The entrance to Black Site 7-Omega looked like a giant hole where light simply disappeared.
The old subway tunnel ended at a thick blast door covered in faded warning signs. Some were scratched out. Some were burned away. It felt like the doorway to a secret that should never be opened.
The air was freezing and still.
Yin Lie, Chen Gu, and Thorne stood in front of the door. All three of them looked like people about to wake something that should have been left sleeping forever.
Thorne's hands shook around his remote console.
Chen Gu gently placed a hand on them.
"Don't be afraid," he said quietly. "You've studied the past for years. Tonight, we decide its future."
Thorne swallowed hard.
"Change it… or destroy it?"
"We don't know," Chen Gu said. "But we have to try."
Yin Lie said nothing.
Inside him, the wolf, the ice, and the Keystone were completely calm. For once, they weren't fighting him. They were giving him perfect focus. He could sense every cable in the walls, every tiny vibration in the air.
He stepped forward.
Chen Gu slid Su Li's virus key into the control port.
A small click echoed.
Red lights turned green.
Locks opened one after another.
Ninety-seven seconds.
That was all the time they had.
The blast door rose.
The Sarcophagus was a huge, white metallic room. Cold, silent, and spotless—like no one had breathed inside it for decades. Energy lines were carved across the floor in strange patterns. Even without touching them, Yin Lie could feel them humming faintly, like they were alive.
"This place isn't a data vault," Chen Gu whispered. "It's a tomb. A box built to hide a truth the world was never meant to know."
Thorne connected his cables to the central console.
"The virus is working. Cerberus is still asleep."
Yin Lie walked deeper into the room.
At the far end was a massive transparent gate—thick, reinforced, and glowing faintly with frost. Behind the gate, something was curled in a knot of energy. Not a person. Not a machine. But something powerful… and afraid.
He felt her presence before he saw her.
The girl they called Chimera.
The Reality Anchor.
A storm sleeping in a cage.
Chen Gu walked up beside him, voice heavy.
"Twenty years ago… she wasn't like this. She was just a child."
Yin Lie looked at him.
"What was her name?"
Chen Gu hesitated, then finally whispered:
"Qin Mian."
The energy behind the gate trembled—just slightly.
As if she heard.
A chill ran through Yin Lie's chest.
Behind them, Thorne suddenly screamed, "Something's wrong—something's wrong!"
The console turned red.
Warnings flashed everywhere.
Virus interrupted.
System recovering.
Cerberus online.
Chen Gu's face drained of color.
"Kai. She found the site. She's rebooting Cerberus."
The ground shook.
Red lines lit up on the walls.
A deep vibration filled the air—like something huge was waking up.
Thorne's voice broke.
"Cerberus is taking back control—it's coming for us!"
"We move fast," Yin Lie said.
A voice rose through the chamber.
Not human.
Not robotic.
Something in between—deep, echoing, angry.
"Intruders.
You do not belong here.
She must not wake."
Thorne stumbled backward.
"It knows Qin Mian! It knows her! This isn't just a VI—it's aware!"
"Cerberus is her guard," Chen Gu said. "Her last lock."
"Then we decide if it stays locked," Yin Lie said.
The ceiling burst open, and silver combat machines dropped down, landing with heavy metallic thuds. Their glowing visors fixed on Yin Lie.
Thorne yelled, "Yin Lie—look out!"
But Yin Lie was already moving.
The wolf sharpened his senses.
The ice cooled his mind to a perfect calm.
The Keystone showed him every weak point in the machines.
The first machine lunged.
Yin Lie struck it with a frozen palm—its chest cracked and shattered.
The second swung at him.
He slipped under the blow, smashed its power core, and threw it aside.
A third attacked from behind—
Yin Lie blasted a burst of freezing air behind him, locking its joints and sending it crashing to the floor.
"Twenty-nine seconds!" Chen Gu shouted.
More machines dropped.
Metal tendrils suddenly extended from the walls, trying to bind Yin Lie.
He sliced through them with frost-coated hands, sparks flying.
The Sarcophagus wasn't just waking.
It was fighting.
But something else stirred behind the transparent gate.
The sleeping energy twisted—
frightened.
Weak.
Crying.
Yin Lie heard it clearly:
a small, broken sob.
"She's scared," he whispered.
Chen Gu's voice shook.
"She's been alone for twenty years."
"Coordinates—got them!" Thorne shouted. "We have to go!"
Nine seconds.
Yin Lie crushed another machine.
Eight seconds.
A wound opened across his side.
Blood dripped through his shirt.
Seven seconds.
Cerberus screamed:
"She cannot wake.
She will destroy you.
Destroy herself."
Six seconds.
The energy behind the gate pulsed like a terrified heartbeat.
Five seconds.
The entire Sarcophagus shook, metal groaning.
Four seconds.
Thorne held the terminal to his chest.
"We have to leave NOW!"
Three seconds.
Yin Lie grabbed both Thorne and Chen Gu, power already gathering around him.
Two seconds.
The Sarcophagus collapsed inward like it was imploding.
One second.
White light swallowed everything.
They crashed into a lower drainage tunnel.
Dust exploded around them.
Yin Lie hit the ground hard, coughing.
Chen Gu clutched the terminal like it was his last piece of hope.
Thorne sobbed once from shock, then clamped his hands over his mouth.
Above them, Cerberus roared through the broken ceiling:
"She cannot wake!
You do not understand!"
The energy behind the gate flickered faintly, like a tiny, wounded light in the dark.
Yin Lie stared upward, chest tight.
She wasn't a weapon.
She wasn't a monster.
She wasn't a myth.
She was a girl
who had been dreaming alone
for twenty years.
Qin Mian.
Yin Lie stood, wiped blood from his lip.
"We're finding her," he said quietly.
Chen Gu nodded—tired, shaken, but certain.
"Because now…
the locks are breaking."