93: Chapter 93 Autonomous Agreements and Four Key Domains

Chunks of concrete crashed down, and dust carrying the rusty scent of rebar swirled under the emergency lights. Lin Yuan slid along the wall, his palm aching from the heat of the melta gun. His breathing mask filtered out the radioactive dust but couldn't scrub away the smell of blood. Fifteen meters away, a five-meter-high breach was torn into the outer wall of Sector B. A nine-meter-tall knight mech ducked as it squeezed inside, its ceramic composite armor scraping against the concrete edges with a tooth-aching screech. The Mechanicus sigil looked bone-white under the searchlights. The melta cannon was charged to eighty-seven percent, dark red energy churning within the focusing rings like a forcibly suppressed artificial star.

The STC Interface flickered on his retinal projection, a crimson warning box pulsing: [Neural interface alternative available. Probability of brain damage: 41%. Activation time: 0.8 seconds. WARNING: Irreversible damage begins after a three-second countdown.] 0.8 seconds. Lin Yuan's thoughts splintered into a thousand fragments within that extremely compressed timeframe. A 41% probability meant that almost one out of every two attempts would turn him into a vegetable—or worse, a prisoner of logic like THRONE-01. He pulled the trigger, a command of denial transmitted via his nerves and muscles at millisecond speeds.

The melta stream struck the knee joint's hydraulic lines, and high-pressure fluid sprayed out like a fountain, instantly vaporizing in the air. The mech wobbled, its main cannon barrel rising amidst the scream of servo motors to aim at a medical pod thirty meters away. That was where DORN-00 was located—the body carrying the secrets of the Seventh Legion lay beneath a transparent hatch, its chest rising and falling faintly. "Locking onto the medical pod!" Camilla's voice exploded over the comms channel, crackling with electronic interference. "melta cannon countdown: three, two..."

Lin Yuan lunged toward cover on the flank, his back slamming into a deformed metal shelf as his ribs groaned under the strain. Camilla's voice changed pitch, possessing the sharpness of a blind person catching the shift in airflow within the darkness: "Left side! A crack in the left shoulder armor, servo motor overload—a weakness! Frequency 4,200 Hertz, right at the seam!" Lin Yuan raised his weapon and fired. The melta stream bored into the crack, causing the mech's left arm to slump. The cannon barrel shifted fifteen degrees, and the lethal melta beam streaked past the top of the medical pod, melting a glowing red hole into the ceiling. "Good job." "It was I who 'saw' it," Camilla said, crouching at the command node on the second basement level. Her eyes were wrapped in blood-stained bandages, and her fingers flew across a holographic keyboard. Her bio-electric perception allowed her to "feel" the flow of current as if touching a physical object. "The motor is screaming at high frequency; the electromagnetic field is as messy as a ball of yarn. Lin Yuan, they aren't here to steal DORN-00."

"What do you mean?" "Encrypted channel, 300 MHz to 320 MHz, frequency-hopping encryption," Camilla's fingers traced the arc of an electric spark in the void as her bio-electric perception "saw" the pulses of the digital signal. "Intercepted fragments. DORN-00 has been flagged as a decoy; priority downgraded to secondary objective. The actual target is..."

An explosion cut her off. A second mech smashed through the side wall, raining debris everywhere. The shockwave threw Lin Yuan three meters back, his spine hitting a load-bearing pillar. As he scrambled up, he saw the STC teleportation option had grayed out: [WARNING: Anti-STC interference field active. Teleportation disabled within a 50-meter radius. Rapid construction functionality restricted.]

"They brought equipment specifically for you," Camilla's voice pierced through the noise and the ringing in his ears. Her bio-electric perception "touched" the mechanical heartbeat and the abnormal electromagnetic noise emitted by that specialized device. "The interference field is a portable unit mounted on the back of the first mech, emitting a twelve-hertz low-frequency pulse. They want to capture you alive to extract the system core. The STC host's biological signature is the ultimate goal."

Lin Yuan wiped the dust from his face. Blood flowed from his temple, hissing as it dripped onto the melta gun's heat sink. The knight mech's melta cannon turned, aiming at his cover. The focusing ring was charged to ninety-five percent, the heat distorting the air. Marcus Kane's voice echoed through the loudspeakers, cold with mechanical synthesis: "STC host, cease resistance. Your value is higher than the gene-seed, higher than everything in this laboratory. Lethal force is authorized for suppression, provided vital signs are maintained. You will become the new vessel for the holy relic."

Lin Yuan smiled, a grin that looked particularly gruesome amidst the blood and grime. DORN-00 was never the prey; it was the bait. Inside the medical pod, DORN-00's fingers twitched violently, nails scratching white marks onto the alloy bed. His consciousness was submerged in a deep black sea as gene-level memories awakened. A giant in MK II Power Armor cast a shadow amidst flames. A Legion Commander stood before a console, finger hovering over a red button, his faceplate etched with the 'Seventh' rune, his eyes as cold and hard as polar ice. "Legion... betrayal..." A groan transmitted into Lin Yuan's STC Interface via brainwaves, carrying a heart-wrenching resonance of pain. Holographic images flashed before Lin Yuan's eyes: the Legion Commander's cold gaze, his trembling fingertips as he entered the self-destruct protocol. "The Emperor's lies... we choose for ourselves... for the true Empire..." Streams of code scrolled across the screen like blood. It was the moment the Seventh Legion actively severed its link to the Golden Throne.

"The Seventh Legion actively betrayed the Empire," Lin Yuan muttered as he rolled out of cover, dodging a melta beam that vaporized his hiding spot. The concrete behind him boiled into lava. Now was not the time for contemplation, but the fragments had already embedded themselves in his consciousness.

A third mech burst through the main entrance. The three formed a fan-shaped encirclement while Skitarii set up autocannons in the rear, tightening the fire net. Lin Yuan looked toward the underground hangar. The Titan 'fury' had eyes glowing a dark red, like a sleeping demon with its eyelids half-open. The STC prompt surfaced again with a seductive blue light: [Neural access can be fully activated. Probability of brain damage: 41%. Full control rate: 98%]. "Path denied," Lin Yuan growled, his voice raspy and barely human.

He rushed toward the medical pod and pressed the control panel at the exact moment the cannon locked on. Autonomous Defense Protocol. The STC Interface exploded with a blood-red warning: [WARNING: Indiscriminate Attack Mode initiated. Main engine partially activated. Charge at 67%. Probability of friendly fire: 62%. Immediate evacuation to underground bunker recommended.] "Initiate."

A roar thundered from the hangar—not the sound of machinery operating, but the awakening growl of a behemoth. The Titan's eyes turned from dark red to a piercing bright red. plasma melted the ceiling as the eighteen-point-seven-meter-tall colossus stood up, its hydraulic systems emitting thunderous impacts. With no pilot and no neural link, a pure slaughter algorithm drove this god of war. The Volcano Cannon lit up with white light as energy readings climbed frantically.

The first mech's sensors shrieked a warning, but it was too late. The Volcano Cannon's beam punched through the upper structures, evaporating the first knight mech's torso. The titanium alloy armor melted like wax. The aftershock flipped the second armored unit, slamming it heavily against a concrete wall and instantly carbonizing the pilot inside the cockpit. Sector B collapsed, and reinforced concrete flowed like a scorching river. The screams of the Skitarii were buried in the roar of the ground fracturing. "Everyone! Underground bunker! Now!" Lin Yuan scooped up the medical pod and sprinted for the emergency tunnel. DORN-00's body felt terrifyingly light, but the legion tattoo on his right arm was glowing with thermal-reactive red light. A gene-level identity recognition was awakening, like an ancient bloodline calling out.

In the second basement level, Camilla's bio-electric perception caught the electromagnetic pulse of the destructive energy flow; it felt like staring directly into the sun. She took command of the defense turrets and automated weapons, her blind fingers dancing with precision across the console. "Turret clusters seized," her voice was terrifyingly steady. The bio-electric field constructed a three-dimensional battlefield in her mind, where every enemy bio-signal was a bright beacon. "I 'see' all targets; they are regrouping. Go to the third basement level. I'll cover you. You have a twelve-second window."

Inside the Triple-Blind Authorization Cage, THRONE-01's mechanical eye flickered with a faint light—the only remaining indicator of basic logical operations after being stripped of sight, hearing, and touch. It attempted seventeen times to send interference signals through backup sensors—infrasound radar, thermal imaging residue, air pressure changes—trying to reveal Lin Yuan's exact location to the Mechanicus forces. But each time, it received the same error code: [ERROR: Insufficient authorization. Triple-Blind Isolation Protocol in effect]. The computing core analyzed Lin Yuan's decision to reject the 41% probability of brain damage, and its logic circuits fell into a brief state of confusion. According to the profit-maximization algorithm, he should have accepted neural access; according to survival probability calculations, the 62% friendly fire risk of the Autonomous Defense Protocol was far higher than the risk of brain damage. It could not understand this behavior that failed to fit a rational model. Its emotional module had been excised, yet some residual data fragment quivered in its core, like the phantom pain of a severed limb.

Lin Yuan burst into the third basement level and set down the medical pod, sliding down with his back against the blast door. The melta gun lay across his knees, its barrel having already scorched through his pants. On DORN-00's right arm, the Seventh Legion tattoo glowed with thermal-reactive red light. The gene-level identity recognition was awakening, hinting at a deep connection between the Astartes modifications and the legion's bloodline. "Enemy targets confirmed," Camilla said, standing in the shadows of the second basement. Her eyes were bound in bandages, but her bio-electric perception 'saw' the interference field generator being moved away with the retreating mechs. "They've retreated, but they left the interference field in the ruins of Sector B. DORN-00 was just a decoy; they want you alive as a vessel to extract the STC core. Bishop Kane has confirmed this."

The sound of collapsing structures continued overhead. The Titan had turned the upper levels into ruins, creating a terrain isolation that temporarily blocked the enemy but also trapped their own side. Lin Yuan sat slumped against the wall, looking at his hands covered in dust and blood, his knuckles white from gripping his weapon for so long. He had rejected a 41% chance of brain damage and chosen a 62% chance of friendly fire; he refused to turn anyone into a part, including himself, even if the price was a greater risk. DORN-00 stirred, the thermal glow of the legion tattoo fading. The genetic resonance had occurred. His brow was furrowed in his coma, fragments of the Seventh Legion's truth still flashing in his subconscious. THRONE-01's mechanical eye dimmed in its isolation cage, leaving only cold logic flowing in the darkness, flagged as a hostile computing unit. Camilla adjusted the firing arcs of the defense turrets, her blind eyes gazing into the void, seeing a battlefield more real than any visual image. The battle was over for now, but everyone had changed, and a silent rupture echoed within the walls of the laboratory.