20: Chapter 20 Prayer of the Living Components

The air in Sector C carried a sweet, cloying stench of decay, like meat that had been fermenting in an incubator for far too long.

Lin Yuan dragged Rat Eye through the B3 containment door. The follower's blood left a dark red trail on the metal floor, while fluorescent spots flickered under the dim lighting. Rat Eye's breathing had turned into a rattling gurgle in his throat, and the jagged wound on his right knee joint twitched every few seconds, oozing fresh bloody foam.

"Forty meters to go," LY-001 said from up ahead, its voice inhumanly steady. "The medical protocols in the Anvil Main Control Room can treat complex tissue trauma."

"How is it different from those stasis pods on level B2?" Lin Yuan didn't stop, his left arm's Biological Armor glinting with a greasy sheen.

"The difference lies in authorization." LY-001 turned its head. On that face, identical to Lin Yuan's but excessively pale, its silver-gray pupils looked like those of a reptile. "Level B2 is for production; Sector C is for maintenance. As the facility administrator, you have the authority to initiate emergency protocols."

Rat Eye suddenly grabbed Lin Yuan's wrist. His hand was as cold as ice, his knuckles white from the effort.

"Saint..." Rat Eye's voice sounded like a broken bellows. "No... anesthesia... I want... to watch..."

"The pain will kill you."

"That is... a sacrifice..." Rat Eye grinned, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "Let me... witness..."

Lin Yuan picked up the pace, dragging Rat Eye along. LY-001 led the way with an unnervingly light gait, as if gravity were merely an optional parameter.

The door to the Anvil Main Control Room was a solid slab of black crystal, its surface rippling with dark red light patterns. As Lin Yuan approached, the Warhammer STC system suddenly shrieked an alarm, causing a sharp, grinding pain in his neural interface.

[Warning: Heterogeneous STC module detected]

[Identification Sequence: THRONE-02]

[Underlying conflict with current THRONE-01 protocol]

Lin Yuan's temples throbbed. THRONE-02—another version, another source. It confirmed LY-001's words: the Anvil and the Hammer were two different things.

"Reach out," LY-001 said. "Let it read your LY-000 sequence."

Lin Yuan extended his left arm. The neural cords on the surface of his Biological Armor automatically stretched out and pressed against the black crystal door. The red light turned deep purple, and the door slid open silently.

A massive cylindrical cultivation pod floated in the center of the room, filled with a murky amber liquid. A humanoid silhouette drifted within; its bones had been stretched to over two meters, its skin was translucent, and its veins were as thick and irregular as tree roots. Most horrifying was the chest cavity—it had no ribs, only a black metal frame connected to dozens of tubes that vanished into the darkness at the bottom of the pod.

"Project: Anvil," LY-001 said, standing by the pod, its figure like a ghost in the amber light. "Generation 47. What you see is a semi-finished product. A complete Astartes transformation requires more... components."

Lin Yuan dragged Rat Eye closer and saw the bottom of the pod clearly. It wasn't a machine, but dozens of shriveled corpses with their spines forcibly removed and connected to the cultivation pod via tubes. Their expressions were frozen in extreme agony, mouths wide open in silent screams.

"Living biological batteries," Lin Yuan said calmly, his fingers tightening on Rat Eye's collar. "You're using living people as a power source."

"Efficient," LY-001 replied. "Mineral energy is scarce in the wasteland, but humans are a self-replicating resource. Anvil's logic is simple: convert inefficient individuals into fuel for efficient ones. Pure rational calculation."

Rat Eye groaned. Lin Yuan looked down; the follower's pupils were dilating rapidly, and his breathing was so faint it was almost imperceptible. Excessive blood loss—standard medical procedures wouldn't be fast enough.

"Initiate emergency medical protocol."

"Command confirmed." LY-001 walked toward the console. "But you must be informed of the cost. Anvil's repair is a restructuring, using Bio-grafting technology to combine damaged tissue with a synthetic neural network. The subject retains most of their memory and personality, but their nervous system will be partially assimilated by the Anvil Protocol. In the long term, there is a risk of being controlled."

"And in the short term?"

"An 87% survival rate, with combat effectiveness restored to 60%." LY-001's fingers moved through the air. "The rejection reaction will be intense. The conscious state he requested... will make him feel the process of every single nerve being torn apart and restructured."

Lin Yuan looked at Rat Eye. The follower's eyes were half-closed, his lips trembling: "Witness..."

"Do it."

A metal bed rose from the console, covered in automatic restraints and hypodermic needles. Lin Yuan placed Rat Eye on it, and the restraints immediately snapped shut. Rat Eye struggled to open his eyes: "Saint... I... I'm ready..."

LY-001 pressed a button, and a ring of mechanical arms descended from the ceiling, equipped with scalpels, syringes, neural probes, and black living tentacles.

When the first tentacle pierced the wound on Rat Eye's right leg, the follower let out a scream that didn't sound human. His body arched violently, the restraints digging deep into his flesh.

"Neural interface beginning," LY-001's voice was as flat as a weather report. "Establishing bio-electric bridging. Note, Generation 47, his brainwave patterns are changing."

Lin Yuan stood by the bed, forcing himself not to look away. This was his choice, and his price to pay.

The mechanical arms moved faster than the eye could follow, cutting away necrotic muscle, removing shattered bone fragments, and injecting a black, pulsating substance into the wound. The moment it touched the blood, the substance began to grow, coiling around the femur like vines and spreading along the neural pathways.

Rat Eye's screams turned into rattling gasps, then into rhythmic, almost prayer-like groans. His eyes were wide, reflecting the shadows of the mechanical arms.

"He is undergoing neural reshaping," LY-001 said. "The sensitivity of every pain nerve has been magnified threefold. His brain is releasing massive amounts of endorphins to combat the pain, but it is nowhere near enough."

Lin Yuan looked at Rat Eye's right leg. The black substance had encased the bone, growing outward to form a structure similar to an insect's exoskeleton, while the joints retained their fleshy flexibility. The skin re-knitted itself, taking on an unhealthy grayish-white hue, with a network of black veins faintly visible beneath.

"Why..." Lin Yuan's voice was hoarse. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Because you need to understand." A complex emotion appeared in LY-001's silver-gray eyes. "Understand the difference between the Anvil and the Hammer. The Hammer forges metal; the Anvil forges life. Every choice you face is a forging of the soul."

It walked to the console and removed a chip.

"And this," LY-001 said. "My memory chip. There is a recording inside marked as 'False.' But I want you to see it."

The chip was inserted into the main console, and a holographic image projected into the air. A woman in a white lab coat was operating some instruments. Her profile made Lin Yuan's blood run cold.

Su Wanqing. His mother.

"According to the memory timestamp, this footage was recorded three years before the outbreak of the Doomsday War," LY-001 pulled up the data. "But the construction date of Station 17 was ten years after the start of the Doomsday War. She couldn't have appeared here before the facility was even built, unless..."

"Unless the timestamp is fake," Lin Yuan finished the thought, "or she wasn't here during the 'present' of the recording."

"Memory analysis shows that this footage was tampered with using physical-level methods," LY-001 said. "Some synaptic connections are marked as 'SIMULATION.' I don't know what's real and what was implanted. But I have survived for 120 years, Generation 47. Every LY-000 claims to remember Su Wanqing, and every memory has subtle differences. Someone is systematically implanting her into our memories."

Rat Eye suddenly coughed violently. Lin Yuan turned; the follower's right leg modification was mostly complete—half flesh, half black bio-machinery, with a clear interface at the knee joint where dark red nutrient fluid flowed.

Rejection began. Purple spots appeared on Rat Eye's skin, and his body temperature spiked. Sweat evaporated as soon as it emerged. His teeth chattered loudly, and his eyes rolled back, revealing the whites.

"Neural synchronization at 67%," LY-001 reported. "He is resisting Anvil's control protocol. If he fails, he will become another living battery."

Lin Yuan walked to the bedside and grabbed Rat Eye's burning hand.

"Rat Eye," he said, his voice low. "Listen. Do not give in. This isn't a miracle; it's a machine. Your faith is your own, not something it gives you."

Rat Eye's eyes focused. His lips moved, spitting out bloody foam: "...Understood..."

His body convulsed violently, then went limp. The restraints clicked open.

"Synchronization at 91%," LY-001 said. "He retained control of his consciousness. Usually, this kind of modification leads to depersonalization."

Lin Yuan looked at the leg. A faint steam rose from the boundary between the black exoskeleton and the grayish-white skin, smelling of charred protein. However, Rat Eye's chest rose and fell; his breathing was weak but stable.

"Combat effectiveness restored to 60%," LY-001 said. "But mental stability has decreased. There will be auditory hallucinations, mood swings, and potential violent tendencies. And... Anvil can control him through that interface at any time. As long as you allow it."

Lin Yuan didn't answer. He looked at Rat Eye, then at the semi-finished product in the cultivation pod, and finally at LY-001.

"Are you also being controlled? Through memory implantation?"

"I don't know." LY-001 touched its temple. "But I know someone is watching us. Every LY-000 is an experimental subject, including you. The difference is that you can choose not to be controlled. As for me... I can no longer distinguish which choices are mine and which are implanted."

"Then let's find the truth together," Lin Yuan said. "About Su Wanqing, about THRONE-01 and THRONE-02, and about who is pulling the strings behind all of this."

LY-001 stared at him for a long time, then extended its hand.

"A fragile alliance," it said. "Based on a common enemy: the Memory Implanters."

Lin Yuan shook the hand that was as cold as a corpse's, yet the grip was unexpectedly firm.

The medical log screen in the control room suddenly lit up automatically. After the data scrolled, it stopped on one entry:

[Access Record: Su Wanqing, LY-000-00]

[Access Time: Three years before the Doomsday Calendar]

[Access Purpose: Sample Collection]

Lin Yuan felt dizzy looking at the timestamp. Three years before the Doomsday War, his mother was collecting samples in a facility that didn't even exist yet.

A time paradox.

"She was no ordinary person," LY-001 said. "Perhaps she never was."

Rat Eye moved, his new right leg making a mechanical grinding sound. He opened his eyes; his gaze was still feverish, but a strange hollowness had appeared in its depths.

"Saint..." Rat Eye said softly. "I hear... voices... in my leg..."

Lin Yuan looked at the semi-mechanical, semi-biological leg, knowing that something had changed permanently.

The Anvil's indicator lights pulsed with a dark red glow, like the heartbeat of a massive organism. Deep within the light, the THRONE-02 mark flickered silently, waiting for the next forging.