Chapter 7
The Walker's first step crushed the earth.
Roots snapped, stones shattered, and a wave of pressure slammed outward like an invisible wall. Shenping was forced back three steps before he stabilized himself, feet digging deep into the soil.
This was different.
The Enforcers had been precise. Calculated. This thing was raw destruction bound together by technology and suffering.
The human faces embedded in its torso began to move.
They screamed.
Sound layered over sound, dozens of voices overlapping into a single shriek that pierced the mind rather than the ears. Shenping felt blood leak from his nose as his thoughts staggered.
Sang Sang dropped to her knees.
"Don't listen," Shenping shouted, though he wasn't sure she could hear him.
The Walker raised one of its limbs. Symbols flickered across the metal surface, ancient-looking yet unmistakably artificial. The limb slammed down.
Shenping vanished.
The impact erased the place where he had been standing, leaving behind a crater rimmed with molten soil. Shenping reappeared behind the Walker, arms trembling as he forced the distorted space to obey him again.
He struck.
His palm slammed into the Walker's back, releasing another compressed shockwave. The force tore flesh from metal, sending fragments of bone and circuitry spiraling through the air.
The Walker did not fall.
Instead, it turned.
Too fast.
One massive limb swept across the clearing. Shenping raised his arms just in time. The impact sent him flying, his body smashing through three trees before crashing to the ground.
Something cracked in his ribs.
He coughed and tasted blood.
The Walker advanced, each step shaking the forest as the faces on its body twisted into new expressions of agony.
"Target resilience exceeds prediction," it said. "Assimilation authorized."
Panels opened along its torso.
Inside were human forms suspended in light—villagers, cultivators, children. Their eyes were open. A thin glow connected them to the Walker's core.
Shenping's vision darkened.
It was feeding on them.
Rage burned through the pain, hot and uncontrollable. The space around him distorted violently as his cultivation surged beyond what his body could safely hold.
He stood.
The forest bent inward.
Sang Sang screamed his name as silver light burst fully from her eyes, threading into the air like living lines. The Walker paused, its core flickering erratically.
"Bloodline resonance detected," it intoned.
Shenping moved with a roar.
He ran straight up the Walker's body, feet striking metal and flesh alike as if climbing a wall. The faces screamed louder as he passed them.
At the core, he drove both hands forward.
The world went white.
Space collapsed inward, crushing light, metal, and flesh together in a violent implosion. The Walker convulsed, limbs tearing themselves apart as its core shattered.
The explosion threw Shenping clear.
He hit the ground hard and did not move.
When the light faded, the Walker was gone—nothing left but scorched earth and scattered fragments.
Silence returned.
Sang Sang crawled to Shenping's side, shaking as she pressed her hands against his chest.
He breathed.
Barely.
Above them, the sky rippled once—like a wound trying to close.
Far away, beyond time, something observed.
And recalculated.