"Cross what festival?"
Before Li Pan could react, the blood shadow had already flared into a sheet of red light, whooshed through the wall, and streaked off. The garage lights flickered, then steadied.
A little dazed, Li Pan pulled up the security feed and saw that in those scant seconds, the cameras in and outside the garage had been hammered by intense radiation—night vision showed only a faint glow, vaguely humanoid, like grime smeared on the lens…
Good—so it wasn't a hallucination. His mental state really had been normal…
Flick—dark again. Red flooded the garage; Duan Kecheng leapt out and right back in.
"Big brother, why aren't you moving yet?"
Li Pan: "…Uh… how do I 'move'? Do we have to go now? Then wait a sec—I haven't logged this body into the system; Selina can't even ride it… uh, there's not even a chip. Let me call a car—"
But the blood shadow wouldn't wait. It flashed and firmed into a blood-hued figure before him.
"Call what carriage! Big brother, you're about to form your core—have you forgotten how to traverse?"
Li Pan was about to explain when a stab pricked his brow. The faceless blood-man split open at the brow, and an amber-gold eyeball poked out—zing—a beam of gold shot straight into Li Pan's face!
A rush of characters, formulae, and meridian charts reeled past his eyes like a lantern show—fleeting but clear.
One glance and he knew: this was a top-tier escape art. Duan Kecheng had just transmitted Blood Shadow Godstride to him on the spot!
Although 0791's cultivation pace lagged far behind Li Qingyun's, Li Pan's comprehension wasn't weak; once upon a time he'd aced first in the combat engineering school while the Moth Society was trying to beat him to death. Add the rock-solid groundwork from Upper-True Monastery, and the instant-infusion made perfect sense—he ran Dao-Breath Blood Refinement, sat right there to practice, formed seals, gathered breath—then lifted a hand, peeled off his own face, and his spirit popped free! A blood-man sprang from between his brows!
Duan laughed loud. "Worthy of big brother—one glance and you awaken my Dao! I'd wager in a past life you did complete a Blood God-Child avatar—at least a Dharma King! Am I right?"
"…Maybe."
Li Pan shrugged, rolled up his own skin, and tucked it carefully into the coffin. Can't have it getting dirty—he'd need to wear it home.
"Let's go, let's go! Miss the timing and the chance is gone!"
Duan clasped his wrist; blood light wrapped them both and they passed through the wall like wind, a crimson ribbon ripping the night sky. In a handful of breaths they looped the horizon and unspooled a red-haloed silhouette.
The blood-red figure fell with the breeze like a maple leaf, landing silently on a nearby high-voltage tower. The city wall of Night City not far off told them they were at the outer ring.
Li Pan scanned the view and pointed to a factory near the wall.
"Little brother, that 'interesting place'—wouldn't it be there?"
The crimson ribbon cinched tight like silk and resolved into a big-headed, small-bodied blood-faced infant, a bobble-fly weaving in the air. It cackled:
"Ke-ke! Big brother has a piercing eye—correct! I calculated our tribulation lies right here!"
"Oh, does it now…"
Sure enough—this was Warehouse No.1, where Steel Pen / Strong Expulsion was sealed.
Guess the Company hadn't been bluffing if it could make even Duan take it seriously. That Steel Pen was likely the plane's nastiest monster—could trade one-for-one to kick Duan out.
Li Pan was speechless. This younger bro was something—first thing after rebirth and power-up? Kidnap the Company manager to steal Company goods.
Sigh. Headquarters had to be exasperated: what kind of backwater savages were these? We're already sitting on you with a dreadnought and spelled out "Purge Purge Purge." Don't you understand words? How dare you hop on our heads???
Thinking how 01 would blow a gasket if they stole the Pen, Li Pan tried to steer him down.
"Brother, I know there's treasure here, but you just seized this shell—your power's not restored. To act rashly now—if something goes wrong… better to wait until your divine art has—"
Duan nodded vigorously.
"Brother is omniscient—I was thinking the same. That's why I'm asking you to act."
"Me!?"
"Don't worry," Duan grinned. "You're shrouded in a killing-tribulation—slay a peer and it's broken. With me guarding from the dark, you'll be fine!
"Just send your avatar in to probe the local 'demons'—test their weight. If anything goes awry, I'll pay you back a blood-puppet body, worst case."
…Make me eat the landmine, huh.
"Fine! Your elder goes!"
Blessing or curse, if it's a curse you can't dodge.
A professional pointman, Li Pan didn't hesitate—flashed off the tower, ghosted forward, and dove for the warehouse.
The big-headed blood infant thought he'd dither. Seeing him so crisp, it gulped its speech back, shrank into a cherry-sized crimson pellet, and spun around him as a bodyguard.
Perhaps moved by that unabashed swagger, Duan kept whispering beside him:
"Easy, brother, easy—there's hidden treasure here, yet I can divine no ambush or guard. It must be a trap!"
Nope—no trap. The "security" was the usual, set by successive managers.
Company warehouses are meant to be used for centuries; if security's too 'high,' when the tax office audits inventory, the capitalized warehousing cost kills you.
Sure, there were basic autoturrets, patrol drones, and an NCPA link—but that's to scare shoplifters. Against wall-phasing sky-walking gods and devils? Worthless.
Li Pan slid through camera blind spots into the warehouse without a hitch—still had time to glance at the maintenance schedule. Nice—systems were just serviced yesterday; six days till the next visit.
Duan gasped. "As expected—fearless skill! You've broken in so easily, without tripping a single ward!"
Li Pan shrugged. No wards—nothing to trip.
In theory, extra "wards/guards/magic" should be here—Logistics staff are supposed to defend stock. If you had a 01044-grade archmage, you'd layer buffs like pastry.
But they didn't.
His crew was peanuts—Old Liu, Rama, and a husky—that's a janitor squad. Sigh… today his 'little brother' was going to get him killed…
Phasing through floors and walls, he slipped inside and went straight to the rack. There he found the Steel Pen, and—per the TheM Logistics Dept. Monster Transfer SOP—boxed it in a custom pen case, wrapped with custom film and tape. He set an identical dummy back on the shelf.
"This is the one. Let's go."
Duan, watching, was awestruck.
"Ah! Worthy big brother—divine heart, effortless hands! I hadn't finished my calculations and you've already wrapped it! My admiration for you is like a ceaseless river, like the Yellow—"
Li Pan shoved the parcel into his arms. "All right already. We done?"
Duan shrank to a blood-infant and hugged the pen.
"Not yet, brother—there's still the blessed land beneath to clear."
…Beneath what?
Guided by Duan, Li Pan reached the warehouse's emergency generator room.
Of the forty-two warehouses, No.1 was one of the easy ones to manage: as long as you don't jab the pen into your eye, the Pen won't harm you.
So when monsters descend, you can even let a temp borrow the Pen to repel an Apostle; otherwise it just sits on the rack among normal pens.
But No.1 had a special note:
Do not lose power.
If there's an outage, until power is restored, the Steel Pen must not leave the warehouse. (Repeat ×3.)
Night City rarely blacked out; No.1 also had its own backup gen-room. And even if power cut, you just don't remove the Pen—hence no big incidents.
Why that rule existed—most technical reports had been scrubbed and locked at HQ; with Tech not rebuilt, Li Pan had never dug deep.
As long as it doesn't blow up, who cares? For 2,500 a month, you expect him to babysit every SKU?
He'd merely noted in the temp engineers' memo to service No.1's generator. With weekly checks, what could go wrong?
"And it's a multi-fuel set… no wonder there's outage risk—ancient kit…"
He clicked his tongue. In an age of palm-sized fusion for prosthetics, No.1 was running thermal.
Old kit had upsides—reliable and abuse-tolerant. Top up gasoline/diesel/NG—solid/liquid/gas—and it churns. No meltdowns, no Security Bureau inspections.
Multiple sets give redundancy; maintenance is easy; patents long in public domain—need a part? Download a blueprint, 3D-print, swap with a tele-op robot. No fancy degrees required.
The red pellet hopped on the floor, ping-ping.
"Brother, the entrance to the blessed land is down here."
Li Pan felt it too. Where Blood Shadow Godstride had let him ghost through anything, the floor here was rock-solid—iron-hard. No phasing.
He lifted the insulating mat: a movable bronze hatch, green with age, carved in odd sigils—some magic array. Underneath: cabling and a waste-fluid service crawlspace—low and tight; an adult would have to crouch and half-squat.
Duan flickered back to a blood infant and spit a ray of red light—infusing Li Pan with fresh breath, refilling what he'd spent, the excess coiling around him as guard.
"Brother, I'll wait here. Slip across to the other side, scout it. If there's a problem, Godstride back—I'll cover you."
"…Fine."
Good thing he wasn't human—he was blood. He twisted his waist, snaked his spine—a serpent-marten contortion—and shrank into a man-headed blood python, rasping into the duct. In darkness he wound through pipework for dozens of zhang, as if through a shadowed tunnel, and the view opened up.
He popped out, resumed human shape, and looked around.
Hearing "blessed land, domain interstice," he'd expected a haunted-site style jump to another plane.
Instead, the far side was… another generator room. Layout nearly identical—like he'd crawled to its mirrored twin.
Same multi-fuel sets—but newer components, as if freshly swapped.
He eyed the crawlspace he'd come through. Surely he wasn't meant to just crawl back?
He opened the door to peek.
And froze.
Beyond the room stretched a long alloy corridor, nothing like the shabby factory topside. No No.1 layout showed this space.
So it was a cross-space link after all…
He was used to hopping planes; no need to dither. He followed the corridor down—this was clearly a deep-buried base. He sprinted to the end.
A white door, inset with a diamond, runes he didn't recognize—obvious cross-world protections. Probably the handiwork of earlier Company operatives.
Properly, without a breaker method, you'd need a silver key. He still owed 0113 one. He had none—so he pushed.
As expected, when his hand touched it the diamond flared, and his whole body ignited like amber pine sap—energy boomed over him, turning him into a torch.
The door, though, opened easy. The brilliant fire chewed through most of his blood-light guard, but didn't harm him. He just brute-forced it on protection.
Yeah—might makes right. Level high = happy. Who needs puzzle tech.
He peered in: a vast white-stone hall, easily ten soccer fields.
The burn wasn't wasted—he could see something set at the center.
Likely the monster stored here.
He set careful steps over marble, leaving crisp blood-prints, and came up to it.
A headband, made of the same white diamond as the door, its clasp worked as two profile faces that meet into a single head motif.
No file in the system jogged his memory. Then again, the Company's 'methods' are blunt.
Find a temp. Have them touch it.
He picked up the headband. As expected, his hand blazed again—bright white fire ran from palm to forearm, gobbling his guard with no sign of stopping.
He set it back down, shook out the flame, and walked on.
Far off he saw three more sealed doors at the far end.
Left to right: gray, gold, black. Each carved with sigils, set with jewel/gold/pearl.
Same drill as the white: either key, or force—with a price.
Likely those doors held the true seals of No.1.
He gauged his reserves. With his current blood-qi shell, he could force at most one more door—or snatch the headband and sprint back the way he came. Two options.
Maybe skip the monster and leave.
If HQ sealed it here with such fanfare, should he really be hauling it out?
He might flim-flam a Steel Pen for a few days, but grab several items and 01 would jump in with a fleet.
He turned—
—and someone stood silently behind him.
Strictly speaking, not a "someone," but a mannequin in a suit. No face, no eyes, no mouth—like a white mask. On the suit's breast:
0791001.
…What is this?
A manager figurine?
The Company made this?
Before he could process it, "0791001" cocked a fist—Mach-5 superman punch—straight at his face!
Off-guard, Li Pan barely twisted; the blow smashed his shoulder, shattering half his body.
Holy—!
That move—
True Dragon Break!
A clone of his own body!
.
.
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⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
💥 High-voltage cyberpunk. Urban warfare. AI paranoia.Read 30 chapters ahead, only on Patreon.
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