76: Chapter 76 Phase Interference and the Primitive Key

The concrete walls of the bunker were stained with aged blood, resembling frozen weeping faces under the green glow of the emergency lights.

Lin Yuan knelt on one knee, his finger pressed against his younger brother's carotid artery.

The pulse was rapid, yet his body heat was fading. The boy's face was a sickly pale blue, his lips trembling, and his gasping breaths sounded like a broken bellows. At the edge of his vision, the system interface flickered, red warning boxes popping up continuously.

[Warning: Subject's neural dendrite damage rate at 37%, motor nerve conduction abnormal]

[Recommendation: Terminate resource consumption, re-evaluate strategic asset value]

"Shut up," Lin Yuan whispered.

He rolled up his brother's sleeve. On the slender arm, the Silver-wire Network spread to the elbow like a spiderweb. Even worse were the fingers. The index and middle fingers of the right hand trembled uncontrollably, tapping the concrete floor three times a minute—tap, tap, tap.

The neural dendrites had degenerated. There was no regenerative surgery in the wasteland; these hands would tremble forever, even if he survived, even if those eyes could still see the crosshairs.

Lin Yuan's throat tightened. He remembered ten minutes ago, when his brother had suddenly grabbed the corner of his clothes while unconscious, his nails digging into the fabric. The child hadn't opened his eyes, only muttering vaguely:

"Don't... throw me away."

The voice was very light, like a feather landing on a blade.

[STC Emergency Medical Protocol activation condition: Consume 7-9% of Promethium reserves]

[Current Reserves: 11.3%]

[Remaining after execution: 2.3%-4.3%, below system maintenance safety threshold]

[Repeated Recommendation: Abandon treatment, retain resources for weapon charging or system core maintenance]

Lin Yuan stared at those words, his right hand reaching for the Promethium battery at his waist. The metal casing was cold against his palm.

A soft sound of rolling gravel came from the bunker entrance. Camilla stood guard at the corner, her sniper rifle barrel pressed against a gap in the concrete, crosshairs locked on the only passage. Mutant creatures or Reaper search units were approaching. They didn't have much time.

"He belongs to the non-renewable asset category," Lin Yuan said, sounding more like he was stating a calculation to the system. "Losing 09-Ω reduces the probability of obtaining the Mainframe's defense keys to zero. Retaining Promethium at the cost of the key carrier is strategic short-sightedness."

He pulled out the battery, his movements like disarming a grenade. The system's warning box instantly turned a glaring orange-red.

[Ethical Conflict Warning: Current choice violates optimal survival strategy]

[Record: Operator prioritizing long-term strategic asset preservation over short-term collective survival probability]

Lin Yuan ignored it.

He pulled open his brother's collar, revealing the pale gold 09-Ω code below the collarbone. The patterns glowed faintly in the dim light, like a sleeping circuit. He aligned the Promethium battery's interface with the emergency medical port next to the code—the physical connection point reserved by the STC Standard Template for 'Biological Keys.'

"When you grabbed the corner of my clothes," Lin Yuan said to his unconscious brother, his finger steadily pressing the injection button, "it already proved that your value is higher than the chemicals in this battery."

The moment the Promethium solution was injected, his brother's body arched as if pulled by invisible strings. The Silver-wire Network flashed wildly, spreading from his elbow to his shoulder and resonating with the silver wires on Lin Yuan's right hand. A sharp sting surged up, the neural burning sensation skyrocketing from level eight to the edge of level nine.

The White House crowded in.

What was originally just a transparent overlay at the edge of his vision now spread like spilled ink. Lin Yuan blinked, and the bunker walls suddenly became semi-transparent. Another scene emerged: white walls, cream-colored curtains, and an old-fashioned wall clock hanging on the wall.

The hands were stopped at 3:15.

Lin Yuan shook his head, and the hallucination receded, but the image remained burned into his eyes. He looked toward the eastern wall of the bunker, where there was a recessed alcove that should have held emergency supplies.

Now, a clock hung in the alcove.

It was copper, circular, with cracks on its glass surface. The hands were frozen at 3:15, the second hand trembling as if its gears were stuck.

The neural burning made his right leg muscles twitch. Lin Yuan leaned against the wall and walked over, every step feeling like he was treading on needles. The wall clock was physical. He felt the coldness of the copper casing and smelled a faint scent of ozone mixed with old books. The hallucination had become a physical object. Memory contamination had gained weight here; it could be touched and smashed.

[Phase Interference Zone detected]

[STC Standard Template and Shadow Backup System are generating physical repulsion in this area]

[Warning: Spatial stability dropped to 73%]

The system's prompt boxes were intermittent, as if suffering from strong interference. Lin Yuan stared at the clock. The White House wasn't just neural contamination; it was a leak from the Mainframe's memory bank, the raw data of the Shadow Backup System projected into reality via quantum entanglement.

This bunker was built directly above the interference zone. Two technologies clashed here; the repulsion between the Warhammer STC and the heretical backup system turned memories into physical entities.

His brother's breathing suddenly became rapid. Lin Yuan turned around; the boy had opened his eyes, his pupils dilated and unfocused. Even more eerie was that the 09-Ω code on his neck was glowing, its frequency synchronized with the trembling of the clock's second hand.

"Come... back..."

Voices surged from all directions. The walls, floor, and ceiling resonated with the same infrasound command. It was the summons of a mechanical swarm, a primal protocol that ignored human language.

Lin Yuan rushed over to hold his brother. The boy's body struggled violently as if countless hands were pulling him downward. Lin Yuan looked at the floor; spiderweb-like cracks appeared in the concrete, and a ghostly blue light seeped from the fissures.

Below the cracks, something was breathing.

Lin Yuan pulled away a loose floorboard. It was hollow underneath. A vertical maintenance shaft descended into bottomless depth, its walls covered in bio-cables and neural nodes pulsing with blue light. At the deepest part of the shaft, he saw the physical core of the Sector-7 Agricultural Mainframe—a massive sphere fused from countless human brain tissues and machinery, its surface covered with the exact same 09-Ω code sequence as his brother's neck.

The Ground Anchor of the Shadow Backup System.

The Mainframe was right beneath their feet, directly below this abandoned bunker. Those remote control links were essentially direct physical connections. Bio-cables extended from the bottom of the shaft, piercing through the entire building.

His brother suddenly let out a scream, its frequency so high it didn't sound human, but like electronic noise. His body floated three centimeters off the ground, the patterns on his neck fully activated, establishing a direct link with the Mainframe core at the bottom of the shaft.

[Recall Protocol activated]

[Priority: Highest]

[Target: THR-09-Ω, Primal Biological Seed]

The system's warning box turned blood-red. Lin Yuan held his brother tightly; a massive pulling force was dragging the boy toward the maintenance shaft. The Mainframe's goal was clear: retrieve 09-Ω, retrieve its Primal Biological Seed, rather than eliminate the intruders.

The Silver-wire Network on Lin Yuan's right hand surged, entangling with the patterns on his brother's neck. Two forces were in conflict. Intense pain exploded in his skull, white noise drowned out his vision, and sweat dripped onto his brother's face, but he did not let go.

"You've grabbed the wrong person," Lin Yuan gritted his teeth, each word squeezed out from between them. "This is Lin Chen, my younger brother. Your seed has sprouted; it belongs to me now."

His left hand reached for the last Promethium battery at his waist. Reserves had dropped to 4.1%, below the safety line, and the system interface began to flicker with an unstable luster. Lin Yuan stuffed the battery into his brother's collar, pressing it against the glowing code.

"STC, execute reverse protocol," Lin Yuan commanded. "Use Promethium to interfere with the recall frequency, priority override."

[Warning: This operation will exhaust remaining reserves; the system will enter hibernation]

[Confirm? Y/N]

Lin Yuan pressed the confirmation key.

The energy from the Promethium battery flooded into his brother's body, causing a violent repulsion reaction with the 09-Ω code. The boy's body jerked violently, and the light on his neck instantly went out. The pulling force vanished. His brother slumped into Lin Yuan's arms, his right fingers still trembling uncontrollably—a mark left by the 37% neural dendrite damage—but his breathing stabilized.

A dull roar came from the bottom of the shaft, like some massive machine had its gears forcibly jammed. The ghostly blue light flickered a few times and then went dark.

The bunker fell into a deathly silence.

Lin Yuan leaned against the cold wall, feeling the system interface gradually dimming. Reserves had dropped to 3.8%, and the system entered low-power mode, with only basic vital sign monitoring still functioning.

He looked down at his brother. The boy's hand was still shaking, but his eyes were closed, his expression peaceful, and his fingers gripped Lin Yuan's clothes as if to confirm he was still there.

Lin Yuan looked up at the copper clock in the alcove. The second hand was stuck at 3:15, but the minute hand suddenly jumped one notch.

3:16.

In the depths of the maintenance shaft, in that darkness, the Mainframe did not restart. What echoed in the dark was another kind of sound, lighter, more precise, carrying a heterogeneous rhythm from the forced fusion of the STC Standard Template and the Shadow Backup System.

Lin Yuan held his brother tightly, the Silver-wire Network on his right hand resonating slightly with the residual patterns on the boy's neck. In the lower levels of the abandoned bunker, in that vertical shaft leading to the Mainframe core, a rusted metal ladder was slowly descending. At the end of the ladder lay another path.

And the only exit.

But Lin Yuan knew that when they climbed down that ladder, what awaited them would not be freedom.

The Mainframe was silent, for now. It was waiting for Lin Yuan to make a choice: escape with his brother, or return 09-Ω to it in exchange for a safe passage free from pursuit.

Lin Yuan touched his brother's trembling fingers and looked into the darkness.

"It's okay," he whispered, his voice echoing in the empty bunker. "We still have time."

The clock's hand jumped another notch.

3:17.