68: Chapter 68 Assimilation Whispers and the White House

The sharp whine of the Thermal Cutter was like a dull saw scraping a skull.

Lin Yuan leaned against the metal corridor wall of Sector-7, his fingertips digging into rusty cracks. The aftershocks of bio-electrical overdraw coursed through his veins, and gray spots exploded on his retina. The STC Interface on his palm flickered with a dying blue light.

"Three minutes and forty seconds." THRONE-01's voice seeped from the neck ring, with the viscous feeling of coolant leakage, "Arbiter fragment and THR-09-Ω neck ring resonance is escalating. It is recommended to immediately interrupt the physical connection, otherwise the probability of secondary neural dissolution is—"

"Shut up." Lin Yuan bit down on the metallic taste of blood, "Your processing speed is stuttering even on simple calculations; save some computing power to guide the way."

The machine spirit was silent for a moment. That 0.3-second delay reminded both parties: it had degenerated from a tactical assistant capable of predicting three seconds into the future to a damaged entity with core damage that could crash at any moment. Coolant seeped from the edge of the neck ring, sliding coldly over his collarbone.

Forty-seven meters ahead, the storeroom gate was ajar, and the dark red radiation glow of the paralyzed Arbiter fragment seeped through the gap. Behind him, Camilla Anvil was pushing her younger brother into a recessed maintenance bay.

"Watch him," she whispered, tapping a specific rhythm on Chen Duo's tactical vest, "If Lin Yuan goes berserk after devouring the fragment, prioritize killing him. Don't worry about my brother."

Chen Duo looked up, silver blood vessels remaining in his pupils from the Blood Covenant. He gripped the stolen Electromagnetic Dagger. His younger brother huddled in the corner, the indicator light on his neck ring flashing twelve times per second, a rhythm of neural disorder after losing the ability to speak.

"Two minutes and fifty seconds." Lin Yuan stared at the gate and began to move.

His steps were heavy, muscles trembling involuntarily from the electromagnetic pulse backlash. The silver thread network on his right hand was brighter than usual, a compensatory discharge after bio-electrical overdraw. He needed to devour that fragment to fill the deficit, but his reason screamed: forcibly assimilating an ancient STC while overdrawn carried a twenty-five percent chance of neural meltdown.

The sharp whine of the Thermal Cutter suddenly changed pitch, from a monotonous scrape to a high-pitched shriek. They were increasing power.

"Feint," Lin Yuan whispered.

Before he finished speaking, the ventilation duct on the left side of the corridor exploded. Three Power Armor suits crashed down from the shattered duct, their armored boots denting the metal floor. The lead one was painted with a rusty red merchant guild logo, its right arm Chainsword vibrating at four thousand revolutions per second, emitting a hum like a swarm of bees.

"Recover THR-09-Ω." The Power Armor's loudspeaker emitted an electronically processed voice, "Priority over STC technology recovery. Repeat, prioritize recovery of THR-09-Ω."

Camilla's pupils constricted, and she spun around abruptly. The ambush firepower of the Anvil Core poured out from hidden doors on both sides of the corridor. Heavy machine guns roared, creating a sonic boom in the confined space, and bullets exploded into sparks on the Power Armor's plating. The three Power Armor suits activated Electromagnetic Shields, blue arcs leaping across their surfaces.

"They're aiming for my brother!" Camilla shrieked into the communicator, "Protect that bay!"

Lin Yuan didn't look back, crashing through the storeroom door.

Dark red light swallowed him.

The Arbiter core fragment hovered in the center of the room, a fist-sized polyhedron with a flowing liquid metal sheen on its surface. The electromagnetic pulse had put it into suspended animation, but its underlying code was still active. Lin Yuan could see those code projections, not belonging to standard STC protocols, but to an older, more violent programming language, full of execution commands.

"Assimilation initiated."

He reached out and directly grasped the fragment.

Pain burned through his nerves in a fraction of a second. Billions of nanoscale metal filaments pierced his skin along his palm lines, traveling upstream in his blood vessels. Lin Yuan let out a muffled groan, his knees hitting the ground. The STC Interface offered no friendly upgrade prompt; instead, a crimson progress bar rolled with Gothic Mechanicus Scriptures.

"Blood of the Omnissiah, Flesh of the Omnissiah..." A whisper sounded directly in his auditory nerves, neither from THRONE-01 nor the Arbiter, but from an older, vaster entity, "The soul is the currency of the Machine God, what price do you wish to pay?"

The progress bar climbed to seventeen percent.

Lin Yuan bit his tongue to stay conscious. The fragment was dissolving and restructuring, violently filling the bio-electrical deficit from the blood overdraw. But what filled it was not pure energy, but neural static mixed with the Arbiter's execution memories. He saw images: a White House, rows of operating tables, children restrained, their necks connected to interfaces identical to his brother's neck ring.

"The Twelfth..." Lin Yuan squeezed out the words through intense pain.

Progress bar thirty-five percent.

In the maintenance bay, Chen Duo collapsed to the ground.

The Blood Covenant connection was forcibly deepened. The neural resonance triggered by Lin Yuan devouring the fragment transmitted through their bloodline, like a red-hot poker plunged into his temples. He saw it, not through his eyes, but as memory fragments directly implanted into his visual cortex.

The White House. Corridors stretched endlessly, the walls organic metal, pulsating with a breathing rhythm. Children were fixed to wall mounts, their limbs splayed like specimens. Their eyes were open, pupils replaced with silver halos identical to THRONE-01's. Chen Duo wanted to scream, but the Blood Covenant locked his vocal cords, only allowing him to "see."

He saw the children's necks. Interfaces stamped with numbers: THR-01-β, THR-01-γ, THR-01-δ... all the way to THR-01-κ. The Twelfth. The Twelfth child.

That child's face was blurred, but Chen Duo recognized the figure. Too familiar. His fingers trembled, and the Electromagnetic Dagger clanged to the floor.

Memory fragments jumped. He saw a "harvest" scene. The scene transcended mere slaughter, belonging to some kind of harvesting ritual. The Twelfth stood in the center of the room, tubes connected to the children pumping silver liquid, not blood, but a more primal "Protoplasm," extracted from THR series test subjects. And The Twelfth itself was also being harvested by a higher entity. The tubes extended upwards, disappearing into the ceiling, where larger interfaces were marked THR-09-Ω.

"Harvested and harvesting..." Chen Duo's lips moved, blood flowing from his nostrils, "Primitive covenant..."

In the storeroom, the progress bar was sixty-two percent.

Lin Yuan's body spasmed. His right hand was completely covered by a silver metallic membrane, forming a flesh-and-circuit adhesion with the fragment. THRONE-01's voice suddenly cut in, twisted with pain: "Stop! Core protocol conflict! Arbiter execution code is reverse contaminating—"

"Shut up!" Lin Yuan's consciousness screamed, "Or help me filter!"

"Coolant... insufficient..." The machine spirit's voice was intermittent, like a broken record, "Processing speed... decreased by... seventy-three percent..."

Lin Yuan couldn't stop. Power surged in, the overdraft filled and even overflowing, but every cell screamed in rejection of this alien energy. The price of grimdark, Warhammer technology was never a gentle gift; it was the flesh and blood of gods, and the devourer had to pay the price of nerve scorching.

Progress bar eighty-nine percent.

In the corridor, Camilla's Anvil Core had lost three soldiers. A Power Armor Chainsword cut through the chest plate of the last heavy infantryman. Camilla charged forward, her movements less like a warlord and more like a protective mother beast. She pressed her Melta Pistol against the joint gap of the leading Power Armor and pulled the trigger.

High temperatures melted the hydraulic tubes, and the Power Armor knelt. But the other two had broken through the defense line and were rushing towards the maintenance bay.

"One minute left!" Camilla roared into the communicator, her voice splattered with blood, "Lin Yuan! Hurry!"

Progress bar one hundred percent.

There was no cheer at the moment of assimilation completion. Only a sigh, as if from eons ago, echoed in his mind. Lin Yuan knelt on the ground, filamentous metallic slime stretching between his right hand and the fragment's original position, like an umbilical cord birthing a monstrosity. The STC Interface refreshed, all text plated with a dark red, as if soaked in blood.

[Assimilation complete. Arbiter core protocol integrated.]

[Warning: Neural static side effects detected. Omnissiah Whisper Channel activated.]

Lin Yuan looked up, silver static lingering at the edge of his vision. He heard it, the whisper still continuing, neither from THRONE-01 nor the Arbiter, but a deeper voice, from the stc system itself.

He stood up, his strength returned, even more so, but accompanied by a strange hallucination: he could see the "emotions" of metal, could feel the stress on every bolt in the corridor, as if he had become a neuron of the Machine God.

"Go." Lin Yuan rushed out of the storeroom, his voice hoarse, not quite human.

Chen Duo crawled out of the bay, his face covered in blood, his eyes unfocused. He grabbed Lin Yuan's arm, his nails digging into his flesh: "The White House... The Twelfth... and THR-09-Ω... are by no means mere contamination markers... that belongs to some primitive covenant... a covenant of harvesting..."

Lin Yuan supported him, looking at Camilla.

The warlord's face was stained with enemy blood, and only two of her troops remained standing. But she didn't complain, her eyes complex, with fear, calculation, but more so, forced dependence.

"You look like a ghost," Camilla said.

"Retreat," Lin Yuan said, "There's an emergency passage on the lower level of the storeroom, leading to the deep STC facilities. The merchant guild people—"

The Thermal Cutter finally broke through the main gate.

But not from the original direction. The merchant guild people used portable Melta Mines carried by their Power Armor to blast through the side wall, and the entire Sector-7 corridor structure groaned sickeningly. The ceiling began to collapse, huge metal beams crashing down, sealing off their path of retreat.

No way back.

Amidst the swirling dust, the downed Power Armor suddenly emitted an electronic voice: "Target THR-09-Ω confirmed. Recovery protocol highest priority. All units, execute forced recovery."

Lin Yuan looked at Camilla, Camilla looked at Lin Yuan.

The nature of their alliance had changed. The forced temporary agreement was dead, replaced by functional dependence. She needed his technology to sustain her brother's life, he needed her troops to buy time. But Lin Yuan's hand was on his brother's neck ring, and Camilla's hand quietly reached for the detonator at her waist, the explosive detonator for the emergency passage, her last trump card.

"Lead the way," Camilla said, her voice hard as iron.

Lin Yuan picked up his speechless younger brother, Chen Duo stumbled behind them. They ran deeper into the storeroom, behind them the heavy footsteps of Power Armor, and the lingering Omnissiah Whisper from the stc system.

And above them, in the communicator buried under the collapsed ruins, the merchant guild Commander's final order remained, like a venomous snake's hiss:

"Remember, recovering THR-09-Ω takes priority over everything. That boy is more valuable than the entire STC facility."