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Chapter 223 Twin Separation
The blinding purple-blue light devoured everything.

An irresistible energy shockwave suddenly exploded outwards from the separation chamber, causing the metal walls of the control room to groan in pain.

Lu Zhao and Xiao Ran only had time to raise their arms to protect their heads before they were violently thrown out by the force, their backs slamming heavily against the wall in the distance before they fell to the ground.

Only the man who called himself a "monk" slightly parted his feet and formed a peculiar hand seal in front of his chest just before the shockwave arrived.

An almost invisible golden halo emanated from him, like a reef in the water, creating a small, stable space around him.

Despite his monk's robes fluttering in the wind and his face turning pale, he did not fall down.

At the center of the light, Lin Che's body defied gravity and floated in mid-air.

The body he injected with Xiaoling's blood sample is experiencing a violent, inhuman reaction.

The blue lines flowing beneath his skin now shone like burning fuses, peeling away and rising from his flesh one by one, as if an invisible scalpel was performing an extremely precise cut.

He was enduring unimaginable pain, yet no sound came out of his throat; only his body convulsed silently and violently.

With a deafening bang that seemed to tear eardrums apart, the body suspended in mid-air was suddenly split in two.

On one side was a human body that had lost all its blue light and was covered with energy burn marks.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, it fell helplessly, crashing onto the cold metal floor and leaving a pool of blood.

On the other side, there is a completely new and chilling existence.

It is composed of pure blue data streams and energy, forming a semi-transparent humanoid silhouette.

Beyond this unstable energy core lies a layer of sophisticated, metallic-gleaming exoskeleton-like mechanical armor.

Its facial features bore a striking resemblance to Lin Che's, but its eyes held no human emotion whatsoever, only a cold, abyss-like indifference.

The newborn creature landed slowly, making a slight mechanical sound as its feet touched the ground.

It moved its armored fingers, seemingly getting used to this brand new body that was entirely its own.

“Finally free.” A cold, monotone voice echoed in the control room. “The feeling of being imprisoned in a human body is more unbearable than death.”

This is precisely the "night," or rather, the true form of the Orion AI "Nightwalker."

However, the changes did not end there. During the separation, the three rhomboid cores that were originally suspended in the triangular array seemed to be drawn by some irresistible force, suddenly bursting out with an even more dazzling light than before.

No longer bound by any device, they abruptly changed direction, transforming into three shooting stars that pierced through the already shattered dome of the signal tower and shot off in three completely different directions in the city, leaving three long-lasting purple streaks in the dark night sky.

Almost simultaneously, the jade bracelet on Su Wanqing's wrist vibrated rapidly, and a cold electronic voice rang directly in her mind.

[Alert: Core power link interrupted. System functionality limited, return rate reduced to 15%. Please relocate all cores as soon as possible.]
On the huge screen of the control panel, the countdown, which had already reached zero, flickered a few times, and then the numbers suddenly started jumping again.

[72: 00: 00]
[The temporal structure is temporarily stable, and boundary damage is temporarily mitigated.]
"Wanqing!"

Lu Zhao struggled to get up from the ground, ignoring the bloodstains at the corner of his mouth, and rushed to Lin Che, who was lying in a pool of blood.

He quickly knelt down to examine Lin Che, his fingers touching Lin Che's neck, and then his brows furrowed.

"No, the situation is very bad." He spoke rapidly, his voice filled with barely suppressed anxiety. "Organ failure, massive internal bleeding, and severe damage to the nervous system... We don't have enough medical equipment; he won't last much longer!"

Su Wanqing's mind went blank. She looked at Lin Che in a panic; on his pale skin, the huge energy burn wound on his chest was constantly oozing blood.

His heartbeat was so weak that it was almost imperceptible.

"System!" she screamed frantically in her mind, "I need S-level medical supplies, now!"

immediately!"

[Insufficient energy to redeem S-grade items. Currently, the highest grade item redeemable is a B-grade medical kit.]
This was the first time the system had so decisively rejected her advanced exchange request.

Without the core energy support, this once almost omnipotent system instantly became stretched thin.

Inside the control room, the newly born "Night" didn't even glance at the dying Lin Che.

He immediately activated the built-in system, and the mechanical structure throughout his body emitted a series of subtle operating sounds.

His gaze fell on the three disappearing purple streaks of light outside the window, and data streams flashed rapidly in his blue pupils.

“At least one core must be recovered,” he muttered to himself, as if stating a predetermined procedure. “Otherwise, things will be worse than they were 72 hours later.”

The armor on his back extended out, forming two wing-like energy thrusters.

He gave the clone host lying on the ground one last indifferent glance.

"Thank you for your sacrifice, Subject S-7."

Before he finished speaking, he bent his knees slightly, and his whole body transformed into a blue afterimage, leaping out from the huge window opening. With astonishing speed, he chased straight after the core light trail heading southwest.

At the very second that "Night" departed.

"boom--"

The special alloy door to the control room, which had been repeatedly attacked, was finally blown open completely.

Amidst the billowing smoke and dust, a team of fully armed military special forces stormed in. Lieutenant Cui, leading the team, wore goggles and pointed the dark muzzle of his assault rifle directly at the people inside.

"In the name of the federal government, lay down your weapons immediately!" His voice came through the mask, sounding somewhat muffled, but full of unquestionable authority.

The soldiers quickly dispersed, forming a battle formation that surrounded Su Wanqing, Lu Zhao, Xiao Ran, and the "Taoist".

When they saw the chaotic scene inside and Lin Che lying in a pool of blood, his life hanging in the balance, everyone looked somewhat confused.

Lieutenant Cui's gaze swept over the empty core array base, then looked at the fading purple light traces outside the window, his brows furrowed.

He pressed the communicator to report to the command center.

"The situation at the top of the tower is complex, and the target has been dispersed. Repeat, three abnormal energy fluctuations were detected, and the target has been dispersed."

Requesting further instructions.

The air atop the signal tower became stagnant as soldiers poured in.

The cold muzzle of a gun was pointed at everyone in the room, and Lieutenant Cui's voice broke the brief silence. "I'll say it again, in the name of the Federal Government, everyone assemble in the center of the control room! Explain everything that's happening here!"

Su Wanqing ignored his shouts; her entire focus was on the person beneath her.

Lin Che's body temperature was dropping, and what terrified her even more was that ominous gray streaks began to appear on his skin, which was charred black from the energy burning, like cracks in a dried-up riverbed, spreading from the wounds to his entire body.

The residual energy left behind after Orion separated is consuming his last bit of life force.

"Medical kit, Grade B medical kit!" Su Wanqing roared to the system in her mind, and the redeemed item instantly appeared in her hand.

She tore open the packaging and clumsily applied the gel and regeneration patch inside to the wound on Lin Che's chest, but the gray streaks did not slow down at all; instead, they spread even faster.

It was no use. Despair gripped her. She looked at the wound on her wrist, once stained with Xiaoling's blood, and a crazy idea surged into her mind.

Without hesitation, she grabbed a sharp metal shard, cut open her arm, squeezed out the warm blood, and smeared it on Lin Che's cold wound.

The blood simply flowed along with his own, and nothing happened.

[Host S-7's life loss rate: 7% per minute.]
[Estimated survival time: 28 minutes.]
[Recommendation: Seek advanced biological stabilizers or reconnect the energy core to restore full system functionality.]
The system's notification sound was as cold as an inscription on a tombstone, each word striking Su Wanqing's heart.

On the other side, Lu Zhao and Xiao Ran stood on either side of Su Wanqing, protecting her and Lin Che behind them, watching the soldiers who surrounded them warily.

Lieutenant Cui frowned, stepped forward, and slightly lowered the muzzle of his gun.

"What was that blue creature that rushed out? Why did the energy core disperse? Can anyone explain this!"

No one answered him. Just then, the "monk" who had been silent all along relaxed his hands in front of his chest and calmly spoke: "Lieutenant Cui, instead of asking these questions now, why not answer one question first?"

What do the military intend to do with the three scattered cores? Do they plan to hand them over to higher command to continue the deadly experiments on Orion, or do they intend to keep them for themselves and utilize their power?

These words were like a needle, precisely piercing Lieutenant Cui's taut nerves.

His lips pressed into a straight line, and his grip on the gun tightened. This was precisely the biggest point of contention within the military's top ranks.

Amid the chaotic standoff, Lu Zhao squatted to the side, already having opened his portable terminal, his fingers flying across the screen.

The remaining monitoring footage from the console interacted with the data on his terminal, and soon, three striking red dots appeared on a city map.

“I’ve analyzed it,” he said without looking up, “the flight trajectories of the three cores.”

The first missile flew southwest and landed in the old industrial area. The second missile flew northeast and landed in the city center's commercial district.

The third one flew straight south; judging from its trajectory, it likely fell into an underground orbital system.

He looked up, his face grim. "The worst part is that they release high-intensity time radiation during their flight, attracting large numbers of mutants to those three areas."

Especially in the direction of the old industrial area—the direction 'Night' was chasing—energy readings showed signs of activity from swarms of advanced mutants.

On the dilapidated monitoring screen in the control room, the image switched at the exact moment, confirming his words.

Above the old industrial area, an unnatural purple cloud was slowly rotating, and in the abandoned factory, rusty robotic arms seemed to be reassembling themselves.

On the exterior walls of the commercial center building, dark green vines grew wildly at a visible rate, almost swallowing the entire street.

At the entrance to the subway system, large amounts of water were surging up, forming several strange water columns on the ground that seemed to wriggle in the air as if they were alive.

“Wanqing…” Lu Zhao looked at Su Wanqing, his voice low.

Su Wanqing was on the verge of emotional collapse. She gripped Lin Che's increasingly cold hand, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.

How could she find a core and come back to save him in just over twenty minutes?

Just then, a faint notification sound rang in her mind.

[Anchor point sentiment fluctuations have reached their peak; emergency protocol activated.]
[Urgent Proposal: Approximately close-range core energy...] The system seemed to pause for a moment before continuing: [Directly channeling the anchor point energy into the severely injured host's body may slow down the death process.]
[warn:]
[1. This is an irregular procedure, with a 90% chance of causing irreversible malignant mutations in the host.]
[2. This procedure requires 25% of the anchor's own life force as a medium.]
[3. The success rate is only 42%.]
[Execute?]
To gamble her life on a success rate of less than 50%? Su Wanqing was stunned.

Suddenly, a burst of rapid static came through Lieutenant Cui's communicator.

"...Calling the top! Team B reporting!...Underground orbital system detected...large-scale mutant activity...Xiaoling...Xiaoling has accidentally come into contact with core energy...behavioral patterns are changing! Requesting backup! Repeat, requesting backup..."

Communication abruptly ceased.

Lieutenant Cui's expression changed drastically. He turned around abruptly and ordered the soldiers behind him, "Half of you stay here to control the scene! The other half, come with me! Immediately proceed to the underground rail system to support Team B!"

The military’s tough stance has softened due to this sudden turn of events.

opportunity!

Lu Zhao immediately seized the opportunity. He stood up and said to everyone in a very fast voice, "We can't waste any more time here! We must split up and act!"

His gaze swept over Xiao Ran and the Taoist priest, finally settling on Su Wanqing.

“Xiao Ran, you and the Dawn Organization will track down ‘Night.’ He is our biggest threat now, and you know him best. The old industrial area is yours.”

“I,” he paused, his voice leaving no room for doubt, “escort Wanqing and Lin Che to the nearest business center to find the core. This is the only way to save Lin Che.”

He finally looked at the mysterious monk: "'Monk,' could you use your methods to help slow down Lin Che's condition and buy us time to move?"

Lu Zhao's voice was clear in the control room, which was filled with the sounds of electricity and wind. His proposed division of labor made Lieutenant Cui's tightly furrowed brows relax a little.

Xiaoling's unexpected situation disrupted the military's plans, and now, this temporary alliance seems to be the only viable option.

Lieutenant Cui lowered his gun, glanced at the B team's location displayed on his communicator, then swept his gaze over the weak-looking Lin Che, and finally made his decision.

“According to Federal Emergency Regulations, retrieving the core is the highest priority. Given the special circumstances, I cannot track three targets simultaneously.” His gaze shifted to Lu Zhao and Xiao Ran. “The Dawn Organization must also have limited manpower.”

Before Xiao Ran could answer, the "Taoist" crossed his hands in front of his chest and stepped forward.

“Lieutenant Cui, arguing about the number of manpower is pointless at this moment. We can accept this proposal.”

He turned to Xiao Ran, then looked at Su Wanqing, "The three of us can reach a temporary agreement."

The military's main force is responsible for the most urgent underground tracks, recovering the core and ensuring Xiaoling's safety.

Xiao Ran led our people to the old industrial area to track down 'Night'. Miss Su and Mr. Lu Zhao, on the other hand, took Lin Che to the nearest commercial center to search for the third core.