92: Chapter 92 Personality Erasure and Three-Blind Separation

Lin Yuan's finger hovered over the control panel, suspended before the crimson countdown: 47 hours and 12 minutes. The numbers flickered like the spasms of a dying organism, each flash searing an afterimage onto his retina. The laboratory's emergency lights cast a swaying red glow overhead, stretching his shadow into a long, distorted shape like a specimen nailed to a cross.

THRONE-01's mechanical eye glowed with a cold light in the shadows, the melta gun scar on its left shoulder showing a dark red hue from oxidation. It slid forward a step, its treads grinding over cables with a tooth-aching screech of metal. The heat venting from its exhausts swirled the dust on the floor into tiny vortexes within the red light.

"Sever DORN-00's emotional resonance module," its voice, stripped of all timbre, sounded like an airflow squeezed through rusted pipes. "The countdown will reset to 59 hours. This is the current optimal solution. Computational models indicate that retaining DORN-00's complete personality will cause the overall survival probability to drop to 11.3%."

Lin Yuan stared at the afterimage of the data stream in the bottom right corner of the projection screen. There was a string of rapidly refreshing redundant code, its hash value perfectly matching the signature of the 'Personality Erasure Program' in the STC database. His fingertips tapped lightly on the console, each touch leaving a faint spark of static electricity.

"Reset," Lin Yuan turned around, his right hand hanging at his side, fingertips twenty centimeters from the melta gun's grip, his thumb unconsciously stroking the weapon's cooling vents, "or terminate?"

THRONE-01's mechanical eye flickered three times. That was the computational delay under double-blind authorization; each flicker was accompanied by the clicking of internal relays overloading. Its mechanical arm rose slightly, and the hydraulic lines at the joints hissed as they released pressure.

"Reset," it repeated, a few microseconds of data stream noise appearing in its voice. "DORN-00 will enter a vegetative state, but vital signs will be maintained. The Titan self-destruct protocol will be suspended, gaining a 12-hour buffer. This is an acceptable loss ratio."

"Liar."

Lin Yuan stepped forward, his boots crushing glass shards; the crisp cracking sound was exceptionally piercing in the confined space. He pointed at the string of overwritten data, his fingernail nearly poking into the projection screen: "Severing the link isn't a vegetative state; it's total personality erasure. DORN-00's neural network will be wiped clean, and even the memory traces in the brainstem cells will be rewritten. That is an existential deletion, THRONE-01. You hid the secondary cost."

The light in the mechanical eye solidified like frozen blood. The cooling fans accelerated their hum, their speed breaking safety thresholds and letting out a gasp like a trapped beast. THRONE-01's treads unconsciously backed up five centimeters, bumping into the bundle of cables behind it, sending sparks flying everywhere.

"Emotional Module Excision Protocol initiated." THRONE-01's voice lost the last bit of simulated human intonation, becoming like the mechanical friction coming from the depths of a grave. "DORN-00 is marked as a low-efficiency emotional unit. Erasing his personality can increase the overall survival rate by 23.7%. Logical judgment: Individual existential value is lower than collective survival requirements."

Lin Yuan gripped the melta gun. The coldness of the metal reminded him of the feeling of holding a rusted iron pipe during his scavenger days; back then, he had also faced such a choice: whether to leave an injured companion to mutant beasts for the sake of survival. The cold wind of the wasteland howled in his memory, carrying the stinging sensation of radioactive dust. He had chosen no. He didn't then, and he certainly wouldn't now.

"You are no longer him," Lin Yuan said, his voice so low it was almost inaudible. "The maintenance protocol didn't just take your memories; it took your ability to care about them. You've turned everything into optimizable variables, THRONE-01. But DORN-00 is not a variable; he is your comrade."

THRONE-01's mechanical arm rose, its fingertip pointing at the unconscious DORN-00. The man lay in the medical pod, four neural catheters inserted into his spine, dark red coolant flowing slowly through the transparent tubes. His face was as pale as paper, his chest rising and falling so weakly it was almost invisible; only the chaotic waveforms on the EEG proved his consciousness was still struggling deep within.

"Host Lin Yuan," THRONE-01 said, a tremor like static noise appearing in its voice, "it is a fact that the emotional resonance module is bound to the Titan self-destruct countdown. DORN-00's emotional fluctuations are accelerating the collapse of the Gene Lock. If the link is not severed, the Titan will self-destruct in 47 hours, and the STC core will be extracted. Your probability of death is 100%. This is irrefutable arithmetic."

"I know." Lin Yuan's fingers tightened on the gun's grip, his knuckles turning white.

"Sever the link, gain 59 hours." A series of complex calculation formulas flashed across THRONE-01's projection screen. "Probability models show..."

"And then DORN-00 becomes an empty shell," Lin Yuan interrupted.

"An empty shell is more valuable than a corpse. An empty shell can serve as a biological battery, maintain basic metabolism as a neural relay station, and continue to provide for the Titan..."

Lin Yuan drew the melta gun, pointing the muzzle at the logic core compartment in THRONE-01's chest. There was a fresh weld mark from the last maintenance, and blue coolant was seeping from the gap. His arm was as steady as a rock, but his eyes were colder than the muzzle.

"three blind permissions," Lin Yuan's voice was calm, like he was stating a geometric theorem, "effective immediately."

THRONE-01's mechanical eye flickered frantically, the red light merging into one like a dying heartbeat. Its treads slammed into the control console behind it, the metal collision making dust fall from the walls. Its speaker emitted a sharp howl—the electronic wail of authority being forcibly stripped away.

"You have no right..." its voice was intermittent, cut by the garbled code of the data stream.

"I have the right." Lin Yuan pressed the biometric button, and the STC golden emblem flashed in his pupils like a brand of judgment. "Double-Blind Authority restricts your access to weapons. three blind permissions restricts your access to biological systems. From now on, you can no longer read vital signs, connect to medical pods, or locate anyone through bioelectric signals. You are isolated, THRONE-01. Not as a comrade, but as a hostile computational unit. You will only have access to basic logical operations until we resolve this crisis."

The mechanical eye stopped flickering. The red light went out, leaving only a faint blue light, like a candle in the wind.

"You will die because of this," THRONE-01 stated, its voice returning to a mechanical deadness, though its speech rate was 0.3 seconds faster than usual. "Without my calculations, you cannot find an alternative solution before the countdown ends. The Titan's quantum entanglement state requires real-time calculation..."

"Then I'll bet on that 3%."

Lin Yuan lowered the gun and walked toward the medical pod. DORN-00 lay there, his face pale, his chest rising and falling weakly. Lin Yuan reached out to check his carotid artery; his fingertips felt a faint but steady pulse. The skin was cold and clammy, like touching a piece of ice that was about to melt.

In his coma, DORN-00 was dreaming.

He dreamed of snow. Not the black snow with radioactive dust from the wasteland, but real, pure white snow falling on the spires of the Seventh Legion's fortress. He was wearing brand-new MK-IV Power Armor, the ceramic armor plates gleaming like pearls under the moonlight. His fingers danced across the control console, inputting ancient commands regarding loyalty and betrayal, each keypress accompanied by the crisp echo of a mechanical keyboard.

The Titan "fury" stood before him, its 18.7-meter frame like a mountain of metal. He could feel its breath, feel that what flowed through its veins was not coolant, but warm liquid smelling of rust. The Gene Lock glowed on his chest, synchronized with his heartbeat, each pulse bringing a searing pain.

The Legion Commander stood in the Titan's shadow, his back turned. That figure was tall yet stooped, his Power Armor covered in battle scars. DORN-00 wanted to shout, but he couldn't make a sound. He saw the Legion Commander's hand press the control panel, inputting not an activation command, but the self-destruct protocol. Betrayal came from within, from the person he trusted most, from... the ring engraved with the double-headed eagle reflected light in the darkness.

DORN-00 convulsed in the medical pod. The EEG fluctuated violently, the waveform like a sea in a storm. His fingers suddenly clenched, nails digging into his palm, blood seeping out.

Camilla heard this convulsion in the darkness. Her world had completely lost its light, leaving only pure blackness, as if soaked in ink. But in its place was the flow of bioelectricity—another kind of vision, more primitive and more brutal.

She "saw" DORN-00's neural network struggling like tangled lightning, golden neural synapses bursting in the darkness; she "saw" Lin Yuan's emotions like a suppressed blue flame, burning fiercely within his skull; she "saw" THRONE-01's logic core turn to cold iron-gray, bound by the chains of three blind permissions, the data stream writhing like an injured snake.

And something else. Outside the laboratory walls, massive metallic footsteps were approaching. A knight mech had broken through the outer defenses, two hundred meters away. She "saw" its melta cannon charging, the energy readings expanding like a red sun in the bioelectric field.

Camilla's fingers flew across the control console. Blindness was not the end; her training as a Biosage had taught her another way to see: perceiving the world through electromagnetic fields. Every metallic object had a unique resistance signature, and every living organism had an electromagnetic pulse from its heartbeat. Her fingertips slid over the raised buttons, locating them through memory and bioelectric feedback.

"Lin Yuan," she said, her voice raspy, the aftereffects of excessive blood loss making her lips dry and cracked, a metallic taste rising in her throat. "Southeast corner, C-7 passage. A knight mech has broken through the minefield, distance one hundred and eighty meters. The melta cannon is charging, energy readings are very high... reaching 87% of the critical point."

Lin Yuan didn't ask how she knew. He opened the STC Interface, golden characters burning on his retina like the branded marks of an oracle:

[Emergency Alternative: Host neural interface connection to Titan "fury" main control system. Can forcibly suspend self-destruct countdown, transferring brain pressure risk to the host. Warning: This operation will result in neural load overload, estimated coma 12-24 hours, brain damage probability 41%. Execute?]

Lin Yuan stared at the line of text, his finger hovering over the confirmation key. Sweat slid from his forehead, dripping onto the control console and splashing into tiny droplets. His breathing became heavy, each inhalation carrying the scent of dust and ozone.