60: Chapter 60 Twelve Minutes of the Wet Component Matrix

As the airtight door of the Core Cabin closed behind him, Lin Yuan caught that scent.

The sweet, metallic tang of formalin mixed with nutrient solution. Ancient, biological. Chen Duo's breathing stalled against the side of his neck; the Blood Covenant link synchronized the sensation of suffocation.

“The matrix is beneath our feet.” Chen Duo’s voice was kept very low; blindness had made his hearing as sharp as a blade. “The sound of flowing liquid... hundreds, thousands of them.”

Lin Yuan looked down.

Beneath the transparent alloy floor, countless spherical pods were suspended in a ghostly blue liquid. Humanoid forms curled inside them, their skin pale and translucent. Nerve bundles extending from the back of their heads drifted slowly in the nutrient solution like jellyfish tentacles. These brains converged toward the center via silver conduits, where a biomass spire stood, its surface pulsating with vascular patterns.

A fist-sized polyhedral crystal was embedded at the top of the spire. The proto-001 core.

“Warning: High-order Machine Soul resonance detected.”

THRONE-01’s voice rang out in Lin Yuan’s consciousness—cold and urgent. Immediately following, the communication channel fell into an eerie silence. Lin Yuan tilted his head, sensing THRONE-01’s status at Node B-7 through the Blood Covenant link. There was a 0.3-second self-identification delay in the Machine Soul core, as if it were scanning a signal source that was both familiar and strange.

0.3 seconds later, THRONE-01 returned to standard execution terminal mode: “Sub-administrator, outside the airtight door, thermal cutters redeployed. Countdown: Nine minutes and seventeen seconds.”

Lin Yuan calculated. They had previously breached the outer blast door, but the Purge Main Force had replaced their cutters after regrouping at Node B-7. Now they faced the inner airtight door. Nine minutes—more generous than their previous predicament, yet far more dangerous.

“Welcome home, No. 00.”

The voice vibrated directly within his temporal cortex, like fingernails scraping the inside of his skull. Chen Duo suddenly gripped Lin Yuan’s arm, and the Blood Covenant link shuddered violently. That voice had invaded both their consciousnesses simultaneously.

Silver patterns bulged on Lin Yuan’s right hand as the Nano-seeds writhed under his skin to construct a firewall. But that consciousness was too vast. Viscous asphalt seeped in from every node of the Blood Covenant link.

“The Twelfth,” Lin Yuan squeezed the words through his teeth. His vision blurred with double images: the reality of the Core Cabin superimposed with illusions. Countless clones opened their eyes, staring at him in unison.

Chen Duo’s monomolecular blade was already unsheathed, its tip trembling. “It... it’s asking me.”

“Asking you what?”

“Asking me if I want to cure the gene fixation.” Chen Duo’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “The core contains the original genetic map; it can reset cellular telomeres. All I have to do is sever the Blood Covenant and walk into the matrix alone.”

Cold sweat broke out on Lin Yuan’s back. The Twelfth hadn't attacked directly; its tactics were terrifyingly precise. It had detected the structure of the Blood Covenant and identified Chen Duo as the weak link. The pain of gene fixation, the anxiety of his role as a protector—these emotions shone like beacons within the link.

“Don’t listen.” Lin Yuan tightened his grip, his nails sinking into Chen Duo’s wrist. “The pain is real; the promise is fake. It's a standard corruption tactic.”

“But the countdown only has nine minutes left.” Chen Duo turned toward the airtight door, though he couldn't see. “When the thermal cutters break through, we’ll be trapped and killed here. If it can really...”

“It can’t,” Lin Yuan interrupted, even as he felt fragments of Chen Duo’s memories flooding through the Blood Covenant link. Images of an interrogation room, the burnt smell of electric prods hitting skin, the dull thud of a kneecap being struck by a blunt object. These memories shouldn't have belonged to Lin Yuan, yet they were being forced into his hippocampus alongside Chen Duo’s actual physiological pain.

The side effects of the Blood Covenant were kicking in. Memories were leaking.

Lin Yuan’s vision suddenly split. For a moment, he was strapped to a metal chair, a crushing pain radiating from his ankle. The next moment, he was back in a cultivation pod. Surrounded by pale green liquid, umbilical-like conduits connected to his spine. Ice-cold water was being pumped into his veins. That was Chen Duo’s fear, and his own.

“Lin Yuan!” Chen Duo’s roar dragged him back to reality. “Your hand!”

Lin Yuan looked down. His right hand was reaching uncontrollably toward the Core Cabin's biological lock interface. Silver liquid dripped from his fingertips, corroding hissing little pits into the alloy floor. The Twelfth was using the Blood Covenant to reverse-control his biological interface.

“It’s inducing you to open a deep link.” Chen Duo’s voice carried the scent of blood. He bit his tongue to stay conscious. “Once synchronization is complete, it will occupy your body, Vessel 00.”

Lin Yuan forced his right hand back, his muscle fibers groaning under the strain as the Nano-seeds pulled at them. He looked toward the central spire of the Core Cabin. It was too far; the conventional path was blocked by automated sentries. The vibrations of the thermal cutters were already coming through the walls. Eight minutes and forty seconds.

There was only one choice.

“I’m going to open the Blood Covenant link to it,” Lin Yuan said.

Chen Duo’s body stiffened. “Are you crazy? That’s the same as throwing the gates to both our brains wide open!”

“It holds the bypass protocols for the biological lock.” Lin Yuan spoke extremely fast, every word rolling on the edge of a blade. “Only by obtaining the core’s precise coordinates can we break through the sentry blockade within eight minutes. The price is... you will be completely exposed to it.”

Chen Duo was silent for 0.5 seconds.

“Do it,” he said.

“You might lose your sense of self. You might experience what I’ve experienced...” Lin Yuan paused, memories of the cultivation pod churning in his mind. “You might become me.”

“Then I’ll become you.” Chen Duo pulled open his collar, revealing the silver control mark on the back of his neck. “It’s better than becoming a corpse. Hurry up, Lin Yuan. Don’t fucking hesitate.”

Lin Yuan closed his eyes.

He relaxed the nano-firewall on his right hand, allowing the silver liquid to make contact with the biological lock interface. In an instant, the Blood Covenant link transformed from a two-way channel into a three-person network. Lin Yuan. Chen Duo. And the vast consciousness entrenched within the proto-001 core.

The Twelfth’s intrusion felt like an explosion inside his skull.

Lin Yuan saw the full picture of the matrix. A full picture in the topological sense. The brains of thousands of clones were connected in parallel via neural conduits, forming a biological wetware computer. Their neural signals were squeezed and refined, converted into computing power to drive every system on the Farm. This was the truth of the 'Final Seeding.' All the clones hadn't been killed directly; instead, their consciousnesses were being drained alive, turning them into eternal biological batteries.

“Is it beautiful?” The Twelfth’s voice echoed in their minds. “The Emperor’s mercy allows useless flesh to gain eternal computational value. And you, No. 00, you shall be the final switch. Access the core, and you can control all of this. To delay your friend’s gene fixation, you need only flick a single neural node.”

Chen Duo’s scream erupted within the Blood Covenant. Lin Yuan felt that pain simultaneously. It wasn't on a physical level, but a tearing at the level of existence. Chen Duo’s memories were being leafed through: his sister’s face rotting in the plague, the trembling of his first kill, the joy of finding half a compressed biscuit in a trash heap. His privacy was being brutally ripped open and spread out before The Twelfth.

At the same time, Lin Yuan’s memories were flowing backward. Chen Duo saw the glass walls of the cultivation pod, the daily injections of silver liquid, the moment the number '00' was branded onto his wrist. Chen Duo’s breathing became Lin Yuan’s breathing. Lin Yuan’s fear became Chen Duo’s fear. The boundaries of identity began to melt.

“Coordinates.” Lin Yuan roared within the chaos of his consciousness. “Give me the core coordinates, you monster.”

“Turn left, behind the third biomass pillar, the manual extraction valve.” The Twelfth’s voice carried a sense of delight. “But remember, No. 00, when you touch the core, you are touching me. We were originally seeds from the same source, grown into different forms.”

Lin Yuan dragged Chen Duo and charged toward the designated location. Infrared aiming lines from automated sentries interlaced behind them. But the Blood Covenant link allowed Chen Duo to 'see' the dangers in Lin Yuan’s field of vision. The monomolecular blade swung backward, precisely severing two sensor cables.

Seven minutes and twenty seconds.

They found the extraction valve. A spherical container embedded in a biomass pillar, its surface covered with a throbbing pericardium. Lin Yuan’s right hand automatically unfolded, the Nano-seeds interfacing with the port. The spherical container slowly opened.

The proto-001 core was suspended within.

It didn't look like a product of technology; it looked more like a meticulously cut tumor with black filaments swimming inside. The moment Lin Yuan grabbed it, a stinging pain shot from his palm directly into his brain. The Twelfth’s contamination had long since permeated it.

“Implant it!” Chen Duo shouted, his voice mixed with the characteristics of Lin Yuan’s vocal cords. “Hurry!”

Lin Yuan pressed the core against his chest. Silver liquid surged from beneath his skin, enveloping the core and pulling it into his thoracic cavity. The intense pain forced him to his knees. It felt like a piece of red-hot iron was being shoved between his ribs.

The notification for the administrator privilege upgrade exploded on his retina:

[Regional Director Permissions Activated]

[Forced Recall Protocol Ready: Purge Main Force Units]

[Warning: Core Contamination Index 47%, Neural Corruption Risk Present]

Simultaneously, The Twelfth’s laughter echoed in the Blood Covenant. “Read-only permission confirmed. Thank you for the invitation, No. 00. Now I can see what you see, feel what you feel. Every heartbeat of you and your brother is my reading material.”

Lin Yuan looked up. Chen Duo was staring at him with terrified eyes.

“Who... who are you?” Chen Duo’s monomolecular blade was aimed at Lin Yuan, its tip trembling. “Why do you remember my sister’s name? Why do you know where I hid the razor blade when I was caught by the Anvil King?”

Lin Yuan opened his mouth to answer but found that he was also confused. He remembered Chen Duo’s interrogation, remembered that bone-crushing pain in the knee, remembered the burnt smell of the electric prod touching teeth. Those memories were so real, as if he had experienced them personally.

“Who am I?” Lin Yuan murmured to himself. The silver patterns on his right hand had already spread to his neck. The control mark on the back of Chen Duo’s neck was extending toward his wrist.

The side effects of the Blood Covenant had broken through the critical point. They were no longer two individuals sharing perception, but two fragments that were merging.

The roar of the thermal cutters outside the door reached its peak; thirty seconds remained.

Lin Yuan grabbed Chen Duo’s hand, pressing their silver patterns together. The stinging pain allowed them both to regain a moment of clarity.

“Remember,” Lin Yuan said, his voice carrying Chen Duo’s raspiness. “Regardless of who you think you are, regardless of who I think I am, survive first. We'll talk once we're out.”

Chen Duo stared at him for three seconds, then slowly lowered his blade.

“Fine,” he said. “Brother.”

But as the word left his mouth, both of them froze for a second. They weren't sure who was speaking, nor were they sure who was being addressed.

The airtight door began to glow red and melt.

Lin Yuan stood up. The core in his chest pulsated in sync with his heartbeat, each throb bringing a wave of cold dizziness. It was the side effect of corruption, and the price of new power. He looked at Chen Duo. The other’s eyes reflected his own face. And on that face was a scar that only Chen Duo should have had.

They could no longer distinguish one from the other.

And The Twelfth chuckled deep within the Blood Covenant, reading it all.