The night in Sector 9 was never truly silent. There was always the static hum of broken holographic billboards or the low buzz of patrol drones passing overhead. But for Kenzo, the silence inside his shack was far more terrifying. He sat on the edge of the wooden cot, watching his sister struggle against a nightmare. Meixing looked deathly pale, her skin almost transparent under the dim glow of a flickering bulb.
"Cough! Hack!"
Her small body suddenly jolted. Meixing coughed violently—a raspy sound that seemed to tear through her lungs. Kenzo quickly supported her back, but his heart sank when he saw her palms. Thick, dark blood stained her skin, contrasting sharply with her pallid face. The blood wasn't a healthy red; it contained flecks of electric-blue light that pulsed faintly—the residue of polluted Liquid Qi.
"Brother... so cold..." Meixing whispered, her voice nearly gone.
Kenzo tucked the blanket tighter, though he knew the cold didn't come from the night air. It was the effect of a System Overload starting to ravage Meixing's natural meridians. The cheap Heart Chip embedded in her chest blinked a frantic red, emitting an unnatural heat.
"Your time is almost up, boy," Long Wei's heavy voice echoed within Kenzo's consciousness. "That girl isn't just sick. She is being consumed by that digital parasite. That chip is no longer a life-support tool; it is a furnace burning her soul to transmit data to the center."
Kenzo clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. "How do I stop it, Old Dragon? You said I have the clan heritage. Give me a way to save her!"
"The strength of the Lin Clan isn't about destroying code—it's about transcending it," Long Wei answered with a rare tone of gravity. "The Unshackling Realm you possess now is only enough to lift heavy weights. You need the Heavenly Circulation Realm to purify her blood. But without a catalyst elixir, her body will explode if you force your pure Qi into her."
A catalyst elixir. Kenzo knew of only one place that held them illegally: The Rust Haven Black Market. However, with his status as the number one fugitive following the Ivory Tower incident, stepping outside was a suicide mission.
Kenzo had no choice. He wrapped Meixing's body in a wide gray cloak, hoisted her onto his back, and slipped out through the sewage tunnels. Acid rain began to fall, masking their scent from the Sentinel Hounds.
In the squalid alleys of Rust Haven, he met Ling Er. The hacker girl was already waiting behind a stack of used containers. Her face was tense, her fingers dancing over her portable holographic pad.
"Kenzo! You're insane for bringing Meixing out like this!" Ling Er hissed. "The entire district is under a total Blackout. Zhao Ling has activated biological frequency trackers. Every heartbeat in this sector is being scanned by Neo-Heaven satellites!"
"She's coughing up blood. Blue blood," Kenzo replied curtly. His eyes fixed on the black market located in an underground bunker. "I need pure-grade Qi-Essence Beads and a chip signal dampener. Now."
Ling Er sighed, her eyes softening as she saw Meixing's limp form. "Follow me. Uncle Feng is trying to hack the sensor paths at the bunker entrance. But remember, once we enter the black market, you cannot use your physical strength conspicuously. There are corporate spies everywhere."
The Rust Haven Black Market was a labyrinth of darkness lit by dim neon and hot steam from cyber-pipes. Here, everything forbidden by Neo-Heaven Corp was traded: modified chips, deformed cloned organs, and Liquid Qi smuggled from the outer sectors.
They arrived at a noodle shop that looked ordinary on the surface, but beneath its tables lay a staircase to the secret room of Lao Ban, the informant. Lao Ban was a stout old man with a single cybernetic eye that constantly spun, searching for hidden signals.
"The Lin family..." Lao Ban muttered, puffing on his electronic cigar. "The price on your head could buy half this district, young man. You're bold to come here with a 'time bomb' on your back."
"Save your breath, Lao Ban," Kenzo placed a handful of circuit chips scavenged from the Ivory Tower onto the table. "I need Blue Lotus Essence. Give it to me now, or I'll level this shop."
Lao Ban laughed raspily, but his eyes glinted at the quality of the chips. They were Admin-class components. "Patience, patience. Blue Lotus is rare. Neo-Heaven burned every plantation last year so no one could purify Qi naturally. But... I have one last reserve."
Lao Ban produced a small crystal vial containing a clear blue liquid that swirled like a miniature galaxy. As soon as the bottle touched the table, the temperature in the room dropped to a cool, refreshing level. Xiao Hei, the small black snake hidden in Kenzo's sleeve, poked its head out enthusiastically.
"The price?" Kenzo asked.
"Not NC," Lao Ban smiled slyly. "I want you to retrieve a piece of data from the Sentinel transmission center in the next block. They just captured one of my couriers carrying a map of the Forbidden Zone. Get me that map, and the elixir is yours."
Kenzo knew it was a trap. Sending a "Zero" into a Sentinel transmission center was the equivalent of telling him to jump into a meat grinder. But as he felt Meixing's body growing hotter against his back, his hesitation vanished.
"Ling Er, watch Meixing. If I'm not back in ten minutes, take her to Uncle Feng," Kenzo commanded.
"But Kenzo—"
Before Ling Er could protest, Kenzo had vanished into the shadows of the corridor.
The Sector 9 Sentinel transmission center was a small fortress surrounded by laser fences. Atop its towers, two snipers with thermal goggles scanned the area. For an ordinary person, infiltrating this place was impossible. But Kenzo was no longer ordinary.
"Use your breath, boy. Empty your mind. Become part of the silence," Long Wei instructed.
Kenzo took a deep breath. He began to execute the Void Step technique. His movements became so fluid that he seemed to merge with the darkness. He passed the laser fence without triggering a single alarm. His "Zero" status was actually an advantage; Sentinel automated sensors were designed to detect ID Chips. Since Kenzo had none, the system treated him as "background noise" or a wild animal.
Inside the data room, he saw a Sentinel officer torturing a thin man tied to an electric chair. On the table beside them sat a silver disc-shaped data drive. It was the map Lao Ban wanted.
Kenzo wasted no time. He used no firearms. With a speed that surpassed a Tier 3 human's vision, he blurred forward.
Thwack!
A single, heavy strike landed on the officer's neck, shutting down his nervous system instantly before he could make a sound. Kenzo grabbed the drive, but as he turned to leave, a cold voice came over the room's intercom.
"Subject 00-Lin detected. Activating containment protocol."
Dammit! Zhao Ling had set a logic trap. The moment the drive was lifted, a weight sensor beneath it triggered the alarm.
The room's steel doors slammed shut. From the ceiling, green nerve gas began to spray. Kenzo felt his lungs start to burn, but inside his Lower Dantian, the ancient dragon energy began to spin wildly, filtering the toxin before it could damage his organs.
"Break the wall, Kenzo! Don't play around with the doors!" Long Wei roared.
Kenzo focused all his Qi into his right hand. The skin on his hand suddenly turned dark, with faint scale patterns appearing beneath the surface. This was the early form of Draconic Transformation.
"Haaah!"
BOOM!
The half-meter-thick concrete wall shattered like torn paper. Kenzo leaped out of the shaking building just as Exoskeleton robot squads began to surround the area.
He returned to Lao Ban's shop, breathing heavily with his clothes torn. He hurled the data drive onto the table.
"The elixir. Now!" Kenzo growled, his aura so oppressive that the glasses on the table cracked.
The terrified Lao Ban quickly handed over the Blue Lotus Essence. Kenzo rushed to Meixing's side. With a trembling hand but a steady heart, he dripped the blue liquid into his sister's mouth.
The effect was instant. The electric-blue glow on Meixing's skin faded, replaced by a natural flush. Her shallow breathing became rhythmic. The Heart Chip on her chest stopped its red blinking and returned to a stable blue.
However, Meixing didn't wake up immediately. Instead, she gripped Kenzo's hand tightly, her eyes still closed but tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Father... don't go..." she muttered in her sleep.
Kenzo froze. Meixing hadn't spoken of their father since the night of the betrayal a thousand days ago. Had the elixir awakened a hidden memory?
"She's safe for now, Kenzo," Ling Er whispered, checking the biometric data on her tablet. "But this elixir only delays the process. As long as that chip is inside her, Neo-Heaven still holds the key to destroy her at any moment."
Kenzo stood up, looking at the map of the Forbidden Zone he had glimpsed on the drive. There, outside the walls of the Iron City, was a point called "Sector Zero." The place where the Lin clan first built their power.
"We're leaving this city," Kenzo said with a voice full of determination. "Not as refugees, but as hunters. I will find a way to remove this chip from her body without killing her."
"But Kenzo, going outside the walls means facing Qi radiation that can shred human cells!" Ling Er warned.
"To them, it's radiation." Kenzo looked at his palm, which still bore the faint traces of dragon scales. "To me, it is home."
That night, while Sector 9 was still preoccupied with the Sentinel siege, three shadows slipped out toward the waste disposal gate. Kenzo led the way with Xiao Hei coiled around his neck, carrying the sleeping Meixing, followed by Ling Er with her tech gear.
In the distance, atop the Neo-Heaven Tower, Zhao Ling stood on her private balcony, looking toward the slums. A notification appeared on her contact lens: Target 00-Lin has left the city signal range.
Zhao Ling gave a thin smile—a smile that held a thousand malicious plans. "Good. Run to the place where technology cannot help you, Kenzo. There, you will realize that even an ancient dragon cannot win against a coded destiny."