30: Chapter 30 Twenty-Three Degrees of Homology in the Iris

Darkness filled the elevator cabin, heavy enough to crush lungs. The metallic tang of rust and old engine oil settled with every breath. The link to THRONE-02 was severed; that viper-like cold gaze lurking deep within his skull vanished abruptly, replaced by a primal, sharp alertness. It felt like an ice needle slowly sliding up his spine.

From outside the door came the sound of breathing—a mixture of metal and flesh. The rhythm was slow, carrying an ancient, heavy cadence. Every inhalation was accompanied by the hiss of hydraulic systems, and every exhalation sounded like the mournful groan of a broken bellows.

The energy indicator flickered weakly at the edge of his retina: 2.1%. Blood-red numbers burned into his vision in the absolute darkness.

The STC passive alarm pulsed at the edge of his field of view, a ghostly blue warning box cutting through the dark: [Target homology with STCM-001 gene marker: 23%]. Below it, a line of small text noted: [Biometric matching: Astartes gene-seed (degraded version) + ark outer armor interface (prototype)].

Lin Yuan's finger rested on the laser gun's grip, his thumb rubbing the coarse anti-slip texture. 23% homology. His mother's experiments overlapped with the entity outside the door, a discovery that felt like a red-hot iron searing the edge of his sanity. He suppressed his questions regarding Su Wanqing's experimental ethics to the depths of his consciousness, compressing his emotions into a solid state to focus only on calculable variables. Activating combat mode would consume 2.1% of his energy; after one strike, he would lose scanning and communication capabilities. The independent turrets equipped at the Sector B terminal (SP-004 intelligence) would be enough to tear him to pieces once he was exhausted. Rational calculation built a decision tree in his mind: conserve energy for terminal defense, avoid direct confrontation with unknown high-energy entities; highest priority.

To the left, Chen Duo's mechanical prosthetic eye lit up with its sole red light, like an ember ignited in an abyss, slowly scanning the gap in the cabin door. Cold sweat slid down his pale cheek, landing on the metal floor with a soft tap. His fingers unconsciously tapped against his holster. Memory flashbacks from the ark chip burned within his neural circuits, each tap corresponding to a segment of agonizing memory forcibly written into him, memories that did not belong to him.

“Energy readings...” Chen Duo's voice was kept extremely low, carrying a metallic rasp that produced an eerie echo in the confined space, “are forty percent higher than THRONE-01. We can't fight this. This thing... is a monster.”

Lin Yuan observed Chen Duo's trembling fingertips and rapid breathing. In this metal coffin, if Lin Yuan died, Chen Duo would surely die as well. The underlying logic of a wasteland survivor was operating in Chen Duo's eyes: rather than waiting for Lin Yuan to forcibly seize the chip, it was better to offer it proactively in exchange for a chance at survival.

In the corner, Rat Eye curled up and clutched his head, his nails digging deep into his scalp. The neural backlash from the THRONE-02 disconnection created static noise inside his skull. It was a real, agonizing pain, like thousands of red-hot needles churning in his cerebral gyri. Yet, his blind right eye was abnormally active; the eyeball beneath the lid spasmed wildly, nearly bursting from the socket.

As the entity outside breathed, the muscles of Rat Eye's right eye twitched violently, and a pale yellow interstitial fluid seeped from the corner of his eye. The STC system captured his bioelectric signals resonating eerily with the energy frequency of the entity outside, the waveforms overlapping in Lin Yuan's vision into an unsettling pattern.

“What can you see?” Lin Yuan asked. His voice was as calm as if he were asking about the weather, but the knuckles of his hand gripping the gun had turned white.

“Bioelectric outline... red... veins are burning...” Rat Eye's single eye stared blankly into the void, his pupil dilated. “It's not looking for us... it's looking for... a specific signal...”

Rat Eye's right eye suddenly stared straight at Lin Yuan. A strange and ancient signal frequency flashed within that blind eye—no hostility, only a hair-raising recognition. It was like the mortise and tenon of a gene chain snapping together on a neural level.

“It... sees you...” Rat Eye spoke autonomously, his vocal cords uncontrolled. “Same... you... are the same...”

The breathing outside stopped. Absolute silence held for half a second. The sound of grinding metal tore through the silence as the outer door was forced open by massive strength, the deforming metal letting out an ear-piercing scream. Cold wind rushed in, carrying the scent of rust and aged formalin. The red light of Chen Duo's mechanical eye wavered, illuminating a twisted silhouette in the shadows outside.

The thing was two meters tall, its humanoid silhouette severely distorted into a crude, stitched-together form. The rough metal plates of ark outer armor were crudely riveted onto exposed muscle tissue, with pale yellow nutrient fluid seeping from the seams and pooling into a viscous puddle on the floor. Its chest had no skin, leaving a fully exposed, reinforced heart beating like a thundering hydraulic pump, each contraction pumping fluorescent blue blood. Half of its head was the towering cranial structure of an Astartes, while the other half was covered by primitive sensors from the early ARK era, with exposed nerve bundles hanging down like hair.

THRONE-00. An early ARK hybrid prototype. A crude fusion of an Astartes gene-seed and ark outer armor. An abandoned failure, yet also a living piece of evidence.

Its golden irises locked onto Lin Yuan. No attack, only scrutiny. That gaze scraped over Lin Yuan's face with anatomical precision, finally settling on his eyes for a full three seconds.

Chen Duo's mechanical eye scanned rapidly, data streams flashing frantically in his pupil as the red light blinked urgently: “Iris features... high degree of overlap... unknown connection... this is impossible... this is your...”

Lin Yuan looked directly into those golden eyes. Deep within the molten-gold pupils, he saw a reflection. The iris patterns, pigmentation, and pupillary light reflex were identical—even the tiny scar on the left eye was perfectly replicated. A chill ran down his spine, but he remained expressionless, his muscles tensed like a coiled spring.

“It's here to confirm identity,” Lin Yuan said, his voice steady in the trembling air, as if stating a verified theorem. “At least for now, it's in observation mode.”

THRONE-00 took a step forward. Its feet of metal and flesh stepped on the floor, making the cabin structure groan. Its attention turned to Rat Eye's mutated right eye. It reached out a hand—half bone claw, half mechanical pincer—and hovered it ten centimeters above Rat Eye's head, lubricant dripping from the joints.

Rat Eye did not flinch. His right eye met the golden eyes, the residual signals of the neural link resonating eerily with the prototype. Countless flashing data streams were reflected in his pupil.

“It is... scanning... comparing...” Rat Eye squeezed the words from his throat, his voice sounding like a broken radio. “Different from THRONE-02... older... more primitive... like... a mother's hand...”

Lin Yuan seized this window. He looked at Chen Duo, his gaze devoid of command, offering only a cold statement: “There are ark chip key fragments in your mechanical eye. Activate the emergency protocol. Either we wait here until Anvil King's troops blow open the ceiling and we suffocate in the rubble, or we get shot to pieces. Pick one.”

The red light of Chen Duo's mechanical eye blinked twice as he performed internal calculations. Lin Yuan's decision not to throw Rat Eye out as bait had shaken Chen Duo's purely utilitarian worldview. Transforming a “seized trump card” into a “proactively offered bargaining chip” was the optimal solution for the present.

“I need a promise.” Chen Duo pressed the side of his mechanical eye, and an interface popped out, revealing a chip entwined with neural filaments. “When you parse the chip, prioritize disarming my spinal bomb. Implanted by Anvil King, six-hour countdown—four hours have already passed.”

“ make a deal.” Lin Yuan said without hesitation.

Chen Duo pulled out the mechanical eye and inserted it into the hidden interface of the control panel. Red data streams flowed into the system like blood. The emergency protocol activated, and the inner door slid open with a heavy grinding sound. The outer door had already been torn apart, and the cabin structure let out a moan of metal fatigue as cracks spread across the walls.

“Loss of structural integrity,” Lin Yuan's STC system popped up a warning. “Returning the way we came is no longer possible. Risk of falling: 87%.”

THRONE-00 took a step back, vanishing into the shadows of the corridor. It didn't leave, maintaining an observation distance of fifteen meters, crouching like a beast guarding its territory. Its golden eyes glowed in the darkness like two ghost fires.

Lin Yuan stepped out of the elevator. The Sector B corridor was astonishingly wide, the walls covered with blurred early ARK logos that had been rendered unrecognizable by time and radiation. Twenty meters away, the door to the terminal main control room flickered with the red light of a biometric lock, like a dying heart.

Chen Duo reinstalled his mechanical eye and followed, his movements slightly stiff due to the dull ache of the spinal bomb. Rat Eye stumbled out, his right eye fixed on the shadows. There, the golden eyes flashed one last time, like the blink of an ancient deity, before completely vanishing into the shadows of the ventilation ducts.

“It's still there,” Rat Eye whispered, his voice a mix of fear and a strange sense of belonging. “It's... waiting. Waiting for us to get the item... or waiting for us to be unworthy of leaving alive.”

The biometric lock let out a soft click before Chen Duo's key. The moment the door slid open, Chen Duo froze. His mechanical eye alarmed frantically, emitting a sharp beep. Beneath the skin of his spine, the bomb device let out a dangerous hum.

“Purity check...” Chen Duo's voice changed pitch, carrying a metallic resonance. “The terminal is scanning my spine. It rejects ARK modifications. Damn it, this place is even more primitive than I imagined!”

Lin Yuan yanked Chen Duo behind him and stepped into the main control room himself. The lighting system activated layer by layer, the pale LED tubes flickering a few times before stabilizing. The slot on the central console perfectly matched the shape of the ark chip, surrounded by dried bloodstains and scratch marks.

Behind the console stood a forcibly modified old-world icon of the emperor. Its gold-painted surface was covered with circuit boards and neural conduits; the icon's arms had been replaced with signal transmission arrays, and a pulsing bio-processor was embedded in the skull position, emitting a signal frequency homologous to THRONE-02.

“A faith relay station...” Lin Yuan's voice was as cold as ice. The icon of the emperor had been modified into a signal amplifier. The materialization of H044 was right before his eyes, confirming the technical path of faith as control.

“You Stay here.” Lin Yuan said to Chen Duo, his tone brook no argument. “If the defense system identifies you as a threat, you'll be turned into a sieve by the turrets. Keep your distance, but don't leave my sight.”

Chen Duo leaned against the doorframe, his face as pale as paper. He understood that this was Lin Yuan's way of fulfilling his promise. Keeping him on the boundary between danger and safety was also a subtle delegation of power, proving that Lin Yuan indeed needed him alive.

Lin Yuan walked toward the console, his boots clicking sharply on the metal floor. Rat Eye followed despite the pain, his right eye thumping in agony upon contact with the signal source, as if a hammer were striking his eyeball. Lin Yuan took out the blood-stained ark chip, its metallic edges glinting coldly under the lights, and inserted it into the main console.

Data poured down like a waterfall, projecting a ghostly blue holographic image in the air. Su Wanqing's experimental log text scrolled through the light and shadow, a certain frantic obsession hidden within the cold, scientific tone.

“twin keys mechanism verification record #47. Confirmed that the genetic resonance between THRONE-01 and THRONE-02 can open the Sector B core, but with a critical limitation: both subjects must be alive and present simultaneously. Remote genetic samples are invalid; dead tissue is invalid. Live resonance is a necessary condition. Warning: if either party dies, resonance terminates, and the Sector B self-destruct sequence will initiate.”

Lin Yuan's fingers tightened, his knuckles letting out a faint crack. This overturned the “remote operation” hypothesis. He had to face both THRONE-01 and THRONE-02 in a hostile state simultaneously and ensure both remained alive. This was no longer a technical problem, but a survival game.

More data scrolled by, but key passages were covered by heavy encryption locks. Personal emotional clues, messages, and coordinates were all hidden behind sixteen layers of quantum encryption. A system prompt flashed: [Requires THRONE-00 iris scan or Lin Yuan gene sample as the second key].

“The countdown changed,” Rat Eye said suddenly, his right eye capturing a broadcast signal penetrating the thick concrete, his voice urgent. “Anvil King's troops broke through the outer defenses ahead of schedule. Sixty minutes. They're using melta bombs.”

STC energy levels plummeted as the terminal system drew power in reverse to activate the backup core. The numbers crashed from 2.1%.

Energy: 1.5%.

A warning box popped up: [Sector B backup energy core location marked. 300 meters from current position. Guardian: THRONE-00. Threat level: Unknown].

Lin Yuan looked up. Outside the door, the red light of Chen Duo's mechanical eye glowed in the darkness like an uneasy star. Rat Eye leaned against the console with his right eye tightly shut and his left eye open, carrying complex emotions from being treated as a “non-consumable” rather than a “consumable.” In the wasteland, such recognition was more precious than diamonds.

Rat Eye suddenly trembled violently, the red glint in his right eye relighting. THRONE-02 re-established the link. But this time, the signal carried a cold scrutiny, scraping over Lin Yuan's nerves like a scalpel. Rat Eye let out a stifled groan as his neural pathways suddenly carried an excess of data, an overload reaction exploding within his skull.

“Interesting...” THRONE-02's voice came through Rat Eye's vocal cords, the mixture of mechanical and flesh tones gaining a dangerous rhythm. “A data gap during the link interruption. You blocked me, Lin Yuan. What did you see?”

Lin Yuan's hand rested on his laser gun, an energy-low warning flickering at the edge of his vision, the red warning lights casting a blood-colored shadow on his face. He looked at the inhuman red light in Rat Eye's right eye and felt that the evaluation had changed. From “potential recruit” to “uncontrollable variable,” THRONE-02's tone held more of a hunter's coldness.

“Countdown compressed to forty-five minutes,” THRONE-02 announced through Rat Eye. THRONE-00 emerged from the shadows, moving soundlessly to the doorway. Its golden eyes looked at Lin Yuan, slowly shifted to the ark chip, and then back to Lin Yuan's eyes. “You chose independent action. Then, bear the consequences independently.”

THRONE-00 took a step forward, the collision of its metal foot and the floor producing a dull boom that built into a heavy pressure. Lin Yuan looked at the patterns in the golden iris that were identical to his own, then at the cold red glint in Rat Eye's right eye. The threat came from the pincer movement of two extremes: one representing his genetic past, the other representing his spiritual future. Both had marked him as an outlier at this moment.

Energy was on the verge of exhaustion. The countdown from Anvil King's troops was a death knell. THRONE-02 was back online, a cold scrutiny enveloping the scene. Lin Yuan gripped his laser gun, knowing that the most dangerous hunt had only just begun.