Chapter 1: The White-Clad Cold Blood and the Sacrifice's Pulse
In the underground interrogation room, pale fluorescent lights flickered ominously. A heavy silence was broken only by the creaking of cold restraints.
"Pulse one hundred forty-two. Respiration thirty. Blood pressure has also spiked to a dangerous level, hasn't it?"
Leon, his pristine white military uniform without a single crease, his jet-black hair barely stirring, looked down at the prey bound to the interrogation chair.
The silver choker-shaped heart monitor around his neck continued to coldly engrave a flat green waveform, stripped of all emotion.
"Don't touch me! You lapdog of the Control Bureau!"
Silver-white hair spilled from beneath a grey hooded cape, shaking violently with her fierce resistance.
Leon narrowed his cold, jade-green eyes slightly, then bit the edge of his thin leather glove, pulling it off soundlessly. His exposed, cold fingertips slid without hesitation onto Ellis's sweaty nape.
"Let me record all of your beautiful disorder, for myself."
"Stop... I can't... breathe...!"
Beneath the thin skin he touched directly, the furious, hammering pulse transmitted to his fingertips pierced Leon's spine with a thrilling sensation.
Tears welled in her crimson eyes, and a single bead of sweat traced a glistening path down her flushed white skin. Her chest heaved, making the restraint belts creak violently.
"Magnificent. The rhythm of living flesh, something citizens flattened by drugs could never produce."
"Just kill me...! Carve out my brain and turn me into a doll, just like my comrades!"
"I won't waste such an opportunity. You will live on here, as my specimen."
Emergency line connected: Direct to the Supervisor's Office.
A jarring electronic sound from the overhead surveillance terminal mercilessly sliced through the air in the room.
"Assessor Leon. The interrogation ends here. Bring the subject and report to the top floor immediately."
A cold, low voice echoed from the speaker, and Leon's fingertips, which had been tracing Ellis's nape, twitched and stopped.
Chapter 2: The Verdict of Betrayal and the Heat of Complicity
Looking down from the panoramic glass-walled Supervisor's Office, the colossal city was suffocatingly bound by a geometric grid of light.
Gilbert, clad in a heavy black and gold ceremonial uniform, turned his cybernetic prosthetic eye, which flickered with a pale light, towards Leon.
"Subject Code: Ellis. Emotional excision will be performed at public execution tomorrow morning."
"Supervisor. This subject still holds research value as a sample of emotional response."
"Your heartbeat log records a subtle frequency disturbance. Unnecessary attachment, Leon."
The merciless declaration fell between them with an icy weight.
"After the execution, your own brainwave readjustment surgery will also be performed. You may withdraw."
In the sealed private room in the residential sector, where Ellis had been returned, she strained against her restraints, glaring at Leon with bloodshot eyes.
"You heard him, didn't you! Tomorrow, both you and I will be broken by him!"
"...So it seems. My collection records end here."
At Leon's detached reply, Ellis, still restrained, leaned forward and roughly pressed her forehead against his chest.
"A deal, you perverted assessor in white. Get me out of here."
Her wet eyes locked with his, Ellis breathed her ragged breath onto Leon's neck.
"If you let me escape... I'll give you all the sound of this heart, just for you!"
Through her pressed forehead, a powerful, pounding heat beat against Leon's chest.
"My own personal rhythm..."
Deep within his suppression choker, Leon's own throat subtly vibrated.
"Very well. Anyone who tries to take your heat from you, I will eliminate them all."
Wooosh! Wooosh!
Alarm: Abnormal biological reaction detected in Sector 1. Suppression forces deployed.
The reinforced door to the room was blasted open from the outside, and a wave of black smoke and the smell of gunpowder instantly surged in.
Chapter 3: The End of Heartbeat Overload and Their Proof
In the smoke-filled corridor, Leon's once pristine white military uniform was now stained dark red with his own blood and that of his enemies, amidst countless pale cylinders of the mainframe, 'The Heart of Silence'.
Gilbert, waiting for them, aimed his large firearm, his prosthetic eye focusing sharply.
"In the end, it's merely a disposal market for defective products. Vanish before order."
"Order? What value is there in such a cold world!"
Leon forcibly tore the silver choker from his own neck and tightly gripped Ellis's blood-soaked wrist.
"Ellis! Hurl all your anger and fear into this terminal!"
"Never! Even if I die, they won't have it! Hear the sound of our lives!"
The moment their biological terminals were directly connected to the mainframe's core, Ellis's intense emotional data surged like a torrent, eroding the central system.
Thump, thump-thump, THUMP!
Warning: Biological pulse overload. Forced release of emotional suppression limiters across all sectors.
From speakers throughout the city, Ellis's screams and frenzied heartbeat roared like an earth-shaking explosion.
"Impossible...! The city's flat waveform... it's collapsing...!"
The released Royal Guards clutched their heads, crying and screaming, one after another throwing down their guns and collapsing to the floor.
Leon unhesitatingly pressed his gun to the chest of the stumbling Gilbert, pulled the trigger, and sent him to the floor.
Amidst the sparking, collapsing debris, Leon, fatally wounded, lost his strength and fell onto the cold floor.
"Leon! Open your eyes! I won't forgive you if you die!"
"...I hear it. Your wild... magnificent..."
In his fading vision, Leon gently pressed his ear to Ellis's ample chest, a satisfied smile playing on his lips.
Ellis, tears streaming down her face, pressed both hands firmly against his blood-stained chest.
"...It's moving. Your heart is beating, truly alive...!"
The inorganic silence was completely shattered, and the liberated city was filled with millions of cries and shouts, and the fervent birth cries of life.
