Fengdu's night drowned in neon so thick it seemed to bleed into the sky. The garish lights pooled like spilled oil, staining the rain with a metallic tang that hissed against Shen Lian's cybernetic shell.
Perched on the flying eaves of the "River of Rebirth" skyscraper, his threadbare Daoist robe clung to his back, sodden from the acid rain. Below him, holographic ads pulsed with liquid color, turning his silhouette into a ragged patchwork against the glow. Between his fingers, a quantum talisman flickered—its eerie blue data streams ignored by the downpour, raindrops passing straight through the virtual construct.
"Found it, Senior Brother." His voice in the encrypted neural channel was cold as forged iron. Nine months. Nine damn months chasing this signal like a stray dog, only to corner it here—buried in the heart of Longyuan Group's core data fortress, the world's largest neural-tech conglomerate.
Then—impact.
An inhuman gaze speared through his neural defenses. A thousand icy needles stabbed into his mind, his decades-honed Spirit Sense barrier cracking like glass.
"BZZT—!"
Violet light tore through the rain. Too fast to track—just the scream of compressed air as it came. Not a bullet, not a laser, but raw energy, hungry enough to scorch synapses, aimed straight for his spine.
Instinct saved him. His palm slapped forward, the quantum talisman exploding into a half-dome shield.
"CLANG—!"
The shield shattered. The violet streak grazed his ribs, his robe and skin sizzling with acrid smoke. Pain and numbness flooded him as the impact hurled him backward—"CRASH!"—through a massive LED billboard. Glass and neon shards scattered like dying stars as he plummeted toward the abyss below.
Tumbling through the dizzying whirl of neon and warped skyscrapers, acid rain and blood filling his mouth, Shen Lian locked onto the floating figure wreathed in violet lightning.
Clad in Longyuan's latest liquid armor, the figure was sleek, black, molded to a frame built for killing. A silver-black visor covered its face, shaped like a mythical beast's claw, leaving only the eyes exposed.
But those weren't human eyes.
No whites, no pupils—just churning, malevolent violet storms, like a cosmic tempest bottled behind glass. Cold. Dead. Not a shred of warmth. This thing was engineered. A perfect weapon.
The ultimate product of the "Lingshu Project"? Longyuan's trump card?
Shen Lian's mind raced. His fingers formed a seal, his remaining spiritual energy scraping through his meridians, straining to tap into the city's chaotic leyline pulse. Wind howled, but he couldn't die—not yet. The fragments of his master's erased memories, his senior brother's cryptic digital last words, the shadowy hand behind Longyuan—all the answers lay in that data fortress.
Just before he smashed into the traffic-packed highway below, the violet figure moved. Without shifting stance, it raised an energy-plated arm—the lightning coiled around its fingers flared tenfold, a new death beam charging in its grip.
Shen Lian's eyes widened. No way to dodge—
Then—
"ZZZT—!!"
A rusted iron ruler materialized in the beam's path. Not metal, not energy, but a twisted amalgam of electromagnetic noise and scrambled code, writhing and hissing like live wires.
The beam struck—no explosion, just a grotesque sizzle as the energies warped, dissolving into harmless white particles.
"THUD!"
A figure landed beside Shen Lian on a dented flying taxi—a guy in his early twenties, cheap black hoodie, hair a mess like he'd been electrocuted. Pale as a ghost, blood trickling from his lips, his chest a mess of charred flesh and lingering violet sparks.
His right arm was still extended from throwing the ruler, left hand clutching his chest as blood seeped between his fingers. His face twisted in pain and fury, eyes burning with something deeper—confusion, rage, a wildfire barely contained.
The violet killer above paused. For the first time, those churning purple eyes flickered. It "looked" at the strange weapon, then at the young man's wound, its murderous aura wavering—just slightly.
"You—" The guy's voice was a ragged growl, each word wet with blood. "You damn… tin-can bastard…! That was… my brand-new… heart module!"
The anger was absurd yet razor-sharp, like sand grinding on a taut wire. Shen Lian knelt on the taxi's roof, ribs screaming, but his mind raced: Who is this kid? That weapon—some freak hybrid of tech and wild spiritual energy? Why is he fighting Longyuan's weapon? And why is he hurt by the same violet energy?
The taxi's AI chimed: "Overload detected. Please pay emergency—"
"—Shut up!" The kid smacked the horn, wincing as the motion tore at his wound. He glared up at the violet killer, his fury a tangible force, locking eyes with those cold, churning storms.
The acid rain kept falling, drenching all three.
A exiled Daoist in a tattered robe, running on fumes.
An enigma of a young man, bleeding out and pissed off.
A weapon wearing dead eyes, more machine than human.
Fate's threads, tangled in neon and acid rain, knotted tighter with every crackle of violet lightning. Hidden schemes, buried grudges, unknown identities, and this forced alliance hummed in the charged air.
The violet killer's arm lifted again, its fingers glowing brighter than before.
Who falls next?