The silence the Custodian left behind was heavier than the one they had entered. It was the silence of a door closing, of a path not taken. The gentle peach light was gone, and the geode chamber was now illuminated only by the chaotic, pulsing colors of the memory-crystals, their whispers feeling less like a library and more like the murmurs of a disappointed crowd.
Lin Feng sank to the smooth crystal floor, his legs suddenly unable to support him. The weight of the choice he had just made settled upon him, not with regret, but with a profound, bone-deep fatigue. He had looked into the heart of cosmic power and said no. For a boy from the Rust-Fang Wastes, it was an act of unimaginable audacity. He had chosen a single, rust-flecked bond over the stewardship of history itself.
The Mantis stood over him, its presence a solid, comforting reality in the face of that overwhelming abstraction. It lowered its head, and the neural-link, which had been strained by the Custodian's presence, re-established itself with a clean, simple clarity.
[Query: Partner status?]
Lin Feng let out a shaky breath that was half a laugh, half a sob. "I'm... managing. We just turned down godhood. I think that warrants a moment."
[Affirmative. Godhood is inefficient. Requires excessive data storage. Prefers current configuration.]
The sheer, logical absurdity of the statement broke the tension. Lin Feng reached up and patted its armored snout. "Me too."
But the Custodian's warning echoed in the silence. The storms are coming. They couldn't stay here. This was a place of power, but it was not their place. They had been granted sanctuary, but it felt more like a probation. The memory-crystals were already pressing in on the edges of Lin Feng's mind, their uninvited whispers a constant reminder of the vast consciousness they had spurned.
"We need to move," Lin Feng said, pushing himself to his feet. "We'll rest, but not here. We need to find the edge of this place, somewhere the memories are quieter."
The Mantis agreed, its sensors indicating a "memory gradient" leading away from the central well. They moved back through the cathedral of crystals, this time with a clearer purpose. The journey out was less disorienting; having faced the source, the echoes felt weaker, like the fading ripples from a thrown stone.
After several hours of careful navigation, the crystals began to shrink, their light dimming, their whispers receding into a generalized hum. They found a small, secondary cavern near the Nexus's outer shell. It was unadorned, the walls a rough, dark stone, and blessedly silent. A faint trickle of water seeped from a crack in the ceiling, collecting in a small, clear pool that tasted of minerals and purity. It was perfect.
For the next five days, they rested. This was not the desperate, healing torpor of the Glimmering Folk's cavern. This was convalescence. Lin Feng practiced the [Unmoving Core Meditation] for hours each day, his mended Dantian slowly refilling with qi woven from the Nexus's potent, if chaotic, energy. He was more skilled now, the threads of earth, metal, and stellar radiation braiding together with greater speed and stability. He felt himself solidifying, his foundation becoming stronger than it had been before it was broken.
The Mantis, meanwhile, underwent the final stages of its integration. Bathed in the ambient resonance of the Nexus—a diluted, less aggressive version of the Mnemonic Well's power—the war within its core finally ended. The Luminal Claw, once a foreign graft, was fully assimilated. The pearlescent crystal and gold filaments now pulsed in perfect harmony with the rusted steel and chitin of its original body. The limb was fully functional, capable of emitting beams of harmonizing energy or focusing into a blade sharper than any alloy. Its core hummed with a new, stable power, a unique fusion of its original spirit-tech essence, the geological patience of the Glimmering Folk, and the vast, if rejected, potential of the Nexus.
On the sixth day, as Lin Feng was testing the flow of his newly woven qi, the Mantis projected a new alert. It wasn't a threat. It was a signal.
*[Anomalous energy signature detected. Origin: External. Bearing: 27 degrees north-northwest. Composition: Technological. Modulation: Rhythmic. Analysis: Intentional broadcast.]*
A rhythmic, technological broadcast. It wasn't the pure, hostile signal of a Sky-Spire disciple, nor the chaotic noise of the Wastes. This was structured. Purposeful.
"Can you decipher it?" Lin Feng asked.
The Mantis focused, its core processing the signal. After a moment, a series of stark, simple images flowed through the link. A broken gear. A cracked data-slate. A hollowed-out starship husk. Then, a symbol: a hammer striking an anvil, from which a single, perfect crystal grew.
Then, a single, translated word: Sanctuary.
It was an invitation. Or a trap. In the Wastes, the line was always thin.
"We can't stay here forever," Lin Feng murmured, looking around their silent, temporary home. The Custodian's warning was a clock ticking in the back of his mind. "And we can't go back the way we came. Yun Zhao will have left watchers."
The signal offered a direction. A destination. It was a risk, but stagnation was a greater one.
"Let's go see who's singing that song," he decided.
Packing their meager supplies, they left the cavern and found a different fissure leading out of the Nexus, one that emerged on the northern face. The landscape here was a stark contrast to the vibrant, alien horrors they had passed through. It was a graveyard.
This was the "Scrap-Song Sea," a vast, rolling plain of wreckage from the Great Collision. It was a monument to a dead age, a carpet of twisted starship hulls, shattered engine blocks, and the skeletal remains of orbital stations. The air was still and cold, and a fine, metallic dust covered everything, muffling all sound. The only noise was the wind, which whistled a mournful tune as it passed through a billion broken things.
The Mantis's sensors were going wild, mapping the sheer density of salvageable material and latent energy signatures. This was a forager's dream and a navigator's nightmare.
They followed the rhythmic signal, which grew stronger as they moved deeper into the sea of scrap. The Mantis led the way, its new Luminal Claw occasionally glowing, using its harmonizing frequency to subtly shift unstable piles of debris, clearing a path. It was no longer just a beast of battle; it was a partner in exploration.
After a day's travel, they found the source of the signal.
It was a settlement, but unlike any Lin Feng had ever seen. It wasn't built on the scrap; it was built from it. The buildings were fashioned from fused starship plating, their shapes a chaotic yet functional jumble of angles and curves. Winding streets were canyons between towering piles of salvaged machinery. The air hummed not with qi, but with the active thrum of generators, the buzz of arc-welders, and the clang of hammers on metal.
This was a haven for Spirit-Tech Artificers. The Cogitation Lotus Guild that Granny Luo belonged to was a small, peripheral outpost compared to this. This was a city.
As they approached the main gate—a massive airlock door salvaged from a freighter—a figure emerged to meet them. He was a giant of a man, his left arm entirely a masterwork of hydraulics and polished steel, his right eye a glowing blue scanner that whirred as it focused on them. He carried no obvious weapon, but the sheer, solid presence of him was deterrent enough.
"Halt," his voice was a gravelly bass, amplified by a vox-unit in his throat. "State your business, wanderers." His scanner-eye lingered on the Mantis, taking in its unique fusion of rust, steel, and crystal without a flicker of surprise.
"We picked up a signal," Lin Feng said, keeping his voice calm and respectful. "A broadcast. It spoke of sanctuary."
The man's human eye narrowed. "The Scrap-Song calls to those who listen. But sanctuary is earned, not given. I am Bor, Gate-Warden of Ironhaven. Your... companion. It is not a simple beast."
"He is my partner," Lin Feng said, the statement feeling more natural with every use. "We mean no harm. We seek only a place to rest and, perhaps, to trade."
Bor studied them for a long moment, his scanner-eye doubtless reading their energy signatures, their physical condition, the wear on their gear. He saw a boy with a mended but potent spirit, and a machine-beast that defied easy classification. He saw survivors.
"The Song does not lie," Bor rumbled finally. "It calls those who can hear the music in the metal and the code. You may enter. But know the laws of Ironhaven: No drawing blood. No unauthorized replication. All disputes are settled at the Anvil. Your beast is your responsibility. If it damages property or person, the debt is yours."
Lin Feng nodded. "Understood."
Bor gestured, and the massive airlock door hissed, sliding open with a groan of long-untested machinery. As they stepped through, the full scope of Ironhaven unfolded before them.
It was a symphony of controlled chaos. Artificers in stained leather aprons worked on open engine blocks, their tools dancing with arcs of electricity and subtle glows of spiritual energy. Children chased each other through streets lined with glowing data-conduits. The smell was a unique blend of ozone, hot metal, oil, and cooking food. Tamed, minor spirit-tech constructs—floating orbs that cleaned the streets, six-legged load-bearers carrying scrap—moved through the crowds with placid efficiency.
Heads turned as Lin Feng and the Mantis passed. Their fusion was clearly advanced even by the standards of this place. They were met with curious stares, assessing glances, and a few nods of respect from older Artificers who could appreciate the complexity of the bond.
They had found a sanctuary, a place where their very nature might not be seen as heresy, but as a potential. But as Lin Feng looked around at the bustling, industrious settlement, built from the corpse of a fallen stellar empire, he felt a new kind of unease. This was not an end to their journey. It was a new beginning, in a city of strangers who lived by the very principle that had made them outcasts to the heavens.
The Scrap-Song had called them here. The question was, what did the singer want in return?