"Doctor Jiang! Please, you have to look at him!"The young woman gasped for breath as she stumbled through the clinic doors. Her shoes were worn through at the soles, coated in thick gray dust from the outer districts. Her face was pale, dried sweat mapping lines through the dirt on her cheeks. In her trembling arms, she held a tight bundle of faded cotton blankets."Ma'am, sit down before you drop," I said, instantly moving from behind the reception counter. "Luo Bing, get some water and a clean towel!""Right away," Luo Bing called out from the back pharmacy room, his heavy boots thudding against the floorboards."No, don't worry about me!" The woman's voice cracked. Her grip on the bundle tightened. "My name is An Feng. I’ve walked for three days straight. The hospitals in the north district wouldn't even let me past the lobby. They said I was crazy. They said he’s just a normal baby throwing a tantrum. But he isn't! Look at him!""Let me see him, An Feng," I said, keeping my voice

"Fire!" Chen Long screamed."Don't move! Drop the needle, Jiang Hao!"The commanding voice didn't come from Chen Long. It boomed from the interior of the armored transport as a short, stout man stepped out of the vehicle’s luxury cabin. The soldiers instantly froze, their fingers hovering over the triggers of their compressed-gas shock rifles, the red laser targets still painting my forehead and the baby’s chest.The new arrival wore a high-collared, heavy black coat trimmed with silver embroidery—the uniform of a top-tier administrator. His face was round, lined with the severe arrogance of a bureaucrat who had spent decades sentencing men to ruin with the stroke of a pen. In his right hand, he held a sleek, matte-black metallic cylinder that hummed with a dangerous, localized gravity field."Director Zhao!" Chen Long quickly bowed his head, stepping back toward the armored hull. "The rogue doctor was attempting to destroy the biological specimen. I ordered termination to secure the

The sirens inside the underground dome didn't scream; they groaned under the crushing weight of a massive power surge. Red emergency lights flickered across the white porcelain tiles, painting the extraction lab in the color of fresh arterial blood. In the center of the room, the three-story titanium machine hissed, its pressurized glass canisters rattling violently against their steel mounts.Sitting directly in front of the primary glass capsule was a high-tech motorized wheelchair. In it sat the Prime Minister, Elder Long.A thick, translucent tube made of flexible golden polymer ran straight from the base of the child’s containment tank into a surgical port embedded in Elder Long’s neck. A bubbling, brilliant golden fluid was pumping down that tube every three seconds. With every single pulse of the child’s stolen lifeforce, the old man’s wrinkled skin filled out. His liver spots were actively fading, and the dead gray strands of his hair were turning a deep, unnatural jet-black r

"One," the automated terminal droned.The barrels of the six high-caliber defense turrets spun to a deafening shriek. The red laser lines burned directly into the skin between my eyes. My body was completely numb, my forehead resting against the cold, blood-smeared porcelain tiles. I couldn't lift my arms. The flesh of my hands was charred black, small wisps of smoke still rising from the torn tissue where the glass shards had sliced through my tendons during the Reverse Suture."Hao! Move!" Luo Bing screamed, his boots slamming against the floor as he lunged across the laboratory. "Lin Yue, get the mother behind me! Now!""I can't block six heavy military turrets, Luo!" Lin Yue’s voice fractured with pure panic. Her skin was a jagged, blinding sheet of diamond-hard crystal, but her shoulders were shaking. "The kinetic caliber on those barrels will shatter my form in two seconds!""Then we die together!" Luo Bing roared, his steel blade flashing as he threw his entire torso over my li

"You’ve caused quite a mess for our investors today," Dr. Vance said, his voice cutting through the heavy silence of the plaza like a polished blade. He leaned his chin slightly on his white jade dragon cane, looking down at me from the plush interior of the obsidian sedan.I didn't let go of the silver needle in my hand. I kept my thumb pressed against the Hegu point of the trembling laborer sitting on the asphalt before me. "Your investors don't pay for my clinic, Dr. Vance. Move your car. You're blocking the path for the patients in the back."Luo Bing immediately stepped up, his palm resting heavily on the pommel of his sword, his eyes fixed on the blacked-out windows of the sedan. "Hao, who is this old bastard? He smells like expensive cologne and corporate bullshit.""He’s the President of the Global Medical Federation," Lin Yue whispered, her hand wrapping tightly around the edge of the wooden shipping crate. Her skin flared with a frantic, crystalline shimmer before she forced