74: Chapter 74 Quantum State Gatekeeper and Shadow Backup

The core of the Rusted Church was not the chapel. As Lin Yuan pushed open the final airtight door, what he saw was not an altar, but a dissected brain. Beneath the metal dome, cylindrical Neural Substrate Tanks were arranged like a honeycomb. Gray-white fiber bundles floated inside the tanks, their surfaces covered with golden patterns that were homologous to the STC but opposite in phase, flickering in rhythm with the heartbeat of some gargantuan entity.

"Warning. High concentration of neuroactive radiation." THRONE-01's sensors emitted a piercing buzz. "Immediate evacuation recommended. This place is thinking, Commander. It is thinking about us."

Camilla didn't speak; her scanner monitored the brightening golden patterns on her brother's neck, their pulsations synchronizing with the substrate tanks. "Biological Key responding," her voice sounded like a scalpel scraping across a steel plate. "The asset is establishing a passive connection with the core. Four-minute access window. After that, The Chamber's pursuers will break through the second layer of the blockade, and we'll become carbonized specimens."

Lin Yuan looked toward the central console, a hybrid of bio-mechanical components. Its surface was covered in synapse-like interfaces, dripping with transparent nutrient solution. The Silver-wire Network on his right hand was stinging, and the STC flashed red at the edge of his vision.

"I need the deep-level map of the Sector-7 Maintenance Shaft," he said, pulling off his tactical gloves to reveal a palm interlaced with silver wires. "I won't survive six hours without it."

"The cost," THRONE-01 moved its turret base to block him by half a step. "Since the Maintenance Shaft incident, you have lost 18% of your neural integrity. By connecting to this, you might become a second THR-01-μ, or worse, an extension of it."

There was an anxious tremor in the machine spirit's voice. It was afraid, Lin Yuan realized—not of death, but of being abandoned after being proven useless.

"I've calculated it," Lin Yuan pushed the turret aside. "The principle of minimum loss. My neural integrity is a consumable resource; the team's survival probability is the non-negotiable factor."

He pressed his palm onto the synaptic interface.

The world shattered.

Sweetness. An excessive sweetness, like syrup being injected into his brain's sulci, which then turned into pain. Neural burning surged from level six to level nine. Lin Yuan bit through the inner lining of his mouth, and the taste of rust exploded. His visual cortex was hijacked; the cathedral's metal walls melted like wax, revealing white plaster walls, curtains, and bedsheets.

The White House from his brother's memory overlapped with the current scene. The Neural Substrate Tanks became children's hospital beds, and the fiber bundles turned into IV tubes. He stood at the ward's entrance, holding not a bolter, but a rusted scalpel.

"Cognitive dislocation beginning," Camilla's voice came from far away, chillingly calm. "Brainwaves show a dual reality. The white is memory; the rust is the present. Do not walk into it."

But Lin Yuan was already walking inside. His footsteps landed on both metal grates and plastic flooring. In his vision, the quantum ghost of THR-01-κ transformed into a younger, broken face.

"The Thirteenth," Lin Yuan forced the words out. "THR-01-μ. I know you're there."

The substrate tanks resonated. A figure "precipitated" from the central tank—an afterimage composed of golden particles and gray mist, wearing a tattered researcher's uniform with a name tag reading μ-13.

"Observation Subject Lin Yuan," the voice rang directly in his temporal cortex, sharing the same frequency band as the Farm Mastermind's whispers but sounding more exhausted. "You have brought the key... my brother."

Lin Yuan's pupils contracted. In his dislocated vision, the phantom of μ-13 was stroking the forehead of his brother on the hospital bed, the movement terrifyingly gentle.

"Weren't you destroyed?" Lin Yuan resisted the intrusion, forcing himself to calculate. "The Twelfth said you volunteered to be the gatekeeper. Why?"},{