Chapter 4: The Iron Tide
The Undercity's alarms screamed like wounded beasts.
Li Wei stood atop the temple's fractured roof, watching the sky fracture. Neon clouds split open, disgorging three titans clad in armor forged from dead stars. The Iron Judges descended, their mechanized limbs etched with Elysium's lotus sigils, each step cracking the earth. Their faces were smooth, featureless obsidian, but their voices boomed with the distorted echoes of a hundred dead cultivators.
"Anomaly LW-8892," the central Judge intoned, its core glowing crimson. "Surrender the First Core. Your death will be efficient."
Kara materialized beside Li Wei, her cloak shimmering with disruption fields. "Those things crack planets for breakfast. Your plan better involve a miracle."
Li Wei tightened his grip on Snow Dragon, its blade humming with frost and static. "Gather the Forge. We funnel them into the temple's guardian array."
"That broken statue? It's a death trap."
"Exactly."
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The Undercity's rebels—a ragtag army of hackers, cyborg street fighters, and rogue Ascended—formed barricades of scrap metal and stolen energy shields. Kara's mechanical eye projected tactical holograms, but the Judges ignored them.
The lead Judge raised its arm. A pulse of crimson energy vaporized an entire district, reducing ten thousand souls to ash and molten data chips.
"Compliance is peace," it repeated.
Li Wei leapt, channeling his hybrid qi-nanobot energy. Snow Dragon clashed against the Judge's plasma cannon, the impact rippling through the Undercity like an earthquake. Frost spread across the Judge's armor, but its core flared, melting the ice.
"Ineffective," it droned. A backhand strike sent Li Wei crashing through a skyscraper.
Kara's voice crackled in Li Wei's neural implant. "Get them to the temple! Now!"
He feigned retreat, luring the Judges through collapsing streets. The Undercity's survivors hurled makeshift explosives—fusion grenades wrapped in cultivation talismans—slowing the titans just enough.
The temple's statue activated as the Judges crossed its threshold. "Unauthorized entities detected," it thundered, reassembling into a colossal stone golem.
The guardian array flared to life, ensnaring the Judges in chains of golden light. For a moment, the system held—until the lead Judge spoke in Chen Yun's voice.
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Li Wei faltered. The array flickered.
"Don't listen!" Kara screamed, hacking the temple's controls. "It's a simulation!"
The Judge's core detonated, shattering the golem. Li Wei's First Core flared in response, its energy lashing wildly.
The Undercity burned.
Li Wei fought recklessly, his hybrid energy corroding the Judges' armor but eating away at his own flesh. Kara dueled the smallest Judge, her plasma pistol overloading its joints.
"Aim for the cores!" she shouted.
Li Wei plunged Snow Dragon into the central Judge's chest. The blade shattered, but the First Core in his dantian reacted, unleashing a shockwave of qi and nanobots. The Judge imploded, its core collapsing into a black hole the size of a coin.
The remaining Judges retreated, warping reality to vanish.
"We… won?" a rebel whispered.
Li Wei collapsed, his body flickering between solid and static. The First Core's energy had destabilized him—veins glowing gold and silver, skin peeling to reveal circuitry beneath.
Kara caught him. "Jax! We need a stasis pod, now!"
In the temple's depths, Jax sealed Li Wei in a cryopod repurposed from Elysium tech. "His cells are at war. The core's too powerful."
Kara stared at Li Wei's frozen form. "How long?"
"Days. Weeks. Maybe never."
The rebels salvaged what they could, but the Undercity was a smoldering crater. Yet, in the ruins, a single sapling sprouted—a hybrid of bioluminescent fungus and celestial lotus, nourished by Li Wei's spilled blood.
A hologram flickered on Kara's wrist. A message from the sanctuary world, Míng Tiān:
"The Iron Judges attack us. Send the Sovereign… or all is lost."
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Li Wei drifted in a void.
The First Core's memories consumed him—visions of his disciples' final moments, Veyra's experiments, and the Prisoner's whispers from its cosmic cell.
"You cannot save them," the Prisoner crooned. "But together, we can devour this world… and rebuild it."
Li Wei's hybrid core pulsed. No.
He awoke screaming, the cryopod exploding in a storm of ice and lightning. Kara stumbled back, pistol raised.
"Li Wei?"
His eyes glowed—one gold, one silver. "We go to Míng Tiān. Now."
"And then?"
"We kill Veyra."
Above them, unnoticed, a drone shaped like a skeletal crane observed everything—and dissolved into smoke.