Time in the Dead Sector was measured not by the cycle of the recyclers, but by the steady, rhythmic depletion of the battery gauge.
Three days had passed since Kai had dragged Rin into the bunker. Three days of darkness, silence, and the slow, grinding process of rewriting his own biology.
Kai sat on top of a server rack, legs dangling over the edge. The air in the bunker was cold, hovering around ten degrees Celsius, but he didn't shiver. The Entropy Sutra kept his internal temperature regulated, burning a slow, steady supply of Qi to maintain homeostasis.
"Packet Sniffer," he whispered.
He didn't need to close his eyes anymore. He just shifted his focus, like squinting to read small text.
The world around him desaturated. The physical walls of the bunker turned into semi-transparent veils of gray mesh.
He could see through them.
Ten meters away, inside a rusted ventilation duct, a cluster of mutated cockroaches was scurrying, their bio-electric signatures glowing like faint, dirty sparks.
Fifty meters down, through the floor, a subterranean power conduit was leaking energy into the groundwater, appearing as a rhythmic pulse of blue light.
And inside the room, near the blast door, Rin was pacing. Her signature was weak, a flickering candle flame compared to the steady furnace of Kai's own core.
[ SKILL ACTIVE: PACKET SNIFFER (LVL 1) ][ RANGE: 50 METERS ][ DRAIN: 2 QI/MINUTE ]
It was a surveillance tool, a radar for the soul. It was crude—he couldn't see faces or hear voices through walls yet—but it was enough to know he wasn't alone.
< YOUR EFFICIENCY IS IMPROVING. > Cipher's voice drifted through his mind, echoing slightly as if in a large hall. < BUT YOUR HARDWARE IS STILL LAGGY. YOU TAKE 0.5 SECONDS TO PROCESS THE VISUAL DATA. IN A HIGH-SPEED ENGAGEMENT, THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DODGE AND A DISSECTION. >
"I'm working on it," Kai murmured, deactivating the skill. Color flooded back into the world.
He hopped down from the server rack, landing silently. The heavy rubber boots he had bought absorbed the impact perfectly.
He checked his reserves.
[ QI RESERVES: 45/120 ][ HUNGER LEVEL: ELEVATED ]
He was running low. The micro-fusion cell he had consumed was long gone, burned up in the process of stabilizing his cultivation base and running the Packet Sniffer drills.
He walked over to Rin. She was sitting on a pile of old server casings he had arranged into a chair. She was tinkering with a small heap of scrap wire, trying to braid it into a bracelet.
"Kai," she said, looking up. Her milky eyes tracked his movement by the sound of his breathing. "You're going out."
It wasn't a question.
"We're out of food," Kai said gently. "And the Neuro-Stabilizers won't last forever. I need to find a new source."
Rin bit her lip. "The bounty. Kray said... 10,000 credits."
"10,000 Karma," Kai corrected. Credits were street money. Karma was the corporate currency, tracked on the Heaven Server. With 10,000 Karma, a citizen could buy a ticket to the Upper Ring. They could buy a new life.
"Everyone will be looking for you," Rin whispered. "The Vipers. The bounty hunters. The drones."
"Let them look," Kai said, checking the charge on his Plasma-Arc Rod. It was at 60%. "They're looking for a rat in the Sump. They aren't looking for a wolf."
He knelt and checked her arm. The inflammation was down, the necrotic veins receding. But the prosthetic was dead weight, the battery drained.
"I'm going to find you a power cell, too," Kai promised. "And real food. Not paste."
"Just come back," Rin said, gripping his hand. Her flesh hand was cold. "Please just come back."
"Always," Kai said.
He stood up, buttoned his heavy coat, and pulled a scavenged hood over his head. He walked to the blast door, removed the scrap metal bar he used as a lock, and stepped out into the dark humidity of the Sump.
Kai didn't head back toward Block 7. That area would be swarming with Vipers and informants looking for a payday.
Instead, he headed "North"—or what passed for North in the disorienting geography of the Dyson ring. He headed toward Sector 88, known to the locals as "The Rust Belt."
It was an industrial graveyard where the heavy machinery of previous centuries had been dumped. It was a dangerous, unstable region, prone to structural collapses and radiation leaks. Scavengers usually avoided it.
Which made it the perfect hunting ground for someone who could see the invisible.
Kai moved through the shadows of crushed mechs and toppled cranes. He kept Packet Sniffer active in short bursts, pulsing it every few minutes to check his surroundings.
[ SCANNING... ][ OBJECT: HYDRAULIC PISTON (Tier 2 Scrap) ][ STATUS: SALVAGEABLE ]
[ OBJECT: COPPER CABLING ][ STATUS: OXIDIZED ]
He ignored the small stuff. He was looking for energy.
The Entropy Sutra had changed his physiology. He didn't just need calories; he needed Qi. And in the Lower Realm, Qi didn't float freely in the air. It was trapped in technology. Batteries, cores, fuel cells.
He was a vampire of the grid.
He climbed a mountain of twisted rebar, reaching a vantage point overlooking a valley of trash. Below him, scavenger droids—feral ones, disconnected from the central network—picked through the debris.
And in the center of the valley, he saw it.
A crashed transport shuttle. It looked ancient, its hull pitted and scarred, half-buried in the mud. But the Entropy Sutra highlighted it in glowing gold.
[ OBJECT: DERELICT SHUTTLE (CLASS-C) ][ POWER SIGNATURE DETECTED: EMERGENCY RESERVES ][ ESTIMATED ENERGY: 2,500 KYL ]
Kai's mouth watered. 2,500 KYL. That was twenty times the energy of the core he had eaten. It was a feast.
He started to descend, plotting a path through the unstable wreckage.
< WAIT. > Cipher stopped him. < LOOK AT THE INTERFERENCE PATTERN. >
Kai froze. He pulsed the Packet Sniffer again, focusing not on the shuttle, but the air around it.
There was a distortion. A faint, rhythmic ripple in the ambient mana field.
It wasn't a drone. Drones had crisp, digital signatures. This was... fuzzy. Organic.
But also artificial.
"Another cultivator?" Kai whispered.
< OR SOMETHING WORSE. >
Kai crouched low, blending into the rust. He watched.
A moment later, a figure emerged from the open hatch of the shuttle.
It was a human, clad in a patchwork suit of matte-black armor plates and dark fabric. They wore a full-face mask with a single, vertical glowing slit for an eye.
The figure moved with uncanny grace, silent and fluid. They were carrying a heavy rucksack.
[ TARGET: UNKNOWN ][ CULTIVATION: LOGIC GATE (ESTIMATED) ][ THREAT: HIGH ]
A Logic Gate cultivator. That was Stage 2. A tier above Kai.
The figure paused, tilting their head as if listening to the wind. Then, they raised a hand.
The air around the shuttle shimmered. The distortion Kai had seen earlier snapped into focus. It was a camouflage field—a localized stealth barrier.
The figure had just deactivated it.
"They're looting it," Kai realized. "They beat me to it."
Disappointment soured his gut, but he didn't move. A Stage 2 cultivator in the Rust Belt was rare. Why were they here?
The figure adjusted their pack and turned to leave.
Suddenly, the ground around the shuttle exploded.
Three shapes burst from the trash piles, surrounding the armored figure. They weren't humans. They were Scrap-Wolves—cybernetic constructs built from canine biology and serrated steel, similar to the beast Kai had killed, but sleeker, faster.
And leading them was a man riding a hover-bike that had been modified with a heavy repeater cannon.
"Gotcha!" the man shouted, his voice amplified. "Hand over the drive, Glitch-Walker!"
Glitch-Walker.
Kai's breath caught. He had heard the stories. The resistance. The terrorists who wanted to crash the Heaven Server.
The armored figure didn't panic. They didn't even flinch.
They simply dropped the rucksack.
The Scrap-Wolves lunged.
The figure moved. It was a blur, faster than Kai could track with his naked eye.
A flash of silver light.
ZING.
The lead wolf stopped in mid-air, then fell apart, bisected cleanly down the middle.
The figure held a weapon—not a gun, not a rod. A sword.
It was a straight, single-edged blade that vibrated at a high frequency. A Vibro-Katana.
[ WEAPON DETECTED: HIGH-FREQUENCY BLADE ][ THREAT: FATAL ]
The man on the hover-bike roared and opened fire. The repeater cannon spun up, spitting a stream of high-caliber slugs.
The Glitch-Walker didn't dodge. They raised their left hand.
A hexagonal barrier of translucent blue light materialized in the air.
PING-PING-PING-PING.
The bullets deflected off the shield, sparking harmlessly.
"A barrier script," Kai murmured, entranced. "They're coding reality in real-time."
The Glitch-Walker flicked their wrist. The shield dissolved and reformed into three jagged spears of blue light.
They gestured forward.
WHOOSH.
The light spears launched. Two missed, exploding against the trash heaps. The third struck the hover-bike's engine.
BOOM.
The bike spiraled out of control, crashing into the mud. The rider was thrown clear, rolling in the muck.
The two remaining wolves hesitated, their simple combat algorithms confused by the overwhelming force.
The Glitch-Walker stepped forward, raising the sword to finish the job.
But then, something happened.
The Glitch-Walker stumbled. The blue light of their sword flickered and died. The glowing slit on their mask dimmed.
They dropped to one knee, clutching their chest.
[ ANALYSIS: QI DEPLETION DETECTED ][ TARGET STATUS: VULNERABLE ]
"They're out of juice," Kai realized. The barrier spell and the light spears must have drained them.
The biker scrambled up, pulling a sawed-off shotgun from his belt. He saw his opponent falter. A cruel grin spread across his face.
"Out of mana, huh?" The biker laughed. "Bad timing, hero."
He racked the slide of the shotgun.
The wolves sensed weakness. They growled, hydraulics hissing, and prepared to pounce.
The Glitch-Walker tried to stand, but collapsed again.
Kai watched from the ridge. This wasn't his fight. He should leave. He should let them kill each other and scavenge the scraps. That was the Sump way.
< WALK AWAY. > Cipher advised. < THE RISK EXCEEDS THE REWARD. >
Kai looked at the biker. He looked at the fallen Glitch-Walker.
"They have a rucksack," Kai thought. "Full of loot."
< ...VALID POINT. >
And there was something else. The Glitch-Walkers fought the System. The System that labeled Kai a Null. The System that wanted Rin dead.
Enemy of my enemy.
Kai stood up. He drew the Plasma-Arc Rod.
"Cipher. Overclock."
< WARNING: THIS WILL BURN CALORIES YOU DON'T HAVE. >
"Do it."
Heat flooded Kai's veins. The world slowed down. The red text sharpened.
He leaped from the ridge.
He hit the ground running, sliding down the trash pile like a surfer on a wave of rust.
The biker heard the noise and spun around, raising the shotgun.
"Who the—"
Kai didn't stop. He channeled his Qi into the rod. The plasma tip ignited with a roar.
He hit the bottom of the slope and launched himself into the air.
The biker fired.
Buckshot sprayed the air.
Kai activated the Static Field—the skill he had unlocked in the Boiler Room. He pushed a pulse of dense air in front of him.
The buckshot hit the resistance field. It slowed, scattering wide. A few pellets grazed Kai's coat, stinging like bee stings, but they didn't penetrate.
Kai landed. He swung the rod in a wide, upward arc.
SLASH.
The plasma blade cut through the shotgun barrel and continued upward, slicing across the biker's chest armor.
Sparks flew. The biker screamed, falling backward, his chest plate glowing red hot.
The two Scrap-Wolves turned, their target priority shifting to the new threat.
[ TARGETS: 2 MECH-CANINES ][ WEAKNESS: NECK SERVOS ]
Kai didn't wait for them to attack. He pivoted, using the momentum of his first strike to spin.
He thrust the rod into the open maw of the first wolf.
ZAP.
The shock-baton discharged directly into the machine's processor. The wolf went rigid and collapsed.
The second wolf lunged for his throat.
Kai couldn't dodge. He was off-balance.
Suddenly, a silver blur flashed past his ear.
THUNK.
A throwing knife embedded itself in the wolf's eye socket. The machine yelped and crashed to the ground, thrashing.
Kai stepped back, breathing hard. He looked toward the Glitch-Walker.
The figure was sitting up, one hand extended, having just thrown the knife.
Silence fell over the valley.
Kai powered down his rod. He stood amidst the wreckage—three dead wolves, one unconscious biker, and a smoking hover-bike.
He turned to the Glitch-Walker.
"You missed," Kai said, nodding at the wolf. "You aimed for the eye. The processor is lower."
The figure tilted their head. The vertical slit on their mask glowed faintly again. A digitized, androgynous voice emerged from the helmet.
"I aimed for the eye because it is a softer entry point. I had no Qi to reinforce the throw."
The Glitch-Walker stood up, shakily. They were tall, lean. They looked at Kai, scanning him.
"You are... unregistered," the voice said, sounding puzzled. "No ID signal. No Sect markings. And your cultivation technique... it is messy. Dirty."
"It works," Kai said defensively.
He eyed the rucksack on the ground.
"I saved your life," Kai said. "I want a cut."
The Glitch-Walker laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound.
"You saved me? I had a contingency plan. You merely... accelerated the resolution."
"Right," Kai said dryly. "The 'falling on your knees' contingency. Very advanced."
The figure stiffened. Then, surprisingly, they reached up and unlatched their helmet.
There was a hiss of depressurization. The helmet came off.
Underneath was a woman. She was striking, with sharp features, pale skin, and short, shock-white hair shaved on the sides. A complex web of blue circuitry was tattooed—or implanted—across her left cheek, glowing softly. Her eyes were a piercing, electric blue.
She looked tired.
"I am Nova," she said. "Of the 7th Cell."
"Kai," he replied. He didn't give a surname. He didn't have one.
"Well, Kai," Nova said, looking at the dead biker. "You want a cut? Fine. The bike is scrap. The wolves are garbage. But the shuttle..."
She gestured to the ancient ship behind them.
"The emergency power cell is still intact. That is what I came for. But I cannot carry it and the drive."
She kicked the rucksack.
"Help me carry this to the extraction point, and you can have the cell."
Kai's heart hammered. The emergency cell. 2,500 KYL. That was enough to push him to the mid-stage of Hardware Forge. Maybe even open the next gate.
"Deal," Kai said.
He walked over and grabbed the rucksack. It was heavy.
[ OBJECT: ENCRYPTED SERVER DRIVE ][ CONTENTS: UNKNOWN ][ ENCRYPTION LEVEL: MILITARY GRADE ]
"What's in here?" Kai asked, hoisting it onto his shoulder.
Nova put her helmet back on. The glowing slit lit up.
"History," she said. "The real history. The one the Sect deleted."
She turned and began to walk, limping slightly.
"Coming, Scavenger?"
Kai looked at the shuttle, then at Nova.
< INTERESTING FRIENDS YOU'RE MAKING, > Cipher murmured. < REBELS. HERETICS. THIS PATH LEADS TO FIRE, KAI. >
"Good," Kai thought, stepping into line behind her. "I'm cold."
He followed her into the shadows of the Rust Belt.