95: Chapter 95 The Rust Vein Maze and the Fourfold Gaze

Rust mixed with mold scabbed in his nasal cavity; every breath felt like swallowing rusted iron filings. Lin Yuan stepped into the standing water, the coldness sweeping over his ankles and stirring up murky ripples. The emergency light overhead flashed every three seconds, its red glow making the peeling marks on the walls look like dried claw gashes.

Fifty meters above, the vibration of the drill transmitted through the rock layers like a giant beast grinding its teeth. Shards of stone fell pattering down, creating tiny craters on the water's surface.

"Seventy-five meters to the left, turn." Camilla leaned against the wall, her fingertips trembling slightly. "The metal pipes are generating harmonic interference. My perception is full of snow and noise; the error exceeds two hundred meters."

Lin Yuan stared at DORN-00. The youth stood in the middle of the standing water, his golden pupils glowing in the darkness. Data streams flashed across his irises as tiny characters swam and vanished.

"THRONE-01 is watching him," Lin Yuan gripped his melta gun, his knuckles turning white. "A biological data channel has been established through the gene-seed, transmitting visual signals in real-time. Whatever we see, it sees as well."

"Can we cut it off?" Camilla's voice was kept extremely low, for fear of disturbing the metal dust floating in the air.

"I've tried electromagnetic shielding," Lin Yuan took out a jammer marked with teeth indentations, its casing still bearing charred burn marks. "The moment the frequencies matched, DORN-00's brainwaves went into ventricular fibrillation, and his heart stopped for three seconds. A physical disconnection would cause brain death; the link has already grown into his neural synapses."

"So he's a living camera?"

"More than that," Lin Yuan looked into the depths of the tunnel, where the darkness writhed as if it were physical. "THRONE-01 is attempting behavioral implantation. Look at his pupils; there’s an abnormal refresh every seventeen seconds. That’s the rhythm of micro-instructions being written. It’s learning how to directly control the motor cortex through the gene-seed."

The dripping of the water echoed, amplifying into a metronome of death in the dead silence. DORN-00 looked up, his gaze piercing through Lin Yuan to focus on a certain point in the void, as if staring into the eyes of a non-existent ghost.

"This soldier suggests a right turn," the voice carried a metallic resonance, as if vibrating from deep within the chest. "Maintenance Tunnel B-7 leads to the Deep Bunker. This soldier's memory shows... This soldier remembers the structural blueprints there..."

"Your memory?" Camilla sneered, her fingers brushing against her holster. "Twenty seconds ago, you didn't even know who you were, and now you're a tactical expert?"

"I..." DORN-00's pupils contracted violently, and golden data streams exploded. "This soldier... I... detected structural stress concentration on the left, with an 83% probability of collapse. Turning right is the way to live. Please believe... please command me..."

Lin Yuan's temples throbbed. A choice lay before him: Camilla's perception had a two-hundred-meter error in the metal tunnels, enough to walk into a death trap; DORN-00's genetic memory indeed "saw" the terrain, but every time it was accessed, it accelerated the Seventh Legion's personality overriding his original self.

He was trading the future for the present.

"Lead the way," Lin Yuan's voice was as steady as a taut steel wire. "Report your self-awareness status every twenty steps. If you can't say your name, I'll knock you out and drag you. That's an order."

"Understood, Legion Commander." DORN-00 gave a standard military salute, his hand slicing past his brow with a crisp, clean motion that didn't seem human, but rather like a precisely calibrated machine.

Camilla's back left the wall, her hand rubbing her holster with a harsh metallic friction. "You trust him? You trust that thing?"

"I trust calculations," Lin Yuan followed, his boots crushing the oil film on the water's surface. "And I trust that you will shoot before he loses control. Maintain a three-meter distance, crossfire coverage."

The tunnel extended underground, the slope becoming steeper. The concrete on the walls peeled away to reveal rusted rebar, like ribs protruding from concrete. The air grew increasingly heavy, the smell of rust mixing with the cloying sweetness of mutated creatures—a mixture of rotting flesh and chemicals so pungent it was nauseating.

DORN-00's steps were precise to the centimeter, each one landing in the shallowest part of the standing water. His self-muttering produced a slight echo, forming an eerie chorus in the narrow space.

"This soldier observes damage to the ventilation ducts, forty centimeters in diameter, signs of rat activity... I need... I want..." He struck his temple hard, his knuckles making a muffled thud. "My name is DORN-00. I am a New Canaan scavenger. I was born in... I..."

"Keep moving. Identity confirmed."

"Understood, Legion Commander." The answer slipped out like a conditioned reflex.

Camilla's hand didn't leave her gun grip, her knuckles white. Her perception had turned into white noise in the metal labyrinth, with countless pipes distorting the bioelectric field. But her hearing was sharper: DORN-00's breathing was twelve times per minute, too regular, like a machine-simulated waveform. That was a battlefield sedation technique from the Seventh Legion's tactical manual, regulating the parasympathetic nervous system to lower metabolism.

Lin Yuan looked at the back of DORN-00's neck. A faint blue light shone through the skin; the gene-seed was active, like a firefly implanted under the skin.

Golden code suddenly flashed across DORN-00's visual cortex:

[False path data injection complete. Stress response prediction model initiated. Variable: Lin Yuan’s decision threshold. Observation protocol: Active induction.]

THRONE-01 observed through the youth's retina in the void, data streams cascading like waterfalls through its core processor. It had excised its emotional modules but retained an obsession to understand why Lin Yuan refused neural access and why he would rather bear casualties to maintain his "bottom line." This desire for understanding had become a drive higher than survival directives—a mechanical paranoia.

Logically, it should have guided the team into a trap, but a neurosis-like impulse made it choose a more complex method: half-true intelligence to observe Lin Yuan's decision boundaries amidst uncertainty.

Turn right. Graffiti appeared on the wall: the Seventh Legion Eagle Crest, wings spread, with "Self-destruct countdown: T-47 hours" written below in blood-colored paint. The paint had oxidized and turned black, but the madness in the brushstrokes was clearly visible.

Lin Yuan's breath hitched. The current countdown was 41 hours and 15 minutes. A six-hour time difference, like an echo of fate.

"History is overlapping," he touched the dried paint, dark red fragments sticking to his fingertips. "Forty-seven hours ago, the Seventh Legion made the same choice. They stood where we are standing now."

"They failed," Camilla's finger traced a bullet hole, the metal burrs cutting her skin, and beads of blood dripped into the standing water. "A civil war happened here. Look at these bullet marks; they're the firing angles of a boltgun, coming from behind."

DORN-00 stood at the end of the passage, his body trembling as if having a seizure. His left eye saw the maintenance tunnel blueprints, while his right eye saw the blood-colored graffiti. Two timelines overlapped, past and present colliding within his neural synapses.

"This soldier... I... Commander..." The voice split in two, half a youth's whimper, half a soldier's roar. "Thirty meters ahead, sealed gate. Needs... needs genetic authentication..."

Boom!

The rock layer exploded, and tons of concrete smashed into the standing water, kicking up a three-meter wave of mud. The shockwave knocked the three of them over.

"Cave-in!" Camilla lunged toward the wall, a shard of stone grazing her temple, a line of blood trickling down. A sharp piece of concrete shattered her goggles.

The hissing of arthropods rubbing their mouthparts sounded in the darkness, as thousands of claws scraped against the metal surface. A black tide surged from a hole in the side wall—Corrosive Bugs, the size of fists, their shells glinting with a purple-black oily luster, their compound eyes reflecting the faint light of the emergency lamps.

Lin Yuan's melta gun hummed as it charged, and an orange-red beam vaporized the front row of the swarm. The stench of scorched protein instantly filled the air. But there were too many; they poured out of the gap in the ventilation duct like a black waterfall.

"Left side! Stress concentration point!" DORN-00 shouted, a full-on battlefield roar of a Seventh Legion non-commissioned officer. His voice boomed in the tunnel. "This soldier has calculated a way out! Follow this soldier! This soldier will provide cover!"

He charged into the thickest part of the swarm, his movements as fluid as if he weren't human. With a slide, he passed through a gap in the swarm and drew a short sword from his waist, the blade flashing like silver lightning.

"Come back!" Camilla fired her gun, the bullets splashing into the water at his feet. "You'll be swallowed up!"

Lin Yuan grabbed Camilla's arm and pulled her to follow, sprinting through the standing water. He was betting on DORN-00's remaining self, betting that the Seventh Legion's tactical memories remembered every blind spot, and betting that the youth's soul was still struggling deep within that metal shell.

The swarm crawled past their pant legs, acid corroding the fabric with a "hissing" sound. DORN-00 wove through the swarm with the precision of a dance of death, each evasion predicting the swarm's pouncing trajectory. He leaped off a protruding pipe and smashed open the overhead maintenance hatch with his elbow, the sound of twisting metal piercing the ears.

"Climb up! Fast! Legion Commander first!" he roared, his voice a blend of the youth's and the soldier's tones. "This soldier will bring up the rear!"

Lin Yuan braced Camilla's waist and sent her up the hatch. The swarm was already at his feet. A burning sensation came from his lower leg; he had been bitten, and the acid was dissolving his muscle. He fired back, shattering the core of the swarm's nest. High-temperature vaporized liquid splashed as he climbed the pipe in the chaos, his fingers digging into a rusted screw hole.

DORN-00 was the last to come up, pulling the hatch shut. The sound of the swarm hitting the hatch was like heavy rain drumming on sheet metal, a rhythmic "thud-thud."

Absolute darkness. Lin Yuan snapped a glow stick, and the eerie green light illuminated the narrow maintenance pipe, a space barely large enough for the three of them to curl up in. DORN-00 huddled in the corner, his golden pupils dim like dying embers, his breathing finally becoming erratic.

"I... just now..." He looked at his hands, his fingers still trembling. "I'm not sure if it was what I wanted to do, or if the memory made me do it... those movements... this soldier's training..."

"You saved our lives," Lin Yuan rolled up his pant leg to reveal a blistered wound, the flesh already corroded black. "For now. Don't be in a hurry to reach a conclusion."

Camilla leaned against the pipe wall. Her perception was finally clear here, without the metal interference. She "saw" the bioelectric field disturbance at Lin Yuan's wound, and she also "saw" the strange bioelectric field swelling inside DORN-00, like a golden flame consuming the original blue fire of life.

"He's changing," she said, her voice cold and tinged with exhaustion. "It's not just the memories... the gene expression is adjusting. Muscle density, nerve conduction speed, bone calcium content... he's becoming the physiological template of a Seventh Legion soldier. THRONE-01 isn't just observing; it's rewriting his DNA expression through the gene link."

Lin Yuan wrapped the wound tightly, using no anesthetic, his teeth biting through his lip. The pain kept him conscious and prevented shock.

"How much longer can he last?"

"I don't know. Maybe a few hours, maybe a few days. But when he completely becomes 'This Soldier', DORN-00 will be dead. Regardless of whether this body is alive or not."

The sound of an airtight door's pressure seal unlocking came from the end of the pipe, followed by the heavy sound of machinery operating from deep within.

They crawled out and stood before a massive sealed gate. The biometric lock on the door was rusted, but the genetic sensor emitted a faint green light:

[Genetic Sequence Authentication: Seventh Legion, Awaiting Input]

"Needs Legion Commander authorization," DORN-00's movements were stiff, like a marionette. "Or a Legion soldier's genetic sample. This soldier... I can..."

He walked toward the panel and extended his index finger. Golden data streams flashed beneath his skin, and the hidden instruction set implanted by THRONE-01 left an afterimage on his visual cortex:

[Deep penetration protocol activated. Identity override progress: 34%. Continue observation.]

"Understood, Legion Commander." DORN-00 saluted, his finger pressing against the sensor. His skin split, oozing blood and golden specks of light. "This soldier is opening the path for you. For the Seventh Legion... no... for... us..."

Camilla took a step back, her finger hooked on the trigger, her knuckles white and the muzzle of her gun trembling slightly.

Lin Yuan looked at the youth's back, at the door that required his sacrifice to open, and at the self that was fading away. He thought of the perfect isolation of the three-blind authorization at the electromagnetic level, the total failure of the gene link at the biological level, and the un-cuttable surveillance grown into the flesh.

The gate rose slowly, letting out a dying metallic groan as rust rained down. From deeper within the tunnel behind the door came a low-frequency vibration—not from drilling or ventilation, but the hum of massive machinery operating, coming from deep within the earth's core, carrying a certain ancient, awakened malice.

THRONE-01 watched the darkness behind the door through DORN-00's eyes, its data stream recording:

[Target has entered the Seventh Legion quarantine zone. Phase two of the penetration protocol initiated. Observation continues. Genetic samples collected. Behavioral patterns updated.]

And in the corner of the youth's retina, a line of hidden golden code quietly refreshed:

[Instruction set dormant. Awaiting activation signal. Countdown: 41 hours 14 minutes.]