40: Chapter 40 Compulsory Confiscation and the Fourth Tax

The air in the maintenance tunnel carried a cloying, metallic scent of blood. Lin Yuan dragged the unconscious Chen Duo through pipes where flesh and metal intertwined, moving swiftly. The silver control mark on the back of Chen Duo's neck glowed faintly in sync with the pulsations of the tunnel walls.

The sound of explosions—three short, two long—echoed from the surface, shaking dust from the ceiling. Lin Yuan laid Chen Duo flat on a maintenance platform and reached for the laser pistol at his waist. The energy indicator showed only one shot remaining.

THRONE-00's metallic voice crackled in his earpiece, laced with static: "Signal identification complete. Allied units approaching. Suggest halting movement to receive supplies."

The silver threads on Lin Yuan's right hand tightened, and the glowing patterns behind his ear throbbed with pain. Heavy footsteps and the grinding of metal joints echoed from the end of the tunnel.

"Allies?" Lin Yuan asked in a low voice.

"ARK-07 Defense Sequence confirmed. Reapers squad, under the command of the Anvil King." THRONE-00's voice carried an eerie sense of pleasure. "Suggestion: Hand over the biological specimen in exchange for safe passage authorization."

Three Reaperss stepped out from the shadows, their three-meter-tall exoskeletons covered in heavy reactive armor, their electronic eyes flashing a crimson light. Behind them followed five soldiers in tattered power armor, their muzzles pointed steadily at Lin Yuan. There was no sign of Rat Eye, but Lin Yuan knew the gnome was watching from some corner.

"THRONE-00," Lin Yuan backed away, shielding Chen Duo behind him, "Rescan heat source distribution and metal stress fractures."

"Scan complete. Allies." The system's voice was categorical, even tinged with reproach. "Host Lin Yuan, your questioning is wasting energy. Current reserves: Seven percent. Suggest immediate execution of the transfer protocol."

The Reaperss' electronic eyes locked onto Lin Yuan. The motors of their rotary machine guns began to preheat, emitting a hum like a swarm of bees. It was the preparatory movement of a predator.

Lin Yuan pressed his back against the tunnel wall. Silver liquid seeped from his right palm, sizzling as it dripped onto the floor. He stared at the weld marks on the Reaperss' shells—repair patterns left by laser weapons. Conventional weapons couldn't penetrate reactive armor of that thickness. Even if the last shot from his laser pistol hit a joint, it would disable one at most. The other would tear him and Chen Duo apart in a fraction of a second.

Unless...

Lin Yuan looked at the heating silver mark on Chen Duo's neck. Protocol 07, ARK frequency, could penetrate armor and directly incinerate an electronic brain. But it required the Forced Requisition Mode to completely take over Chen Duo, turning him into a transmitter.

The price was the Fourth Memory Tax.

Lin Yuan's right hand hovered over the back of Chen Duo's neck. Silver threads spread from behind his ear, crawling across his cheek toward the corner of his right eye.

"Lin Yuan," THRONE-00's voice suddenly became urgent, "Illegal biological interface activation detected. Warning: Forced Requisition Mode will lead to irreversible memory—"

The voice cut off abruptly. Insufficient energy to maintain the warning protocol.

The Reaperss opened fire. The rotary machine guns roared in the narrow tunnel, bullets punching through the walls, sending flesh and metal fragments flying. A ricochet grazed Lin Yuan's cheek.

Lin Yuan did not hesitate. He slammed his right hand onto the back of Chen Duo's neck, and the silver threads bored into the control mark.

"Requisition protocol initiated. Target: Chen Duo. Frequency: ARK-07. Maximum power."

The silver threads surged instantly, covering Chen Duo's spine and crawling toward his fingertips. Chen Duo's body convulsed violently, and his eyes snapped open, his pupils a solid, luminous silver with no whites visible.

Something was being extracted from Lin Yuan's mind. It felt as if someone were using a blunt spoon to scoop out soft tissue from his brain. His father's hands—calloused, with oil embedded under the fingernails—were fading. A ten-year-old Lin Yuan stood at a workbench, watching his father pick up a wrench and teach him how to feel the gear clearance: "Not too tight, not too loose. It needs to be just right so the teeth bite without wearing down."

That image was vanishing. His father's face blurred; the weight of the wrench, the tactile sensation of the gears meshing, and the lesson itself were all being stripped away by a cold force. Lin Yuan tried to grasp those memories, but his fingertips only touched nothingness. He knew a vital ability had left him forever—the intuition that allowed him to perceive a fraction of a millimeter's gap with just his fingertips, the instinctive judgment of metal fatigue.

In its place came a stream of data. Protocol 07 within Chen Duo was forcibly activated, surging back into Lin Yuan's nervous system and then amplified through the biological interface into high-frequency interference waves. The corner of Lin Yuan's right eye was completely covered by silver threads, and the right side of his vision turned into snowy static.

The Reaperss' movements froze. Their electronic eyes flickered wildly, the crimson turning into a chaotic jumble of colors. The rotary machine guns stopped abruptly. One Reapers raised its arms, electric sparks bursting from its joints as it crashed to its knees.

The other tried to switch to manual mode, but it was too slow. Chen Duo opened his mouth, and what came out was not a human voice, but a high-frequency metallic shriek. The sound waves echoed, blue smoke rising from the gaps in the Reapers's armor. Its electronic eyes shattered, and dark red coolant gushed from the sockets.

The Anvil King's remnants panicked. They had never seen such a scene. They turned their guns, but Lin Yuan picked up a broken piece of pipe from the floor. Its jagged edge was sharp as a blade as he charged.

As the pipe pierced the first soldier's throat, Lin Yuan felt the silver threads on his right hand devouring the iron elements in the blood. The second soldier pulled the trigger, but the laser beam went wide, hitting the flesh-pipes on the ceiling. Dark red liquid gushed down, drenching Lin Yuan.

Relying on the intuition provided by the silver threads, he drove the pipe into the second soldier's eye socket. The remaining three soldiers turned and fled. They weren't fanatics, just mercenaries; in the face of supernatural phenomena, their survival instinct overrode their orders.

Lin Yuan did not give chase. He collapsed to his knees, his right hand still pressed firmly against the back of Chen Duo's neck. The Forced Requisition Mode was backlashing; Protocol 07 inside Chen Duo was like a chained beast, attempting to devour the controller in return.

"Let him go." Rat Eye stepped out from the shadows. The gnome wore an ill-fitting ghillie suit and held no weapon, but his belt was lined with small devices. He maintained a distance of twenty meters, just outside the range of a laser pistol.

"You look terrible, Lin Yuan." Rat Eye's voice was smooth, his eyes fixed on the writhing silver threads on Chen Duo's neck. "The patterns on your eye have reached your temple. The fourth tax? What did you lose this time? Childhood toys, or the person you first kissed?"

Lin Yuan panted heavily, trying to lift his right hand, but the silver threads were welded to Chen Duo's skin. What had he lost? He tried to remember, but his mind was a blank. He knew something important had been there, but now there was only a hollow sense of pain. He looked at his fingers; the ability to identify thread specifications by touch was gone, replaced by a strange, inhuman precision that lacked any sense of metal temperature.

"What do you want?" Lin Yuan's voice was hoarse.

"Smart." Rat Eye clapped. "I don't want your life, at least not for now. The Anvil King's people were just an appetizer to test your new toy." He pointed at Chen Duo. "I want that fragment in your pocket. The STC data chip wrapped in flesh."

Lin Yuan reached for his chest pocket with his left hand. The fragment he had obtained from the Pure-Blood Guard's corpse was still there, covered in a biological membrane, feeling slimy and warm.

"Give me that," Rat Eye took a step forward and then stopped, "and I'll show you a safe extraction route. Not the red danger zone marked by THRONE-00—that's Protocol 08's esophagus—but a real maintenance tunnel. I've been scouting this place for three months."

"You lured the pursuers here," Lin Yuan gritted his teeth, feeling the silver threads on his right hand retracting, "and now you're selling a map?"

"Information is a commodity," Rat Eye shrugged. "I lured the remnants, not the main force. If I wanted you dead, there would be twelve Reaperss standing here. I'm investing, Lin Yuan. You're worth the price."

Lin Yuan stared into Rat Eye's eyes. There was no fear there, only cold calculation. He was lying, but at least a part of it was true—he really didn't want to kill Lin Yuan here.

"You have a backup plan," Lin Yuan said, "if I refuse."

Rat Eye smiled. "That silver thread network on your right hand should be quite hungry right now. I've pre-planted a nano-tracker between Chen Duo's ribs. If I don't send a safety signal in ten minutes, that thing will release pheromones to attract every bio-battery guard in the farm, including the big fellow at the bottom of the pool."

THRONE-00's voice suddenly exploded in the earpiece, a chaotic stream of data: "...THRONE-01...08...Decoy...Homologous...Error...Protocol...Reconstruction..."

The energy indicator flashed wildly: Three percent... Two percent... One percent.

Lin Yuan felt Chen Duo's body heating up, a searing heat that synchronized with the tunnel's pulsations. The mark on Chen Duo's neck lit up, projecting blurred coordinates directly onto the fleshy walls.

Those were 07-08 pairing coordinates. Something at the bottom of the pool was sending a signal to Chen Duo through the farm's network.

THRONE-00 turned into harsh static and went completely silent. The system interface in the bottom right of his vision froze, finally displaying: "Energy depleted. Entering hibernation. Biological interface basic connection... maintaining..."

Lin Yuan's two-way communication with the system vanished, leaving only a cold, heavy one-way channel. A unilateral dependence.

Rat Eye noticed Lin Yuan's distraction and reached for a button on his waist. "Well? A deal? Or shall we become fertilizer for Protocol 08 together?"

Lin Yuan looked down at his right hand. The silver threads had retreated behind his ear, leaving glowing patterns at the corner of his eye. He tried to recall the gear clearance technique his father had taught him, but his mind was blank. He wasn't even sure if he could still fix a simple engine.

That sense of loss was like a black hole, slowly devouring his sense of self.

But he still remembered tactics; he still remembered how to calculate angles, distances, and the greed and fear of human nature.

Lin Yuan slowly pulled out the stc fragment with his left hand. The moment it was exposed to the air, the silver threads in his right palm suddenly surged, piercing the living tissue on the fragment's surface like tentacles. The fragment vibrated violently, a ghostly blue light shining beneath the biological membrane. Lin Yuan felt a sharp surge of neural pain, as if data were being poured directly into his spinal cord.

The flesh membrane on the fragment split open, revealing the crystal structure beneath. A set of spiral biological key patterns flowed across the surface, shimmering with silver-green light. Garbled code from a failed analysis projected onto Lin Yuan's retina, but the pattern itself was clearly discernible—it was an identifier homologous to Protocol 07, with an ancient serial number engraved below: ARK-PROTO-08.

"Seems your toy is hungry too." Rat Eye narrowed his eyes and took half a step back. "Is that Protocol 08's true name? ARK-PROTO? The same series as 07?"

Lin Yuan didn't answer. He stared at the flowing key on the fragment, realizing that 08 and 07 weren't simply enemies, but experimental subjects from the same batch. The garbled code before THRONE-00 crashed echoed in his mind: THRONE-01 equals 08 decoy.

A massive, wet squelching sound came from deep within the tunnel, closer than any sound before. The pulsations of the flesh walls quickened, like a heart being startled awake.

"The red danger zone," Lin Yuan said suddenly, his voice raspy. "You said it's Protocol 08's esophagus. But where does the route marked by THRONE-00 lead?"

Rat Eye blinked, clearly not expecting Lin Yuan to ask that. "It leads to the maintenance pipes, straight to the bottom of the farm. What are you planning? That place is marked red for a reason, Lin Yuan. No one who goes in ever comes out."

"The surface exits are blockaded," Lin Yuan calculated. "Your 'safe route' requires ten minutes of crossing open ground, enough time for the Reapers remnants to regroup or for Protocol 08's guards to arrive. The red danger zone is dangerous, but it leads directly to the bottom and has pipe structures for cover."

He stood up and stuffed the resonating, glowing stc fragment back into his pocket, the silver threads on his right hand maintaining a faint connection with it. The mark on Chen Duo's neck was still burning hot, like a beacon being activated.

"You're crazy," Rat Eye said. "That's suicide."

"It's calculation." Lin Yuan hoisted Chen Duo onto his shoulder, the silver threads on his right hand automatically wrapping around Chen Duo's waist to form a temporary harness. "Deal. But I'm choosing the route. The red danger zone."

Rat Eye stared at him for a few seconds, his fingers fiddling with the button on his belt. "Suit yourself. Go straight for thirty meters, then take the left bend; there are claw marks from 08 on the wall. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Lin Yuan had already turned. He dragged Chen Duo toward the depths of the tunnel, where the color of the walls shifted from dark red to deep purple, marking the boundary of danger. The silver threads on his right hand emitted a faint fluorescence in the darkness, synchronizing with the pulse of the stc fragment in his pocket.

Behind him, Rat Eye's voice drifted over: "Lin Yuan. If I were you, I'd want to know why THRONE-00 called what's shown on that fragment a 'decoy'."

Lin Yuan didn't look back. He stepped into the tunnel entrance marked with red warning symbols. The flesh walls here became slick, and the temperature rose noticeably. Chen Duo jerked slightly on his shoulder, the mark on his neck resonating with the bio-luminescence on the walls, lighting the deep path toward Protocol 08's maintenance pipes.

And in the depths of that darkness, something sent a simple confirmation signal to the silver threads on Lin Yuan's right hand through Chen Duo's mark.

It wasn't a welcome.

It was just waiting.