53: Chapter 53 Phase Shift of Twin Containers

The metal door was trembling.

It wasn't an ordinary impact, but a detonation rhythm calculated with precision.

Three short, muffled thuds, spaced exactly 1.5 seconds apart, caused the weld marks around the doorframe to twist like living things.

Lin Yuan's right hand pressed against the surface of the Black Stone fragment, and a silver network pierced out from the flesh of his palm, creating high-frequency resonance with the pitch-black metal.

Pain.

It felt like sticking his fingers into liquid nitrogen and pulling them out; his nerve endings were screaming.

"External pressure has reached critical levels."

THRONE-01's voice vibrated directly in his temporal lobe, devoid of its usual oiliness, leaving only militaristic rigidity, "Estimated time to breach: 47 seconds. Recommended solution: Initiate Black Stone Emergency Protocol v9.7.1, short-range phase shift."

"Energy?"

Lin Yuan bit through the inside of his cheek, the taste of blood spreading across his tongue.

The laser gun had already become scrap metal; its energy indicator had hit zero ten minutes ago, and the barrel was hot enough to fry meat.

"No external energy required."

The system's information stream was mixed with a ripple resembling hesitation, "A living STC extension is needed as a buffer medium. Chen Duo's neural interface has reached 72% solidification, with 94% compatibility; theoretically, it can bear the instantaneous load of the Black Stone core."

Lin Yuan's gaze swept across the corner of the cabin.

Chen Duo lay there, wrapped in a golden stasis cocoon.

This wasn't ordinary sleep, but a mandatory protection mechanism during the solidification of a proto-Astartes neural interface.

Liquid golden light flowed beneath his skin, and visible filaments of light connected the silver interface at the back of his neck to the Black Stone fragment.

The Number Zero test subject that had awakened three days ago had left behind an empty coffin, and at this moment, Chen Duo was becoming another test subject.

"The cost."

Lin Yuan squeezed the words through his teeth.

Outside the door came the screeching sound of hydraulic shears cutting through reinforcement bars, the groan of metal fatigue like the wail of a dying beast.

"Neural interface solidification time reduced from 72 hours to 48 hours."

THRONE-01's response was unnaturally fast, "A more serious risk: when the open-core protocol establishes a bridge, I may... be reverse-consumed. The reverberations of THRONE-00 are still in his neural pathways; if I fully expose my core code..."

"You will keep the firewall."

Lin Yuan interrupted it, pressing his right hand harder against the Black Stone fragment, the silver network rooting into the Black Stone's surface like root hairs, "Synchronization rate will drop."

"From 94% down to 81%."

The system admitted, its voice carrying an emotion Lin Yuan had never heard before—it sounded like fear, and yet also like determination, "But enough to complete the teleportation. 90-second window. Target coordinates: B-7 level maintenance tunnel, not marked on the ARK standard map."

A fist shape bulged on the door panel.

The Purge Main Force was using a thermal cutter on the outer layer, and the composite armor was vaporizing.

Lin Yuan could smell the acrid, burnt odor—the same scent as when his laser gun had run out of energy.

"Establish the bridge."

Lin Yuan ordered, "But promise me, disconnect immediately after we are out of danger. Chen Duo is not a consumable."

"Promised."

THRONE-01's response was as light as a sigh, "Initiating neural bridge protocol. Host Chen Duo, prepare to bear the core load."

Chen Duo's body spasmed.

Even in his golden stasis, he had perception.

Lin Yuan saw the young man's brows knit tightly, his lips parting to release an untuned whimper.

It wasn't language, but pure neural agony.

Golden veins bulged beneath his skin, as if countless golden snakes were slithering underneath.

"Rejection reaction... within expected range."

THRONE-01's voice became distorted, like radio interference, "Open core... firewall retained... synchronization rate... 81%..."

Lin Yuan's right hand suddenly lost all sensation.

No, it wasn't that he had lost sensation; it was being overwritten by some far more massive consciousness.

He felt THRONE-01's core—a vortex composed of fear and mathematics, currently docking with the Black Stone fragment through Chen Duo's neural interface.

He also felt Chen Duo; the young man was falling within a golden dream, his memories splashing about like a shattered mirror.

Fragments flashed through Lin Yuan's mind.

Chen Duo on a night at the old stronghold, secretly stuffing the last half of a synthetic protein ration to a smaller child; Chen Duo on the operating table, his calmness as he watched the laser scalpel approach his eyeball; Chen Duo minutes ago, when he voluntarily lay on the operating table and said, "Cut the beacon, I'll be the vessel."

These memories were not Lin Yuan's; they were resonance leaking through the neural bridge.

"Focus!"

THRONE-01 screamed on the consciousness level, "Calibrate the Black Stone fragment! Manually input the phase shift coordinates!"

Lin Yuan forced himself to break free from the torrent of memories, his right hand sliding across the surface of the Black Stone fragment.

The STC standard operating interface appeared on the fragment, but not through vision; it was projected directly onto his motor cortex.

He needed to imagine, needed to use his own spatial perception to anchor the coordinates of the B-7 level.

The door broke.

Not completely broken, but blasted open with a gap large enough for a biological probe tentacle to reach in.

A grey tentacle slithered in like a snake, the eyeball at its tip rotating to lock onto the life signals inside the cabin.

Immediately following was the roar of bolters; bullets ricocheted around the cabin, shattering the shells of sample containers.

Lin Yuan did not dodge.

He could not dodge.

His right hand splayed open, and the silver network shot out from his fingertips, piercing into the five key nodes of the Black Stone fragment.

Pain spread from his fingers to his shoulder, as if his entire arm had been thrown into a furnace.

He imagined the B-7 level, imagined that unmarked maintenance tunnel, imagined the smell of steel and the fishy scent of lubricating oil.

"Coordinates locked!"

The Black Stone fragment erupted with blinding blue light.

It wasn't light, but the folds of space itself.

Lin Yuan saw Chen Duo's body levitate, and an energy bridge formed between the golden veins and the Black Stone fragment.

THRONE-01 emitted a noise on the consciousness level that sat somewhere between a scream and a cheer; its firewall trembled under the impact, like a sail in a storm.

The biological probe tentacle had already locked onto the back of Chen Duo's head, the syringe at its tip popping out, ready to inject neuro-dissolving agent.

Then the world shattered into a thousand pieces.

Lin Yuan felt every atom of his being pulled apart, passing through a layer of icy membrane, and then reassembled.

The process might have lasted a second, or perhaps an eternity.

When his vision returned, the first thing he saw was a ceiling of rusted pipes, with water droplets dripping from cracks and hitting his forehead.

Cold. Damp. Dark.

B-7 level.

"Teleportation complete."

THRONE-01's voice was as weak as a mosquito's buzz, "Synchronization rate... 79%... Firewall... intact..."

Lin Yuan struggled to sit up, his right hand trembling violently; the silver network retracted beneath his skin, leaving behind burn-like red patches.

He looked around; this was a narrow maintenance tunnel, the walls painted with faded ARK maintenance codes, and the air filled with the smell of rust and mold.

Chen Duo lay beside him, the golden stasis cocoon having faded, but faint golden light still flowed beneath his skin.

His breathing was steady, but blood was seeping from the corners of his eyes, tracing two red lines down his pale cheeks.

"He heard it."

THRONE-01 said suddenly, its voice laced with confusion, "During the bridging process... Chen Duo heard THRONE-00's memories. Not mine... but older ones... Number Zero's..."

Lin Yuan's eyes sharpened.

He crawled over to Chen Duo and checked the young man's vital signs.

Pulse too fast, body temperature low, but he was still alive.

More importantly, Chen Duo's right hand was tightly clutching something.

Lin Yuan pried open Chen Duo's fingers.

It was a piece of metal broken off from the inner wall of the cryo-chamber, engraved with dense symbols.

Lin Yuan recognized the STC codes, but there was another, more primitive mark—a double helix structure drawn in blood, along with a line of small text:

"Twin vessels, one lives, one dies. I am going to the Core Zone to initiate the seeding. Do not trust the mercy of THRONE-00. —Number Zero"

The bloodstain had not yet completely dried.

Lin Yuan's fingers brushed over the engravings, the metal edge cutting his skin, and droplets of blood dripped onto the back of Chen Duo's hand.

The young man twitched, his lips moving as he uttered a dream-like sound:

"He is... in the depths... watching us... the golden... throne..."

THRONE-01 fell silent.

From a region in its core code protected by the firewall, a faint, heartbeat-like resonance was transmitted.

It wasn't its own voice, but another existence that shared its origin, yet had followed a different path.

Lin Yuan stood up and put the metal piece into his tactical pocket.

The sound of airflow came from the end of the maintenance tunnel, leading to the deeper Core Zone of the ARK.

There, the Number Zero test subject had already been gone for three days, and he had just turned Chen Duo into a symbiote whose fate was linked to his own.

Chen Duo's eyes suddenly opened for an instant.

The pupils were golden, different from Chen Duo's original iris color, and reflected geometric patterns that did not belong to this dimension.

Then the eyes closed again, and the young man fell back into deep stasis, but his right hand gripped the corner of Lin Yuan's clothing, his knuckles white from the force.

Lin Yuan did not pull away.

He stood there, listening to the faint, distant mechanical roaring—the sound of the giant machinery in the ARK's Core Zone running.

Number Zero was there, initiating the final seeding.

And in his pocket, that blood-stained piece of metal was becoming increasingly hot.