18: Chapter 18 The Originator's Identification Code

The gene-lock countdown flickered at the edge of his vision, crimson numbers cutting into his retina: 02:47.

Lin Yuan's fingers hovered over the rusted console of the Wanderer, the metal card of the District 7 key burning in his palm. Outside the vehicle, the camouflage rock wall had completely cracked open, and three automatic defense turrets rose from their concrete bases; the 12.7mm rotary machine guns were charging, emitting a high-frequency hum.

"Two minutes and forty-seven seconds left," Lin Yuan's voice was flat, as if he were stating the weather.

Scarface huddled in the passenger seat, hands raised above his head, knuckles white from the strain. He stared at the rotating laser sight on the turret, the red dot moving from Lin Yuan's chest toward the center of his own forehead. "Are you sure this piece of junk card will work? Those turrets look like they were modified from battleship secondary guns."

"I'm not sure," Lin Yuan pushed open the car door, and radioactive dust immediately poured into the cabin. "So you'd better pray."

With his first step out of the car, the three turrets locked on simultaneously, the charging sound turning into a sharp shriek. Lin Yuan didn't stop; his left hand held the key while his right hand hung naturally at his side, the Biological Armor pulsing slightly beneath his skin. He walked toward the identification panel in the center of the rock wall, which was covered in thick radioactive dust, though the embossed silhouette of the Imperial Aquila was still discernible.

"Shit," Scarface cursed under his breath, suddenly leaning out of the car window, the safety pin already pulled from the electromagnetic pulse grenade in his hand. "Get down!"

Lin Yuan didn't lower his head. He saw Scarface's movement, saw the parabola traced by the grenade, and saw the red light of the turret's identification system switch from "Scanning" to the yellow of "IFF Identification in Progress." Scarface wasn't attacking; he was using his body to block the turret's line of fire, using the EMP interference from the grenade to buy a 0.5-second identification window.

This was a calculated gamble. Scarface realized that the Wanderer's engine was already smoking, leaving a trail of metal scraps behind them; the survival rate of escaping alone was lower than charging into the facility with Lin Yuan. More importantly, Lin Yuan had shown him the audit logs in the car, which recorded every byte of the data he had secretly stashed. The cost of betrayal was now higher than the cost of loyalty.

The grenade exploded beside the turret base, blue-white electric arcs coiling around the mechanical joints. Lin Yuan's hand pressed against the identification panel, inserting the key into the slot and rotating it ninety degrees clockwise.

[Authentication Initiated]

A synthesized female voice drifted from deep within the rock wall, carrying the gothic resonance characteristic of the Warhammer world, sounding like a combination of a cathedral pipe organ and grinding gears. The panel screen lit up, no longer showing the coarse pixels common in the wasteland, but a high-precision holographic projection displaying a complex gene helix structure.

[District 7 Key Confirmed. Biometric Scan Commencing.]

Red laser beams shot out from both sides of the panel, enveloping Lin Yuan's entire body. He felt a sting, like countless fine needles collecting skin samples. The countdown in his vision continued to tick: 02:12.

"Hurry up," Lin Yuan stared at the screen.

[Scan Complete. Match Rate: 99.7%. Identity Confirmed: Project Originator. Welcome home, Lord Lin Yuan.]

The charging sound of the turrets stopped abruptly. The three killing machines lowered their muzzles simultaneously and entered standby mode. The rock wall emitted a heavy rumble as the camouflaged stone doors slid open to both sides, revealing a deep internal passage with emergency lights lined along the ceiling, casting a dim red glow.

"Originator?" Scarface climbed out of the car, his face pale. "What Originator?"

Lin Yuan didn't answer. He pulled out the key, his fingers trembling—not from fear, but because the gene-lock countdown had reached 01:58. He turned and walked toward the Wanderer, his pace fast but not running. Running would accelerate his metabolism and shorten the final time window.

"Drive the car in," Lin Yuan ordered. "Rat Eye, can you still move?"

Rat Eye was curled up in the back seat, the bandage on his right leg soaked through to a deep brown with blood. He looked up, his pupils abnormally dilated, showing a blurred state of religious fervor. "Saint, my blood... is the incense for the sacrifice."

"If you can walk, just say so." Lin Yuan pulled open the medical kit and took out the LY-000 sample tube. The pale gold liquid flowed within the glass tube like molten amber. He had no testing equipment, no time for verification—only one minute and fifty-two seconds left.

Scarface started the Wanderer, the engine letting out a deathly cough as black smoke billowed from the gaps in the hood. The vehicle crushed over the gravel and drove into the facility passage. The stone doors closed behind them, sealing out the wasteland's radioactive dust and cutting off the trackers' line of sight.

The internal space was larger than expected. It was a typical combination of Warhammer's grimdark aesthetic and wasteland erosion. The walls were bare concrete, covered in dried bloodstains; someone had carved the symbol of the Imperial Aquila into the wall with finger bones, but the eagle's eyes had been gouged out and replaced with the Scavengers' sickle emblem. Broken cultivation pods lined both sides of the corridor, with black matter condensed on the glass, looking like a mixture of dried nutrient solution and blood.

"A massacre happened here," Scarface said quietly, his hand resting on the holster at his waist.

Lin Yuan walked to the nearest terminal and inserted the sample tube into the reading slot. The screen lit up, displaying a complex production log.

[LY-000 Batch Record: Samples No. 0 to No. 12. Source: Failed Astartes gene-seed Reverse Engineering Products. Purity: 37.2%. Side Effects: Mental Erosion, Genetic Collapse, Uncontrollable Mutation. Recommended Use: Emergency Gene Stabilizer (Temporary).]

"Astartes..." Lin Yuan muttered the word. The gene-seed of the Space Marines, the most precious biological asset in the Warhammer universe, had been reverse-engineered here by his family and turned into failed products.

Countdown: 01:03.

Lin Yuan pulled out the sample tube and tore open the sleeve of his left arm. The Biological Armor had already spread to his elbow, appearing a sickly grayish-white, with veins bulging under the skin, their pulsing frequency out of sync with his heartbeat. He found a vein, pushed the needle in, and injected the pale gold liquid.

At first, it was icy cold. Then fire exploded from the injection point, burning through his veins toward his heart. Lin Yuan gripped the console, his knuckles white from the strain, his teeth biting through the inner lining of his mouth as the taste of blood spread across his tongue. The system interface in his vision flickered wildly, and the blue STC blueprints suddenly transformed from virtual projections into physical forms, overlaying reality. He saw the internal structure of the medical kit floating before him as a 3D wireframe, saw Scarface's skeletal structure displayed by a scan, and saw the muscles of Rat Eye's leg highlighted in red to indicate a tear.

The auditory hallucinations shifted from sound to sight. Mental erosion had entered Phase II.

[Gene-lock Countdown Reset: 72:00:00.]

[New Metric: Gene Synchronization Rate. Current: 34%. Warning: When the synchronization rate is below 50%, the risk of mental erosion increases significantly.]

Lin Yuan closed his eyes and took three deep breaths. The blueprint illusions gradually faded, but when he opened his eyes, he could still occasionally see data streams floating in the air like burnt paper ash.

"Saint?" Rat Eye's voice came from behind, weak but devout. "What did you see?"

"I saw the price." Lin Yuan turned and dragged the STC mobile workstation from the back compartment of the Wanderer. The metal box unfolded, revealing a precision nano-casting array inside. He pulled up the blueprint interface, his fingers sliding through the air as he selected [Basic Medical Kit (Warhammer 40K Standard)] and [Carapace Armor Liner (Light)].

[Production Requirements: 2 units of Bio-gel, 5 units of Metal Powder, 30% Energy Core.]

[Warning: Current energy reserves at 68%, 15.2% remaining after production. Wanderer's range reduced to 42 hours. Confirm?]

Lin Yuan clicked confirm. The workstation emitted a low rumble as the internal plasma torch lit up, blue-white light flickering through the observation window. The energy meter on the Wanderer's dashboard dropped sharply, the needle trembling as it pointed toward the red zone.

"You're draining this car dry," Scarface stared at the dashboard. "Forty-two hours, and we'll be stranded in this radioactive wasteland."

"Or we find a new energy source within forty-two hours," Lin Yuan's voice was calm. "Or you can walk out now and see if the Scavengers will give you forty-two minutes."

The STC emitted a completion chime. Lin Yuan took out the newly cast medical kit; the dark green shell, standard for Warhammer, was printed with a white medical cross. He walked to Rat Eye and tossed the kit onto his lap.

"Use it."

Rat Eye stared at the medical kit without moving. His fingers were trembling, the wound on his leg was oozing blood, and the pain made his face as pale as paper, but his eyes remained fanatical. "Saint, pain is the purity of faith. If I am healed, I lose my qualification for sacrifice."

"This is an order," Lin Yuan looked down at him, his voice carrying an unyielding hardness for the first time. "Not a request."

Rat Eye was stunned. He had never been treated this way by Lin Yuan. All previous interactions had been cold calculations, balancing of interests, or reluctant acquiescence. This direct, top-down command, carrying a sort of cruel care, caused a complex vibration in his religious emotions. Trembling, he opened the medical kit and injected the analgesic into his thigh.

Lin Yuan turned and walked toward the control room. The facility map unfolded on the terminal, showing a three-level structure. Level B1 was the production area, B2 was the laboratory, and B3 was marked [Cryogenic Storage / Highly Dangerous].

Thermal imaging showed a moving heat source on Level B3, non-human in shape, with a body temperature of 42 degrees, moving slowly.

"What is that?" Scarface leaned in, pointing at the screen.

Lin Yuan enlarged the image. Through the observation window of Level B3, they saw a massive silhouette, covered in frost and submerged in amber nutrient solution. It was humanoid, but over two and a half meters tall, with an exceptionally developed muscular structure and skin that appeared a stony grayish-blue. There was text engraved on the chest plate; though blurry, Lin Yuan recognized the symbol.

[Thunder Warrior Prototype. Status: Inactive. Gene Sequence: Astartes Predecessor.]

Those were the predecessors of the Space Marines—more savage, more unstable, and more powerful. In the history of Warhammer, the Thunder Warriors were personally purged by the Emperor because their fury could not be controlled. And now, a prototype lay in the family's facility.

The screen suddenly flickered, and a new line of text popped up.

[Project Originator biological signal detected. Level B3 isolation protocol initiated. Warning: Resonance reaction exists between the prototype's gene-lock and the Originator.]

The floor vibrated as the blast doors of Level B3 were sealing off. But through the observation window, Lin Yuan saw one of the prototype's fingers twitch, and a string of bubbles rose in the nutrient solution.

It was sensing him. It was waking up.

Scarface suddenly rushed to the terminal on the other side and inserted his own data chip. "There's an independent interface here," he shouted. "I can download the facility logs and see what else your family hasn't told you."

Lin Yuan didn't stop him. He knew Scarface was keeping a way out for himself, looking for data that could be sold on the black market. But for now, they needed each other.

The Wanderer's engine gave a final groan, the energy meter stopping at 15%. The cooling fans of the STC workstation were still spinning, making a noise like a dying breath.

A screech of twisting metal came from Level B3.