The weight of General Hanzo was not merely a physical burden; it was a metaphysical anchor dragging through the silt of ***Li Wei's*** soul.
As they ascended through the rusted, weeping arteries of the Southern Slums, every rhythmic step the General took sent a jolt of 'Residual Agony' through the silver threads connecting them.
It was a psychic backwash.
Li Wei could feel the cold vacuum where Hanzo's legs used to be, the searing phantom-itch of eyes that no longer existed, and the crushing silence of a tongue that had been silenced by Imperial steel.
"His stability... it's fracturing, Wei," ***Xiao Chen*** whispered.
Her voice was a jagged thread of static in his mind, struggling against the heavy electromagnetic dampening fields of the upper district.
"The Void-Grafts are beginning to 'Erode' his skeletal frame. His original bone marrow is rejecting the shadow-matter. If we do not find **Alchemical Stabilizers** in the next forty minutes, the General will not just die—he will undergo a 'Mass-Rejection'. He will implode, taking your central nervous system with him."
---
Li Wei didn't answer. He couldn't.
His jaw was locked in a rictus of concentration, silver-mercury blood leaking from his pores.
They reached the crest of a ventilation shaft and looked down at their destination: **Depot-7**.
It was a brutalist monolith of reinforced concrete and brass steam-pipes, crouching like a bloated parasite at the edge of the Gutter.
To the starving millions below, this place was a fortress of greed—a vault where the Empire stored the life-saving medicines they had stolen from the provinces.
To Li Wei, it was a 'Medicine Cabinet' guarded by wolves. And the Surgeon was out of patience.
---
The air around the depot was thick with the scent of ozone and 'Sanitization-Qi.'
It was a sterile, chemical smell that stood in sharp, offensive contrast to the rich, organic rot of the slums.
"General," Li Wei rasped, leaning his forehead against the vibrating metal of the grate.
"The **Bio-Hazard Vault**... Sector 4. I need the **'Nerve-Conductive Salts'**. Do not kill unless the path is blocked by bone. We are here to harvest."
The General's response was a silent, suffocating ripple in the shadows.
He didn't move like a man; he 'flowed' like spilled ink.
Hanzo's shadow stretched across the polished floor of the depot, a thin, light-absorbing ribbon that ignored the laws of perspective.
---
Inside the depot, the internal temperature plummeted.
A guard standing near the primary pressure-valves felt a sudden, inexplicable chill.
He reached for his thermal-regulator, his fingers trembling, but he never touched the dial.
From the shadow of a nearby crate, a claw of solidified darkness emerged.
It didn't strike his armor. It struck his **Vagus Nerve**.
The guard's heart skipped a beat, then another, as his autonomic nervous system was forcibly placed into a state of 'Clinical Suspension.'
He collapsed silently, his consciousness locked away in a painless, black void before he could even register a threat.
---
Li Wei dropped from the vent, his boots hitting the floor with a soft, wet *thud*.
His **Anatomical Sovereign** domain expanded, mapping the facility in shades of pulsing red and blue.
He didn't see walls; he saw 'Vulnerabilities.'
He didn't see doors; he saw 'Joints' that could be dismantled.
"Wei, look at the corner of the lab," Xiao Chen's optics zoomed in, highlighting a gleaming, multi-limbed machine.
"A **Med-Tech 4000: Automated Surgical Arm**. It has a 'Neural-Relay' that the Empire uses to repair High-Saint grafts."
"If we can scavenge its 'Cognitive Bridge', I can link your Dead Heart directly to the General's combat-matrix. You won't have to carry the load manually anymore."
---
Li Wei's eyes flared with a clinical, predatory hunger.
"Remote Surgery," he whispered.
The concept was forbidden—the idea of a surgeon being able to 'tune' a warrior's nerves in real-time, from a distance.
He approached the machine, his fingers dancing over the touch-sensitive controls with a speed that defied his exhaustion.
As the unit hummed to life, its four mechanical arms—tipped with laser-scalpels and silver-suture needles—unfolded like the legs of a predatory spider.
[attachment_0](attachment)
---
"Xiao Chen, prepare for 'Hot-Stitching'. I'm going to graft the interface into my own wrist-ports."
"Wei, you are in no condition for self-surgery! Your heart rate is 180! The pain alone will—"
"Do it!" Li Wei snarled, slamming his left wrist onto the machine's sterile tray.
The silver spider-legs didn't hesitate.
The first laser-scalpel cut through his skin with the smell of burnt ozone and silver-blood.
Li Wei didn't scream. He bit into a piece of rusted copper pipe, his eyes rolling back in his head.
He felt the mechanical needles digging into his **Brachial Plexus**, threading the 'Cognitive Bridge' directly into his nerves.
It was a violation of his own anatomy, a forced evolution that blurred the line between man and machine.
---
Suddenly, the depot's alarms didn't blare; they 'Moaned'.
A security override had been triggered.
The overhead vents hissed, releasing a sickly sweet, yellow vapor: **'Neuro-Lytic Gas'**.
It was designed to liquefy the **Prefrontal Cortex** of anyone not wearing an Imperial respirator.
[attachment_1](attachment)
"Intruders detected," a calm, recorded voice echoed.
"Biological termination in T-minus sixty seconds."
Li Wei, his wrist still pinned to the surgical arm, looked at Hanzo.
The General was standing in the center of the lab, his shadow-body flickering like a dying candle as the gas touched his form.
"General... inhale the void," Li Wei commanded through the pain.
"Clear the air... while I finish the stitch."
---
The General opened his mouth—or rather, a void opened where his mouth used to be.
He didn't breathe; he 'consumed'.
The yellow gas was sucked into his shadow-form, turning his violet pinpricks of eyes into a toxic gold.
Hanzo's body began to swell, the 'Load' on Li Wei's mind doubling instantly.
Li Wei felt his teeth crack as he held the neural link, the silver spider-arms finally snapping the interface into place.
*CLICK.*
The connection was established.
Suddenly, the weight of the General didn't feel like a burden anymore; it felt like a 'Extension.'
Li Wei could feel the General's claws as if they were his own fingers.
He could see through the General's obsidian eyes while his own remained shut.
---
"System stabilized," Xiao Chen reported, her voice finally clear of static.
"Neural Bridge at 94%. We have control, Wei. But the 'Elite Guard'... they're at the door."
Li Wei pulled his wrist free, the new metallic interface glowing with a faint, violet light under his skin.
He stood up, the pain replaced by a cold, clinical detachment.
He looked at the heavy blast doors of the vault, which were now being cut open from the outside by Imperial pulse-cutters.
"General," Li Wei said, his voice echoing with a newfound authority.
"The Empire wants to sanitize this room. Let's show them... that you can't sanitize the dark."
The Surgeon was no longer just a doctor. He was a **Hive-Mind**.
And the first 10 names on his list were about to be 'Deleted.'
**Target Count: 2,691 (Remaining).**