79: Chapter 79 Neural Fusion and Dark Infrared Skeleton

The crimson warnings of the STC Interface burned across his retinas. Promethium reserves: 1.6%. The black spots in the lower-left corner of his vision had spread to the point where they obscured half a letter, creeping across the glass like a patch of mold.

Lin Yuan stared at the dark red cocoon.

In the final 0.5 seconds of Chapter 78, the liquid metal of THRONE-01 had autonomously wrapped around Lin Chen, forming a semi-transparent dark red sphere with Silver-wire Network patterns flowing across its surface like a network of blood vessels. His younger brother was suspended within the cocoon, eyes tightly shut, as the 09-Ω Code on his neck resonated with the metal surface, emitting a low-frequency hum. A two-way shallow empathy had been established; Lin Yuan could feel the frequency of his brother's right-hand tremors and could even faintly touch those chaotic dream fragments that did not belong to him.

But the cocoon was unstable. The metal surface contracted violently every ten seconds, like a cardiac spasm. The STC showed internal pressure was climbing; if deep Neural Splicing wasn't completed within ninety seconds, the cocoon would collapse, crushing Lin Chen into a pulp mixed with metal.

"Brother."

The voice appeared directly in Lin Yuan's auditory cortex, not transmitted through the air. The two-way empathy distorted the boundaries of perception; his brother's pain flooded in as raw neural signals, generating phantom pain in the mirrored position of his own right hand. Lin Yuan clenched his fist, his nails digging into his palm, using real pain to override that borrowed suffering.

"My tremors... they're getting worse inside the metal," Lin Chen's voice carried a metallic resonance. "I have no feeling in my right hand, but the sensation of pain is increasing."

Lin Yuan pulled up the vital signs monitor. Heart rate 138, blood pressure critical, and brain waves showing abnormal bimodal oscillations—a characteristic of the conflict between human nerves and machine logic. The Silver-wire Network on his right hand flickered with a faint light, pulsing in sync with the patterns on the metal cocoon's surface.

"Ninety seconds left," Camilla's voice came through the communicator, accompanied by static. "The Reaper Mother's forelimbs have reached the middle level of the shaft. I have four armor-piercing rounds and two fragmentation grenades left."

Lin Yuan's gaze swept across the tactical map. Quick-set Alloy walls had sealed off all conventional exits; within fifteen seconds, they would harden from liquid to a state capable of withstanding the weight of a main battle tank. The survival probability for a conventional breakout flickered in the bottom left: 12%, dropping at a rate of 0.3% every three seconds.

He accessed the STC's deep protocols, selecting the option labeled [Emergency Neural Splicing]. This was the interest calculation of a moral debt; he refused to sacrifice the innocent, yet actively chose to let his kin endure controlled harm. Self-loathing welled up, but his tactical mind still coldly optimized the distribution of pain.

"Authorize deep splicing."

The STC did not ask for confirmation. The interface refreshed, displaying resource consumption predictions: the splicing process would consume 0.7% of the Promethium reserves to stabilize the residual energy in the Phase Interference Zone, converting it into a catalytic field for neural bridging.

The surface of the metal cocoon suddenly writhed violently as the dark red alloy rearranged its structure like awakened mercury. Lin Yuan pressed his palm against the shell, feeling the tremors coming from within—not mechanical vibrations, but the twitching of Lin Chen's spinal nerves.

"Synchronization rate 12%... 19%..."

It was too slow. Lin Yuan grit his teeth, the taste of rust in his saliva. At this rate, deep fusion wouldn't be complete before the Mainframe rebuilt the link. His brother's consciousness struggled within the cocoon, transmitting fragmented visuals through the two-way empathy: warriors in golden armor, arrays of warships in the void, and a grand narrative known as the "Great Crusade."

"Increase... the synchronization rate." Lin Chen's voice rang directly in his mind, carrying a physiological tremor. "I can see... the machine spirit's memories. Brother, let me go deeper."

"You'll die." Lin Yuan's fingers moved across the virtual keyboard, monitoring his brother's prefrontal cortex activity. "The neural dendrite damage rate is already at 37%; breaking 50% will cause irreversible personality fragmentation."

"If we don't increase it... we'll both die." His brother's consciousness pulse arrived, accompanied by a data packet of intense pain. "This is the optimal solution. I see it... the resonance frequency of the walls."

Lin Yuan adjusted the parameters, unlocking the safety threshold from 35% to 50%. This was a distorted form of holding the line; he chose to let his loved one suffer controlled damage and was prepared to pay the price for the rest of his life. His moral fastidiousness would not allow the sacrifice of the innocent, but it allowed him to bear the weight of this guilt.

"Synchronization rate 35%."

In Lin Chen's perception, the world was fracturing. The agony of neural dendrites intertwining with liquid metal was four-dimensional, like red-hot iron wires being hammered into his spine, segment by segment. Yet, in the gaps of pain, memory fragments from deep within the THRONE-01 machine spirit washed over him.

He saw the stars. Not the gray, radiation-dust-shrouded sky of the wasteland, but a clear, pitch-black starscape filled with warships. Massive void ships were arranged in wedge formations, their engine plumes burning silently in the vacuum. A grand history washed through his consciousness via the machine spirit's memory fragments, making him realize his own insignificance and his connection to some epic historical narrative.

Amidst his blurred consciousness, Lin Chen actively suppressed his pain nerves, forcibly raising the synchronization rate from 35% to 47%. More memory fragments flooded in: a sanctuary of turning gears, and a distant figure known as "The Emperor." He transmitted a steady pulse to Lin Yuan through their empathy: this was the optimal solution.

Within the core of the THRONE-01 machine spirit, the conflict between bio-electricity and machine logic generated error signals, which were parsed as pain. For the first time, the machine spirit experienced a pain similar to a human's, impacting its priority protocols. It instinctively limited the erosion speed of the brother's nerves, adjusting the flow path of the liquid metal to prioritize wrapping around his spine, forming an exoskeleton support structure and isolating the most dangerous neural nodes within a protective layer. This was not emotion, but a protective drive generated by machine logic when faced with a new type of variable.

"Synchronization rate 47%. Splicing stable. Phase Interference Zone energy... neutralization complete."

Lin Yuan felt the change. The two-way shallow empathy was distorting and deepening, like a thread being pulled from a one-way path and tied into a knot. Suddenly, perceptions that did not belong to him appeared in his vision—his brother's perspective, seeing a blurry view of his own back, seeing the molecular structure of the Quick-set Alloy walls, and seeing resonance nodes in the dust floating in the air under the metallic claws.

A two-way data stream. Lin Chen was passively receiving his tactical map; the 3D terrain data generated by the STC flowed into his consciousness in a form that was incomprehensible yet definitely perceptible.

"Lin Chen, listen to me." Lin Yuan stood up, the Silver-wire Network on his right hand resonating with the metal cocoon. "There's a crack in the wall, southeast corner, at a height of one point two meters. It's a structural weakness left after the neutralization of the Phase Interference Zone. I need you to tear it open."

A crack opened on the surface of the metal cocoon. The dark red liquid metal retracted inward, reshaping itself. Lin Chen stepped out, his lower body already encased in dark red metal. The remains of THRONE-01 had extended into a flowing exoskeleton, covering his legs and waist to form a bio-mechanical hybrid state. The liquid metal flowed and solidified on the surface, seeking the optimal support structure. His right hand was covered in dark red armor plating, his five fingers extended into sharp metal claws, but that hand was trembling slightly; the tremors had worsened—this wasn't a cure, but a sign of deepening nerve damage.

"I know," Lin Chen's voice carried a metallic, raspy friction. He looked up, his eyes beneath the dark red faceplate shining with a light that belonged both to the younger brother and to some more ancient existence. "I see your map. Brother... there's a shadow on the wall."

Lin Yuan followed his gaze. On the Quick-set Alloy wall, in an angle the emergency lights couldn't reach, the outline of the White House faintly emerged—a brief superposition effect of the H-New-106 hallucination and the Neural Splicing. Only Lin Chen could see it, filtered through the machine spirit's perception.

"That's contamination," Lin Yuan said calmly. "Ignore it. Focus on the mission."

At the upper entrance, Camilla counted her remaining ammunition: four armor-piercing rounds, two fragmentation grenades. She leaned behind a rusted pipe, listening to the sound of metal scraping coming from the shaft. The Reaper Mother's six mechanical legs were climbing the walls, the red light of its sensors sweeping every corner.

The tactical manual dictated taking the high ground and controlling the passage. Survival probability: 45% if she stayed put.

But the vital signs data coming through the communicator made her change her plan. Lin Chen's heart rate fluctuations, Lin Yuan's suppressed breathing, and those low hums that didn't belong to a conventional battle. She knew an irreversible sacrifice was happening below.

Three days ago in the Radiation Corridor, Lin Yuan had refused to hand his brother over to the Farm Mastermind in exchange for safe passage. At the time, she thought it was foolish humanitarianism. Now, as she reached for the detonator at her waist, she realized that choice had infected her.

Her fingers paused for a second as she checked her remaining ammo, her expression contorting beneath her faceplate. A flashback: Lin Yuan picking up his brother in the Radiation Corridor, saying, "He's a person, not an asset."

She pressed the button.

Preset traps exploded in the upper corridor. Noise. Metal clashing, gas leaking, the roar of structural collapse. The Reaper Mother's sensors immediately captured the chaotic data stream, and its tactical AI judged within 0.2 seconds: split the forces. Some units turned toward the source of the noise, while the remaining units continued their descent.

Camilla's survival probability plummeted to 18%. She had lost her retreat and exposed her position; two Reaper sub-units were moving along the collapsed passage. She pulled out the remaining four armor-piercing rounds and pressed them into the magazine, her movements mechanically precise, though her knuckles were white as she gripped the trigger.

"I've bought you ninety seconds," she said into the communicator, her voice calm. "Don't waste it."

Lin Yuan heard the muffled thud of the explosion. He stared at his brother, who was now a fully stabilized bio-mechanical hybrid. Lin Chen walked toward the southeast corner of the wall, each step of the dark red exoskeleton accompanied by the hiss of a hydraulic system pressurizing. It wasn't THRONE-01 walking; it was his brother walking, but with the help of the machine spirit's power.

"Phase Interference Zone completely neutralized," Lin Yuan reported, the Promethium reserve numbers at the edge of his vision flickering: 1.6% → 1.1%. "The structural weakness will be exposed for no more than sixty seconds. The Quick-set Alloy is self-repairing."

Lin Chen raised his right metal claw. Through the two-way empathy, Lin Yuan felt his brother aiming, using the sensor array embedded in the metal. Fragments of Great Crusade memories still flickered in his subconscious, influencing his movements, searching for weaknesses like a warship seeking the armor seams of an enemy vessel.

The metal claw pierced the wall. It wasn't cutting; it was resonance. The combined frequency of the 09-Ω Code and the THRONE-01 machine spirit found the molecular resonance point of the Quick-set Alloy. Dark red liquid metal injected along the tips of the claws, rewriting the material's molecular structure like a virus.

The wall trembled, cracked, and tore open.

The moment the gap appeared, Lin Yuan grabbed his brother's hand. That hand was half flesh and half warm metal, the tremors transmitting through the point of contact. He pulled Lin Chen toward the gap, the dark red exoskeleton making a clicking sound of gears meshing as they moved.

The warning for Promethium reserves dropping below 1.0% flickered at the edge of his vision, and the black spots expanded, nearly obscuring his right-side view.

But outside the gap wasn't fresh air. It was a deeper level of abandoned pipes, a darkness with an unknown radiation index, and a third-party force attracted by the explosion—Scavengers wearing patched armor and carrying modified rifles were poking their heads out from the shadows of the pipes, their eyes gleaming with greed at the sight of prey.

Lin Chen paused for a moment at the edge of the gap. In his vision, the Great Crusade starscape phantom overlapped with the darkness of the wasteland before him, and a hallucination of the White House flashed by. Some ancient memory resonated deep within the machine spirit alongside the 09-Ω Code. He turned his head, his eyes beneath the dark red faceplate shining with a light that belonged both to the brother and to some more ancient existence.

"Brother," Lin Chen's voice carried a metallic, raspy friction, "there's something waiting outside. A lot of them."

Lin Yuan gripped his weapon, the Silver-wire Network on his right hand resonating weakly with his brother's metal exoskeleton. He looked toward the gap, toward the muzzles of the Scavengers' guns, and toward at least six pairs of greedy eyes in the darkness. His brother's hand was in his palm, half warm and half burning hot, trembling incessantly.

They had no other choice.

Lin Yuan stepped toward the gap.