Chapter 4: A Family of Three?

Within the Radiant Ruins, at a depth of roughly two kilometers, lies what is known as "Zone One."

This is one of the classifications for exploration areas within the Radiant Ruins: where the ambient energy concentration does not exceed fifteen percent, it is considered Zone One; where it surpasses twenty-five percent, it becomes Zone Two; and so forth. Thus far, humanity has only managed to reach Zone Three, and even then, only barely skirting its outer edge.

By comparison, the dangers of Zone One are not particularly high.

Ye Mi had read about this in Ian’s reports, and had herself survived here for several months using her silver form; even though she had to continually parasitize small animals, it was more than enough time for her to become intimately familiar with every facet of this place.

The architecture and terrain here had been spared the brunt of meteor strikes and the rampages of monsters; the threat from local wildlife was minimal, with most creatures being docile or neutral—aggressive entities like the Rust Tide were a rare exception.

It was precisely because of the scarcity of monsters and the thinness of energy that Ye Mi had been able to endure for so long in Zone One.

Beneath the overcast sky, the remnants of skyscrapers were everywhere—their shattered walls and exposed rebar bore silent witness to the calamity that had befallen this city. Some neon signs, powered by their own internal sources, still flickered faintly, casting the outlines of the ruins into relief at midnight.

Ye Mi stepped over a puddle formed by the rain, disturbed ripples scattering the pink glow of neon and reflecting her current blurred silhouette—

—a small white kitten, its coat and markings utterly unremarkable.

Ye Mi shook the water from her paws, then bent to meticulously lick them clean, her pink pads rubbing attentively over her face.

She did all this almost on instinct.

Such was the drawback of the silver form. Perhaps it was due to her own limitations, but at present, the silver form could only achieve two things: parasitism and separation. Everything else was subject to the host’s instincts, not her own will.

The host’s consciousness remained dominant, and her influence was limited to subtle nudges. Yet, with time and the unique energies of the Radiant Ruins, she found she could slowly erode and seize control, fusing with the host ever so gradually—a process varying in length, depending on both her own and the host’s abilities.

Once fusion was complete, the mind would be hers to command.

What’s more, the host’s innate abilities would in turn nourish her silver form.

If the Defense Bureau were to categorize this ability, Ye Mi suspected it would likely fall under the domain of psychic control. At least for now, that was her belief.

This kitten was nothing more than an ordinary little cat, with a mind so small that within a day, the silver form had entirely overtaken it. Still, its animal instincts continued to shape Ye Mi’s actions.

For example, when dirty, she would shake her paws and wash her face; when she encountered a mound of sand, she would feel compelled to dig. But these were minor inconveniences.

The kitten simply cherished cleanliness above all.

“Still, it’s a bit odd—seeing my own body doing these things from inside a human consciousness…” Ye Mi mused. She couldn’t quite articulate what felt off, so she simply shook her head and scrubbed her face with renewed dedication.

She’d been racing through the Radiant Ruins for three hours already, seeking any trace of the Rust Tide. Along the way, she occasionally glimpsed signs of human encampments.

This was hardly surprising. In the cyberpunk era, the inner city of Prism City was hell for the lower classes; even knowing that entering the Radiant Ruins could mean death, many were willing to take that risk, for the chance to gain supernatural powers and escape the corporations’ yoke. After all, if you were doomed to die somewhere, why not here?

OC Corporation didn’t interfere—most jobs were done by synthetics and AI anyway, and the lives of these civilians meant nothing to anyone.

So Ye Mi thought, as she made her way by memory to the vicinity of an old underworld stronghold within Prism City.

The rain grew heavier. Having finished cleaning her face, Ye Mi leapt lightly over a broken stretch of concrete pipe, her silver eyes glinting in the dark.

Her nose twitched—there was a faint smell of rust on the air.

Following the scent, Ye Mi crossed a patch of overgrown wasteland to find herself before an abandoned building. The door, mottled with rust, hung askew; several lengths of fluorescent tubing dangled uselessly, long since gone dark.

This had once been a cluster of machine factories—teeming with weapon shops, black markets, and mountains of discarded cyberlimbs and electronics. It was once the most chaotic district in all Prism City.

"This place used to be so lively…"

Ye Mi gazed at the collapsed workshops and heaps of scrap, feeling a pang of nostalgia. She remembered, once upon a time, crashing here thanks to a reckless biker gang; with no money for treatment at OC Corp’s medical branch, she had come to this area in search of a black-market cyberlimb doctor. Back then, the place bustled with people; now, only ruins remained.

Treading softly, she slipped into the shadows of one factory. Suddenly, her ears pricked up in alarm—

There was a sound ahead—metal scraping, like countless tiny iron filings writhing together.

Ye Mi crept through the debris and emerged into a clearing. There, looming in the open, stood a giant, long-abandoned tower crane. Its frame was shrouded in blackened metal, steel cables rotted, and the boom sagged crookedly toward the night sky.

Beneath the crane, three Rust Tide creatures formed a circle, standing motionless.

"Three of them?"

Ye Mi crouched low in the distance, observing closely.

The three varied in size: one was large and unremarkably humanoid; a smaller one, about the size of an adult woman, bristled with metallic spikes; and the smallest, child-sized, shifted between a swirling, fog-like tempest and a vaguely human shape, its form unstable.

They all shared a single, chilling trait: within their bodies, a pulsing, fleshy heart was plainly visible.

“What is this—a man, a woman, and a child? The Rust Tide Family?”

Were it not for her feline lack of eyebrows, Ye Mi would have raised them in disbelief.

Who would have thought even monsters adhered strictly to the nuclear family structure?

“At last…I’ve found you.”

She recalled from Ian’s files that the Rust Tide were driven by a fierce urge to attack—anything not of their kind, whether flesh or machine, would be assaulted on sight. Cats were no exception.

Monsters had no mercy for cute creatures.

As for their habits—whether or not they ever rested, for instance—the files mentioned nothing.

So Ye Mi refrained from acting rashly. She would first track their movements and behavior.

“Best to keep an eye on them from above,” she decided.

She sprang upward, aiming for a higher vantage, but in the very next instant, the largest Rust Tide whirled toward her position—

She’d been spotted!