Geng Shao’s voice, thick with contempt, sliced through the comms. “A mining antique? I’ll send you back to the scrap heap in one shot, rust bucket!” Qiyuan paid him no mind. His awareness, a calm lake of Demonic Qi, extended beyond the rusty controls, past the corroded wiring, into the very structure of the archaic Golem-M-1. He felt the sluggish servo-motors, the grinding gears, the flaking paint, each imperfection a point of connection. It was a crude instrument, but an instrument nonetheless. The Sun-Cleaver, a sleek predator in gilded armor, surged forward, its twin superheated blades humming, the air around them shimmering with thermal distortion. It raised its massive right arm, the particle cannon mounted on its shoulder swelling with light. This wasn’t a training exercise for Geng Shao; it was a public execution. [Warning: High-Energy Signature Detected. Evasive Maneuvers Recommended.] The cannon fired. A brilliant, sapphire bolt of ionized gas tore across the digital plain, screaming toward Qiyuan’s mech. It was wide enough to engulf the Golem, powerful enough to incinerate it to a pixelated smear. Inside the pod, Lu Bo shrieked. “He’s going to vaporize you! Get out! Just log out, you idiot!” But the emergency lever was useless, the hatch sealed. Qiyuan’s focus remained unbroken. He didn’t try to evade. Instead, his right hand, sheathed in the gauntlet, twitched on the joystick. A whisper of Demonic Qi, precisely honed, flowed from his core, through his arm, into the console, and then, defying mechanical logic, into the simulated mech’s right arm joint. The Golem-M-1, a machine designed for grinding ore, moved with supple, unbroken grace. Its right arm, slow and lumbering a moment before, rose, the flat, wide surface of its shovel-hand meeting the ionized blast not with resistance, but with yielding redirection. It was the traditional Tai Chi technique of ‘Ward Off, Roll Back, Press, Push’ – a soft deflection that turned the opponent’s force against itself. The blue lance, instead of impacting, glanced off the shovel-hand, its trajectory subtly but drastically altered. It spun, a sapphire spear of destruction, not back towards Geng Shao’s mech, but arcing outward, then inward, striking the Sun-Cleaver’s left blade at its ignition point. The effect was catastrophic. The Sun-Cleaver shrieked, a sound of tearing metal and failing kinetic barriers. The blast, having met its mirror, detonated. A blinding nova of gold and sapphire light erupted, swallowing Geng Shao’s mech whole. The explosion rippled across the virtual arena, leaving a crater where the Sun-Cleaver had stood, and nothing but fragmented metal debris floating in the digital dust. [Victory! Opponent Eliminated.] [System Anomaly Detected: Unregistered Somatic Disruption Pattern.] [Broadcasting to All Ranked Servers: Improbable Feat Achieved.] [Galaxy-Wide Alert: Potential Primitive Somatic Disruption Detected.] Across the Neo-Pangu Concord, on every major data-feed and news channel, the replay flashed: the lumbering Golem, the impossible deflection, the Sun-Cleaver’s annihilation. The accompanying system alerts, usually confined to technical logs, blared across public terminals, a rare intrusion of system-level warnings into daily life. It was a phenomenon. In the sterile, shimmering bridge of the Starfall Fleet, Mecha Officer Shi Yuxuan watched the replay. Her cybernetically enhanced eyes, usually devoid of human warmth, registered a flicker of something close to curiosity. Her data-log, directly linked to her brain, highlighted the movement pattern of the Golem’s shovel-hand, identifying it against a vast database of banned techniques. *Primitive Somatic Disruption – Taijiquan Form: Ward Off.* A forgotten martial art, explicitly erased from every public record for its danger to the Concord’s biotech monopoly. “Commander?” her aide, a nervous Ensign named Joryn, asked. “The network flagged it as… unfeasible. A mining mech can’t move like that.” Shi Yuxuan’s voice was modulated and calm. “Unfeasible, yes. But the telemetry speaks for itself. Someone just demonstrated a forbidden somatic technique using an avatar chassis as an extension of their own body.” Her gaze, sharp and analytical, remained fixed on the screen. “Find me the pilot of that Golem-M-1. I want him identified. Immediately.” Back in the junk-strewn pod, Lu Bo’s jaw hung open. “You… you broke it! You actually broke the Geng Shao’s mech! With a mining rig! That’s… that’s galactic treason, you maniac! They’ll vaporize us both!” He scrambled for the emergency release, his fingers fumbling. “We gotta get out!” [Log-out initiated. Session Terminated.] The virtual world dissolved. The heavy pod hatch hissed open. Qiyuan stumbled out, his legs shaking, not from fear, but from the immense drain of Qi. His vision swam. The air in the junk shop, thick with dust and ozone, felt oppressive. He leaned against the rusty chassis of a disabled patrol drone, a ragged cough tearing from his throat. It wasn't a normal cough. He brought a hand to his lips, and when he pulled it away, dark, viscous blood stained his palm. The DNA failsafe, dormant for weeks, was reacting violently. The immense exertion of channeling Demonic Qi through the virtual system, a far more taxing feat than physical combat, had accelerated its decay. He could feel the cold, insidious unraveling deep within his cellular structure. “A genetic stabilizer,” he rasped, his voice rough. “I need a high-tier one. Now.” Lu Bo stared at the blood, then at Qiyuan’s suddenly pale face. “Black blood? Oh, you are *really* in for it now! We’re both dead! My grand-uncle always said never to cross a noble, and you just blew up Geng Shao’s prized mech! On a galaxy-wide broadcast!” The whine of anti-grav engines grew deafening. The corrugated metal roof above them buckled inward. A searing, focused thermal cutter lanced down, searing a perfect circle through the roof, sending sparks and debris showering over them. A military drop-ship, sleek and gunmetal gray, descended through the newly formed hole, its landing struts deploying with a hiss. The ramp lowered. A figure emerged, clad in the midnight blue uniform of the Starfall Fleet. Her crimson cape billowed around her. Her face, framed by severe dark hair, showed synthetic dermal seams beneath the temple. Commander Shi Yuxuan stepped onto the junk shop floor, her voice, devoid of inflection, echoing through the silence. “Identify yourself. I know you’re here.” Qiyuan looked at the woman, then at the black blood on his hand, a chilling realization settling in. He had risked everything, again, for an irrelevant, cowardly mechanic. The consequences were already here. His time was running out. And now, the most dangerous woman in the Concord had found him.

The Tai Chi Phantom