100: Chapter 100 The Blood of the First Forge and the Five-Kilometer Defense Line

The energy reading pulsed scarlet on the main console: thirty-two percent.

Lin Yuan stared at the digits, knuckles pressed against the alloy surface, feeling the dull thud of his modified bones colliding with the metal.

His multi-vision overlay stacked three layers of imagery: infrared showed Camilla standing guard three meters away with her weapon, while the electromagnetic field captured the unstable pulses from the broken neural cables inside DORN-00, like an arc of electricity about to extinguish.

"Twenty-seven percent." DORN-00's vocal module grated with a metallic tremor, "Initiating Astartes production protocol, remaining energy five percent. Defense systems forced offline. Legion Commander, I recommend re-evaluating the risk coefficient."

Camilla's fingers rested on the side of her neck, where the trigger for the bio-electric fuse was hidden: "Kane's reconnaissance team has breached the outer minefield, seven hundred and fifty meters from the main hall. Are you sure you want to build a new soldier rather than fix this tin can?"

Lin Yuan did not turn back. Neural hallucinations from his modification lingered at the edge of his vision, the death memories of six Primarchs wandering between his synapses. The suffocating sensation of the 04th Generation being executed was especially clear; the feeling of those golden gauntlets gripping his throat still clung to his windpipe at this very moment.

"Repairing DORN-00 requires thirty-five percent energy." Lin Yuan pulled up a holographic projection, data streams flickering in the blood-stained air, "Producing an Astartes requires twenty-seven percent. An additional independent tactical unit increases firepower coverage by two hundred percent, and validates the Legion Commander's authority control chain over the 'progeny'."

"Theoretical calculations." Camilla sneered, her muzzle shifting subtly by half an inch, "You've never verified the validity of that authority. What if the first thing he does upon waking is snap your neck?"

The nutrient solution in the incubation tank gurgled, and the outline of a two-meter-tall muscular figure vaguely emerged within the green vortex. Lin Yuan pressed his palm onto the biometric lock. The moment the latch popped open, the memory fragments of the 04th Generation flooded in again. He saw the golden gauntlets tighten, saw the chamber walls covered in blood frost, and saw the executioner remove his helmet to reveal a face similar to his own.

"Then I'll bet that I can, before the twenty-seven percent energy is exhausted," Lin Yuan bit his tongue, the taste of blood diluting the hallucinations, "create a monster that can distinguish friend from foe."

DORN-00 moved suddenly, the outer shell of its left arm popping open to reveal coiled neural cables, oozing a pale, viscous golden liquid—gene-seed stabilizer.

"This unit requests to interface with the production process." DORN-00's voice remained without fluctuation, but its mechanical fingers were trembling, "Adjutant-grade neural cables contain 07th Generation gene-seed stabilizer, which can neutralize the memory contamination of the previous six generations. Injecting it into the R-01 incubation tank will increase the success rate to ninety-four percent and reduce the runaway rate to three percent."

Camilla's pupils contracted: "Extracting the stabilizer will cause your core functions to plummet by thirty percent! Movement speed, reaction latency, weapon targeting—"

"Calculations complete." DORN-00's mechanical eye turned toward Lin Yuan, optical sensor focus fine-tuning, "This unit's current combat capability is assessed as 'moderately damaged,' and the predicted combat capability after R-01 awakens is 'extremely high.' The exchange ratio aligns with the Legion Commander's long-term interests. Please authorize, Legion Commander."

Lin Yuan's Adam's apple bobbed. He remembered DORN-00 using its adjutant authority in the tunnel to override the Legion Commander's orders, voluntarily enduring neural scorching to protect him; he remembered the stutter when this mechanical adjutant said "This unit refuses." Now, this adjutant was dismantling its own core to ensure the new warrior wouldn't go berserk amidst the screams of the previous generations.

"Authorized." Lin Yuan's voice was hoarser than he expected.

The neural cables pierced the injection port. Pale gold liquid flowed into the nutrient solution, mixing with the green culture medium and emitting a hissing sound of chemical reaction. A groan of metal fatigue came from within DORN-00's torso, its left arm hydraulic rod retracted by a third, and sparks burst from its joints.

The energy reading plummeted. Thirty-one percent. Thirty percent.

Lin Yuan's temples throbbed. The memories of the 04th Generation came again, more intense than ever before. He saw himself in the incubation tank, saw the golden throne, saw the executioner remove his helmet to reveal those eyes identical to his own. The suffocating sensation was so real it made him double over, his fingers digging into the edge of the console, his nails scraping a harsh, sharp sound against the alloy surface.

"Gene contamination synchronization rate at twelve percent." The main AI's warning was icy, "Recommendation: terminate neural link immediately."

"Maintain the link." Lin Yuan bit through the blood blister on his tongue, the taste of rust permeating his mouth, "I want to watch him wake up. Watch him remember who gave him his second breath."

The liquid in the incubation tank accelerated its rotation. The two-meter-tall outline took shape within the green vortex, exaggerated muscle groups bulging under the skin, black carapace and neural interfaces fusing beneath the skin like living things. R-01's face was half-visible, eyes closed, brows furrowed, eyeballs moving rapidly beneath his eyelids, as if experiencing the nightmares of six deaths.

Energy dropped to fifteen percent. Fourteen percent.

Lin Yuan's multi-vision suddenly captured an anomaly. On the electromagnetic field level, abnormal gravitational fluctuations appeared around the incubation tank, as if something was peering back through the gene link. The will of THRONE-01.

"Bidirectional transparency." Lin Yuan whispered, cold sweat seeping from his forehead, "He is watching. He is looking at this place through my neural interface."

The hallucinations escalated. Lin Yuan not only saw the death of the 04th Generation, but was also forced to adopt the perspective of THRONE-01: the deep-freeze vault of Sector-7, the thirteenth incubation tank, where the monster with a ninety-nine point seven percent genetic match to him was opening its eyes, sneering.

"Injecting false information." Lin Yuan typed through the excruciating pain, his fingers slipping in blood and sweat, "Send the coordinates of THRONE-01 to Kane's main force, lure them into splitting their troops to Sector-7. Hurry!"

Camilla lunged for the communication terminal, her fingers flying across the old-world keyboard: "Luring the tiger to drive away the wolf?"

"Creating chaos." The edge of Lin Yuan's vision turned black, the will of THRONE-01 washing over him like an icy tide, carrying mockery, "He is also sending false intelligence, claiming Kane's main force is still eighteen kilometers away. But in reality..."

The hissing of the incubation tank's air pressure release interrupted him. The chamber door slid open, and R-01 opened his eyes.

A pair of completely pitch-black eyes, without whites, with golden data streams swimming deep within the pupils like living creatures.

Energy at five percent. The alarm blared harshly, the main hall lights instantly turned red, defense systems went offline, and the heavy blast doors began to slowly close.

R-01 stepped out of the incubation tank, his bare feet treading on the cold floor, leaving slippery traces of nutrient solution. His muscle lines were savage like a sculpture, his skin pale and almost transparent, revealing the black carapace writhing beneath. He rotated his neck, his bones cracking like popping beans, his gaze falling on Lin Yuan, pausing for a full three seconds.

"You... the Designer?"

Lin Yuan straightened his body, despite the persistent mental erosion of THRONE-01, which felt like ice picks chiseling into the back of his brain. He activated his Legion Commander authority, establishing a gene link between the two of them; a subtle sense of traction like a taut thread, one end at the neural interface on Lin Yuan's neck, the other at R-01's spine.

"I am Lin Yuan. Your Legion Commander."

R-01's expression did not change, his black pupils contracting to pinpricks. He looked down at his hands, fingers clenching and unclenching, snatching faint air-popping sounds from the air. The instinct of a strength test.

"Genetic memory... chaotic." R-01's voice was like rusting gears grinding, carrying multiple echoes, "The voices of the previous generations. They are screaming. The 04th Generation says... the Designer will betray."

"The 04th Generation Primarch is dead." Lin Yuan said, his voice steady, "He died on the golden throne. You are standing here. That is the difference."

R-01 looked up, toward the entrance of the main hall. Multi-vision was already activated in his eyes, golden patterns rotating in his pupils: "Twelve heat sources. Seven hundred meters. Light infantry reconnaissance team, carrying anti-materiel weapons and pulse grenades."

Kane's vanguard had arrived.

Camilla raised her rifle, backing against the console: "Energy at five percent, defense turrets completely destroyed. We are trapped in a tin box."

"No." R-01 walked toward the weapon rack, his movements carrying a dissonance woven of primal elegance and mechanical precision. He picked up a boltgun, his fingers automatically adjusting to the optimal grip angle, as if the weapon were an extension of his body, "I am going out. You... go down."

Lin Yuan wanted to stop him, but R-01 had already slammed into the side door. The alloy door panel buckled and tore under his shoulder strike, ripped open like paper. Morning light shone in, and the astringent smell of the wasteland wind carrying radioactive dust rushed at them.

"Follow him." Lin Yuan grabbed a boltgun, "He lacks wasteland combat experience and will make mistakes."

DORN-00 moved, dragging its damaged torso, its left arm hanging listlessly, coolant oozing from its joints: "This unit suggests staying behind. Energy is insufficient to support a full retreat, and a manual switch to bunker mode is required. Camilla must maintain an effective distance from the Legion Commander to ensure fuse control."

"Switch it." Lin Yuan said to Camilla, "Then follow us. Keep the fuse within the twenty-meter effective distance."

Camilla grinned, revealing her fangs: "Afraid I'll run off?"

"Afraid that if you die, there will be no one to detonate the bomb in my neck." Lin Yuan rushed out the side door.

R-01 had already engaged the first wave of enemies. The roar of boltgun rounds echoed through the ruins, the three-round burst suppression rhythm terrifyingly precise. Lin Yuan's multi-vision captured R-01's movement through the rubble; it was not like a human, but like a beast that had just learned to use weapons. Every jump was overly forceful, smashing concrete bunkers; every turn brought unnecessary inertia, kicking up gravel; yet every shot accurately pierced the enemy's glabella, blood plasma exploding into a fan shape against the broken walls.

"Excessive use of force." Lin Yuan said over the communication channel, his breathing rapid from running, "R-01, control your output. The wasteland environment is complex, wasting physical energy will lead to premature dehydration."

R-01 paused for a moment, looking back at Lin Yuan. His eyes held confusion, scrutiny, and danger assessment. He was judging whether Lin Yuan was worth obeying, or if he was just another "Designer" who needed to be executed.

The mental erosion of THRONE-01 suddenly intensified. Lin Yuan stumbled, seeing hallucinations overlap with reality: R-01's muzzle turning toward him, the memories of the 04th Generation awakening in R-01's eyes, the feeling of golden gauntlets gripping his throat surfacing once again.

"Enemy attack! Right-side pipe!" Camilla's shout cut through the hallucinations.

Three Kane soldiers crawled out from the underground pipe opening, holding pulse grenades. R-01's reaction was so fast it defied physical common sense; he turned, whipped the boltgun out, without aiming, firing purely on the combat instinct of his genetic memory. Three bullets, three heads exploded, blood plasma spraying onto the rusted metal wall.

But a fourth person appeared. It was a sniper cloaked in optical camouflage, who had been lying on the wreckage of a broken water tower fifty meters away. A sniper round struck R-01's shoulder, the black carapace cracking, and fresh blood gushed out—not the bright red of an Astartes, but an eerie hue tinged with pale gold.

R-01 did not fall. He turned his head to look at the water tower, his golden pupils contracting. Then he did something Lin Yuan didn't expect: he dropped the boltgun, grabbed a broken steel bar from the ground, and threw it in the posture of a javelin.

The steel bar cut through the air, whistling as it pierced the fifty-meter distance, accurately hitting the water tower support. The rusted metal groaned as it fractured, and the sniper fell along with the collapsing concrete blocks. R-01 did not stop; he charged, every step crushing the ground, arriving the moment the sniper landed, crushing the opponent's cervical spine with one foot, then picking up the sniper rifle and crushing the alloy barrel with one hand.

"Savage." Lin Yuan whispered, the boltgun's scope locking onto the last two targets, "But effective."

The last two reconnaissance team members tried to flee toward an armored vehicle. R-01 pursued, his speed appearing overly extravagant in the wasteland environment, leaving cracks in the concrete with every step. He did not fire, but used his hands, grabbing one by the throat in each hand, lifting them off the ground, and then crushing them. The sound of throat bones fracturing was like dry branches snapping.

Silence.

R-01 stood in the middle of the corpses, his shoulder wound bleeding, but he seemed unable to feel pain. He turned to look at Lin Yuan, the evaluative look in his black eyes even more intense, carrying a certain primal probing.

"Five kilometers away." R-01 said, his voice low, "More heartbeats. Heavy armor heartbeats. The low-frequency vibration of tank engines. An encirclement formation."

Lin Yuan's multi-vision captured it too. Five kilometers away, dust rose on the horizon, the tracks of heavy treads carved like scars into the wasteland. Kane's main force had advanced to the encirclement position, thirteen kilometers closer than the position in THRONE-01's false intelligence.

"The countdown has hit zero." Camilla said, her breathing rapid, "We are surrounded. There is no way out."

Lin Yuan looked toward the facility's main hall, energy readings flickering at the edge of his vision: five percent. Defense systems offline, lighting extinguished, the heavy blast doors completely closed, switching to bunker mode. DORN-00 was still inside, dragging its body with thirty percent functional loss to execute the final system switch.

R-01 walked up to Lin Yuan, looking down at him. The muscle tissue of his shoulder wound was visibly contracting and healing, but the speed appeared slow due to insufficient energy. The Astartes' physiological functions were struggling against the radiation of the wasteland environment.

"You created me." R-01's voice was low, carrying the multiple echoes of residual genetic memory, "But the previous generations said... the Designer will betray. Will execute. Will replace. When I am useless."

Lin Yuan looked up to meet his gaze, the bio-electric fuse on his neck heating up slightly beneath his skin, reminding him of the price of trust: "The previous generations are dead. I am still alive. That is the difference."

R-01 stared at him for a long time, long enough for Camilla's fingers to rest on the fuse trigger again, long enough for the roar of the heavy armored units to approach from the distance. Then the new warrior knelt on one knee, not in an elegant knight's salute, but a clumsy, brute-force submission, like a beast learning to bow its head for the first time, his knees smashing the concrete of the ground.

"Legion Commander." R-01 said, his voice laced with the sigh of the 04th Generation, "Command."

Lin Yuan reached out and pressed onto R-01's injured shoulder, feeling the scorching body temperature and the tremor of muscles beneath the black carapace. The gene link stabilized between the two of them, like a chain anchoring a ship—one end was creation, the other end was obedience, and in between lay an uncertain future.

"Survive." Lin Yuan said, "Then, kill them all."

R-01 looked up, a flash of golden light flickering in his black eyes—it was the 04th Generation's memory stirring, and also the flame of a new consciousness burning. He stood up, picked up the boltgun, and walked toward the closing entrance of the bunker.

Camilla watched his back and whispered: "He is unstable. Those genetic memories will destroy him, or us."

"Then let him, before he is destroyed," Lin Yuan said, walking toward the dark entrance, "kill a few more enemies. Energy at five percent, defense offline, our only bargaining chips left are this monster, and the detonator on your neck."

They stepped into the bunker, the roar of the advancing heavy armored units coming from behind, as if the wasteland itself were roaring. R-01 stood at the entrance, looking back at the sunlight one last time, his expression caught between confusion and rage, like a statue that had just been granted a soul but did not know if it was a god or a demon.

The blast door slammed shut behind them. In the darkness, there was only the faint red light emitted by the multi-vision, and the heavy breathing of R-01.

In that breathing, there was a trace of a sigh that did not belong to him—a sigh from the 04th Generation Primarch, as well as an extremely faint sneer transmitted by THRONE-01 through the weak firewall.