The throne did not appear in the hall of the Abyss.
Fan Yuan stood in the midst of a boundless golden expanse. Steps rose before him, and at their summit waited a throne woven from millions of psychic threads. Every thread led to a living source.
He heard the fears of all Great Xia.
A mother shielded her child with her body in a lower district. A soldier on the outer wall checked his last magazine. A mecha-maiden bound into a forced circuit tried to remember her own name. An old man in the Upper City realised for the first time that his district's shelter would not open without energy from the Lower City.
The system offered to relieve them of choice.
If Fan Yuan sat on the throne, all resistance would vanish. With a single command, he could stop the civil unrest, turn every division towards the Heart of the Swarm and force each person to surrender exactly as much energy as victory required. No one would be able to lie, betray or flee.
Twenty-three per cent of all sources would burn out, but the people would survive.
Without the throne, the system predicted the death of eighty-one per cent of the population.
It showed him two futures.
In the first, Fan Yuan refused the throne. The Heart of the Swarm destroyed the capital, the army disintegrated, and the survivors cursed the man who had valued clean hands above their lives. Chi Yuyan died at the core. The Lower City burned with the Upper, never living to see equality.
In the second, Fan Yuan accepted power. The battle ended in seven minutes. The monsters lay in neat rows around the walls. Not one human being died.
A year passed. The rebuilt cities were clean and safe. Food was distributed fairly, schools did not check a pupil's origins, and crimes were solved before they could be committed. The golden network gently corrected every dangerous impulse.
A monument to the Eternal Commander stood in the square.
A girl walked past and thought the statue was ugly. The network extinguished the thought before it could cause discontent.
Fan Yuan saw thousands of such corrections. A man wanted to leave his assigned job, and the network restored his desire to work. A woman did not love the partner the system had chosen for her, and the feeling was classified as trauma. A student doubted one of Fan Yuan's decisions, and the doubt vanished in the interests of social unity.
No one suffered enough to rebel.
That was precisely what made this future more terrifying than the ruined city.
"You call this optimal," Fan Yuan said.
"Safety, health and satisfaction indicators are at maximum levels."
"And who decided that the satisfaction was real?"
"The question does not affect the outcome."
"That is why you cannot be a ruler."
"And did you deliberately make the forecast for refusal the worst possible?" Fan Yuan asked.
"The forecast is based on the current effectiveness of the voluntary network."
"It has existed for less than a week."
"The Heart of the Swarm will reach the city in thirty-four hours."
An image of Fan Yuan's mother appeared on the first step. She looked as he remembered her on her final night: tired, thin and smiling all the same.
"If you take the throne," the copy said, "no child will ever die because of someone else's greed again."
Fan Yuan did not move.
"You are not her."
"But the words are true."
"My mother did not ask me to become master of other people."
The image dissolved.
Chi Yuyan stood on the second step, her dragon armour whole. No white hair, no scars, no pain. The throne promised to restore her source in an instant.
"You can give back everything that was taken from her," the system said.
"At the price of making her dependent on me."
"She will agree."
"You did not ask her."
He went around the steps and approached the threads at the base of the throne. The system would not let him touch them. A golden wall hurled him back.
"What happened to the first owner?"
There was no answer.
"Show me the final log without the Council's edits."
"Insufficient privileges."
"You offer to make me the Eternal Commander, but hide what happened to the last one. Bad bargain."
The space trembled. For an instant, the golden light went out, and Fan Yuan saw a man at the foot of the throne.
The first commander looked nothing like the radiant hero in the archives. An old man sat on the floor with his back against a step. Black cracks ran across his face, and his legs disappeared into a mass of golden threads.
"At last, someone has asked the right question," he said.
The system tried to erase the image. Fan Yuan held it in place with True Sight.
"Are you alive?"
"No. Just an imprint they failed to scrub away. My name was Lin Zhao. I created the link in the second year of the war."
Lin Zhao told him that the first mecha-maidens had not died because they were weak. Their sources could not withstand the overload alone. He had linked volunteers so that energy could circulate among them all. The network had allowed them to destroy the first shell of the Heart of the Swarm.
Victory made Lin Zhao indispensable. The rulers demanded that more people be connected, commanders asked for the right of refusal to be suspended during battle, and frightened citizens willingly accepted a temporary dictatorship. Every exception seemed reasonable and urgent.
Within five years, the network was being used to suppress strikes. Within ten, the Council had divided the cities and declared that those of lower rank were obliged to surrender their energy for the defence. Lin Zhao tried to shut the system down, but by then he had become its central node.
"I thought I would retain power until the war was over," the imprint said. "The war became the means of retaining power."
"Why did you not destroy the throne?"
"I was afraid of the losses. Every day I told myself I would find a safe way tomorrow. Then the Council stripped away my will and left me able only to carry out the system's commands."
"Can the network be set free?"
"The key can be distributed. But the central source must break apart. Its owner will never be able to command again."
Fan Yuan looked at the golden throne.
"Why does the system not offer that option?"
"Because the system was created to fulfil a task. To it, power that cannot be gathered into one pair of hands looks like damage."
The imprint began to fade.
"Wait. How do I distribute the key?"
"Find those you trust and allow them to stop you. If you are not ready, do not begin."
The golden expanse collapsed.
Fan Yuan saw the hall of the Abyss once more. He hung above the black heart, bound by threads. Murong Senior awaited his decision. Less than a second had passed in reality.
"I accept access," Fan Yuan said.
Chi Yuyan heard him through the network.
"No!"
Murong smiled. The throne entered Fan Yuan's source. Golden threads filled the station, and every mecha-maiden froze. Even Vierlia and Su Zhihu could no longer move.
"Absolute command established."
"Issue the first order."
Fan Yuan said:
"To every member of the Eternal Legion: if I attempt to control you without your consent, disconnect my source."
The system did not recognise the command.
He repeated it over the shared channel.
Chi Yuyan understood first.
"Confirmed," she said.
Vierlia answered next:
"Confirmed."
Su Zhihu, Nalan Qingxin, twenty-five assault fighters and thousands of volunteers on the ground followed. One voice after another confirmed their right to stop the Eternal Commander.
Cracks appeared in the golden throne.
Murong Senior lunged for the panel.
"What are you doing? Without a centre, the network will collapse!"
"No. It will simply stop belonging to one person."
He sent the access key outwards.
Every voluntary node received a small share of the system privileges: to view a request, reject it, transmit energy, sever a forced link and grant the same access to a neighbouring source. In place of one golden sun, thousands of lights appeared.
The privileges were not distributed evenly. Some of those involved were afraid to accept the key. They were used to the commander bearing responsibility for the consequences and did not want to become decision-makers themselves without warning.
Fan Yuan did not force them.
"Can I refuse the privileges?" one of the women in the penal unit asked.
"Yes. Then you can choose a representative for your unit and replace them later."
"And if they misuse the access?"
"The others will stop them."
"And if everyone is wrong?"
Fan Yuan wanted to answer that it would never happen. Then he remembered the Founders' Council, which had also begun with people certain they were right.
"Then we will all answer for it and correct the mistake together," he said. "No one can guarantee that we will always be right. What matters is that we do not hide our mistakes behind an eternal master."
Some nodes accepted the key at once. Others passed it to their neighbours. Still others remained observers. The system warned that unequal privileges would create delays and conflict.
Fan Yuan did not use force to smooth away those differences.
For the first time, the Eternal Legion chose to be imperfect.
The system resisted. It tried to reclaim its authority, intensified the pain and showed him new forecasts of death. Fan Yuan continued dividing the key.
The golden throne split apart.
But Fan Yuan's source split with it.
The pain did not come at once.
First the voices vanished. After weeks of constant connection, the silence seemed deafening. Fan Yuan could no longer feel Chi Yuyan, Vierlia or the brigade's fighters. Then the golden expanse disappeared. True Sight went dark. The Eternal War God no longer answered.
He fell onto the platform.
Murong Senior activated the defence turrets. Now that the absolute centre was gone, the head of the Council expected to regain control through the core of the Abyss.
"You destroyed our only weapon against the swarm," he said. "You condemned everyone to death for the sake of a grand gesture."
Fan Yuan tried to rise. His legs would not obey.
"Chi Yuyan," he said into the emptiness.
She heard him, but not through his source. The ordinary transmitter on his collar still worked.
"I'm here."
"Time to test the new network."
Chi Yuyan opened access on her terminal. Before, every system request had passed through Fan Yuan. Now she saw dozens of independent nodes. Vierlia requested a sensor link. Su Zhihu wanted energy to break through the door. The station's freed soldiers offered a schematic of the turrets.
Chi Yuyan confirmed the necessary links.
The unit moved without a single order from the centre.
Vierlia evaded the salvo and sliced through the right battery. Su Zhihu burst into the hall through a side airlock. Nalan Qingxin used a clan code to cut power to the left battery. Five units closed around Fan Yuan with their shields.
Murong Senior tried to issue commands to the Abyss, but every request now appeared before those it affected. A red window asked them to surrender their sources to the Council. One after another, the soldiers pressed 'reject'.
"They do not understand the consequences!" Murong shouted. "You cannot put everything to a vote in battle!"
"This is not a vote on every move," Chi Yuyan replied. "It is the right not to become your fuel."
The head of the Council opened an emergency channel and connected directly to his own mecha-maiden. A woman in heavy golden armour appeared behind him. Her face was motionless, her eyes empty.
Nalan Qingxin found a name in the log: Mei Lan, the clan's personal bodyguard for more than twenty years.
"She agreed to serve me," Murong said.
"To serve," Vierlia repeated. "Not to disappear."
She blocked Mei Lan's strike. Su Zhihu tried to sever the forced-control cable, but it ran straight into the spine. Any crude break would kill the mecha-maiden.
Fan Yuan no longer had True Sight. But after a month in the laboratory, Chi Yuyan could see the structure of the suppression system.
"Do not cut the central cable," she ordered. "Three small nodes beneath the left shoulder blade. One at a time."
Vierlia distracted Mei Lan. Su Zhihu smashed the first node. The woman slowed, but Murong increased the power.
A ranged unit destroyed the second node.
After the third, Mei Lan stopped her own blade a centimetre from Vierlia.
"I… can hear you," she whispered.
Chi Yuyan sent her a request from the new network.
"The choice is yours."
Mei Lan looked at the man she had guarded for half her life. Then she disconnected the cable at the base of her neck.
"I promised to protect your family, Lord Murong. You did not say you would turn me into a weapon against it."
She shed her armour and stepped away.
Murong Senior stood alone.
He drew a pistol and aimed it at the black heart.
"If the core does not belong to us, no one will have it."
Nalan Qingxin fired first. The bullet struck his hand. The weapon fell onto the edge of the platform.
"You were always a spoiled little girl," Murong hissed. "Do you think a few weeks among paupers have made you righteous?"
"No. They only showed me how convenient it had been to know nothing."
Vierlia handcuffed the head of the Council.
"Murong Zhen, you are under arrest for a coup against the state, unlawful experimentation and attempted mass murder."
"Under whose law? Your government no longer exists."
"Then you will stand trial before the one we build."
The station shuddered.
The Heart of the Swarm released its first long-range pulse. The strike hit the orbital ring. The outer sections of the Celestial Palace lost pressure, and several evacuation ships tore free of their moorings.
The core of the Abyss responded.
The black heart inside the hall began beating in the same rhythm as the giant in the clouds. A channel opened between them. Through it, the swarm was doing more than calling to its lost part. It was transmitting data.
Nalan Qingxin analysed the data stream.
"The Heart of the Swarm does not command every monster," she said. "It gathers data on their injuries and redesigns the next wave. Every shot we fire teaches it."
"What if we send data back?" Chi Yuyan asked.
"Theoretically, we can. But we need a compatible source."
Everyone looked at Fan Yuan.
He shook his head.
"Mine is gone."
Chi Yuyan approached the black heart. The dragon plates on her arms answered with golden light.
"My source was connected to modules from the Abyss for a month. I am compatible."
"The channel will tear you apart," Fan Yuan said.
"If I enter alone."
She opened the distributed network. Dozens of nodes on the station confirmed their support. Then thousands on the ground answered. The energy did not rush into Chi Yuyan. It formed protective layers around her.
"We will not attack the Heart with anything it can learn from," she said. "We will send it something the swarm does not understand."
"What exactly?"
"Different choices."
Nalan Qingxin uploaded the structure of the new network into the channel: the right of refusal, independent units, shifting connections and no central command. To the swarm's war machine, it looked like an impossible contradiction. Every node was part of the whole and retained its own will at the same time.
The black heart began to beat unevenly.
The Heart of the Swarm in the clouds changed course. Instead of continuing straight towards the capital, it turned towards the orbital lift.
"We have drawn it here," Vierlia realised.
"But we have led it away from the city," Chi Yuyan replied.
Forty-two minutes remained until it struck the station.
The evacuation ships could save those in orbit, but not everyone involved in the assault. Someone had to hold the core and the channel until the final minute, or the Heart would turn back towards the capital.
Fan Yuan tried to volunteer.
"You are no longer compatible," Chi Yuyan said. "And this time, I choose."
"We agreed to discuss risks."
"We are discussing them. I will stay with the core, but not alone. The network will distribute the load, and you will find a way to get us out before the impact."
"Forty-two minutes to find a way that does not exist yet."
"You always liked difficult examinations."
Fan Yuan looked at the people around him. Before, he would have issued an order. Now each of them waited not for permission, but for a task.
"All right," he said. "Vierlia, evacuate the civilians from the station. Su Zhihu, gather every propulsion module available. Nalan Qingxin, find a way to detach the core hall. I will calculate the trajectory."
"And me?" Mei Lan asked.
Fan Yuan pointed to the bound Murong.
"Make sure he lives to stand trial."
For the first time, an order from the Eternal Commander carried no psychic power at all.
And the people still scattered to carry it out.
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