The command was clean, brief, and irrevocable:
Inside Lin Ke’s skull, the tiny cyan figure of his second soul uncrossed its legs.
It didn’t tear away with the blinding agony of an amputated limb. It didn’t pull upon an analog karmic leash or stretch an elastic soul-cord until the living heart seized.
It simply decoupled its socket connection and stepped upward.
A surreal, miraculous sight unfolded in the gloom of Sub-Vault Four.
Lin Ke’s physical body (Node 0) remained seated cross-legged on the stone anvil. Its stance relaxed, its eyelids sliding closed, its breathing slowing to a steady, calm forty breaths per minute—a living host running in low-power basal standby mode.
And rising from the crown of its head was a human dark shape forged of solid, diamond-faceted cyan crystal.
Six feet tall. Clean. Streaming an intense, cold, high-hum deep ring that set the dust motes around it glowing like tiny cyan stars.
