In a dead-end alley, Lu Jin treats a mugging like an experiment, using a stolen probe, a bargain-bin battle buff, and a girl's war song from another world to dissect three thugs—and then the sky itself decides to kill his virtual ward.
The alley air was thick enough to chew—grease that never cooled, sewer gas that never vented, cheap synthetic tobacco burned down to sludge.
The twitchy neon sign above Old John's door sputtered one last "zzzt" and died.
Darkness swallowed the dead-end. Only three cigarette tips glowed in the gloom, like three hungry red eyes.
"Thirty grand."
The leader stepped forward.
He was a wall of a man, two meters tall, half his body bulked up with junk-grade augments. His entire right arm had been ripped out and replaced with an industrial hydraulic clamp; bad lubricant dripped from the joints into the puddles below, spreading into rainbow oil slicks.
He spat his cigarette butt. The ember landed beside Lu Jin's dusty shoe and hissed out.
"Cash in your jacket," the big man said. "Leave it, or leave your life. Pick one."
Lu Jin had his back to the clammy brick wall.
His lungs wheezed like a broken bellows, each breath dragging fibers against each other inside his chest. But behind his lenses, his eyes held none of the fear a D-rank "defective" was supposed to show.
He didn't even look at the clamp that could snap his skull like an egg.
He glanced toward the alley mouth. The other two punks had drifted in, blocking the exit.
Thirty thousand.
His first real lifeline.
"Money for saving lives," Lu Jin said quietly. "Not negotiable."
He pushed his glasses up with one finger and sighed.
If he couldn't run, he'd just have to remove the problem.
"Well then," he murmured, thumb brushing his phone screen, as the cold light slid into his eyes.
"I just happen to need some free test subjects… for nerve latency."
A translucent interface hovered in the corner of his vision.
[Adrenaline spike detected in host! Entering pre-combat state!]
[Warning: Your physical strength is D- (frail). In simple terms: you are an ant attempting to headbutt a tank.]
[To avoid your cloud-raised girl becoming a widow in 60 seconds, this system warmly recommends—]
A riot of color exploded across his retina.
Confetti. Trumpets. A new pop-up slammed itself dead center in his vision.
[Battle Hype – Premium Performance Pack (Supreme Version)]
[We've detected intense combat emotions! Do you want your cloud-raised girl to sing her heart out for you, granting maximum Holy Resonance support?]
Includes:– Full Holo Filter: "Holy Light Hero Entrance"– BGM: "Ride of the Valkyries" knockoff– Auto Slow-Motion Hero Shots
[Cost: 15 points of Holy Resonance Energy]
(High-quality performance = high-quality Holy Resonance feedback ♥)
"Find me the cheapest thing that just makes her sing," Lu Jin hissed through his teeth.
Every yuan he had now was Li Xing's survival fund. And this trash app wanted him to blow the Holy equivalent of a luxury skin?
Another line slid in, dripping contempt.
[Tch. Energy reserves insufficient, you broke gremlin.]
[Recommending: Basic Battle Emotion Boost Pack (includes low-fidelity BGM + blurry filter). Cost: 5 Holy Resonance points. Redeem?]
The hydraulic-arm brute lost patience. Heavy metal footsteps crunched through the puddles, bringing the stench of oil and sweat with him.
"Redeem," Lu Jin said.
[Holy Resonance Energy: 21 → 16][Redemption successful! Applying buffs…]
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
Wasteland · Sector A-11
Li Xing sat curled up in the camping pod, chin on her knees, watching the cleaning bot valiantly ram itself into a corner for the fifth time.
Then the clear dome above her went dark.
The transparent ceiling flickered to black, becoming a curved screen. A blast of tinny orchestral music—like a bootleg "Symphony of Fate" played through a dying speaker—detonated in the cramped pod.
In the darkness, a hazy golden silhouette appeared.
A man, standing alone in endless shadow, facing down three clawed shapes.
The resolution was awful, the edges pixelated, the face a smear of light.
It didn't matter.
She knew him.
The Listener.
He was fighting. Somewhere far away, in another world, he was fighting for her.
Her pupils tightened. The tremor in her body stilled, replaced by a cold clarity. One hand clutched the fabric over her heart.
She opened her cracked lips and let a different melody rise.
Not the lullaby from the cage.
The other one.
The one she'd hummed, over and over, as she watched fellow test subjects dragged out and never come back.
The Hunting Song.
Reality · Lower District
The hydraulic clamp came down toward Lu Jin's shoulder.
The world shifted.
Time didn't actually slow.
He just sped up.
Li Xing's voice poured through his skull, echoing from nowhere and everywhere—clear, sharp, and cold. Each note was like a shot of concentrated stimulant driven straight into his cortex.
[Temporary Buff Granted: Holy Resonance – Frenzy][Nerve reaction speed: +200%. Pain perception: -50%. Duration: 30 seconds.][Side Effect Warning: Capillary overload.]
Blood vessels burst like red spiderwebs across the whites of his eyes. His vision rimmed in crimson.
In that red-framed world, the incoming clamp wasn't a blur—it was a slow, clumsy arc. He could see the tiny hitch in the brute's movement, the slight gap under the arm where flesh met metal, unprotected.
Lu Jin didn't make a fist.
His right hand held a sliver of silver between his fingers.
The stolen probe from Old John's bench. Five centimeters long, half a millimeter thick, built for micro-surgery inside delicate circuits.
This wasn't a brawl.
It was an operation.
He pivoted. The clamp smashed into the wall beside his head, bricks shattering. Dust exploded across his face.
At the same time, the probe flicked out.
A whisper of pressure.
It touched a nerve bundle in the exposed gap.
No drama. No visible blood.
Just precision.
The two-meter thug screamed. His voice cracked high and ugly as his augmented arm spasmed and then went completely limp, crashing to his side like dead metal.
Feedback from scrambled nerve signals rippled through his body. His legs buckled, joints jittering, dropping him to one knee.
The other two punks froze.
One second ago, their "sickling" victim was supposed to be a smear on the wall.
Now he stood there in the dust, calmly adjusting his glasses.
Twin trails of blood dripped from Lu Jin's nose, tracing down over his lips and chin. He looked like a corpse that had sat up out of the morgue drawer.
And he was smiling.
No warmth. Just the detached interest of a surgeon evaluating a specimen.
"Latency… half a second," he murmured to himself. "Can still optimize."
"Kill him!" one of the punks shrieked.
They lunged, spring knives glinting, coming at him from both sides.
To Lu Jin, they were walking punchlines.
Left—old knee injury. Gait off. Weight shifted wrong. Weak point.
Right—neck exposed, shoulders leading too far ahead of his center of gravity.
Li Xing's song climbed higher, fierce and solemn. Lu Jin felt his heart hammering against his ribs, blood roaring hot through every vessel.
If he was going to be a mad doctor—
He might as well perform properly.
He stepped into the rush instead of away from it.
He slipped under the left punk's blade, close enough to smell his sour sweat. The probe dipped, brushing a tiny node below the man's kneecap.
His wrist twitched.
A quiet pop.
The man's leg gave out like someone had yanked a support strut. He dropped with a strangled grunt, clutching his knee, knife clattering from limp fingers. His body curled up automatically, reflexes overwhelmed by misfired signals.
One down.
The last thug's eyes went wide.
Two companions down in seconds, and the skinny sickling was still standing, eyes bloodshot, grinning like a devil in a lab coat.
His knife hand shook.
Lu Jin turned his head, looking at him properly for the first time.
Not at his knife. Not at his face.
At him.
As if deciding where to make the incision.
"Leave," Lu Jin said softly.
The punk broke.
He screamed, dropped the knife, and bolted, stumbling over his own feet as he fled the alley, not daring to look back.
[Combat concluded.][Rating: S (Precision Surgical Strike).]
In the pod, the Hunting Song cut off.
"Kh—"
When the buff collapsed, it felt like someone had ripped his spine out.
Lu Jin dropped to the filthy ground, knees slamming into the wet concrete. His muscles seized, his right hand—steady as a machine seconds ago—twitched uncontrollably, fingers curling and uncurling like a cut puppet string.
Pain roared back in.
His entire nervous system lit up in protest, every fiber shrieking that it had been pushed too far.
"Cough—"
He curled in on himself, hacking, each cough sending shards of hurt through his chest.
He wasn't a war god.
He was just a terminal patient dancing on a borrowed stage, held together by system buffs and adrenaline.
He fumbled a hand into his jacket, feeling for the crinkled bundle inside. Fingers closed around paper.
Still there.
The money.
That was enough.
His phone lit up again.
[Emotional spike detected in observed subject "Li Xing": Worship, fervor, dependence!][Holy Resonance settlement in progress…]
On the feed, Li Xing was kneeling in the pod, eyes shining as she watched the pixelated "Listener" stand tall in victory. Her emotions ignited golden-red motes above her head.
The motes shot out of the screen, racing up his arm.
This time, the energy didn't come in like warm water.
It was like slamming back a shot of hard liquor.
It hit his chest directly.
Boom.
Fire bloomed behind his sternum, heat racing down his limbs, burning away the exhaustion clogging his muscles. The heaviness from the frantic fight washed out, replaced by a buzzing lightness.
Color crept back into his face—unnatural, too vivid.
[Massive Holy Resonance feedback obtained!][Stamina restoration: 40%.][Temporary Status Gained: Intimidation Aura (minor).]
Lu Jin lay there for a few seconds, breathing hard, feeling power hum faintly under his skin.
That was Holy Resonance.
As long as the girl kept singing—as long as she kept believing—he could claw his way through this meat grinder of a world.
"Scammer…" he muttered.
He wiped the blood from his mouth, flexed his trembling fingers, and glanced at the screen.
Li Xing was bowing to the air again, forehead touching the floor of the pod.
Five points of energy for one song.
Half his life restored.
"This trade," he said under his breath, a crooked smile tugging at his lips, "for now… still in the black."
He braced against the wall and pushed himself upright. As he bent to slip the probe back into his pocket—
His phone screamed.
A shrill alarm sliced through the alley, sharp as an air raid siren. The display flashed, flooding red.
[High-Level Alert! High-Level Alert!]
[Anomaly detected in Sector A-11 weather patterns!][Acid rain cloud layer entering crystallization cascade!][Disaster classification upgrade: "Acid Rain" → "Crystal Storm".]
Lu Jin's pupils contracted.
The feed jumped to Li Xing's location.
The black rain outside the pod had stopped.
In its place, shards were falling from the sky.
Ice-blue crystals the size of knife blades.
Crack.
A sound like glass snapping in his teeth.
The warm orange glow of the pod's shield flared as the first crystal slammed into it. A web of cracks spidered across the barrier, racing outward faster than the eye could track.
[Warning: Camping Pod shield integrity will reach zero in 10 minutes.][Host must take immediate action.][If no intervention is taken, your cloud-raised girl will not survive the Crystal Storm.]
The last line hung there, pulsing red.
Lu Jin clenched his jaw so hard it hurt.
Ten minutes.
And nowhere to hide on a dead world.