The air in Sector 9 was never truly clean. It always carried a metallic aftertaste, the scent of scorched oil, and a static hum that made the skin itch. To Kenzo, this air was a daily reminder that he was nothing more than an insect beneath the feet of a giant named Neo-Heaven Corp. But this morning, after the events in that narrow alley the night before, the air felt different. There was something sharp, something more "alive" within his lungs.
Kenzo sat on a rusted iron stool in the corner of Uncle Feng's workshop. Before him, a flickering CRT monitor displayed unstable green graphs—Meixing's heartbeat and brainwaves.
"She's stable," Uncle Feng's voice broke the silence. The old man wiped his hands, stained with black oil, onto a rag that was just as dark. "But don't get comfortable, Kenzo. That anti-code medicine I brewed from the drone core is only temporary. It's like patching a leaking dam with tape. If the corporate sweep frequency rises to Tier 4, her nervous system won't hold."
Kenzo clenched his fists. Beneath his skin, he could feel a slow-moving warmth—the Qi Long Wei had taught him. "How long?"
"Two weeks. A month at most if you keep her inside Rust Haven with its signal shielding," Feng replied, lighting a cheap e-cigarette that puffed out synthetic strawberry-scented smoke. "You need pure Liquid Qi, Kenzo. Not the sludge sold on the black market—medical grade. And do you know the price? Ten thousand Neo-Credits per bottle. And that's only a one-week dose."
Ten thousand NC. For a Zero who lived by scavenging broken components, that number was as distant as the stars hidden behind the smog.
"Do not let digital numbers shrink your spirit, boy," Long Wei's deep voice echoed in Kenzo's mind, sounding utterly dismissive. "Humans of this era are quite amusing. They build prisons out of fleeting digits, then weep inside them. You have the power of a dragon in your veins, and you still fret over pieces of plastic called Credits?"
Be quiet, Old Dragon, Kenzo shot back internally. You don't know what it's like to watch your sister slowly lose her soul because we don't have enough numbers in our balance.
Kenzo stood up, his tattered jacket feeling heavy. He had to work. Scavenging was the only way to stay undercover while gathering information.
"I'll be back before sundown, Uncle," Kenzo said.
"Watch yourself, Ken. The Sentinels are hungry. That drone incident last night made them like wasps whose nest just got poked," Uncle Feng warned without looking up from his workbench.
Kenzo stepped out of Rust Haven and back into the steel labyrinth of Sector 9 known as "The Junkyard." Here, buildings didn't soar toward the sky; they leaned against one another, pressing together as if they, too, were fighting for breathing room.
His primary objective today was to find "Silicon Gold"—ancient chips from the pre-corporate era buried beneath piles of technological waste. These chips were useless to normal citizens because they weren't compatible with Neo-Heaven's Cloud system, but to black-market collectors or technicians like Feng, they were treasures.
In the distance, he saw mechanical figures moving slowly through the mounds of scrap. They were Scavenger-8 Units, corporate scavenging robots programmed to reclaim valuable metals. They looked like giant spiders with multiple pincer arms, their red eyes constantly scanning every inch of the ground.
Normally, Kenzo would stay far away from them. Scavenger-8s were programmed to be aggressive toward anyone trying to "steal" corporate property. But today, something caught his eye.
On the leg of one unstable Scavenger bot, Kenzo saw a familiar flash of blue light. A Tier 2 Battery-Core. If he could take it, it could fund Meixing's medicine for several days.
"You want that noisy thing?" Long Wei asked.
I need what's inside, Long Wei. Not just the battery. Feng said corporate batteries can be modified into signal filters.
"Foolish. You don't need to steal the battery. You can eat the contents. Look... that robot is not just a machine. It is a web of energy. To your eyes, it looks like steel. To mine? It is merely a pile of Qi imprisoned in poor circuitry."
Kenzo took a deep breath. He began practicing the "Void Breath" while walking slowly toward the machine. Suddenly, his world shifted colors. The gray steel of the robot faded, replaced by pulsing electric-blue lines. He could see the current of electricity driving every joint of the machine.
Grrrr-clack!
The Scavenger bot stopped. Its head sensor rotated 180 degrees, locking onto Kenzo's position.
"Warning. Civilian detected in Disposal Zone A-4. Status: Illegal. Please retreat or defense protocols will be activated."
Kenzo didn't stop. He accelerated his pace.
"Three... Two... One. Activating Purge Protocol."
One of the robot's arms lunged forward like a spear, aimed directly at Kenzo's chest. In the past, Kenzo would have been killed or at least suffered broken ribs. But now, everything felt slow. He could see how the piston in the robot's arm contracted, how the high-pressure oil pushed the iron forward.
With a movement that required almost no effort, Kenzo tilted his body. The robot's arm slid past his shoulder, smashing into the concrete wall behind him.
Kenzo didn't strike back with a normal punch. He pressed his palm against the robot's mechanical neck.
"Void Breath... Absorption Phase," Kenzo whispered.
Instantly, he felt a stinging cold sensation crawling up from his palm. The electrical current that should have electrocuted him felt like a stream of fresh water entering a dry dam. He could "hear" the screams of the robot's digital system as the algorithms within it crumbled.
The red light in the robot's eyes flickered wildly, then slowly dimmed. The two-ton giant suddenly went limp, crashing to the ground and sending a cloud of dust billowing into the air.
Kenzo panted. His face was pale, but his eyes glowed with a terrifying intensity. Inside his gut, the Dantian that had been a mere speck now felt slightly denser. The hunger he had felt since last night eased just a bit.
"I... I just killed a corporate robot without a single explosion," Kenzo murmured in disbelief.
"Of course. You didn't destroy the object; you erased its artificial 'soul'," Long Wei sounded pleased. "That is the essence of the Black Sky Technique. In a world dependent on digital energy, you are the apex predator. You are a virus made of flesh and blood."
Kenzo quickly dismantled the back of the robot with his bare hands—his physical strength was now truly beyond human logic—and retrieved the battery core.
As he was about to leave, he heard the sound of soft clapping from behind a stack of old containers.
"Incredible. Truly an absurd performance for a Zero."
Kenzo spun around, his hands automatically shifting into a defensive stance. From the shadows emerged a girl. Her hair was cut in an asymmetrical bob with neon blue streaks. A transparent headset was hooked over her ear, and her wrists were adorned with glowing digital bracelets.
"Who are you?" Kenzo asked coldly.
"The name's Ling Er," the girl smiled, but her eyes, hidden behind protective goggles, were scanning Kenzo rapidly. "And I just saw someone hack Tier 2 hardware without using a Deck or a bypass-code. You don't have a chip, but you act like a god-tier hacker. Who are you really, K?"
Kenzo didn't lower his guard. In Sector 9, no one gave their name for free unless there was a catch. "Just a scavenger who got lucky."
"Lucky? You just caused the entire sensor network in this sub-sector to glitch for ten seconds the moment you touched that bot," Ling Er stepped forward, showing a holographic tablet that displayed a massive energy spike. "I've been monitoring this area for months looking for signal anomalies. I thought it was an ancient artifact, but it turns out... it was you."
Ling Er stared at the battery in Kenzo's hand. "You need money for your sister's medicine, right? Lin Meixing? Neural signal failure?"
Kenzo froze. "How do you know that?"
"I'm a hacker, genius. In this city, your secrets are only as safe as your data encryption. And your data? It's an easy read for those who know where to look," Ling Er shoved her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants, which were stuffed with cables. "Listen, I don't work for the Corporation. I hate them as much as you do. They took my father because he refused to install the latest Chip Update."
She approached Kenzo until she was only a meter away. Her perfume smelled like a mix of lavender and circuit cleaner.
"I have an offer. I know a place with a stash of medical-grade Liquid Qi. It's a mid-tier distribution warehouse whose security system is currently in transition. I can open the door for you, but I don't have the muscle to fight the mechanical guards."
Kenzo stared into Ling Er's eyes, searching for any sign of betrayal. Long Wei, what do you think?
"This girl has an interesting aura. In her left pocket, she carries a small artifact that vibrates with a frequency similar to your clan's heritage. She is no ordinary hacker," Long Wei replied cryptically.
Kenzo sighed. He didn't have many options. Meixing's time was running out.
"What's in it for you?" Kenzo asked.
Ling Er grinned, revealing slightly pointed canines. "Inside that warehouse, there's an ancient hard drive encrypted with a 'Sky-Lock' protocol. I want you to retrieve it for me. I don't care about the Liquid Qi; you can take all of it."
"Sky-Lock?" Kenzo frowned. The name sounded like something he had once read in his father's worn-out notebook.
"Yeah. It was part of a secret project involving your ancestor, Lin Tian. So? Do we have a deal?"
Kenzo looked at the darkening sky. Above, the Neo-Heaven Tower began to light up, creating pillars of light that seemed to split the black clouds. Up there, the elites lived in eternal luxury, while down here, he had to gamble his life for a single bottle of blue liquid.
"Deal," Kenzo said firmly.
That night, beneath the shadow of a dead scavenger bot, an unlikely alliance was forged. A young man with no future and a girl obsessed with the past. They didn't know that this small step into a distribution warehouse would be the first spark of a great fire that would consume the entire technological empire.
Kenzo looked at his hand again. His faded dream of merely surviving began to erode, replaced by something sharper. Something called resistance.
"Let's move," Ling Er urged. "Before the Sentinels realize one of their dogs stopped barking."
Kenzo followed Ling Er, stepping into the darkness of the Iron City's labyrinth, while within his veins, the dragon began to roar softly, anticipating more energy to devour.