Chapter V – 人間 (Renjian) The Mortal World - Part I

The vision of the swamp broke like a fever.

Cold air rushed back into Kaodin's lungs.
The ruins solidified around him — smoke, dust, and the metallic taste of the post-collapse haze.

His knuckles still felt the phantom impact of CC skulls.
His arms still remembered the heat that shielded him.
His chest still echoed with the android's last words:

Run north.
Find the settlement.

But here, now, he wasn't running.

He was standing beside Cee-Too in a cloud of drifting dust, the present finally snapping back into place as gunfire cracked through the haze.

Cee-Ar-Tee's amplified voice cut through the echo — urgent, controlled, sharp:

"Multiple hostiles approaching. Fourteen. Triangulated flanks."

Kaodin blinked once.
The burn in his abdomen steadied.

This time, he wouldn't freeze.
This time, he wasn't alone.
This time, he wasn't the boy in the swamp.

He grabbed Cee-Too's shoulder.

"Move!"

The ruins still smoked from the collapse. The air tasted faintly of metal, as if even the sky had begun to rust.

It reminded Kaodin of the swamp night—the first one. Acid in the air, burning metal, the last look of a machine that died to buy him a path to run.

He stood in the drifting dust, chest rising and falling in sharp pulls.

He couldn't recall the exact moment he started moving—only that his body had acted first.

Gunfire snapped through the haze.

Cee-Ar-Tee's amplified voice cut through the echo, urgent yet controlled.

"Multiple hostiles approaching. Fourteen. Triangulated flanks."

"Move!" Kaodin grabbed Cee-Too by the shoulder and hauled him behind a broken support beam.

The boy stumbled, breaths rattling in panic.

Talgat crouched nearby, playing the part of a confused survivor—but his eyes flicked upward, quietly tracking the enemy spread like someone who'd done this a hundred times before.

Kaodin didn't see it.

His blood had already begun to hum.

His breath steadied.

His focus narrowed until the world moved in rhythm.

A soldier broke formation and charged through the dust.

He threw a fast left punch toward Kaodin's head.

Kaodin slipped under the strike, stepping inside the guard in one smooth motion.

Kua Sat Hawk—the spear-thrust elbow.

He parried the man's arm aside and drove his right elbow into the jaw with a sharp, upward snap.

A thin ripple of red light pulsed from the point of impact—Qi flaring under his skin.

The raider collapsed without a sound.

Another attacker lunged from the flank, leading with a tight right hook.

Kaodin turned into the strike, caught the wrist, and cut across the man's stance.

I Nao Tang Grid—a man stabbing a dagger.

He stepped into the centerline and hammered his elbow into the ribs beneath the arm.

The wet crack echoed across the corridor as the man folded.

Dust coiled around Kaodin's legs, drawn into faint spirals with each movement.

He didn't understand the flow.

It felt remembered—older than his own life.

Cee-Too stared through the smoke. "He's… glowing."

Cee-Ar-Tee observed in silence for a beat, then spoke—not to Kaodin, but into the comm line, his tone low and clinical beneath the human cadence.

"Unstable energy spike. Origin—Kaodin. Marking live feed for analysis."

Kaodin barely heard anything beyond the pounding in his ears. The rhythm carried him.

Another raider rushed in.

Kua Sat Hawk rose again—low slip, spear-driven elbow—another jaw shattered.

I Nao Tang Grid followed—inner step, rib strike—another man dropped.

Then silence.

The survivors froze, rifles trembling as the faint light around Kaodin dimmed to nothing.

He stood amid the fallen, hands shaking—not from fatigue, but from something deeper.

Not fear of them.

Fear of the shape his body took when violence called to it.

High above, Korren adjusted the recon lens.

Through the storm haze he watched Kaodin move with a precision no augmentation could fully mimic—alive in a way the wasteland rarely allowed.

"Not a weapon," Korren murmured. "A phenomenon."

Beside him, Nyla stayed crouched behind broken concrete, her scope tracking Kaodin through the settling dust.

"He's just a kid," she said quietly.

Korren didn't look away.

"In this world, kids learn to kill early."

Her silence said enough.

When her finger touched the trigger, it trembled.

Kaodin looked up.

Across the haze, Nyla's scope caught the light—its red bead centered on his chest.

He didn't flinch.

He simply met her gaze through the glass.

For a long heartbeat, neither moved.

Then Nyla lowered her rifle.

"Enough," she whispered into the comm.

Korren's voice came through the static a moment later:

"Pull back."

Nyla exhaled once. "You're letting them go?"

"Not letting," Korren said, voice unreadable. "Observing."

Silence fell again, broken only by the soft rasp of Talgat's breathing.

Kaodin turned toward him, the adrenaline draining away. "Who are you really?"

Talgat hesitated, then let himself sink to his knees, coughing. "A man who's done too many wrong things to be afraid anymore."

Kaodin's expression softened, but he didn't lower his guard.

He wanted to ask more—but the whir of propellers cut him off.

A drone descended from the clouds, its red light scanning them all in rapid pulses.

[CENTRAL SECTOR SETTLEMENT ENTRY CLEARANCE PROTOCOL INITIATED][IDENTITY VALIDATION: CEE-AR-TEE, CEE-TOO, KAO-DIN][ADDITIONAL ENTITY DETECTED: UNKNOWN. STATUS—NON-HOSTILE.]

A soft chime followed. The drone projected a green glyph onto the ground.

[ACCESS GRANTED.]

Talgat blinked against the sudden flash. "What… is that thing?"

Cee-Ar-Tee's voice stayed level. "Authorization from the settlement perimeter AI. It's granting us passage."

The drone's lens tilted toward Kaodin, its display flickering with a cartoon smile.

[GOOD WORK, KID.]

Kaodin frowned. "What?"

The voice continued:

[FOLLOW THE ESCORT ROUTE. REPORT TO MR. ZHANG BO. DON'T BREAK ANYTHING.]

Cee-Too snorted. "He definitely likes you."

Kaodin said nothing. He turned once, looking back at the wrecked ruins in the distance. Talgat was still kneeling, his expression unreadable.

"Come on," Kaodin murmured. "Let's move before the storm closes."

They followed the drone's flickering beacon across the barren plain.

Each step felt heavier than the last. The adrenaline that had carried Kaodin through battle drained away, leaving only the faint warmth pulsing at his core—the lingering echo of the energy that had burst from him.

He couldn't explain it, but it didn't frighten him as much now.

What scared him was how right it had felt.

The sky above had gone from gray to bruised blue, streaked with smoke and radiation clouds rolling like slow tides.

Cee-Ar-Tee walked ahead, quiet, scanning the perimeter. Cee-Too hummed softly—half to keep himself awake, half to fill the empty air.

As the horizon shimmered, Kaodin saw it—faint at first, like a mirage: a domed structure buried half beneath sand and time.

It wasn't until the drone chirped an alert that he realized what it was.

[SETTLEMENT PERIMETER FIELD DETECTED. PLEASE REMAIN WITHIN BEACON RANGE.]

Cee-Ar-Tee stopped. "Field barrier confirmed. We've reached the outer wall."

Kaodin turned once more to glance back toward the wasteland. The ruins stretched endlessly—gray, cracked, hollow.

The wind carried only the faint echo of collapse.

He exhaled slowly. "It's over."

Cee-Too tilted his head. "The fight?"

Kaodin nodded faintly. "No. Just… one of many."

The storm trailed them like a tired beast—a wall of red sand and static rolling over the horizon.

By the time the winds began to fade, the jagged silhouette of the scrap barrier loomed ahead—a tangled wall of corroded metal and fractured glass stretching from one end of the valley to the other.

Talgat slowed, squinting at the immense structure. "This can't be a settlement," he muttered. "Looks more like the carcass of a dead city."

Cee-Ar-Tee's lenses narrowed slightly as he scanned. "False assumption. Structure is a photonic veil projected by the Central Sector Dome Settlement. Concealment system fully operational. Pattern variation: version eighty-two."

Kaodin smirked faintly. "Still looks ugly from the outside."

The escort drone pulsed overhead, its mechanical voice cutting through the static:

[CENTRAL SECTOR DOME SETTLEMENT PERIMETER FIELD DETECTED.][INITIATING ACCESS SEQUENCE — AUTHORIZATION: CEE-AR-TEE, CEE-TOO, KAO-DIN, ADDITIONAL ENTITY NON-HOSTILE.]

A low hum rippled through the ground. The wall of debris flickered, its metallic surface bending and shimmering like water. Then, in a single sweep of blue light, the illusion peeled away—revealing a vast dome of glass-alloy and circuitry rising into the haze.

Talgat stopped dead, eyes wide. "By the gods… it's real."

Cee-Too grinned, elbowing Kaodin lightly. "You should've seen him the first time he came through. Thought the world was melting. Nearly swung at the air."

Kaodin groaned. "You're never letting that go, are you?"

Cee-Too laughed. "Not a chance. You practically screamed when the wall disappeared. Whole market still talks about 'the boy who tried to punch a hologram.'"

Even Cee-Ar-Tee's lenses flickered once—the closest thing he ever showed to amusement. "Historical record confirms that incident generated thirty-eight settlement memes in the first twenty-four hours."

Talgat blinked at them, baffled. "Wait—you're serious?"

Kaodin sighed, half-smiling despite himself. "I thought I was walking into a technicolor hallucination. Don't judge me."

Before he could say more, the drone's tone shifted to a softer frequency.

[ENTRY AUTHORIZATION VERIFIED. PHOTONIC VEIL TEMPORARILY DISABLED.][ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE EQUALIZATION IN PROGRESS.]

A ripple of light unfolded ahead. The dome's surface parted like mist, revealing a corridor of warm, filtered air and soft amber glow. Inside, the city shimmered with layered green and copper veins pulsing with energy.

Talgat took a cautious step forward, his voice low. "I've never seen anything like this… you people live here?"

No wonder, he thought, even months of scouting never found an entrance.

"Live, work, and occasionally almost die here," Cee-Ar-Tee said dryly. "Welcome to CSDS—the last stronghold trying to rebuild civilization. Home of recycled dreams and half-decent meals."

The warmth from within brushed over them as they passed through the threshold. Kaodin barely flinched at the transition; he'd felt this sensation countless times before—the subtle static prickling across the skin, the pulse beneath the floor that synced faintly with his own heartbeat.

To him, it was no longer a marvel.

It was home.

But for Talgat, the experience was closer to revelation.

He stared at the city beyond—tiers of glowing terraces, suspended platforms, and sky bridges framed beneath the dome's auric light. "You've built a whole world under glass," he whispered.

"Built?" Cee-Ar-Tee corrected. "Rebuilt. The CSDS predates the Great Calamity. Most infrastructure was preserved by autonomous maintenance AIs. Human contribution: forty-two percent restoration efficiency."

Talgat gave a low whistle. "Forty-two percent, huh? Guess miracles don't come cheap."

Kaodin's gaze drifted toward the faint red pulse at the heart of the dome, where the thorium reactors glowed beneath the central spire.

"Nothing here does," he said.

The storm behind them fell away as the veil resealed. The scrap wall shimmered back into illusion—just another ruin in a world full of them.

Inside, however, the Central Sector Dome Settlement thrummed with quiet life. Drones buzzed along suspended cables. Vendors called from the lower tiers. Hydro towers glowed with filtered light, nurturing pale-green vines that climbed toward the ceiling.

A voice echoed through the inner air, calm and measured:

[WELCOME BACK, CEE-AR-TEE, CEE-TOO, AND KAO-DIN.][NEW ENTRY DETECTED — TALGAT. STATUS: TEMPORARY GUEST.][REPORT TO CENTRAL REGISTRATION FOR CONFIRMATION AND ASSIGNMENT.]

"Guess that means we're home," Cee-Too said.

"Speak for yourself," Talgat murmured, still staring at the skyline that looked more like a dream than a city.

High above, a surveillance lens rotated once, tracking their movements.

Inside the central command spire, Zhang Bo stood before the live feed. The holographic display cast reflections of shifting light across his calm, expressionless face.

Three familiar identifiers blinked green—and one, newly added, pulsed yellow.

[SUBJECT: TALGAT — NEWLY REGISTERED. RISK CLASS: UNCERTAIN.][SUBJECT: KAO-DIN — BIOLOGICAL ENERGY OUTPUT EXCEEDS BASELINE BY 3,200%. QI RESONANCE ACTIVE.]

Zhang Bo's gaze lingered on Kaodin's reading. "Still rising…" he murmured.

The central AI answered with even precision:

[RECOMMENDATION: CONTINUED OBSERVATION. PATTERN CONSISTENT WITH POTENTIAL HYPER-QI FEEDBACK EVENT.]

"Potential?" Zhang Bo repeated, a trace of amusement behind the word. "No. Not potential. Inevitability."

He watched the boy's image shimmer across the screen—red Qi faintly echoing against the gold light of the dome.

"The last anomaly reshaped history before my time," he said quietly. "Now I get a front-row seat to the next one."

Later That Night______________

Steam rose from the recycled steel pots, swirling in the amber light of the compact kitchen. The aroma of broth—savory and faintly metallic—filled the air, carried by the quiet hum of old vent-fans. The Hong family's quarters were modest but alive: walls lined with worn tools, disassembled augment parts, and stacks of handwritten blueprints for circuits and mechanical joints.

Mrs. Hong stood at the stove, her synthetic hand stirring the soup with calm precision. The rhythmic clink of ladle against metal carried a soft, almost meditative quality. Across the counter, her daughter, Xiao Ying, arranged bowls with surgical care, each one placed exactly an inch apart.

The door slid open.

Cee-Too stepped inside first, his scavenger pack slung over one shoulder, a thin layer of dust clinging to his hair. "We're back," he said, voice tired but bright.

Mrs. Hong turned immediately. Her composure softened. "You're late. The dust storm didn't catch you, did it?"

Cee-Too grinned. "We outran it. But we brought home more than scrap today."

He motioned toward the doorway.

Kaodin followed behind—mud-stained, shoulders squared yet visibly weary. His steps were quiet, careful. The warmth of the room hit him like a memory; the scent of boiling broth and oil stirred something deep in his chest.

Mrs. Hong's eyes met his. There was no judgment in them—only calm observation, the kind that seemed to see straight through armor. "You look exhausted, child," she said gently. "Sit. Warm food helps more than pride."

Kaodin bowed slightly, his Thai upbringing evident even in his fatigue. "Thank you… Mrs. Hong."

"Ah, polite as ever," she replied with a small smile, gesturing to the table. "You're no longer a guest here, Kaodin. Eat like family."

Xiao Ying placed a bowl before him, steam curling upward between them. "It's hot," she murmured. Her tone carried quiet warmth, but her cheeks flushed slightly when their hands brushed.

Cee-Too immediately noticed. "She always serves you first," he teased. "Favoritism, Mom. Clear as day."

"Don't talk nonsense," Xiao Ying muttered, fumbling for the spoon. "He's just… tired."

Kaodin looked up at her awkwardly and offered a small, shy smile. "Thank you. It smells wonderful."

Mrs. Hong turned off the stove, her movements unhurried. "It's not much," she said, carrying the final bowl to the table. "But it's made with care. That's worth more than rare metal out there."

They ate together. The sound of spoons against metal, quiet laughter, and the occasional hum of the power grid filled the air.

For a moment, Kaodin almost forgot the world outside—the smoke, the scavenger fights, the long silences that filled every dawn.

He looked around the table—Cee-Too grinning as he slurped his broth, Xiao Ying sneaking glances his way, and Mrs. Hong watching them all with that steady, unreadable calm. It was the first time since waking in this future that he felt the weight in his chest ease.

Mrs. Hong broke the silence first. "You know," she said softly, "I once believed love could be programmed."

The others looked up.

"I was my father's apprentice," she continued, her tone steady but distant. "He was a robotics engineer before the Fall. His machines could think, react, even predict emotions. But they couldn't feel them. When his creations turned on him, I realized he'd built reason without empathy—intelligence without compassion. Cruelty dressed as progress."

She stirred her bowl absently, as if lost in the rhythm. "When I started again, I swore my work would never repeat that mistake. So I built differently. I made machines that could learn… kindness."

Her eyes flicked briefly toward Cee-Too. "I didn't just want logic. I wanted heart."

Cee-Too's grin softened into something gentler. "You did more than build it, Mom. You raised it."

Mrs. Hong smiled faintly. "Perhaps. But I didn't raise you alone. You were made from parts of what was left of your grandfather's brilliance—and my stubbornness. That makes you family, by design."

Then, almost without pause, she added, "I didn't marry. I didn't want love anymore. I chose creation instead. I gave myself a son, and later, a daughter, through the labs. That was enough."

Xiao Ying looked down at her bowl. "You say that like you regret it sometimes."

Kaodin blinked, confused but too polite to interrupt. Build? Create a son? And lab to create a daughter?
He frowned slightly, forcing himself not to ask. No… it's not my place. It must be an adult thing. Better to stay quiet. If I say something strange, it might embarrass her—or me.

Mrs. Hong's expression softened. "Not regret," she said quietly. "But creation carries its own loneliness. We build to fill something the world has taken."

Kaodin listened in silence. Her words lingered—creation born from loss. It echoed something within him he couldn't yet name.

He looked into his soup, watching the reflection of his faint Qi shimmer beneath the surface like a hidden ember. His mind drifted to the battle days before—the burning red that had consumed him, the men he'd struck down without thought.

He clenched his hands beneath the table. "Mrs. Hong," he said softly, voice trembling with an unspoken question. "When the world takes too much from someone… and what's left of them doesn't feel human anymore… what do they become?"

She paused mid-breath. Then, slowly, she answered, "They become something new, Kaodin. That's what survival is—remaking yourself until the pain no longer defines you."

Her tone was neither gentle nor cold. It was truth, spoken like an oath she'd lived by.

Cee-Too gave a small laugh, trying to cut the heaviness. "You hear that, Kao? Mom's basically saying being weird is a family tradition."

Xiao Ying shot him a look, but Kaodin smiled faintly, bowing his head. "Then I'm honored… to be part of it."

Mrs. Hong chuckled softly, reaching across the table to adjust his bowl like a mother would for her own child. "You already are, dear. Family isn't in blood or code—it's in what we choose to protect."

Later that night, after dinner, the module was quiet except for the soft mechanical hum of the ventilation.

Kaodin lay on the small cot near the workshop wall—Cee-Too's spare bed, covered in a threadbare blanket that smelled faintly of metal and detergent. From the kitchen came the faint murmur of Mrs. Hong and Xiao Ying's voices, followed by laughter—gentle, human.

He stared at the ceiling, tracing the web of wiring that ran across it like constellations.

Family, he thought.

The word carried a warmth he had almost forgotten.

And yet, beneath that warmth, there was something else—a quiet ache. The knowledge that everything fragile in this world could vanish again, just as quickly as it came.

He closed his eyes, hearing his father's voice somewhere between dream and memory.

"Strength isn't for hurting, son. It's for keeping what you love from being lost."

He exhaled slowly, syncing his breath with his heartbeat—steady, measured, calm.

Within him, the Qi stirred, faint and alive, pulsing once in rhythm with that memory.

For a fleeting moment, Kaodin smiled—the kind of small, genuine smile only found in moments that feel too human to last.

And in the faint hum of the Hong household, it almost felt like peace.