1: Chapter 1 Anvil and Dust

The radioactive dust storm scraped against the filter mask like a rusted file. Every breath carried the bitterness of rust and ash.

Lin Yuan leaned his back against a broken concrete wall. A scarlet number in the lower-left corner of his tactical visor was glaring: [Stamina: 23%]. The edges of his vision were graying, a symptom of radiation poisoning. His stomach cramped and throbbed; he hadn't eaten for 48 hours.

A half-bottle of purified water sloshed in his backpack, making an empty sound.

The Geiger counter on his wrist vibrated frantically, its needle nearing the red zone, the Geiger tube emitting a rapid clicking sound.

Thirty meters away, three mutated Sand Scorpions wandered over the rubble. Their carapaces were a sickly purple-black, covered in radiation pustules. Venom dripped from their tail stingers, hissing as it corroded the concrete, burning honeycomb-like holes into it.

The compound eyes of the giant lead scorpion glowed with a ghostly green light. It stared intently at the side pocket of Lin Yuan's backpack. A metal object inside was heating up, with ghostly blue electric arcs dancing across its rusted surface, emitting an electromagnetic pulse that only mutated beasts could perceive.

Lin Yuan reached for the last fragmentation grenade at his waist. His fingertips brushed against the mottled Imperial double-headed eagle emblem on the casing.

The lead Sand Scorpion suddenly reared up and shrieked. The high-frequency vibration scraped against his eardrums like metal rubbing against glass. It wasn't a warning. That restlessness came from the depths of its genes; it was hunger, and it was desire.

Lin Yuan's pupils contracted. To his left, a half-collapsed pre-war building stood with steel bars protruding like broken ribs, its entrance half-blocked by a rusted armored vehicle. Thermal imaging showed a faint life signal inside, and the radiation reading was two orders of magnitude lower than the external dust storm zone.

There was no choice.

He lunged to the left. A tail stinger grazed his back and slammed into the ground, instantly corroding a bowl-sized hole in the concrete, acid mist scorching his filter mask. Lin Yuan rolled and collided with the tracks of the armored vehicle. The smell of mold mixed with the stench of machine oil flooded his nostrils.

The smell of the pre-war era.

"Don't come over here!"

A sharp child's voice exploded.

Lin Yuan drew his gun and aimed. A thin, small waif was curled up under a desk, face covered in mud and ash, with only a pair of amber eyes shining startlingly bright. The child held a sharpened steel bar, its tip precisely pointed at Lin Yuan's throat. Though the wrist was thin, it was steady, revealing the deadly precociousness unique to wasteland survivors.

Rat Eye. A rat in the ruins, said to be able to hold its breath for three minutes in a radiation zone.

"Shut up." Lin Yuan's voice, muffled and hoarse, filtered through his mask. He quickly checked the entrance. The three Sand Scorpions had surrounded them, the leader testing the gaps in the armored vehicle with its chelae, its compound eyes reflecting the ghostly blue glow. They couldn't get in, and he couldn't get out. The metal shard in his backpack was becoming increasingly scalding, driving the beasts outside into a frenzy, their digging sounds growing more rapid.

The child's gaze fell on the grenade, and his pupils constricted. That wasn't a homemade bomb; it was pre-war military regulation issue, the olive-green casing faintly showing the Imperial double-headed eagle emblem.

"Are you… a ghost from the old era?" The steel bar lowered a few inches, a calculating light flashing in Rat Eye's eyes.

Lin Yuan did not answer. His vision swayed due to radiation-induced dizziness, but his tactical thinking forcibly focused: blast the collapse to seal the entrance, 67% success rate, but the Sand Scorpions might dig through; attack directly, insufficient stamina, success rate below 40%; or...

He looked at the gap behind the child. A maintenance tunnel, leading to level B3. The radiation reading was dropping, jumping from the orange zone to the yellow zone.

"Familiar with the layout here?"

His finger hooked the safety pin. Lin Yuan stared at the child, calculating the moral cost versus the strategic gain.

Rat Eye licked his cracked lips, his eyes cunning: "Level B3 has the remains of a water purification filter, and there's an underground pipe network leading to the East District. Deeper down is the Black Tower restricted zone. But I won't tell you how to open the security door unless you take me down there."

He paused, his nostrils flaring: "Those scorpions are chasing whatever is in your bag. I can feel it, they're feverish… as if their souls have been hooked by something."

A cold arc pulled at the corner of Lin Yuan's mouth.

The lead Sand Scorpion suddenly shrieked at a high frequency. The two Worker Scorpions dug frantically at the rubble, their carapaces scraping against the metal, making a teeth-grinding sound. The metal shard in the backpack was so hot it was scorching his skin through the fabric.

Rat Eye shrank back.

Lin Yuan pulled the safety pin.

"Hold your breath."

He threw the grenade toward the load-bearing crack above the entrance. There was structural damage left by a pre-war explosion there, a weakness he had spotted while rolling in.

Lin Yuan lunged toward the child, covering that thin frame with his own body, his filter mask pressed tight against the back of the child's head.

Boom!

A storm of steel tore through the air. Tons of concrete collapsed, smoke and dust swallowing the entrance. Rubble rained down on the armored vehicle, the impact sounding like the roar of war drums. The shockwave slammed into Lin Yuan's back, as if he had been struck hard by a sledgehammer.

He coughed and looked up. The entrance was sealed shut, the shrieks of the Sand Scorpions isolated behind the stone wall, becoming muffled and distant.

At the last moment, the lead Sand Scorpion let out a cry of frustration. It actually ordered the Worker Scorpions to cover the rear while it retreated, the ghostly green light in its compound eyes flickering. That was a hesitation no beast should have.

Lin Yuan pushed off the concrete slab on top of him. Radioactive dust danced in the beam of his explosion-proof flashlight.

The child was staring at him with the eyes of someone evaluating the value of a commodity.

"You could have thrown it at them," Rat Eye's voice was hoarse, "or at me. You could have saved half a bottle of water and one less person to share it with."

"And lose my guide?" Lin Yuan stood up, dizziness washing over him, his stamina dropping to 15%, the edges of his vision blackening. He looked at the gap behind the child. "Lead the way, to level B3. Don't try anything funny; my bullets are faster than your steel bar."

"My name is Rat Eye. You owe me a life, ghost of the old era." The child nimbly crawled out from under the desk, small but agile, "And when you lunged over just now, you used your body to block the rubble. Why? That doesn't follow survival logic."

"Lin Yuan."

He stated his name briefly and followed into the gap behind the desk. The narrow maintenance tunnel was filled with pipes and broken cables, the air permeated with the smell of aged machine oil and mold.

The Servo-skull fragment in his backpack suddenly became scalding. Ghostly blue electric arcs danced on its surface, illuminating the rusted metal inner walls.

[Qualified host detected]

[Genetic sequence match rate: 99.7%]

[STC standard construction template initializing...]

A mechanical roar exploded directly inside his skull. Binary prayers shifted in tone, filled with the texture of interlocking gears. 01001000 01100101 01110010 01100101 01110100 01100101 01110010 01100101 01100011... The mysterious code poured into his nerves like molten steel.

His vision was covered in scarlet and gold. A giant double-headed eagle emblem unfurled, its wings composed of precision mechanical structures, gears interlocking, pistons reciprocating.

[STC template unlocked]

[Suggested production project: Mark III Power Armor (damage rate 87%) or water purification device (standard Imperial issue)]

[Warning: Insufficient energy]

[God-Emperors Gaze: 0.1%]

[Current threat index: Extremely high]

[Suggestion: Immediately find a pure energy core to activate construction functions]

The interface was branded onto his retinas like a red-hot iron. The list on the left, "Basic Workshop" and "Individual Armament," were all grayed out and locked, while the [Faith Value/Sanity Value] bar on the right flickered, showing a dangerous balance.

Lin Yuan knelt in the pipe, a violent headache making him almost vomit. His trembling fingers pressed against the Servo-skull. It was the only relic left by his grandfather, and now it was transforming into a key to another world.

"System," he said hoarsely, his voice echoing in the metal pipe, "Confirm functions. No moralizing, just data."

[STC is in a locked state. Currently available: Threat Assessment, Basic Scanning. Note: Host physiological state is endangered, radiation poisoning level: moderate. Suggestion: Find medical supplies or purify blood immediately.]

Rat Eye crawled back, looking at the glowing fragment in terror: "Are you… having a radiation sickness attack? Or some kind of pre-war sorcery?"

"It's an opportunity." Lin Yuan looked up, the dizziness in his eyes replaced by a cold, calculating light. He looked toward the faded B3 blast door deep in the passage, which was marked "Restricted Zone" in pre-war High Gothic, "And also a curse."

He stood up, his legs trembling but his steps steady. Scarlet warning markers floated at the edge of his vision, weaving with his hunger to create a unique survival pressure.

"Rat Eye, you mentioned the Black Tower. A pre-war energy station."

The child's expression changed abruptly, fear spreading, his pupils contracting to pinpoints: "That is a place of death. There are monsters worse than Sand Scorpions. The Iron People say that mechanical demons live there, and anyone who goes in is skinned and turned into a doll."

"Because it has what I need." Lin Yuan walked toward the blast door, his fingers brushing over the dust and rust, "A pure energy core. You have a route to get there, the kind that avoids the main path."

"How do you know I know?" Rat Eye stepped back half a pace.

"Your eyes." Lin Yuan pointed to his own tactical visor, "When you looked at the B3 mark, there was no confusion, only fear. This means you've been here, and you know the deeper path. A trade: you guide me to the outskirts of the Black Tower, and I protect you. Information for protection, a fair deal."

Rat Eye bit his nails, his eyes shifting. The sound of the Sand Scorpions digging could be faintly heard outside, but they hadn't pursued into the tunnel, as if there were something here that they feared.

"Deal." Rat Eye extended a dirty hand, his palm covered in calluses, "But I want to see you open the door first. B3 is a restricted zone; even the Scavenger King doesn't dare enter. If you can't open it, we'll go back to the entrance and dig our way out, and then we go our separate ways."

Lin Yuan grasped the rough little hand, the texture like holding a handful of dry bones. He looked at the control panel, and the system displayed text: [Pre-war military facility interface detected] [Attempting to connect... Failed. Physical energy injection required].

He didn't have an energy core, but he had the last half-bottle of purified water.

Lin Yuan took out the last half-bottle of purified water and, to Rat Eye's shocked gaze, poured it onto the battery interface. Short-circuit sparks crackled, the ancient machinery groaned, and the rusted gears were forced to turn by the conductivity of the liquid.

Rumble.

The blast door rose, revealing a deep corridor, emergency lights flickering with an eerie green glow. Air rushed out, carrying an aged, pure metallic scent, without the acridity of radioactive dust. The radiation reading on his tactical visor plummeted, jumping from the orange zone to the green zone.

Lin Yuan took a deep breath and stepped into level B3. Rat Eye followed closely by his side, like a frightened young beast, his fingers clutching tightly onto Lin Yuan's tactical belt.

In the dark depths of the corridor, the sound of metal rubbing was slow and heavy. The low hum of a hydraulic system came from inside the walls.

A pair of eyes opened. A dark red light, the color of aged hydraulic oil, older and colder than the Sand Scorpions.

In Lin Yuan's field of vision, [God-Emperors Gaze] subtly ticked up to 0.2%.