99: Chapter 99 Gene Furnace and Two-Way Transparency

Bolter rounds tore through the air, accurately slamming into the chest plate of the heavy armor in the center of Kane's this soldier. The micro-rocket propellant ignited for a second time, and the depleted uranium penetrator pierced the armor. The delayed fuse triggered subatomic fission.

The interior of the heavy armor vaporized. Expanding orange-red metal vapor sliced the three surrounding Kane soldiers in half. The shockwave overturned the control console, splashing glass and flesh across the walls.

Lin Yuan's eardrums shrieked, and the scar on his right hand burned. The barrel of the bolter pistol emitted blue smoke, the recoil numbing his wrist bones. The muzzle remained steadily pointed into the smoke.

"Target armored this soldier destroyed," DORN-00's voice pierced his auditory nerves. "Seven remaining in Kane's vanguard; morale at critical collapse."

Hasty footsteps echoed from the smoke. Kane's soldiers were elites among scavengers, but facing killing tools from the Dark Age of Technology, their nerves finally snapped. A sergeant carrying a portable reactor turned and ran, the heavy box-like device bouncing. The dark red power indicator traced a frantic path.

"Stop him," Lin Yuan growled, pulling the trigger for the second shot.

The bolter round hit the ground in front of the sergeant. The concrete melted into glass-like dross, and fragments tore open his calf. The sergeant screamed and tumbled, the portable reactor sliding out and skidding toward the dust-covered Gene Authentication Terminal in the center of the main hall.

Camilla's figure blurred across the battlefield, her combat boots stepping through pools of blood. She grabbed the reactor's handle, her Bio-electric Induction Gloves emitting a blinding blue light.

"Equipment intact, output power 92%." Camilla lifted the reactor with one hand. Dark red lines pulsed on the surface of the box, eerily synchronized with the rhythm of the scar on Lin Yuan's right hand. "But there's a heartbeat inside. This thing has been modified; it's alive."

Lin Yuan walked quickly toward the central console of the main hall. The facility's automated defense turrets fired futilely at empty corners, their bullets drumming a dense rhythm against the metal walls.

He stepped over the corpses of two Kane soldiers. Their faces were frozen in expressions of terror, their eyeballs turned to a bloody mist by the shockwave.

"Access main control," Lin Yuan ordered, his voice hoarse. His stomach cramped, and his breath tasted of rust—an instinctive reaction triggered by gene authentication.

DORN-00 stepped forward, inserting a mechanical arm into the console's physical interface. Nerve cables at its spine squirmed. "Batch XIX-7-0041 Adjutant, requesting energy access. Target: Astartes Prototype Modification Pod."

The console screen lit up a sickly dark red. The stc system interface expanded; there was no welcome message, only a stream of data scrolling in the prayer format of the Adeptus Mechanicus:

[Warning: Gene Purity Check Initiated]

[Sample ID: Batch XX-7-0007]

[Match: 99.7%]

[Warning: Allogenic sequence detected]

[Energy Input: 12%→87%]

[Astartes Prototype Modification Pod: Unlocked]

A wall deep in the main hall rumbled. A gate hidden by dust rose, revealing a massive cylindrical device inside.

The pod's shell was a composite of dark black ceramic and metal, covered in bullet marks and dried blood. The observation window on the door was coated in grime, looking like a blind eye.

Lin Yuan walked toward the modification pod and pressed his right hand against the door. Instantly, a cold current surged up his spine and straight into his brainstem.

His vision suddenly split.

His left eye could still see the main hall, Camilla warily holding the reactor, and the flashing indicators on DORN-00's mechanical arm. His right eye, however, saw a massive underground hollow where incubation pods were lined up like a forest. A man with the same face as his but with pitch-black eyes stood before a pod, turning his head to look directly at him.

THRONE-01.

"Found you, brother." The voice rang directly in Lin Yuan's brainstem, bypassing his eardrums. "A 99.7% match—you cannot escape."

Lin Yuan's knees buckled, and he nearly collapsed. The Legion Commander authority crushed down on him; a gene sub-body facing the absolute suppression of the source. His memories were roughly flipped through: the battle at the Rusted Church, his meeting with Camilla, his current location. All were extracted in the form of a data stream.

"Lin Yuan!" Camilla's shout sounded as if it were coming from underwater, distant and blurred.

DORN-00 suddenly moved. Its mechanical arm slammed into the console, and its nerve cables erupted with blinding electrical sparks. "Batch XIX-7-0041 Adjutant, override command! Target biological signal relabeled: Batch XIX-7-0041 belonging this soldier, Legion Commander-level authority, refuse recall!"

"You betray me, this soldier?" THRONE-01's voice turned into a sharp shriek in Lin Yuan's mind—a mix of fury and the pain of being abandoned.

"this soldier is not betraying." DORN-00's voice rang out simultaneously in the physical world and the gene link. The mechanical arm smoked, and nerve cables melted one by one. "this soldier is defining who this soldier is. Lin Yuan is the current Seventh Legion Commander; this soldier chooses to fight for Lin Yuan."

The synchronized agony lasted for ten seconds.

In those ten seconds, Lin Yuan experienced death countless times.

He saw it. Images of the first six generations of gene Primarchs being executed flooded his consciousness: the first batch dissolving in incubation pods, pus overflowing the windows; the second batch's skulls shattering, brains coating the walls; the third batch... the images were too fast and fragmented, leaving only a blood-colored impression. These were the residual historical data of the modification pod, the death throes of the first six generations of Primarchs, tearing at his nerves through the gene link.

"He's invading your nervous system!" Camilla rushed over, her bio-electric glove pressing against the back of Lin Yuan's neck. The searing sting brought him back to brief clarity. "If you turn into a second THRONE-01, I'll burn through your brainstem. Now, do something!"

Lin Yuan bit his lip until it bled, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth. Retreating meant abandoning the facility, DORN-00 would revert to a puppet, and THRONE-01 would gain total control over the neural link.

He had to force-activate the modification pod...

His gaze fell upon the pod door. A red warning sign flashed: [Gene Firewall Protocol: Available].

"Connect the reactor," Lin Yuan squeezed the command through his teeth. "I'm going in. Now."

"Are you crazy?" Camilla's fingers tightened on his neck, the bio-electric sting causing his muscles to spasm. "The pod contains residual memories of the first six generations of Primarchs; they will erode your mind!"

"A calculated choice." Lin Yuan pushed her hand away, took the portable reactor, and personally plugged it into the energy interface on the side of the pod. "Success rate greater than 67%. Refuse to sacrifice DORN-00. Use the firewall for reverse isolation to cut off the invasion."

The dark red energy lines lit up instantly, like veins being injected with fresh blood. The modification pod emitted a low rumble, and the door slowly opened, venting cold mist and the smell of formaldehyde. The inner walls were lined with nerve interfaces, like a spiderweb waiting for its prey.

Lin Yuan crawled inside.

The moment the nerve interfaces touched his skin, they automatically pierced in—thinner than a needle's point and hotter than flame. The stc system interface was forcibly projected onto his retina, no longer showing red warnings but a cold black-and-white data stream:

[Gene Optimization Protocol Initiated]

[Batch XX-7-0007: Gene Purity 99.7%]

[Warning: Residual memory fragments of previous Primarchs detected]

[Warning: Allogenic consciousness invasion detected]

[Firewall Protocol: Activated]

[Phase One: Skeletal Restructuring]

The pain arrived faster than consciousness.

Lin Yuan felt his bones being shattered bit by bit and then recast. His ribs deformed, his marrow was extracted and replaced with strengthening substances, and his joint cartilage was covered in ceramic compounds.

Muscle fibers tore and regenerated, becoming denser and tougher.

Worse still was the mental erosion.

Memory fragments of the first six generations of Primarchs wandered his mind like hungry ghosts. The loneliness of the first, the fury of the second, the despair of the third before execution... these emotions were experienced, not observed. Within fractions of a second, Lin Yuan lived through six deaths, each a betrayal at the genetic level, the fate of a designed object.

"You are not a design," DORN-00's voice transmitted faintly through the neural link from outside the pod. "You are this soldier's Legion Commander. Hold on."

THRONE-01's invasion became violent after the firewall activated, like a trapped beast biting at its cage. Lin Yuan saw THRONE-01's source coordinates: Sector-7 Deep Cryo-vault, this soldier THR-01-μ.

He also knew what THRONE-01 saw: the facility coordinates, Camilla's face, the moment of DORN-00's betrayal.

Mutual transparency. Mutual exposure.

[Phase Two: Neural Remodeling]

Current surged through his spinal cord, and Lin Yuan's body convulsed violently inside the pod, thumping against the walls.

His vision was forced into a multi-spectral view. He could see the infrared spectrum and the flow of electromagnetic fields; he could see Camilla standing outside the pod, holding a slender bio-electric probe aimed at his carotid artery.

"If what comes out isn't Lin Yuan," Camilla's voice vibrated through the pod walls, cold and clear, "this needle will burn through your brainstem. I swear it."

Lin Yuan wanted to laugh, but his facial muscles were no longer under his control. He counted in his heart, calculating the modification progress, the firewall's endurance time, and how much intelligence THRONE-01 was taking.

[Modification Completion: 67%]

[Energy Remaining: 32%]

[Warning: Only one operation supported]

The pod door opened with the hiss of pressure release.

Lin Yuan fell out, kneeling on the ground and vomiting up nutrient fluid laced with blood.

His vision was still overlapping; he could see residual heat and the layout of cables inside the walls. Muscle fibers crawled unnaturally under his skin, like a swarm of insects rearranging his flesh.

Camilla stepped forward; she didn't help him up but instead drove the bio-electric probe directly into the back of his neck. After a sharp sting, Lin Yuan felt a cold metal ring implanted into his cervical vertebrae, fitting tightly against his nerves.

"Bio-electric Fuse," Camilla's voice came from above. "If you are controlled, I will detonate it. Our contract has been updated, Lin Yuan. I don't trust you, but I need you alive."

Lin Yuan raised his head, his vision finally stabilizing. He saw the complex mix of wariness and reliance in Camilla's eyes, the flashing lights on DORN-00's damaged mechanical shell, and the vibrations approaching from outside the main hall.

DORN-00's mechanical arm rose, pointing to a newly decrypted communication chip on the portable reactor. "Kane's main force. Distance: 18 kilometers. Countdown: 2 hours."

Lin Yuan stood up, his bones emitting the metallic rasp of friction.

He felt the strange, violent power within him, the fuse in his neck that could kill him at any moment, and the lingering wails of the six generations of Primarchs in his mind.

THRONE-01 knew his location. He also knew THRONE-01's coordinates. The mutual hunt had begun.

And Kane's army was on the way.