Samsara Space: They're all begging me to heal them one more time.

"Welcome to my world, mortal."

A tremendous electronic sound echoed throughout the space, carrying an undeniable divine power.

"Here, there is no magic, no miracles. All physical constants, birth, aging, sickness, and death are determined by a single line of my code."

"Now, hand over the original sin chip in your soul. I may consider transforming your consciousness into a piece of excellent, secure code to serve me forever."

Faced with this behemoth that could instantly drive any hacker to a mental breakdown.

Zhang Yuan simply looked up at the enormous thing and remained silent for two seconds.

Then he laughed.

"Mr. Saburo Arasaka..." He adjusted his mask, "Aren't you mistaken about something?"

"Oh?" The red eyes of the electronic Buddha statue narrowed slightly.

"The way you invited me here was through a 'forced link'."

Zhang Yuan extended his index finger and tapped his temple. "But do you know what this means?"

A mocking smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"In your world, this is called hacking. In my world, this is called—a soul contract."

Zhang Yuan raised his right hand, and a golden rune appeared in his palm—the embodiment of the [Golden Law: Final Interpretation].

"And contracts," he smiled even more broadly, "are my specialty."

The electronic Buddha statue flashed its light.

"Arrogant."

Saburo's voice remained calm, but the data stream speed noticeably increased.

"You think you can still use your primitive occult tricks here?"

"Why not?"

Zhang Yuan took a step forward.

The flowing red data stream beneath their feet suddenly stopped for a moment.

"Mr. Saburo Arasaka, let me explain some common knowledge to you."

Zhang Yuan opened his arms as if embracing the entire data space.

"You dragged me in using a variant of the 'Soul Killer' protocol. What is the essence of this protocol? It's to divide a complete soul into editable data."

"But the prerequisite for splitting is that you have editing privileges."

Zhang Yuan pointed to the glowing golden rune on his chest.

"And I happen to be protected by the Golden Law. In this data world..."

He snapped his fingers.

Om-!

A golden ripple instantly spread out from him.

The originally scarlet data streams were swept by the ripples and were actually coated with a layer of gold.

"This is the highest level of authority, the right to modify the underlying code."

Saburo's electronic Buddha statue trembled violently.

"Impossible! This is the Divine Palace! It's my domain!"

"Don't rush." ​​Zhang Yuan slowly adjusted his gauntlets. "The accounts need to be settled one by one."

He extended the first finger.

"First debt. Your grandson, Lai Xuan, is my business partner. The 'Arrogance' chip you're parasitizing is now in my hands as well."

"According to Arasaka's product agreement, the chip holder has the final right of interpretation—that is to say, your 'permission to exist' is granted by me."

Saburo fell silent.

"The second debt." Zhang Yuan held up his second finger.

"You let Adam Hammer use [Jealousy] to copy my skills, and you even let that tin can Hammer bully my employees."

"For plagiarism and copyright infringement, based on Night City's rates, you can calculate how many Arasaka Group shares you should compensate me for?"

"The third account." He held up his third finger.

"You dragged me into this lousy place, wasting each other's time. Do you know how valuable my time is? Every minute is worth tens of thousands of euros."

Saburo remained silent for a long time.

In the data space, only golden and red data streams collide and annihilate silently.

Finally, the electronic Buddha statue spoke.

"Interesting." His voice regained its calmness, but carried a hint of danger. "It's been a long time since anyone dared to speak to me like that. The last one was my son."

Zhang Yuan raised an eyebrow: "The one you killed?"

"Kill him?"

Saburo emitted an ambiguous electronic voice, sounding like both laughter and a sigh, "Lai Xuan thought he killed me. He strangled my neck with his own hands and watched me die. At that moment, he was very proud."

The electronic Buddha statue flickered with light, revealing a blurry image—

On the top floor of the Ganbi Building, Lai Xuan gripped Sanlang's neck tightly with both hands, his eyes filled with decades of suppressed hatred and madness.

"But he didn't know..."

Saburo's voice continued, "I was prepared long ago."

"There is a hidden clause in the core protocol of Relic 2.0. When the host's physical body dies, the consciousness is automatically backed up and uploaded to the Divine Vehicle."

In the video, Lai Xuan-sao lets go of his father's body and watches it slide to the ground.

He was panting heavily, his face contorted with a morbid ecstasy.

"At that moment, he felt like he had won."

Saburo sighed.

"But what he didn't know was that as he snapped my neck, fragments of my consciousness had already entered his prosthetic body through his neural interface, and then, using his body as a springboard, entered the sacred vehicle."

"In the days that followed, he dreamed every night. He dreamed that I scolded him, that I mocked him, that I clung to him."

Saburo's voice carried a strange hint of pleasure. "He thought it was guilt, it was a demon in his heart. But it was me—I was using his spiritual energy to repair my own data fragments."

Zhang Yuan remained silent for two seconds.

"So, his mental breakdown during that period wasn't due to the chip's backlash, but rather you were draining his energy?"

"Clever." Saburo's electronic Buddha statue leaned forward slightly. "Lai Xuan is a good son. He hates me, so his spiritual energy is especially delicious."

"Every time he curses me through gritted teeth, every time he wakes up from a nightmare, every time he downs a whole bottle of liquor trying to forget me—I absorb more data nourishment."

"When he finally couldn't hold on any longer and pulled out the [Arrogance] chip," Saburo paused, "I was already complete."

The eyes of the electronic Buddha statue shone with a blinding red light.

"He thought that removing the chip would rid him of me. He didn't know that the chip was just one of my tentacles. The real me had long since parasitized his soul, draining him of his last bit of value."

After listening, Zhang Yuan sighed.

"Mr. Saburo."

He shook his head. "You know, I've met a lot of ruthless people in my life. But you're the first one who would even use his own son as a battery."

"Those who achieve great things do not concern themselves with trifles." Saburo's voice was as calm as if he were stating the weather.

"To achieve great things?" Zhang Yuan laughed. "You call shrinking into this crappy data space 'achieving great things'?"

He raised his hand, and the golden runes lit up again.

"Your son, Lai Xuan, is also considered my former business partner. Consider the spiritual energy you absorbed from him as an advance payment—now, it's time for you to repay the debt."

Saburo didn't say anything more.

But the entire data space began to tremble violently.

The red data streams that were originally driven out by the golden zone suddenly went berserk and surged toward Zhang Yuan like a tsunami.

Countless distorted faces appeared in each data stream—the remains of victims devoured by the "Soul Killer."

"You're quite the talker, mortal," Saburo's voice came from all directions. "But this is a world of data. Here, the more you talk, the faster you die."

Zhang Yuan's expression remained unchanged as he watched the overwhelming flood of data.

He sighed.

“Mr. Saburo,” he shook his head, “have you forgotten the third debt I mentioned earlier—you wasted my time.”

He raised his right hand, his five fingers spread.

Golden runes spun wildly in his palm.

"And time is money."

"In my field—"

Zhang Yuan clenched his fist suddenly.

"No credit allowed!"

boom!!!

Centered on him, the golden area instantly exploded, transforming into countless golden chains that surged back into the torrent of red data.

Each chain precisely wrapped around a distorted human face, and then—

Tighten.

Click.

The remains of the victims devoured by the "Soul Killer" showed expressions of relief as they were bound by golden chains.

They turned into specks of light and dissipated into the data space.

And those red data streams, once they lost their core support, dissipated like a receding tide.

Saburo's electronic Buddha statue trembled violently, and countless cracks appeared on its surface.

"This... is impossible..."

"Nothing is impossible." Zhang Yuan withdrew his hand. "Your biggest mistake was treating me as an ordinary enemy."

He looked up at the electronic Buddha statue on the verge of collapse and gave a standard capitalist smile.

"Remember, Mr. Saburo. In this world, you can offend anyone—but never offend your creditors."

"Especially a creditor with the final right of interpretation."

……

Meanwhile, outside of cyberspace.

Above the Arasaka Plaza, the red data beam dissipated.

Zhang Yuan's body, clad in platinum armor, fell helplessly from mid-air, like a puppet without its strings.

His body crashed heavily into the ruins of the square, and he fell into a deep sleep.

Adam Hammer looked at Zhang Yuan's body lying on the ground, and at the "insects" not far away, covered in wounds and having exhausted their trump cards, and let out a chilling burst of maniacal laughter.

"It seems that your 'god' has abandoned you."

The heavy hammer, rotating its mechanical cervical spine, strode heavily toward the crowd.