24: Chapter 24 The Tyrant's Hunt: A Forced Contract

The ground was trembling. Concrete debris peeled from the ceiling and bounced on the floor—not the chaotic tremors of an earthquake, but the rhythmic impact of heavy footsteps.

Outside the blast door of Sector C, rust-red dust fell in rustling flurries with every vibration.

Lin Yuan stared at the tactical tablet. The bright red "2%" was like a red-hot needle, stinging his retinas.

“Four units.” Rat Eye's voice slid out of the shadows, carrying a metallic, rasping friction. His right eye glowed with an unnatural blue light in the darkness, mechanical patterns crawling across the iris like living things. “Tyrant-class. The Anvil King's personal guard.”

Lin Yuan did not look back.

Deep within his skull, War Premonition was churning. Fragments of a future three seconds away flashed: the blast door being violently torn open, and a spreading metal net descending with the crackling blue light of electric arcs.

“They aren't here to destroy,” Lin Yuan's voice was as calm as a frozen lake, “they're here to capture.”

The red dots on the tablet formed a perfect encirclement, with spacing precise to the meter. This was a textbook “live capture formation.” If it were a war of annihilation, what fell now should have been the searing heat of plasma cannons, rather than this pathologically cautious contraction.

Rat Eye's breathing skipped a beat.

Lin Yuan heard it. After his God-Emperors Gaze reached 2.0%, his hearing had become overly acute, able to catch the faint hum of blood flowing through Rat Eye's mechanical valves.

“Your right eye is flickering,” Lin Yuan turned around, his finger resting on the grip of his laser pistol, the energy reading showing 4% remaining. “Three times per second, ultraviolet link signature. A backdoor program from THRONE-02—you're sending them bio-signals.”

The air froze.

Rat Eye's mechanical right leg gave a hiss of hydraulic tightening. His left eye still looked human, cloudy and tired; his right eye, however, was a piercing blue light, like a signal lamp forced on.

“It started three minutes ago,” Rat Eye admitted, his Adam's apple bobbing. “I discovered the backdoor while parsing the chip. It activated forcibly; I can't control it.”

“You could have told me.”

“You would have killed me,” Rat Eye forced a bitter smile, his lip twitching. “Just like you handled those sleepers. Rational calculation, eliminating variables.”

Lin Yuan took a step forward. Indeed, according to his previous logic, an uncontrollable biological terminal constantly sending coordinates to the enemy should be executed immediately. But the energy reading was stuck at 2%, and breaking out required every bit of combat power.

“Energy reserves?”

[2.1%. Activating emergency protocols can maintain life support for 17 minutes, or 3 short-range teleports.]

“Not enough to fight our way out,” Lin Yuan muttered to himself, his gaze locked onto Rat Eye's right eye as if staring at a piece of equipment awaiting evaluation, “and not enough to kill you.”

Rat Eye's shoulders tensed, waiting for execution. But Lin Yuan's hand did not rise; instead, he pressed it against his own temple. There, the THRONE-01 link was coiled like a cold snake within his nerve plexus, its scales scraping against his consciousness.

“Anvil Protocol, activity at 67%,” Lin Yuan's voice dropped, carrying a metallic texture. “THRONE-01 has the authority to overwrite.”

Rat Eye looked up sharply, the blue light in his right eye flickering violently: “That's a neural meltdown risk!”

“I know,” Lin Yuan interrupted him, his fingers pressing white marks into his temple. “So I'm not requesting; I'm informing.”

This was a calculated choice. Executing Rat Eye meant losing Anvil sensing capabilities, and the success rate of breaking out with 2% energy would be lower than 12%. Keeping him meant the backdoor risk had to be completely eliminated. No reconciliation, no forgiveness—only forced control.

Lin Yuan's consciousness sank into the THRONE-01 link. Within the golden ocean, he found the interface. The underlying code of the Anvil Protocol was like contaminated blood, winding through Rat Eye's nervous system, emitting a sickly-sweet scent of decay.

“Master-Slave Contract,” Lin Yuan spoke the name of the authority, his voice echoing in the space of his consciousness. “In the name of THRONE-01, overwrite the Anvil Protocol core. Target: Rat Eye. Authority Level: Absolute Obedience.”

Rat Eye let out a scream and collapsed to the floor. His mechanical right leg twitched wildly, his knee striking the metal floor with a gut-wrenching thud. The blue light in his right eye turned blood-red, then back to blue; the high-frequency flickering stopped, replaced by a stable, tamed pulse, like a bird being held by the throat.

[Protocol overwriting... 7%... 89%... 100%.]

[Master-Slave Contract established. Target: Rat Eye. Status: Controllable Asset. Backdoor program frozen.]

Lin Yuan felt a wave of dizziness, as if someone had drained his cerebrospinal fluid. He looked at Rat Eye kneeling on the ground—the street urchin who had once shared the last half-bottle of purified water with him was now a peripheral terminal for his nervous system, an invisible cable hanging from the void, connecting their two brains.

“Stand up.”

Rat Eye stood up trembling, his movements eerily fluid, like a marionette being precisely controlled. His gaze was complex—pain, relief, and the calm following self-destruction intertwined, finally settling into a numb obedience.

“I can feel you,” Rat Eye whispered, his fingers unconsciously scratching the seams of his mechanical right leg. “Like a hand... holding my heartbeat.”

“That is your new reality,” Lin Yuan turned and walked toward the blast door, his boot heels clicking a cold rhythm on the metal floor. “Use Anvil sensing to find a gap in the encirclement. They want to capture me alive; the formation must have a weakness.”

A stable blue light lit up in Rat Eye's right eye. He scanned the walls, his vision penetrating concrete and rebar like an X-ray slicing through flesh.

“Ventilation Shaft B7,” Rat Eye reported, his voice as flat as a machine synthesis. “The gap between two Tyrant-class units, an EMP weapon charging blind spot. But there are automated turrets.”

“LY-001,” Lin Yuan looked at the clone in the corner, its silver hair glinting coldly under the emergency lights. “You need to come with me. Station Zero requires twin biological signatures; you are one of them.”

LY-001's silver eyes flickered, feeling the forced field of THRONE-01 snap onto its soul like a shackle, and it nodded slightly.

Lin Yuan activated the backup power. The Wanderer's engine let out a dying groan behind him, like an old beast with its throat slit. 2% energy was only enough for minimal movement; every turn of a gear felt like gnawing on the last bit of marrow.

The moment the blast door closed behind them, the capture net whistled toward them, half a second later than the War Premonition had predicted. Lin Yuan rolled to evade, and the net exploded in blue-white electric arcs where he had been standing. It wasn't a lethal weapon; the voltage was precisely controlled at the threshold to paralyze the nervous system, just enough to keep a person alive but unconscious.

“Capture intent confirmed,” Lin Yuan said coldly, his body pressed against the wall, his cheek feeling the numbing sting of the current. “They're afraid of me dying.”

Rat Eye led the way in front, his mechanical right leg showing surprising explosive power, the hydraulic system hissing as every step landed precisely in a visual blind spot. The Master-Slave Contract allowed him to share the War Premonition; the three-second foresight was amplified to five seconds in the neural link, enough to avoid the Tyrant-class's locking scans.

A Tyrant-class unit appeared from around the corner, its twelve-meter-tall frame blotting out the sky. The launchers on its shoulders were loaded with viscous capture foam, the muzzles gleaming with a wet luster.

“Duck!”

The foam shell whistled past, exploding into a white, viscous substance on the wall that emitted a pungent chemical acid smell. Lin Yuan rushed toward the base of the mecha's feet—it was a blind spot, and the airflow from the massive metal foot stomping down ruffled his hair.

“Ventilation Shaft B7, twenty meters.” Rat Eye counted down, his movements perfectly synchronized with Lin Yuan's, like two bodies controlled by the same nervous system; even their breathing frequencies tended toward unison.

A second Tyrant-class unit opened its mechanical arms, preparing to fire a capture net. Rat Eye suddenly changed direction, rushing toward a discarded supply cart, his mechanical leg throwing sparks against the ground.

“Decoy.”

He detonated the energy core, the shockwave blowing the capture net off course. In the firelight, half of Rat Eye's face was burned, the skin charred and curled, but he did not scream. The Master-Slave Contract suppressed his pain response, converting the pain into a neural signal that Lin Yuan could perceive, like a red-hot needle stabbing into their shared consciousness channel.

Lin Yuan could feel Rat Eye's pain, as if his own left hand were being pressed against a branding iron; the smell of scorched skin seemed to be right at the tip of his nose. But he could control himself not to react, shielding the pain signal in a corner of his consciousness.

“The gap.” Rat Eye pointed toward the ventilation shaft, his charred lips puffing out white smoke.

The three of them crawled into the pipe. Behind them, the Tyrant-class units did not pursue; instead, they began dismantling the outer structure of the ventilation shaft, their movements as cautious as archaeologists excavating precious artifacts. Metal cutters let out ear-piercing shrieks, but they deliberately avoided the load-bearing structures.

“They really do want us alive,” LY-001 said, its silver hair fluttering in the pipe. “Why?”

Lin Yuan did not answer. He crawled through the pipe, the pus and blood from his left arm rubbing against the metal walls, leaving dark red, rust-scented streaks. War Premonition triggered, showing the outskirts of Station Zero, a massive metal door, and the intricate biometric lock upon it.

Two signatures were needed. The resonance of THRONE-01, and the resonance of Anvil.

The end of the pipe was a maintenance door; pushing it open revealed the desolate surface of the Northern Radiation Exclusion Zone. In the distance, the silhouette of the Old Beijing Ruins loomed in the radiation dust like the carcass of a giant beast.

The entrance to Station Zero was three thousand meters below.

Lin Yuan stood on the edge of the cliff, the energy indicator on his wrist flashing a 1.8% red light. The Wanderer let out a final groan behind him as the backup battery was exhausted, falling completely silent.

“The entrance.” Rat Eye pointed toward the ground. There was a circular metal door, three meters in diameter, its surface covered in biometric interfaces and carved with complex circuits.

Lin Yuan stepped forward and pressed his hand into the left indentation. The resonance of THRONE-01 flowed into the machine; half of the lights on the door lit up, revealing golden patterns that pulsed like blood vessels.

“Second signature required,” a system voice spoke, cold and ancient. “Anvil biological signature verification.”

Lin Yuan looked at Rat Eye, then at LY-001.

“She is a THRONE-01 carrier, and I am an Anvil carrier,” Rat Eye said, the blue light in his right eye as calm as stagnant water. “But the protocol shows that two different biological individuals are required. One person cannot carry both protocols.”

“In other words,” Lin Yuan's voice was grim, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the energy indicator, “I need another adapter.”

LY-001 tried to touch the right indentation. The lights on the door flashed three times, denying access and emitting a low hum.

“Mismatch,” the system prompted. “Pure Anvil signature or THRONE-02 compatible body required.”

Rat Eye fell silent. He was now a pure Anvil carrier, but he was already controlled by Lin Yuan. If he were to sign, it would be equivalent to Lin Yuan signing twice himself; it did not fit the definition of “twins.”

On the distant horizon, the silhouettes of the Tyrant-class armors appeared again, maintaining a distance of two kilometers as if waiting for something, their heavy footsteps kicking up radiation dust.

Lin Yuan's hand rested on his weapon, the energy indicator jumping with a red warning. He still had one last trump card—the authority for “Divine Intervention,” hanging deep in his consciousness like an unexploded bomb, within reach.

But now was not the time.

“The door requires twin keys,” Lin Yuan stared at the missing half of the light pattern on the metal door, feeling the cold link of THRONE-01 within him. “We must find a second person.”

Behind him, Rat Eye's right eye suddenly flickered again. The frozen backdoor program was attempting to reactivate, like a hibernating snake awakened by body heat. Lin Yuan felt that fluctuation through the Master-Slave Contract like a thorn pricking a nerve ending, bringing a surge of sharp pain.

Trust was already shattered; all that remained were chains.

“They're coming,” Rat Eye looked toward the horizon, his voice flat as if reading an inconsequential report. “Four Tyrant-class units, distance two kilometers. They've brought drilling equipment.”

Lin Yuan did not look back. He stared at the door of Station Zero, looking at the missing half of the light pattern, feeling the cold link of THRONE-01 within him like holding an unsheathed blade.

“Prepare for defense,” he ordered, his finger hovering over the consciousness interface to activate “Divine Intervention,” but he did not press it, like stopping at the edge of a cliff. “Before the door opens, we have to stay alive.”

Rat Eye stood at Lin Yuan's side, the hydraulic system of his mechanical right leg giving a hiss of readiness. The Master-Slave Contract flowed between the two of them like an invisible umbilical cord, transmitting commands and pain, as well as the residual warmth after betrayal.

The moment before the radiation dust storm swirled up, Lin Yuan saw the inscription on the door. It was his mother Su Wanqing's handwriting, carved into the metal twenty years ago, the strokes darkened by oxidation:

“Only the twins can open the cradle of birth.”

And they were still missing one person.