As sirens close in on his broken body, Li Xing sacrifices a priceless Ark relic for her god—pulling Lu Jin back from the brink and putting a target on both their worlds.
The rain wrapped around Lu Jin like a shroud.
Cold, dirty water soaked through his clothes, plastered his hair to his forehead, and crawled down his spine in clammy sheets. At the mouth of the alley, sirens wailed closer and closer, red and blue strobing across the wet concrete like death's footsteps.
He lay half-submerged in a slick of foul water, consciousness flaking away in thin, curling strips. Every spasm of his lungs felt like swallowing barbed wire. His right arm floated uselessly in the puddle beside him, numb from more than just the cold.
Nerves too damaged to even feel pain.
Only the phone screen still glowed faintly in his hand.
The last thread tying him to the world.
[Wasteland · A-11 Sector · Resource Point No. 7]
Silence.
The kind that rang in the ears after something too loud to process finally stopped.
The vicious mechanical roar from moments ago had vanished. In its place, a deep, unnatural quiet sank into the ruined subway station.
Li Xing stared, stunned, at the mountain of steel kneeling in front of her.
The S-09 "Executioner" had stopped moving. The brain floating in its glass tank no longer writhed. The feral red glare in its optics had dimmed to a dull amber—that was standby mode.
Obedience.
It was shaking.
She could feel it through the floor. Every hydraulic joint in that killing machine quivered as the echoes of that voice faded from the air.
That voice…
The one that had boomed through every speaker, that absolute, mechanical decree that had made an S-class war relic kneel—
That was Listener-sama.
Her eyes burned, vision blurring at the edges.
She didn't know what "authority override" meant. She didn't understand "quantum echo," "command code," or any of the system text.
In her small, battered worldview, there was only one explanation:
Her god had struck down a monster to save her.
Divine punishment.
And divine punishment always came at a price.
She thought of the old storybook pages she'd once scavenged—of heroes who called down miracles and then fell into endless sleep. In that voice, at the very end, beneath the crackle of interference and static, she had heard something else.
The ragged edge of someone barely holding on.
"…Are you hurt?"
Li Xing spoke to the empty air, her voice shaking like a leaf in winter.
No reply.
The dead silence on the other side of the screen crushed what little joy she felt at having survived. Panic rose faster than relief. She dropped the heavy nailgun; it clattered loudly on the cracked tiles.
Then she knelt.
In front of this colossal, cowed war machine, the girl folded to the ground.
She didn't have anything worthy of a god.
Just a life that wasn't worth much—and…
Her gaze fell on the black metal cube by her knee.
The old man had clutched that thing even in his sleep. He'd nearly died to carry it here. This Ark key had pulled every disaster in its wake.
It had to be important.
Her scraped, filthy hands trembled as she picked it up. The box was heavier than it looked; her arms shook as she slowly lifted it over her head, like she was trying to raise her entire world toward the unseen eye watching from above.
"This…"
She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears tracked clean lines through the dirt on her cheeks and dropped onto the cold metal surface.
"…is for you."
She began to hum.
Not a battle hymn.
Not the mourning song she'd used before.
It was a clumsy little tune with no words and barely any notes—the one she used to whisper to herself on the coldest, hungriest nights so she wouldn't freeze in the dark.
Her healing song.
"Please…"
Her voice cracked, but the melody held.
"Please get better…"
[Reality · Lower City Alley]
Lu Jin's world had shrunk to a slit of light.
Just as it was about to go entirely black, the phone screen exploded in a burst of gold.
Lines of text burned across his fading vision.
[System Notice: Legendary-tier offering detected — Ark Resource Point No. 7 Master Key (Physical Entity)!][Warning: Cross-world physical transfer requires ¥1,000,000.00 (insufficient balance).][Adjusting plan: Initiating "Data Extraction" mode. Parsing key's core code… Converting observation target "Li Xing"'s devout faith into usable energy…][Merchant Protocol Triggered: A 30% handling fee will be deducted from this cross-world operation.]
The scrolling data quickly blurred into a smeared river of white.
Lu Jin couldn't read it anymore.
He could only feel.
Heat.
Not gentle warmth—molten fire.
As Li Xing's soft humming threaded through the static, something pure and blindingly bright tore straight through the barrier between their worlds. Golden energy slammed into his palm, ignoring rain, filth, and flesh, and punched into his failing body.
"A—ah—!"
His eyes flew open. A raw, ragged sound ripped out of his throat.
Pain.
Not the dull, dirty ache he was used to.
This was the savage agony of dead wood forced to sprout again, of shattered bones being rammed back into alignment, of half-rotten muscle yanked into sudden growth. Golden motes surged through his veins like a swarm of furious sparks, invisible hands stitching, bracing, forcing his wreck of a body back together.
For a second, bathed in that glow, he saw her.
Li Xing, thin arms wrapped tight around him, stepping right out of the screen and the rain.
No bloodstink.
No sewer stench.
Just a faint, dry warmth—like hay left in the sun.
New notifications cut through the haze.
[Feedback Gained: Sacred Echo · Rebound (Devout Tier)][Effect: All physical and sensory attributes temporarily corrected to baseline D-rank (average adult male). Duration: 10 minutes.][Additional Reward: "Ark Database (Fragmentary)" access unlocked.]
Lu Jin dragged in mouthfuls of cold, wet air, each breath suddenly possible instead of a punishment.
His right arm—previously a splintered mess—was still swollen and angry, but the maddening edge of pain was gone, replaced by a deep, numbing ache.
He could move it.
More unsettling was everything else.
The gray static that had haunted the edges of his vision for months, the flicker and ghosting from oxygen-starved nerves—it was all gone. The world snapped into focus as if someone had upgraded his eyes. He could pick out the patterns in the rust on a pipe halfway down the alley.
His hearing sharpened too.
Rain on manhole covers. Boots splashing through puddles. The low, constant buzz of the city's ancient generators. He could separate them, layer by layer.
This wasn't simple healing.
This was overclocked perception.
He pushed himself upright, water cascading off his clothes, and looked at the phone resting in his palm.
The screen was fractured.
The balance read: ¥21.00.
Lu Jin's lips pulled back, stretching the split skin at the corner of his mouth until fresh blood welled up.
"You little idiot…"
His voice was sandpaper over stone, torn and low—but under it was something new.
A tenderness so intense it bordered on madness.
"A key worth a city… and you just…"
He huffed a laugh.
"…handed it to me?"
Twenty-one yuan.
In this cold, cannibal city, that wouldn't even buy him a decent bowl of noodles.
In that distant wasteland, someone had just offered up the key to an Ark facility—for him.
Sirens howled at the alley mouth.
Spotlights cut the dark like knives, beams sweeping over the three motionless bodies on the ground and sliding inexorably toward the dumpster that had hidden him before.
"There! Blood trail!"
"Move in! Target is extremely dangerous—watch your corners!"
Boots slapped through shallow water, the stomp of trained rhythm driving straight toward him.
The warmth in Lu Jin's eyes cooled in an instant, frost sliding in over the ember.
He rode the surge of borrowed strength, forcing his battered body upright.
He didn't run.
He lunged.
Like a scavenger bird dropping onto fresh carrion, he surged toward the raincoat-clad corpse whose head he'd blown apart minutes before.
Hands moved on instinct.
Two spare magazines.
A combat knife.
A fist-sized encrypted communicator, its LED blinking an urgent red.
All swept into his jacket in one smooth motion.
The first riot cop swung around the corner, rifle raised.
By then, Lu Jin's newly-mended right hand had already pried up the edge of the nearest manhole cover.
The slab of cast iron that should've taken two men and a crowbar came up in his single grip like a loose tile.
For these ten minutes, he wasn't D-rank trash.
He was a believer touched by his god.
Water splashed.
Lu Jin dropped into the darkness of the sewer and pulled the lid back into place with a soft, final click.
Above him, footsteps thundered past. Someone cursed.
"Damn it! Lost visual! Seal every exit!"
Down below, the stench of rot and stagnant gas hit him like a physical blow.
He leaned back against the slimy concrete wall, letting the filthy water soak into his clothes all over again. It didn't matter.
He raised the communicator.
The red light flickered, then went steady as the line connected.
"Cleanup Squad Command Center," a voice said through heavy distortion, cold and clipped. "Report. Confirm elimination of target 'D-rank trash.' We require the body for recovery."
Lu Jin stared into the dark, phone still in his other hand.
On the screen, Li Xing was still kneeling in front of the bowed war machine, offering up an invisible prayer to the sky.
His heart—damaged, scarred, condemned by doctors—thumped once, heavy and sure.
He weighed his options.
Smash the communicator now, and he'd cut the trail clean.
It would also mean they'd never stop hunting.
Keep it, play along, and maybe—maybe—he could follow the line back, straight into the hands pulling the strings.
Risk vs. reward.
He looked at Li Xing's small, stubborn face, lit by the cold light of the wasteland.
No more retreat.
He hit the transmit button.
Blood-slick lips curled into something sharp and feral.
"How unfortunate," Lu Jin said.
His voice echoed down the tunnel, warped by the wet stone into something that sounded like it belonged to the sewer itself.
"He just crawled back out of hell."
He let the silence drag a beat, then added, almost lazily:
"Tell Rat."
"And whoever's holding his leash."
"Wash your necks. Get ready."
Then he closed his fist.
Plastic and circuitry crunched between his fingers.
He tossed the broken pieces into the black current and watched them vanish.