listen up, civilians inside," said the lead scavenger in a cold, synthesised voice. "Hand over 'Module 0', or we will 'format' this area according to the City Safety Law."
[Combat Status: Cybernetic Hunter]
Current Humanity Value: 95/100
Physical Status: [Remnants of the Past] — Your bones have been nano-reinforced, giving you a reaction speed five times faster than that of a normal person.
Cost: Each 'Rapid Burst' activation reduces your Humanity Value by 5 points. If your humanity value reaches zero, you will become a killing machine.
You stared at the metal sphere with its mechanical spine extending outwards. The memory of the black dragon churning beneath the Dragon-Locking Well overlapped with the cold machinery before you.
'Humanity points? You can just lose that stuff and find it again.' You sneered, gripping the sharp scalpel on the workbench with your right hand and slashing your left palm. Hot blood dripped from your hand into the cracks of the metal sphere. Not only did your blood possess human warmth, it also carried the 'karmic imprint' left behind three years ago when you experienced a deep resonance with the black dragon in the Book of Rebirth. The moment your blood seeped into the sphere's core, the faint dragon's roar transformed into a furious roar powerful enough to shatter glass. The forbidden circuits within the metal sphere detected a familiar biometric signature and the system interface rapidly appeared on your retina:
[CEO biometric authentication detected...]
Identification code: ALPHA-001.
[Status: Dimensional Reduction Adaptation in Progress...]
"Old pal, had enough sleep? Get up!'
Accompanied by a blinding blue-purple flash of electricity, the metal sphere melted rapidly, like mercury, climbing your arm and covering it. Instead of engulfing you, however, it resonated strongly with your prosthetic skeleton.
A long sword formed from fluid metal agglomerating in your right palm, its blade wreathed in fine black arcs of electricity like a dragon's scales.
[System Warning: Humanity Loss] Humanity Value: 95 -> 75 (Due to the forbidden deep linking module, the humanity value has dropped significantly!)
[Status]: [Loss of Pain Sensation], [Enhanced Killing Instinct].
The eerie voice in the earpiece became shrill: 'Boss Zhang! You're overdrawing your soul! That heart is forcibly synchronising with your nervous system — stop!'
The three scavengers who had rushed into the room stopped instantly. Their infrared monitors were going crazy — the man in front of them had changed from 'civilian' to 'extremely dangerous singularity' on the scanning map.
'Illegal module detected... Execute... Destruction..." Before the lead scavenger could finish speaking, you had already moved. With 75 points of humanity boosting your vision, everything turned an eerie dark red and the scavengers' movements slowed down, as if they were struggling in a quagmire.
You swung your sword calmly and black lightning flashed. The thick bulletproof and carbon fibre exoskeleton was sliced through like paper. No blood was drawn; only the acrid smell of high-voltage current piercing the armour lingered.
The three scavengers maintained their charging stance. Three seconds later, their bodies were cleanly split in two, the cuts as smooth as a mirror. You looked down at the liquid metal blade slowly retracting into your body; the wound on your palm healed instantly under the influence of golden dragon blood.
The unconscious girl groaned, the blue light in her prosthetic eye flashing more rapidly.
'Boss Zhang...' The eerie voice deepened, revealing an unprecedented seriousness. 'What you just activated wasn't a simple prosthetic body, but the fuse of the "Return to the Void" project. Now, half the city's scavengers are rushing to your rundown shop, and the most troublesome thing is…'
He paused and pulled up a set of satellite thermal images. 'The crystal inside that girl is sending coordinates to the deep sea. The big guy in the sea was awakened by your blood." You could feel your heart pounding; it was the dragon's heart, pumping your blood in reverse. Outside the shop, the rain was pouring down and the sound of the waves crashing against the breakwater was growing louder and louder.
You jerked your hand away and the liquid metal longsword transformed into a black streak of light, seeping back into the prosthetic frame of your forearm through your pores. 'Killing won't solve the problem of exposed coordinates, Wraith. Find me the dirtiest, deepest path — one that even infrared rays can't penetrate.' You picked up the unconscious girl and grabbed a multifunctional repair belt from the counter before tying it around your waist. 'A smart choice,' boomed the Wraith's voice through the earpiece, accompanied by the rapid clatter of keyboards. 'I've taken control of the municipal drainage system's gates. Three metres below you is an abandoned sewage trunk line from fifty years ago, filled with high concentrations of ammonia and electromagnetic noise. This will effectively shield you from the scavengers' scans.' You kicked open a hidden manhole cover under the repair shop floor and leapt in with the girl in your arms. A stench assaulted your nostrils. But in your prosthetic vision, this place was marked as safe in an eerie green colour.
'Warning!' the eerie voice rang out urgently. 'Overload detected in the thermal reactor outside the building! The Cleaners have deployed the 'Meltdown Cannon' to prevent the Dragon Heart from transferring!' The very next second after you closed the manhole cover, the ground shook with a dull tremor.
Your clock shop, which you had run for three years, along with all its intricate parts and memories, instantly turned to scorched earth. You moved at high speed through the intricate underground pipes. Thanks to your prosthetic body, you could cover five or six metres with each step.
Humanity Value: 75 → 72 (Maintaining high-speed movement under load...).
Negative status: [Halted Sense of Smell] — Your prosthetic system has forcibly shut down your olfactory senses to protect your brain.
"Mr Zhang, don't rush off." The spirit suddenly interrupted the audio. "Listen to this."The girl's delirious murmurs could be heard through the earpiece. They weren't words, but a series of strange binary frequencies interspersed with muffled sounds like deep-sea bubbles bursting. "The Ruins… not destruction… it's a reboot… Father… he's in the trench… waiting for that… the one with the scales…"
Suddenly, the girl in his arms began to convulse violently. The blue light emanating from the prosthetic crystal eye stopped flashing and instead became a laser beam pointing deep into the earth.
The laser pierced the thick concrete walls of the sewers as if guiding an enormous being.
"Damn it!" the spirit cursed. 'That giant in the sea has reached the shore! It's not chasing the Cleaner; it's responding to this girl's signal! It's in the underground river right below you!'
Your eyes turned cold. Unmoved by the girl's dreamlike 'truth', you knew that on this path of bloodshed and survival, so-called 'miracles' and 'summons' were often deadly traps.
'Wraith, calculate the dosage for me. I don't want to kill this 'key' before the truth comes out.' You stopped abruptly, pinning the girl against the damp pipe wall.
You pulled a sealed bottle of high-pressure coolant from your maintenance belt. Originally a fluorinated liquid used to cool precision watch bearings, in your hands it had become a powerful inhibitor, modified by a prosthetic hunter's rudimentary methods, capable of freezing neural networks. Your fingers, sharp as knives, gripped the nerve bundle on the side of the girl's neck precisely, preventing the drug from rushing into her brain.
'Sizzle—!' The high-pressure liquid coolant pierced the needle and an extreme chill instantly spread throughout the girl's body. The blue laser emitted from her crystal prosthetic eye trembled violently before rapidly dimming like a light bulb losing power and finally turning a deadly grey-blue.
[System Feedback: Temporarily Silenced]
Humanity Value: 72 → 70 (due to focus on precise suppression operations)
Status: [Interference disappeared] — Laser guiding beam has been forcibly severed.
The ghost breathed a sigh of relief. 'Great! The radar tracking of that big guy in the deep sea has been lost. He's lost down there and is crashing wildly into the rock walls of the underground river. Boss Zhang, retreat now!'
Without the laser to act as a 'living target', you unleashed your ultimate speed in the darkness. Holding the girl, whose body was growing cold, you moved like a black lightning bolt through the swamp-filled, abandoned sector. You finally emerged from the underground projection room of an abandoned cinema in the city centre. The projection room reeked of mildew and the huge screen was broken. You placed the girl on a worn leather seat and leaned against the wall, feeling the burning sensation in your left prosthetic arm caused by overload.
'Mr Zhang, you're in deep trouble.' A sinister voice boomed from the dilapidated speakers in the projection room, tinged with gravity. 'I just intercepted an encrypted data packet following the girl's severed signal. It's not 'Father', but a deep-sea protocol called 'Leviathan', the last divine code before 'Red Lotus' disappeared three years ago.'
You then noticed that, due to the freezing effect of the potion, some of the girl's skin was peeling off her left cheek. Revealed beneath was not flesh or an ordinary mechanical structure, but densely packed paper fibres engraved with miniature runes.
'Paper?' Your pupils contracted sharply. 'Shen Qing?' As you were shocked by the girl's identity, the sound of a film reel turning suddenly came from the back of the empty projection room.
A blurry shadow was projected onto the tattered screen — a silhouette of Chang Le Town, Shen Qing's unfinished painting. In the centre of the image stood a man wearing a breathing mask and wrapped in wires.
"Now that you've brought my daughter back, please give her heart back to me..."
You stand calmly in the centre of the interplay of light and shadow in the screening room. The dragon scales on your left hand open and close slightly with each breath, but you don't rush to draw your sword. You know all too well that this technology, which can transcend eras and 'project' using discarded film cameras, is no ordinary hacking technique.
'Wraith, ignore those outdated images. Dig down along the electromagnetic frequency and see which server his tail is hiding in. Daughter? In Honglian's dictionary, there is no such word as 'blood relation'. I remember that three years ago, all the personalities vanished in the fire. Which unburnt remnant are you? Or are you merely a false god born from the 'Leviathan' protocol?' The image on the screen shakes violently and the man's voice, deep and hoarse like an old record being played on sandpaper, comes from behind his mask.
"Chief, you're still so superstitious about logic. Look at the fibres of the paper beneath this girl's skin – that's Shen Qing's 'intention'; the Dragon Heart within her is your 'life'; and I am the 'sin' you all discarded."
The man stretches out his hands, wrapped in electrical wires, and points at the unconscious girl. 'I call him "Father" because I am the creator of all forbidden circuits of this era. As for me... you can call me 'The Skin Painter'. I retrieved your discarded 'humanity' from the ashes of that fire."
The eerie voice became tense: 'Boss Zhang, we've tracked it down! The signal isn't coming from outside; it's coming from within you!"
'The signal source is inside your left prosthetic arm! The 'Skin Painter' is exploiting your synchronisation rate with the Dragon Heart and using you as a mobile signal tower!" Suddenly, the image on the screen became incredibly clear and the man called 'The Skin Painter' appeared to walk out of the screen. This isn't physical walking, but rather a forced rewriting of your visual system due to a hacker attack on your prosthetic body.
The walls of the screening room began to peel away in your eyes, transforming into a shower of white paper that rushed towards the girl in your arms, seemingly trying to fill the 'signal gaps' frozen within her.
"Give her to me... I'll let her live forever in this fictional bliss...' Red error messages kept popping up on your retina and your humanity value began to fluctuate due to this forced visual manipulation.
Humanity value: 70 → 65 (due to frequent intrusions into the neural network).
Status: [Visual Distortion] — Reality and hallucination are overlapping.