Zero protocol: Red, The code ascendant

The ruins were ancient.

Not the kind whispered about in sect scrolls or mapped by greedy explorers. These weren't the crumbled remains of a long-dead clan or forgotten trial ground. No, these ruins were buried deeper—hidden even from the greedy eyes of cultivators.

Lian Xue didn't find them. The ground gave way beneath her during a retreat from another pursuit—a three-day chase by a bounty hunter who spoke with no mouth and bled cold mist. She crushed him eventually, with a magnetic implosion and a cliffside collapse. But her legs gave out after, and the earth opened below.

That's how she landed here—in the belly of a dead empire.

The chamber she now limped through was circular, with statues lining the edges. Warriors carved from obsidian stood frozen mid-charge, their weapons pointed outward, guarding what must have once been a throne or a portal. She wasn't sure.

But her instincts screamed.

This place was not safe.

Her power level sat at 7.1. Her systems were cooling. Her internal processors had stabilized since the Widow fight, but only barely. Three of her drones were broken. She hadn't eaten in two days.

And something else moved in these ruins.

---

She didn't breathe loudly. She had long trained that out of herself. But the silence here was too complete, and even her smallest steps sounded like thunder.

Her weapon, currently shaped like a single-edge staff blade, pulsed faintly in her hand.

Ahead, a faint hum. Spiritual resonance, but distorted. Ancient. Wrong.

She crouched behind one of the statues and released a bug-drone the size of a fly. Its feed flickered, then died.

"Interference field. Possibly a ward."

Her voice barely made sound. More a breath of thought than words.

She moved anyway.

The hum grew louder. Closer. She reached the central dais, where fractured jade tiles formed the shape of an eye. In its center lay a crystal sphere—not glowing, not reacting, but impossibly intact.

"Power signature: unreadable. Core instability detected."

The god-metal inside her thrummed nervously.

And then she heard it.

A footstep.

Not hers.

---

She turned and barely avoided the sword slash. The air hissed as spiritual pressure burst from the blade.

The attacker wore no sect robes. No mask. Just tattered black clothes and chains around both wrists. His eyes were dead—literally. Hollow sockets dripping dark mist.

Undead cultivator?

No… worse.

A soul-bound remnant.

She parried with a burst of magnetic repulsion, her blade shifting to a saw-edge to grind against the pressure. Sparks lit the darkness.

He didn't speak. Only attacked.

Fast.

She gave ground, letting him press her toward the edge of the dais. He struck again—a whip of shadow laced with burning sigils. She ducked low, rolled, then twisted her weapon into a tri-chain and caught his wrist.

"Engaging suppression lock."

The chain buzzed with energy, and for a moment—just a moment—he slowed.

She stabbed.

The blade sank into his throat.

He didn't fall.

He roared, throwing her backward with raw force. Her systems screamed from the impact. Bones broke.

She rolled behind a pillar.

Bleeding. Vision flickering. Systems dropping to 58%.

Power Level: 7.1 ➔ 7.0

"Burning too much output," she whispered.

The remnant advanced slowly, dragging one foot. He was unraveling, but not fast enough.

She needed a spike. A burst.

She looked toward the sphere.

Risk calculation: 87% chance of destabilization.

She moved anyway.

---

With her last working drone, she overcharged the crystal.

A shockwave tore through the ruins.

The undead screamed.

The walls shattered.

And the world twisted.

When she woke, she wasn't in the ruins.

She was standing in a sky.

An inverted sky. Red clouds beneath her feet. Black sun above.

And behind her, a voice.

"Little star. You don't belong here."

She turned slowly.

A figure stood in the sky. No face. Just robes and radiance.

"You touched a fragment. And now it sees you."

Lian Xue tried to speak, but her throat locked.

"Run, ghost-girl. The game has changed."

The sky shattered.

She fell.

---

When she woke for real, her body was cracked. The ruin was gone. Collapsed.

She crawled out beneath stars.

Power Level: 7.3

New Ability: Quantum Blink. Short-range teleport once per battle, triggered on near-death.

Her systems were fractured. Her heart—what counted as one—beat like a war drum.

And far behind her, something else had awakened in the ruins.

Something that remembered her.

And now it was watching.