Word Count: 1297 (Verified by Microsoft Word)
The scent of burnt ozone clung to Lin Ye's nostrils as consciousness returned in jagged fragments. Cold steel pressed against his bare back, the rhythmic beep of medical monitors slicing through the fog in his brain. His left eyelid refused to open - someone had sealed it with bio-gel. Through his right eye's blurred vision, he saw chrome surgical arms dangling above him like the legs of a mechanical spider.
"Don't move," a voice rasped from the shadows. "They've implanted three trackers in your femur."
Lin Ye's Spirit Core flared instinctively. Golden Daoist scripts flickered across his vision, automatically translating the blinking console nearby:
[Neural Suppression Chamber 9]
[Patient: #11485 - High Risk Cultivator]
[Procedure: Soulforge Preparation...]
A silhouette detached itself from the wall. Red optic sensors glowed beneath a tattered academy hoodie as mechanical fingers snapped open a holographic lock. The stranger's right arm gleamed with black alloy, Federation containment runes etched along its surface.
"Your little exam stunt lit up half the surveillance grid," the figure said, tossing aside a drained power cell. Up close, Lin Ye saw the man's jawline was bisected by a scar that glowed faintly purple - the mark of a failed neural purge. "Name's Eiden. You've got exactly 90 seconds before Verlac's drones arrive."
The door exploded inward.
Lin Ye rolled off the medical table as plasma bolts scorched the wall where his head had been. Three containment drones hovered in the doorway, their spherical bodies rotating to expose photon cannons. Eiden's mechanical arm unfolded with a series of metallic clicks, revealing a humming vibro-blade that warped the air around its edge.
"Phase-three lockdown!" a drone intoned. "Surrender for memory extraction."
Lin Ye's fingers found a surgical laser beside the operating table. The weapon felt alien compared to his long-lost sword, but when the nearest drone charged its cannon, centuries of battle instinct took over. He drew the Eight Trigrams in the air with the laser's crimson beam, recreating the Wudang Mountain's Sword Array from muscle memory.
The drones froze mid-attack.
"Impossible..." Eiden stared as the security drones' photon cannons began rotating backwards, targeting their own central processors. "You hacked Federation hardware with tai chi?"
"Not hacked." Lin Ye watched the golden Daoist scripts in his vision overlay the drones' attack patterns. "Redirected."
The surgical laser trembled in his grip as suppressed spiritual energy surged through the improvised weapon. With a roar that shook the medical bay, he completed the final stroke of the Bagua diagram. The drones' photon cannons discharged into their own cores, reducing them to molten slag.
Eiden's mechanical eye zoomed in on Lin Ye's trembling hands. "You're burning through your Spirit Core's safety limit. Another five minutes and-"
"Twelve broken meridians," Lin Ye interrupted, wiping black blood from his nostrils. "The suppression field is eating me from the inside out."
A grin split Eiden's scarred face. He tore open a wall panel, revealing pulsating blue cables that smelled of ionized copper. "Then let's give the Federation something tastier to chew on."
The rogue mechanic's flesh-and-metal fingers danced across exposed circuits. Lin Ye's augmented vision caught the pattern - Eiden was inputting countercodes using a rhythm that matched the Great Qing's military drum signals.
[Emergency Containment Override]
[Main Power Grid Disengaged]
Screams echoed through distant corridors as the academy's force fields flickered out. Somewhere deep below them, a resonant hum began shaking the floor plates.
"Sublevel 9," Eiden shouted over the rising din. "They're keeping the good toys near the Soulforge!"
Lin Ye followed the limping mechanic through collapsing hallways, their path illuminated by emergency strobes. The walls here oozed black nano-slime that recoiled from his Spirit Core's residual energy. A thunderous roar shook the facility, followed by the distinct chittering of...
"Bioweapons vault breach," Eiden laughed madly as they skidded into an elevator. "Classic misdirection!"
The elevator plunged twenty levels. When the doors opened, Lin Ye's reincarnated soul recoiled.
Before them stretched an organic cathedral of pulsating flesh. Bioluminescent veins climbed walls that breathed like living lungs. At the chamber's heart floated a massive emerald orb - a captured虫族母巢核心 (Zerg Hive Core) suspended in quantum stasis. Its surface rippled with what looked like ancient cuneiform, but Lin Ye's Divine Sense recognized the truth: these were celestial runes from the lost Xuan Yuan法典.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Eiden approached the containment field, his mechanical arm extruding data probes. "The Federation's been studying these cores for decades, never realizing..."
"Realizing what?"
"That they're not alien." Eiden's probes sparked against the force field. "These cores react to the same energy patterns as your little sword dance upstairs."
Lin Ye stepped closer. The hive core's surface reflected his face - no, not his current face, but his original visage from eight centuries past. The core sang to him in the language of collapsing stars, its melody intertwining with the Dao De Jing verses in his mind.
[Containment Breach: 12%]
Eiden's warning came too late. The hive core erupted in viridian flames, tendrils of quantum energy lashing out. Lin Ye's body moved before conscious thought, hands forming the Seal of Heavenly Ascent. Golden light clashed with emerald fire as the entire chamber shuddered.
"Foolish child..." The voice resonated through his bones rather than air. A feminine presence with the weight of dead galaxies pressed against his mind. "You wear the stench of the False Heaven's lackeys."
Lin Ye's knees buckled. Through the psychic assault, he glimpsed fleeting images - a battlefield where mechs wielded flaming swords, a silver-haired woman wearing Imperial Han robes piloting a warship, and a mountain-sized serpent with quantum scales devouring entire star systems.
"Not... Federation..." he gritted out, blood streaming from both nostrils. "Enemy... of... my enemy..."
The psychic pressure vanished. The hive core's surface calmed to reveal his reflection again - now showing his current face overlaid with the phantom of a Daoist crown.
[Containment Breach: 100%]
Eiden's shout barely registered. "Take it now! This is our only-"
Lin Ye plunged his hands into the quantum field.
Agony beyond any heavenly tribulation ravaged his nervous system. The hive core dissolved into liquid light that poured into his mouth, nose, and pores. His Spirit Core detonated in a supernova of conflicting energies - Federation suppression fields versus primordial cultivation versus whatever alien intelligence inhabited the core.
When the light faded, Lin Ye stood trembling in the ruins of the containment chamber. His augmented vision displayed scrolling data that made no sense until the Daoist scripts translated:
[Meridian Reconstruction: 100%]
[Spirit Core Evolution: Bio-Quantum Reactor Online]
[Warning: Unknown Energy Signature - Designation: 幽荧 (You Ying) Detected]
Eiden stared at him with something akin to religious awe. From the smoldering ruins of Lin Ye's academy uniform, glowing golden sigils pulsed in rhythm with the distant stars.
System Alert
Sublevel 9 Containment Failure
Entity Released: Hive Core Consciousness
Tracking Signal Lost: Subject #11485
New Designation: Quantum Cultivator-Class Threat
Aftermath Report: Medical Bay 7
Surveillance footage shows Subject #11485's surgical laser manifesting energy signatures matching 3rd-century BC bronze sword relics. Cross-referencing historical databases... Match found: Sword of Goujian (State of Yue).
Recommendation: Immediate deployment of Void-class hunters.
Director's Note: "Let the dogs chase shadows. The real prize is entering phase two."