"Stop right there, human!" a metallic voice screeched from the shadows of the corridor.The silver doors of the elevator had barely retracted when the cold air of the lower sub-decks hit my face. I stumbled out, my left hand pressing hard against my ribs, feeling the warm blood soaking through my torn fur coat. But I wasn't alone. Despite Director Kang's gravity trap, I had managed to grab the linen bundle before the floor plates fully separated. The golden-eyed infant was tucked securely against my chest, his breaths small and rhythmic, his neon eyes closed but his system core still humming faintly against my ribcage."Hao! You shouldn't be down here!" a distant voice seemed to echo in my head, but there was no time to think about Luo Bing. He was somewhere in the lower ventilation shafts, and I had a file to close.The corridor ahead was a labyrinth of dark, brushed titanium walls and pulsing blue fluid pipes. Standing right in the center of the intersection, blocking the only pathw

"Twenty-eight minutes left, Hao!" Luo Bing’s voice cracked through the emergency channel, swallowed by heavy static. "The secondary shaft is collapsing! The metal plates are buckling from the core heat! I can't hold the perimeter much longer! You have to move now!""I’m already moving, Luo!" I shouted back, my voice tearing through my throat. Blood was still leaking from my lips, staining my chin and dripping onto the linen bundle pressed against my chest. My left hand clutched my broken ribs, but my right hand was steady as it gripped the nine-inch black iron Primal Needle. "Keep your head down! Don't look at the light!"The circular vault was spinning. The massive, floating Galaxy Core had broken its platinum anchors, its surface bubbling with a violent, unstable purple plasma that threw off raw sheets of electrical fire. The diamond glass capsule containing my sister, Jiang Mei, was shaking violently, the internal nutrient fluid turning a dark, dangerous crimson as the core's backu

"You turn your back on the galactic crown?" the eldest director shouted, his silver robes snapping with sudden, violent kinetic energy as he stepped forward on the gold chariot. The glowing diamond insignia on his forehead flared into a blinding, angry crimson. "Jiang Hao! This is the Supreme Grand Throne of Galaxy 7! Every planet, every pharmaceutical vault, and every living species in this sector answers to this seat! No mortal creature has ever been offered this ledgership!""Then let it stay empty," I said, my voice dead flat as I walked straight past the plasma-wheeled chariots, my boots hovering a fraction of a millimeter above the ruined silver floorboards. I adjusted my grip on my sister, Jiang Mei, keeping her limp, stable body securely pressed against my chest. The golden-eyed infant nestled in my linen bundle let out a soft, warm breath against my ribs, his system core humming perfectly in tune with my newly forged sovereign meridians. "I am a street physician from the east

"Hao! The tracking monitors just went dark!" Li screamed from the clinic doorway, her knuckles white as she gripped the wood frame. "The city municipal feeds, the grid, the transport nodes everything is dropping! Look at the main gates!"I turned away from the examination table where Jiang Mei lay resting. My snowy white hair whipped across my face as a violent, unnatural shudder rattled the floorboards of our ancestral clinic. Through the open window, the distant, mechanical clanging of iron barricades slamming down echo-boomed across the city's perimeter walls."They're locking us in," Luo Bing growled, his heavy combat boots skidding against the floorboards as he rushed to the entrance, his massive arms still cradling the linen bundle of the golden-eyed infant. "Hao, those aren't local police squads. Look at the silver insignias on those armored trucks. It's New Dawn Pharma's enforcement division. They’re stringing high-voltage wire across the outer checkpoints!""A fake quarantine

"Don't you dare close your eyes, Lin Yue!" I roared, my hands slamming flat against her shoulders.The cold, jagged spider-web cracks were expanding right under my palms, ripping through her collarbone with a sickening, glass-like snapping sound. Her skin, which was now ninety percent translucent blue crystal, flickered wildly. Beneath the surface, her true soul-frequency was thrashing, trying to tear itself out of her physical shell as the residual energy from the cosmic disruption cannon tore her baseline anchors to shreds."Hao... it's too cold," Lin Yue whispered, her chest plate split wide open down the center. A thick, glowing stream of liquid sapphire life force was pouring out, soaking straight into the dark garden mud between my knees. Her usual vibrant blue gaze was fading into an empty, hollow slate gray. "The crystal... it's overriding my marrow. I can't feel my fingers anymore. Just let it go.""Shut up! I didn't drag my sister back from a galactic fortress just to watch