148: Chapter 149 God wanted his name, so he first smashed his own seventh seat.

[Give your name to Mother.]

Golden eyes covered the ceiling of the delivery room.

Every single eye was looking at Lin Jin.

That was not a mere gaze.

It was a search that covered the entire world.

In the next second, all Records related to 'Lin Jin' lit up simultaneously.

The academy enrollment list.

The Hospital birth archives.

The Abandoned Hospital dungeon settlement.

The White Tower candidate registration.

The sealed page left behind by his father.

Even the two crooked characters that Chen Ye had casually written on a lunchbox when saving a seat for him in the cafeteria were forcibly dragged from reality's memory by the God Head.

"Lin Jin."

"Lin Jin."

"Lin Jin..."

Countless voices overlapped.

Every time someone called his name, another golden stroke appeared in the center of the dome.

[Divine Name Generation Plan: 99.991%]

[99.993%]

[99.996%]

Thirteen rushed over suddenly and grabbed Lin Jin's shoulder.

"Don't answer!"

"It isn't asking if you're willing."

"It's forcing everyone who has ever called your name to hand it over for you!"

Chen Ye opened his mouth to curse, but only a muffled gasp came from his throat.

He was clearly looking at Lin Jin, but he suddenly couldn't remember how to address the person in front of him.

Zhou Heng was in the same situation.

With the Thunder Spear in his hand, his gaze remained clear, but the two characters 'Lin Jin' seemed to be sealed deep in his memory by a golden film, impossible to utter no matter what.

Shen Tingxue bit the tip of her tongue.

The taste of blood allowed her to briefly break free from the recall.

"Lin—"

As soon as the first sound left her mouth, a thin golden line emerged from her throat and shot straight toward the dome.

It wasn't taking away her memory.

Instead, it was converting her way of addressing Lin Jin into material for the divine name.

Shen Tingxue immediately shut her mouth, and her Ice Line pierced backward into the side of her neck, freezing the golden thread.

"We can't call him by his name."

She voice was hoarse.

"Every time we call it, it takes a piece away."

The God Head sighed softly.

[A name is established by others calling it.]

[As long as all names of address belong to me,]

[Lin Jin will have nothing left but a candidate number.]

Lin Jin looked down at his arm.

Beneath his skin, lines of black text surfaced one by one.

[Seventh Candidate of the Rule Maintenance Seat]

[Candidate Number: 07]

[Reality name is being stripped]

The two characters 'Lin Jin' slowly rose from his chest.

There was no pain.

But as his name left, his connection to the past was rapidly blurring.

His first awakening.

Chen Ye blocked with his shield in front of him.

Shen Tingxue wrapped her Ice Line around his wrist.

Zhou Heng chose to take a detour in the White Tower.

His father looked at him again across three years and a forbidden zone.

Those memories were still there.

But the protagonist seemed to have been hollowed out.

He remembered what had happened, but he didn't know who the person standing there was.

Thirteen pressed down hard on his chest.

"Look at me."

"Who are you?"

Lin Jin's lips moved slightly.

What first surfaced in his mind was not his name.

It was a number.

"Seventh..."

Slap!

Thirteen slapped him across the face.

The movement was exactly the same as when Shen Qingshuang slapped Shen Tingxue awake just now.

"Answer again."

Lin Jin turned his head.

His ears were filled with the God Head's voice.

[Seventh Candidate.]

[Rule Maintenance Seat.]

[The final stroke of the divine name.]

Thirteen grabbed his collar, his eyes bloodshot.

"What did you say when you separated me from the system identification core?"

"You said a person is a person, and a chair is a chair."

"Now that it's your turn, you can't tell them apart?"

Lin Jin raised his eyes.

Thirteen had the exact same face as him.

But this face was no longer like a mirror.

Thirteen could feel anger, hold grudges, choose who to save first, and would also show his anger directly when others made decisions for him.

He was not an appendage of the original.

And he himself should not be an appendage of the candidate seat.

The golden light from the dome pressed down once more.

[There is no need to resist.]

[After handing over your name, Lin Jin's personality can be preserved.]

[You will become the God's self-repair capability.]

[Professionals worldwide will stop homing.]

Chen Ye finally squeezed a sentence out of his frozen throat:

"Once again... sacrificing one person for the whole world."

Unable to shout Lin Jin's name, he smashed his fist onto his shield.

Clang!

"Repairman!"

No thin golden line appeared.

A career title could not complete the name extraction.

Chen Ye's eyes lit up, and he continued to shout at the top of his lungs:

"The Repairman who owes me three meals!"

"The lunatic who smashed monsters with a broken wrench the first time we met!"

"The idiot who loves to dismantle things randomly even when his hands are almost ruined!"

With every shout, the memories in Lin Jin's mind became a bit clearer.

The God Head could draw away his name.

But it could not draw away the experiences that only they knew.

Zhou Heng understood immediately.

He drove his Thunder Spear into the ground, blocking the first Divine Seat that lunged forward.

"The person who modified my Thunder Spear's trajectory in the assessment field!"

He swept with a second spear strike.

"The person in the White Tower who dared to judge the optimal route as a wrong answer!"

Shen Tingxue froze the name rising from Lin Jin's chest.

The ice layer cracked continuously.

She didn't say 'Lin Jin' again.

She only said in a low voice:

"The person who recognized my Ice Key as a returned item, not a relic!"

"The person who promised not to decide the price for his teammates!"

Every experience was like a rope of reality wrapping back around Lin Jin.

[Candidate number overwrite obstructed]

[Non-name identity anchor detected]

The God Head's voice turned cold for the first time.

[Descriptions cannot replace a true name.]

"But they can prove who the name belongs to."

Yu Xing stood behind Lin Jin.

She raised her hand to connect to the neural pathway that had not yet closed.

The God Head shared the same origin as her.

Therefore, she could see the initial chronological order of the candidate registration.

Countless golden Records flashed past her pupils.

Suddenly, she caught a piece of original footage that had been covered for eighteen years.

"Found it."

An old delivery room materialized above the delivery room.

Eighteen years ago.

A newborn baby lay in swaddling clothes.

Lin Shoushan's hands were covered in blood, and he was still wearing the maintenance uniform burned during the evacuation from the No. 9 Forbidden Zone.

The Nurse urged him to fill in the name.

The Career System's candidate scan had not yet fallen.

Lin Shoushan held a pen and wrote two characters on the paper.

[Lin Jin]

Three minutes and twelve seconds later.

Only then did the black candidate page pass through the wall and land on the baby's forehead.

[Seventh Candidate of the Rule Maintenance Seat]

The order was crystal clear.

First came the name.

Then came the candidate seat.

Lying in the treatment cabin, Lin Shoushan saw that footage, and his breath suddenly hitched for a moment.

For eighteen years, he had never explained why he chose this name.

But at this moment, he had to speak.

"On the day the No. 9 Forbidden Zone went out of control for the first time, the entire quarantine zone burned to ashes."

"Everyone said the fire was out."

"But beneath the ruins, there was still a speck of red."

"I brought that little spark out."

He looked at Lin Jin.

"'Jin' (embers) doesn't mean nothing is left after burning."

"It means the fire is suppressed beneath the ashes, not yet dead."

The golden strokes in the dome suddenly paused.

[Chronological order confirmed]

[Reality name predates candidate registration]

['Lin Jin' does not belong to the naming assets of the Seventh Candidate seat]

The God Head did not back down.

Six Divine Seats fell simultaneously from the black hole of the skull.

The Record Seat erased the birth footage.

The ruling seat declared the handwritten name invalid.

The replacement seat attempted to rewrite 'Lin Jin' as 'Candidate 07'.

The recycling seat reached for Yu Xing.

The correction seat overwrote the chronological order.

The continuity seat directly pressed the projection of The Seventh Seat into Lin Jin's body.

"The name does not belong to the candidate seat."

The golden face looked down upon everyone.

"But the candidate seat belongs to me."

"As long as the candidate relationship remains, his name will eventually become a divine name."

The black Seventh Seat rose from beneath Lin Jin's feet.

The back of the chair passed through the projection of his spine.

The armrests locked his arms.

That Seventh Seat, which had been empty for so long, finally revealed its complete outline.

It had never been inside the God Head.

It was on Lin Jin.

The Hand of Rules.

Candidate authority.

The prompts that allowed him to see malfunctions.

And even that wrench used to correct the definition of rules.

All of them were interfaces prepared by The Seventh Seat for its future holder.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou gripped 002 tightly.

"It can be cut."

"But the candidate seat and your abilities are entangled."

"If we cut it, the Hand of Rules might never appear again."

Lin Jin looked at his right hand.

Those familiar prompts were still flashing.

[Target: Seventh Candidate relationship]

[Malfunction: Candidate identity usurping reality name]

[Repair Option One: Hand over name, complete seat inheritance]

[Repair Option Two: Cut off candidate relationship]

[Price: Lose all pre-authorizations of the Rule Maintenance Seat]

For the first time, the Hand of Rules listed 'losing itself' as a repair option.

And for the first time, it listed 'losing power' as another path.

The golden face was still gentle.

[You can keep your power.]

[You only need to hand over two characters.]

Lin Jin smiled slightly.

"If a Repairman loses his tools, he can learn again."

"But if a person loses his name, who is the remaining power for?"

He turned around and sat on The Seventh Seat.

Not to inherit it.

But to make it manifest completely.

The black back of the chair instantly locked onto his body.

The Hand of Rules shone to its absolute limit.

Billions of malfunction prompts swept across his vision like a rainstorm.

With just a nod, he could obtain the complete authority of the Maintenance Seat.

Repair the city.

Rewrite careers.

And even decide for the entire world what counted as a malfunction.

But Lin Jin raised his rusty wrench and tapped it beneath his feet.

Clang!

"Teacher Xu."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou closed his eyes.

002 was slowly raised.

Six Divine Seats lunged forward simultaneously.

Chen Ye raised his shield and slammed into the recycling seat.

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear blocked the ruling and correction seats.

Shen Tingxue froze the legs of the replacement seat with her Ice Key.

Thirteen stood directly between Lin Jin and the continuity seat.

"Cut!"

Lin Jin stared at the black thread connecting The Seventh Seat to his chest.

"The candidate is the candidate."

"And I am me."

002 came crashing down.

Crack—!

The Seventh Seat cracked right down the middle.

All the black threads snapped at the same time.

[Seventh Candidate relationship of the Rule Maintenance Seat: Severed]

[Candidate Number 07: Cancelled]

[Pre-authorization reclaimed]

[Hand of Rules deactivated]

The black prompts in Lin Jin's right eye went out, line by line.

The last to disappear was the malfunction vision that had accompanied him to this day.

The world became quiet once more.

No targets.

No danger levels.

No repair options.

Only a chipped rusty wrench remained, still held in his palm.

In the center of the dome, the divine name, which was 99.99% complete, suddenly lost an entire stroke.

[Final material invalidated]

[Divine Name Generation Plan aborted]

The golden face let out a true roar of anger for the first time.

The entire delivery room was shattered into pieces by the shockwave.

But at this moment, those two ice-sealed characters on Lin Jin's chest fell back into his body.

Chen Ye finally shouted out.

"Lin Jin!"

No golden thread rose.

Shen Tingxue, Zhou Heng, Thirteen, and Lin Shoushan spoke one after another.

Every call was simply addressing him.

No longer providing any material for the God.

Lin Jin stood up, supporting himself against the broken Seventh Seat.

His right hand felt completely empty; he could no longer feel the rules.

The God Head stared intently at him.

[No maintenance authority.]

[No candidate qualification.]

[On what basis do you continue to repair rules?]

Lin Jin looked down at his wrench.

He raised his hand and smashed the last piece of The Seventh Seat's backrest.

"Because I know how to repair."

The black chair completely collapsed.

But after the fragments dispersed, a small mechanical door that had never appeared before was revealed beneath the chair.

There was no system text on the door.

There was only an extremely ordinary manual carving.

[Maintenance Worker Passage]

When Lin Shoushan saw that door, his expression suddenly changed.

"I didn't build this."

Yu Xing also shook her head slowly.

"It predates the White Tower."

From inside the mechanical door, a calloused human hand reached out.

That hand had no career emblem.

Nor did it have any divine power.

Holding a wrench even more worn than the one in Lin Jin's hand, it gently tapped the doorframe three times.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

An aged voice echoed from the deepest depths of the God Head.

"Finally, there is a Repairman—"

"—who is willing to throw away the tools given by the gods."