The smell of burning metal in the Slums usually signaled the end of hope, but for Kenzo, it was a routine scent he had to swallow every morning. In the corner of a cramped space that looked more like a concrete coffin than a room, Meixing lay motionless. His sister's face was deathly pale, almost transparent under the flickering glow of a dying incandescent bulb. Cold sweat drenched her forehead, but it wasn't a fever burning her. It was Circuit-Shock.
"Kenzo... it hurts..." Meixing's voice was barely a whisper, yet to Kenzo, it sounded like an explosion in his ears.
Every time Meixing drew a breath, her body convulsed. It was the side effect of the cheap Heart Chip forced into her system years ago by a corporate shadow clinic. The chip was supposed to be a life-support tool, but now it functioned like a parasite, draining Meixing's neural energy to send "health tax" reports to the Neo-Heaven Corp servers.
"Be patient, Mei. I'm going to get the medicine. I promise," Kenzo squeezed her small hand. It was cold. Deathly cold.
Kenzo stood up, his teeth grinding against a rage that was nearing its breaking point. He stepped out toward the dilapidated pharmacy at the end of the Rust Haven corridor. The shop was nothing more than iron bars with a small slot for transactions. Behind it, a man with spinning cyber-eyes was counting stacks of digital Neo-Credits on a tablet.
"One vial of Anti-Jamming Serum. Fast," Kenzo said, placing several Qi-Essence beads on the counter.
The man glanced at the beads with a sneer. His cyber-eyes emitted a red beam as he scanned them. "Qi-Essence Beads? You joking, Zero? This isn't the Stone Age. The price of serum went up today. Data inflation, you know? Ten thousand Neo-Credits. Or no serum for the kid."
"Ten thousand?" Kenzo hissed. "It was only three thousand yesterday!"
"Yesterday, the Sentinel Order hadn't tightened the Liquid Qi blockade. Now, this stuff is worth more than the lives of ten people like you," the man let out a dry laugh, his voice sounding mechanical due to a cheap throat synthesizer. "Beat it. Find some real money, or let your sister become digital waste."
Kenzo punched the iron bars, denting them instantly. A thin black aura seeped from his knuckles—a spontaneous reaction from his Lower Dantian as it began to stabilize. The pharmacist recoiled, his eyes blinking wildly as his threat sensors wailed.
"Remember this face, you bastard. I'll be back," Kenzo threatened before turning away.
"You talk too much, boy," Long Wei's voice echoed in Kenzo's head, sounding utterly bored. "That weakling hiding behind the iron—you could erase his existence with a single intent. Why do you allow yourself to be insulted by an ant?"
I can't draw the Sentinels' attention now, Old Dragon, Kenzo replied internally. If I slaughter him, this whole sector will be locked down. Meixing won't survive a siege.
Kenzo walked through the dark tunnels of Rust Haven, where the "discarded"—those without chips or with expired ones—huddled like rats. The air was heavy with despair. However, at the end of the alley near a pile of scrapped cleaning bots, Ling Er was waiting.
"You look like you just swallowed an exploding battery," Ling Er leaned against a leaking steam pipe, her hands busy fiddling with a device that looked like a mess of tangled wires—her Black-Market Deck.
"The pharmacist raised the price. Ten thousand NC," Kenzo said shortly.
Ling Er stopped her work. She looked at Kenzo with a flicker of sympathy, though it was masked by her usual cool demeanor. "Neo-Heaven Corp is doing a 'balance purge.' They're intentionally jacking up the price of essentials through market algorithms to force people in the lower districts into debt, so they can sell their organs for cyborg components. It's a system designed to kill us slowly."
The hacker girl stood up and tossed a tactical jacket to Kenzo. "That's why our plan tonight isn't just an option anymore. It's a necessity. Distribution Warehouse Delta-6. There's a stock of medical-grade Liquid Qi there that hasn't been price-tagged by the Corp yet. If we succeed, Meixing can survive a full year without fearing a Core-Burst."
Kenzo caught the jacket. "What about the guards? I've seen Sentinel Drone patrols double since last night."
"That's my department," Ling Er gave a thin smile, showing her tablet screen which displayed a 3D hologram map of Warehouse Delta-6. "I've planted a 'Ghost-Mode' virus in the local satellite. We have a three-minute window every time the radar sensor rotates. But there's one problem. The main gate uses a bio-metric lock linked to a Buffer-caste Heart Chip. We don't have one."
Kenzo looked at his own palm. He could feel the vibration of pure Qi flowing in his veins—energy that no machine could read. "I don't need a key. I can sever the energy flow."
Ling Er frowned. "Kenzo, that's a pure electronic lock. Not a screw you can just pry open."
"Just watch," Kenzo replied with total conviction.
Distribution Warehouse Delta-6 stood tall like a giant coffin on the edge of Sector 9. Its walls were made of anti-blast composite metal, surrounded by a constantly humming laser fence. Above it, sensor towers rotated ceaselessly, emitting infrared beams that could detect body heat even through concrete.
Kenzo and Ling Er crawled between stacks of used shipping containers. The scent of oil and ozone was sharp.
"Two minutes until the sensor shifts," Ling Er whispered, pressing a button on her wrist. "Remember, once the laser fence drops, we have thirty seconds to reach the side door. If you fail to open the door in ten seconds, we'll be fried by the auto-defense system."
Kenzo nodded. He began to regulate his breathing. Void Breath: Alignment Phase.
The world through Kenzo's eyes began to shift. The laser beams that were once bright red now appeared as weaves of vibrating energy particles. He could see energy cables running underground, powering the entire building. Everything was a digital connection—a neat but rigid web.
"Now!" Ling Er hissed.
The lasers in front of them flickered and vanished. Kenzo surged forward. His speed was beyond the logic of a chipless human. The Unshackling Realm he had reached through ancient cultivation had broken the biological limits of his body. His feet barely touched the ground as he reached the bio-metric steel door.
"Hurry! The signal will return in ten seconds!" Ling Er panicked behind him, her eyes darting toward the sensor tower.
Kenzo pressed his palm against the scanner panel. He didn't try to hack the code. He tried to "speak" to its energy.
Long Wei, help me drain this interference, Kenzo commanded.
"Just eat it, how hard can it be? This energy feels like a stale snack, but it's enough to tide you over," the ancient dragon scoffed.
Instantly, a thick black aura enveloped Kenzo's hand. A frantic beeping erupted from the door panel. The electrical current inside the panel was forcibly dragged into Kenzo's body, instantly converted by his Dantian into pure energy.
Click.
The five-ton steel door cracked open, losing its locking power because its entire electronic system had just been "consumed" by Kenzo.
"How did you...?" Ling Er stood agape, but she quickly snapped out of it and pulled Kenzo inside just as the lasers behind them screeched back to life.
Inside the warehouse, thousands of neon-blue vials of Liquid Qi were lined up on automated racks. Their glow lit the dark room like fireflies in a glass jar.
"This is it," Ling Er immediately ran toward the central terminal. "Get the Liquid Qi, Kenzo! I'm going for the ancient hard drive."
Kenzo wasted no time. He opened his tactical bag and began stuffing it with medical serum vials. However, as his hand touched a premium vial, a cold voice echoed from the ceiling speakers.
"Anomaly detected at Sector B-1 door. Subject: Non-Registered. Caste: Zero. Status: Elimination."
The room lights turned blood-red. From the dark corners of the warehouse, two Sentinel Hounds emerged. These four-legged mechanical dogs had small plasma cannons mounted on their shoulders. Their eyes glowed a deep crimson, locking onto Kenzo.
"Ling Er, how fast can you get the data?" Kenzo asked, never taking his eyes off the two steel monsters.
"Two minutes! This firewall uses Tier 5 encryption!" Ling Er screamed, her fingers dancing wildly over a holographic keyboard.
"I'll give you three," Kenzo said.
One of the Sentinel Hounds lunged with a speed that could snap a normal human's neck. Kenzo didn't dodge. He moved to meet it. With a single hand movement coated in black Qi, he caught the mechanical dog's metal jaw.
The composite metal, which was supposed to be indestructible, began to crack under the pressure of Kenzo's fingers. He pivoted, slamming the three-hundred-kilogram robot into the floor until it shattered into pieces.
The second robot fired its plasma cannon. A ball of searing energy hurtled toward Kenzo.
"Void Wall!" Kenzo shouted.
The air in front of him vibrated, creating a black vortex that swallowed the plasma ball whole. It wasn't just a parry; it was an absorption. Kenzo felt the flow of energy from the plasma enter his nervous system, giving him an instant surge of power.
"Meixing... I won't let you suffer anymore," Kenzo muttered, his eyes now flashing with a golden-yellow light—a sign that the dragon soul within him was beginning to merge with his consciousness.
He blurred toward the second robot, his fist smashing through its central core, which exploded in a shower of blue electrical sparks.
"Done! I got it!" Ling Er yelled, yanking a small drive from the terminal. "Let's go, Kenzo! The Sector 9 siege protocol is active!"
Kenzo grabbed his bag full of medicine. They sprinted out through a steam exhaust vent, leaving behind a warehouse filled with deafening alarms.
Back at Rust Haven, Kenzo immediately injected the medical Liquid Qi into Meixing's arm. Within seconds, the tremors in his sister's body subsided. Her skin tone slowly returned to normal, and her breathing became steady.
Kenzo slumped to the floor, exhausted. His hands were still shaking from the surge of energy he had absorbed from the robot.
"You did it, Kenzo," Ling Er stood at the door, staring at the ancient drive in her hand. "But you should know... what you did in that warehouse will trigger a storm. Neo-Heaven Corp won't sit idly by while a Zero destroys Sentinel units with his bare hands."
"Let them come," Kenzo said, watching his sister fall into a peaceful sleep. "I'm no longer the Zero they trampled in the mud. I am the heir of the Black Sky, and this is just the beginning."
Outside, the sirens of the Sentinel Order began to wail, cutting through the cold night of the Iron City. Kenzo knew that from tonight on, he was a fugitive. But for the first time in his life, he felt truly alive.
"Good, boy," Long Wei whispered. "Now, let's show them... what it means to awaken a dragon in the middle of a forest of machines."