The heavy machinery depot of Sector G was a graveyard of industrial titans. Colossal excavators with rusted treads, massive gantry cranes frozen in time, and stacks of shipping containers created a metallic canyon.
Unlike the subterranean coolant refinery, the depot was fully wired into the Academy's monitoring grid. High-resolution optical cameras mounted on the remaining floodlight towers swept the area in predictable, sweeping arcs.
"You are entering visual range of Camera Node 4," Sylphe warned, her voice shifting into a crisp, tactical cadence. "The second operative is seventy meters ahead, hiding within the chassis of a wrecked transport rover. He is watching the main thoroughfare. He has a scoped Gauss-rifle."
Chen Xi didn’t stop walking. He just let his shoulders slouch, adopting the nervous, hurried gait of a terrified cadet. He clutched his multi-tool to his chest like a talisman.
"I can't use the Viper-Mantis here. I can't even move faster than a standard unawakened human without triggering the behavioral anomaly flags on the Academy server," Chen Xi muttered sub-vocally, his eyes scanning the depot.
He didn't look for weapons. He looked for leverage.
His eyes locked onto a machine sitting in the center of a clearing: an Old Era Atlas-V Heavy Lifter. It was a bipedal industrial mech, standing fifteen feet tall, completely devoid of armor or weapons. Instead of hands, it had massive, reinforced hydraulic pincers designed to move twenty-ton cargo crates. It was covered in rust, its primary power cell completely dead, the open-air cockpit exposed to the elements.
To anyone else, it was a piece of junk. To Chen Xi, who had spent three years tearing down its exact models in the slums, it was a loaded gun.
The Atlas-V uses a redundant analogue hydraulic system, Chen Xi’s mind raced, pulling up the schematics he had memorized through grueling, sleepless nights. Even if the logic core is fried and the battery is dead, the pneumatic pressure in the primary lifting arms is maintained by physical vacuum seals. All it needs is a sudden, massive jolt of electricity to bypass the safety governors and violently release that pressure.
"Sylphe," Chen Xi breathed. "I’m going to make a run for the Atlas-V. Tell me exactly when the operative has a firing solution."
"Understood. But Chen Xi, if you try to start that machine normally, he will shoot you through the open cockpit before the engine even turns over."
"I'm not going to start it normally," Chen Xi smiled faintly. "I'm going to hotwire it with my bare hands."
Chen Xi stepped out of the shadows and deliberately kicked a loose pipe. The sharp clatter echoed through the depot.
Instantly, the faint shimmer of the optical cloak atop the transport rover shifted. The assassin had spotted him.
Chen Xi let out a perfectly pitched yelp of terror and broke into a sloppy, frantic sprint toward the Atlas-V. He stumbled over debris, flailing his arms—a masterclass in looking like a panicked amateur.
Up in the Academy observation deck, the proctors watched the monitor with grim expressions.
"Cadet Chen Xi has stumbled into the open," a proctor noted. "There’s an active hostile in that sector. He's making a run for an abandoned loader, but that machine has been dead for decades. He's panicking. He’s as good as dead."
Zhao Ming, standing in the back of the room, had to bite the inside of his cheek to hide his massive grin. Shoot him, he urged his assassin silently. Blow his head off.
Down in the depot, Chen Xi scrambled up the rusted footholds of the Atlas-V, throwing himself into the worn leather seat of the open cockpit. He didn't grab the control sticks. He dove straight under the console, ripping the primary maintenance panel off with his bare hands.
"He is aiming," Sylphe’s voice was a metronome of pure calm in his head. "Distance: forty meters. He is waiting for you to pop your head up."
Chen Xi didn't pop his head up. Lying on his back in the cramped footwell, he stared at the labyrinth of dead wires and fried circuits. He didn't use his eyes; he used the Machine Empathy of his Stellar Furnace Art. The metal whispered to him. He could feel the exact pathway leading from the ignition manifold directly to the emergency hydraulic release valves.
He grabbed a thick, frayed copper wire and bit off the rubber insulation, spitting it out. He wrapped the exposed copper tightly around his right index finger, pressing his thumb against the primary hydraulic relay.
He didn't just want the arm to move. He wanted it to swing with the force of a meteor.
Chen Xi closed his eyes. He drew deeply on his Kinetic Qi, compressing it until his veins felt like they were filled with molten iron. But he didn't reinforce his muscles. He converted the pure, dense Qi into raw electrical voltage, channeling it precisely into his right hand.
"He is moving," Sylphe warned. "He realizes you aren't trying to start the engine. He is dropping his optical cloak to get a clean shot into the footwell. He is standing exactly three meters to the right of the mech's chassis. ETA to firing: three seconds."
Chen Xi opened his eyes. He let out a scream of pure, unadulterated "terror" for the cameras, thrashing his legs as if he were having a panic attack, deliberately kicking the dead control sticks above him.
"Come on! Start! Start, you piece of junk!" Chen Xi yelled.
At that exact moment, the Ironfang assassin stepped into view just below the cockpit, raising his Gauss-rifle with a cruel sneer. "Game over, rat."
Chen Xi jammed his Qi-charged finger directly into the hydraulic relay.
CRACK!
A massive surge of bio-electricity bypassed the Atlas-V's dead logic core. The safety governors instantly blew out. The vacuum seals holding twenty tons of pneumatic pressure shattered all at once.
Because Chen Xi had specifically kicked the right-side control stick during his "panic," the mechanical logic gate registered a maximum-velocity lateral swing command.
The Atlas-V's massive, multi-ton right hydraulic arm didn't just swing. Powered by the explosive release of pressure and the overcharged Kinetic Qi, it snapped sideways with the speed of a striking cobra.
The assassin didn't even have time to pull the trigger.
The solid iron pincer struck him directly in the ribcage at over two hundred miles per hour. The sickening crunch of shattering bone was eclipsed by the sheer metallic thunder of the impact. The assassin was thrown like a ragdoll, smashing into the corrugated steel wall of a shipping container with such force that the metal buckled inward, leaving a massive, bloody crater.
The Atlas-V groaned, the hydraulic lines bursting from the overpressure, showering the clearing in thick black fluid before the arm slammed into the dirt, completely spent.
Silence descended on the depot.
Chen Xi slowly pulled himself up from the footwell, gripping the edge of the console. He stared at the pulverized remains of the assassin, his eyes wide, his breathing ragged. He fell back into the pilot's seat, burying his face in his hands, trembling uncontrollably.
"And... scene," Sylphe’s voice echoed in his mind, dripping with absolute awe. "Chen Xi, if the Academy doesn't give you a medal for logistics, the Pan-Asian Entertainment Sector should give you an award for acting. Your bio-rhythms indicate a resting heart rate, yet your micro-expressions project perfect, traumatized shock. It is beautiful."
Chen Xi didn't smile, maintaining his horrified facade just in case the cameras zoomed in. But internally, his mind was calculating precisely.
I used the exact principles of pneumatic displacement I learned when repairing the water pumps in Sector 4, Chen Xi thought. Knowledge is power. They think I'm a cornered animal lashing out with a wrench. Good. Let them think it was a lucky short circuit.
Up in the observation deck, absolute pandemonium broke out.
"Did you see that?!" a proctor shouted, rewinding the footage. "The cadet was kicking the console in a panic and grounded a live wire from the battery cell! It caused a catastrophic hydraulic misfire! The arm swung and instantly neutralized the hostile!"
"The luck of this kid is astronomical!" another instructor gasped. "He didn't even know what he was doing!"
Zhao Ming was frozen, his face entirely devoid of color. He stared at the screen, his nails digging into his palms until they bled. Two of his best assassins were dead. One crushed by a falling billboard, another splattered by a broken loader mech. It wasn't possible. It had to be a coincidence. The universe was simply shielding this miserable slum rat.
"There's still one left," Zhao Ming whispered to himself, his eyes bloodshot. "One left. He can't get lucky three times."
Down in the depot, Chen Xi finally stopped "trembling." He grabbed his repair kit and climbed down from the ruined Atlas-V, not sparing a single glance at the dead assassin.
"I have intercepted the feed from the third operative," Sylphe reported eagerly. "He has realized his comrades are offline. He is abandoning stealth protocols. He is switching to a heavy plasma-caster and moving to intercept you at the central data-hub. He plans to burn the entire building down with you inside."
Chen Xi adjusted his grey jacket, wiping a smear of hydraulic fluid from his cheek. He looked toward the center of Sector G.
"Good," Chen Xi said softly, his eyes turning cold and sharp. "I was getting tired of hiding. Let's go build a real trap."