The silence that followed Prince Aethelgard's departure was louder than the explosion.
The golden yacht ascended back up the waste shaft, its anti-gravity drive humming a low, mournful note. It didn't retreat in haste; it rose with the casual arrogance of a god who had simply lost interest in a game.
Kai stood amidst the cooling slag of the Vulcan Cannon, his chest heaving. The red lines on his skin were dim, flickering like dying embers.
[ QI RESERVES: 12/500 ][ SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL EXHAUSTION ][ HARDWARE STATUS: OVERHEATED ]
"He's gone," Rin whispered. She was still pinned to the chair by the lingering gravity well, though the pressure was fading. Her face was pale, her new mechanical arm dented from where she had gripped the console.
"For now," Kai rasped. He tried to take a step and stumbled. His legs felt like they were made of lead.
< HE DIDN'T RETREAT BECAUSE HE WAS BEATEN. > Cipher said, his voice grave. < HE RETREATED BECAUSE THE COST OF CONTINUING EXCEEDED THE VALUE OF THE PRIZE. YOU DIDN'T WIN, KAI. YOU JUST BECAME TOO EXPENSIVE TO DELETE. >
"A win is a win," Kai muttered.
He forced himself to walk to the center of the room. The floor was a disaster zone. Molten steel pooled in the craters. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and burnt flesh.
Two Praetorian corpses lay on the ground. One with a shattered helmet, the other crushed against the wall.
Kai looked at them. They weren't just enemies. They were resources.
[ OBJECT: PRAETORIAN ARMOR (DAMAGED) ][ COMPOSITION: CERAMIC / REFINED GOLD / HYDRAULIC MUSCLE ][ ENERGY SIGNATURE: FADING ]
"Gold," Kai thought. The Sect used gold not just for wealth, but for conductivity. It was the best material for channeling high-density Qi.
"Rin," Kai said, his voice gaining strength as the Entropy Sutra began to pull ambient heat from the room to recharge him. "We need to strip them. Before the self-destruct protocols kick in."
"Self-destruct?" Rin scrambled out of the chair, grabbing a toolkit.
< STANDARD SECT PROTOCOL. DEAD UNITS ARE LIABILITIES. THEIR CORES WILL MELT IN... 3 MINUTES. >
Kai moved. He dropped to his knees beside the knight with the shattered helmet. He placed his hands on the golden chest plate.
"Decompile."
He didn't have the Qi to break down the whole suit. He focused on the plating.
The gold shimmered and liquefied, separating from the ceramic underlay. It flowed into a pool on the floor, cooling instantly into a rough ingot.
Rin worked on the electronics, ripping out servo-motors and sensor arrays with surgical precision.
"The power cores are encrypted," Rin warned. "If I pull them, they might detonate."
"Leave them," Kai said. "Take the weapons."
He moved to the energy halberd lying nearby. It was heavy, humming with residual power.
[ WEAPON: SOLAR HALBERD (TIER 3) ][ DAMAGE: PLASMA / THERMAL ][ SECURITY: BIO-LOCKED ]
He couldn't use it. Not yet. But he could scrap it.
He broke the halberd down, harvesting the high-grade focusing crystals and the plasma emitter.
By the time the Praetorian corpses began to smoke and sizzle—their internal failsafes melting their internals into slag—Kai and Rin had stripped the exterior of everything valuable.
They retreated to the platform as the armor suits collapsed into piles of useless gray sludge.
Kai looked at their haul.
[ LOOT ACQUIRED: ][ > REFINED GOLD: 15 KG ][ > FOCUSING CRYSTALS: x2 ][ > TIER 3 SERVOS: x12 ]
"We're rich," Rin said softly. In the Sump, a gram of gold could buy a week of clean water. They had fifteen kilos.
"We're targets," Kai corrected.
He looked up at the tunnel entrance. The sensors he had placed in the shaft were pinging.
Not enemies. Allies.
"Open the door," Kai said. "The cavalry is here. Late, as always."
Nova walked into the Geothermal Tap ten minutes later.
She stopped at the entrance, her electric blue eyes widening as she surveyed the destruction. She looked at the hole in the ceiling, the melted cannon, the pools of gold-stripped slag.
Behind her, a dozen Glitch-Walkers fanned out, securing the perimeter. They were heavily armed, carrying EMP rifles and portable shield generators.
Nova walked up to the central platform. She didn't look at Kai. She looked at the data on the server console—the log of the battle.
"You fought a Prince," she said. It wasn't a question.
"I fought a User," Kai said. He was sitting on a crate, eating a nutrient bar. His Qi was back up to 200/500.
Nova turned to him. "And he left."
"I made it hot for him."
Nova shook her head slowly. "You don't understand. Aethelgard has never failed a purge. He erased Sector 12 last year because of a rumor. You... you stood against gravity manipulation and Tier 3 weaponry with a modified baton and a mining laser."
She tapped the circuitry on her cheek.
"The 7th Cell Council is watching this feed, Kai. They are... reassessing your threat level."
"Is that good or bad?"
"It means you aren't a freelance asset anymore," Nova said. "You're a warlord. Whether you want to be or not."
She gestured to the tunnel.
"The Sect will be back. Aethelgard was testing you. Next time, he won't bring four guards. He'll bring a crusade. Or he'll drop a Kinetic Rod from orbit and bury this entire facility."
"He won't," Kai said confidently.
Nova frowned. "Why?"
"Because he wants the code," Kai tapped his head. "The Entropy Sutra. He called it a 'lost code.' He was excited, Nova. He doesn't want to delete me. He wants to debug me. He wants to know how a Null can cultivate."
< ACCURATE ASSESSMENT. > Cipher agreed. < CURIOSITY IS THE FATAL FLAW OF THE INTELLECTUAL. HE WILL TRY TO CAPTURE YOU. THAT GIVES US TIME. >
"Time to do what?" Nova asked.
Kai stood up. He walked over to the pile of gold ingots.
"Time to attack."
The room went silent. The Glitch-Walkers stopped their patrols to listen.
"Attack?" Nova asked incredulously. "You barely survived a skirmish. You want to start a war?"
"We're already at war," Kai said. "If we stay here, we die. The defensive advantage is gone. They know where we are."
He pulled up a holographic map on the console—the data from the Skylight Protocol. It showed the Lower Ring, the Middle Ring, and the transit hubs connecting them.
"The Sect controls the resources," Kai said, pointing to a large node in the Middle Ring. "They control the Karma. The energy. The food. That's why the Lower Ring is starving. That's why we're weak."
He highlighted a specific structure. It was a massive, fortified tower rising from the boundary between the Lower and Middle Rings.
[ TARGET: NODE 7 - KARMA PROCESSING CENTER ][ FUNCTION: DATA FARM / CURRENCY EXCHANGE ][ SECURITY: EXTREME ]
"This," Kai said. "This is where they process the transaction data for the entire sector. Every credit spent, every ration bought. It all goes through here."
"I know what it is," Nova said. "It's the Bank. It's a fortress."
"It's a server," Kai corrected. "And I have Admin privileges."
He looked at Nova.
"If we take that node, we don't just get money. We get control of the economy. We can erase debts. We can redirect supply drops. We can crash the Sect's hold on the Lower Ring."
Nova stared at the map. She was calculating.
"It's a suicide mission," she said. "The security there... auto-turrets, laser grids, Logic Gate cultivators."
"I have a key," Kai said. He held up the heavy metallic cube—the Mystery Core. "This thing didn't just control the turrets. It has override codes for pre-war infrastructure. The Bank is built on an old hull foundation. I can open the back door."
Nova looked at the cube, then at Kai. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
"You're insane," she said. "But... the Council likes insane."
She tapped her comms.
"This is Nova. Authorization Code 7-Alpha. We're greenlighting Operation: Blackout."
She turned back to Kai.
"We can't mobilize a full assault without tipping them off. It has to be a strike team. Small. Fast."
"Me. You," Kai said.
"And muscle," Nova added. She pointed to her heavy troopers. "And... her."
She pointed at Rin.
Kai stepped in front of Rin immediately. "No. She stays here."
"She's the best mechanic I've seen in the Lower Ring," Nova said. "If you want to crack a bank, you need someone to bypass the physical locks while you handle the digital ones. And she knows your tech better than anyone."
Kai looked at Rin. She was pale, tired, but her eyes were fierce.
"I'm going," Rin said. She held up her new chrome arm. "I built this. I can break their locks."
Kai hesitated. He wanted to wrap her in cotton and hide her in the deepest hole he could find. But Nova was right. And Rin was right.
"Fine," Kai said. "But she stays behind me. Always."
He looked at the gold on the floor.
"We need to gear up," Kai said. "I have the raw materials. I have the fabricator. Give me twelve hours."
Nova raised an eyebrow. "What are you going to build?"
Kai picked up a focusing crystal from the dead Praetorian's halberd.
"I'm going to upgrade," Kai said. "The Arc-Blade is Tier 2. With this... I can push it to Tier 3."
He turned to the console.
[ BLUEPRINT DETECTED: PLASMA CASTER ][ BLUEPRINT DETECTED: KINETIC SHIELD EMITTER ]
"And," Kai added, his eyes glowing red. "I'm going to make sure we don't get shot again."
The next twelve hours were a frenzy of industry.
The Glitch-Walkers set up a perimeter in the tunnels, deploying their own turrets and sensors. The Dead Sector became a forward operating base.
Inside the Tap, Kai and Rin worked.
Kai used the gold to plate the internal circuitry of his coat, creating a mesh of conductive pathways. He scripted a basic defense program into the weave.
[ ITEM CRAFTED: CONDUCTIVE TRENCH COAT (TIER 2) ][ ATTRIBUTE: ENERGY DAMPENING ][ CAPACITY: CAN STORE 50 QI ]
It wasn't power armor, but it would stop a stray laser blast or a glacing kinetic round.
Rin worked on the drones. She salvaged parts from the destroyed turrets to upgrade the Scarab Drones, giving them better sensors and slightly heavier armor.
But the masterpiece was the weapon.
Kai took the focusing crystals and the gold. He decompiled the Arc-Blade and rebuilt it from the molecular level up.
He lengthened the handle. He added a secondary emitter. He integrated the Praetorian's power core fragments.
When he was done, it wasn't just a baton. It was a short sword, the blade made of solid, contained plasma that hummed with a terrifying instability.
[ WEAPON: VOID-EDGE (TIER 3) ][ DAMAGE: EXTREME HEAT / MOLECULAR SEVERANCE ][ SPECIAL: CAN PARRY ENERGY ATTACKS ]
Kai swung it. The air sizzled. It left a trail of blue afterimages in his vision.
"Ready?" Nova asked from the doorway. She had repaired her armor and reloaded her weapons.
Kai sheathed the Void-Edge. He checked his Qi. [ 500/500 ].
"Ready," Kai said.
He looked at the map of the Middle Ring.
The Bank was waiting. And the Glitch was coming to make a withdrawal.