All Chapters of The Puppet Dao: Chapter 11
- Chapter 15
15 chapters
Chapter 10 – The Memory That Binds Flesh
Zhao didn't speak. He didn’t know how to speak anymore. He just stood there, hand frozen in mid-reach, mouth half-open, watching his friend—his quiet, expressionless, always-controlled friend—become someone else. Lin Cang was standing, but his back was too straight now, his arms too still. His face looked like Lin Cang’s, but something inside it wasn’t holding the pieces together like before. The eyes glowed not like flame, but like a forge—not wild, but focused. Zhao took one careful step backward and whispered, “B… what’s happening to him?” Prototype B stood across from him, one hand outstretched as if he could stop what was happening through sheer intent. His voice came out hollow. “He’s being read.” Zhao frowned. “Read?” “Everything the core wrote into him—the parts, the diagrams, the threading—it wasn’t just shaping his body. It was recording. It’s been listening to every decision, every moment. Now that the construct activated the protocol, it’s opening the archive.” Z
Last Updated : 2025-06-07
Chapter 11 – The Shadow That Waited to Be Built
Zhao didn’t speak right away. His hands tightened around the grip of his sword, knuckles pale, sweat clinging to his fingers, but he didn’t lift the blade. There was no point. His instincts were screaming, but not about danger. They were screaming about scale. Something too big to fight. Too old to reason with. Something that didn’t break rules—it was the thing those rules were made to stop.He looked at Lin Cang—or whatever Lin was now—and whispered, “That thing behind you… what is it?”Lin Cang answered without turning around. His voice was still his. Almost. But the syllables were smoother, like someone else was riding the edge of every word, helping him speak faster than his thoughts could catch up.“It’s a memory,” Lin said. “Of a body that was never allowed to exist.”Zhao’s throat dried. “That doesn’t sound like something we want here.”Prototype B was already drawing symbols in the air with his finger, his movements sharp, fast, precise—like a man preparing a shield before the
Last Updated : 2025-06-07
Chapter 12 – The First and the Forgotten
Zhao’s breath caught somewhere in his chest. His sword arm stayed frozen, blade held out between them, but even he knew it wouldn’t matter. Not here. Not in this place.Prototype B said nothing. He simply took a single step back—not in fear, but in recognition. His lips parted, but no sound came out. Not a warning. Not a curse. Only a quiet disbelief.Lin Cang stared at the man in front of him, the one who had stepped from the mist and seized the black shard like it belonged there. No. Not like. As if it had been waiting to return to him the entire time.Lin’s voice was quiet, but steady. “You’re not part of the Carver’s records. No chamber, no seal, not even a mention. If you were the first... where have you been?”The man walked closer now, slowly, calmly, as if the mist beneath his feet was a familiar road. “Records are for survivors. And I wasn’t built to survive. I was built to begin.”Zhao gritted his teeth. “Begin what?”The man stopped just within reach of Lin’s outstretched h
Last Updated : 2025-06-07
Chapter 13 – The Voice Older Than Diagrams
Zhao staggered backward, eyes wide as the ground beneath them twisted. The mist shattered like glass struck from the inside, and the fragments didn't fall—they hovered, suspended midair in glimmering static. He blinked once and realized he could see the voice.Not a body.Not a person.But a line of golden script etched into the air itself—shimmering, enormous, alive.Prototype B reached out and grabbed Zhao’s wrist hard. “Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t answer.”Zhao whispered back, “What is that?”B’s voice was dry and steady. “That’s the Architect’s failsafe. The one even the Carver couldn’t override.”Zhao turned to him. “That’s a voice?!”B nodded slowly. “It’s a sentient pattern. A shaping algorithm that was never supposed to activate unless someone rewrote the Seventh Form’s imprint.”Zhao’s head whipped around. “Lin.”Lin Cang was still in the center of it all. His feet didn’t touch the ground anymore. The black shard hovered in front of his chest, spinning slowly, each turn re
Last Updated : 2025-06-07
Chapter 14 – The Door That Should Not Be Named
Zhao didn’t breathe. He forgot to breathe.Lin’s voice hadn’t changed completely, but something inside it bent—like three people were arguing inside a well and one of them finally rose to the top. His words weren’t shouted, and they weren’t spoken in that slow, controlled rhythm Zhao had grown used to. No, this was casual. Almost amused.Zhao took a cautious step forward, sword still in his grip but lowered slightly. “Lin,” he said carefully. “That thing… that’s not you talking.”Lin blinked once more. The black on the edges of his eyes retreated—just a little, like it was shrinking back beneath the surface but still watching. “It is,” he said. “It’s part of me. That’s what no one told us. These forms, these blueprints, these ‘gifts’—they don’t just add tools. They leave shadows behind.”Prototype B spoke quickly now, stepping in front of Zhao like he expected Lin to snap forward any moment. “You need to isolate it. If you give it context, it’ll spread deeper. Don’t think in full sent
Last Updated : 2025-06-07