The interrogation room's tungsten light buzzed like angry hornets. Lin stared at her warped reflection in the one-way mirror, handcuffs clicking against the steel table. The pendant beneath her prison scrubs pulsed in time with the security cameras' red eyes.
"Let's revisit 3:17 AM." Agent Carter slapped a thermal image on the table. The photo showed Lin's silhouette glowing white-hot, while Everett's body contorted into impossible angles mid-air. "Explain how you projected a qi field strong enough to shatter bulletproof glass."
Before Lin could respond, her vision doubled. The concrete walls melted into weeping stone, iron chair becoming an ornate throne carved with drowning dragons. A ghostly blade materialized in her shackled hands - crescent-shaped and humming with suppressed lightning.
Lin's breath fogged the air as frost spread across the mirror. The agent didn't seem to notice the temperature drop, too busy unfolding a document stamped with the Pentagon's occult warfare seal.
"According to our soul resonance scanners," Carter tapped a graph showing two overlapping brainwave patterns, "you're currently hosting a Class IX spectral entity." His thumb hovered over a bone saw-shaped button. "Shall we perform an exorcism?"
The phantom blade in Lin's grip flared.
Her body moved without consent. Shackles shattered as she lunged across the table, spectral edge stopping a hair's breadth from Carter's jugular. The agent's coffee cup froze mid-spill, suspended in suddenly gelatinous air.
When time snapped back, Lin found herself panting over spilled coffee. Carter's neck bore a thin red line where the spectral blade had kissed flesh.
"Interesting negotiation tactics, Dr. Lin." The agent wiped his neck, staring at bloodied fingertips. "You'll have your toys by midnight."
Six Hours Earlier (Flashback)
The quarantine cell's bioluminescent walls throbbed like diseased lungs. Lin pressed her palm against glowing containment runes, each touch sending electric shocks through her transplant scar. Everett's last words looped in her memory: *"They're harvesting us."*
A shadow rippled across the ceiling. The silver-haired orderly materialized through solid wall, his form flickering between Jiu You and the screaming cauldron creature. He dropped a bone scroll on Lin's cot - human vertebrae strung with silk thread.
"Third Era diagnostic records," Jiu You's voice buzzed with static. "Your dragon princess left footnotes."
Lin unrolled the grisly parchment. The carved ribs depicted a familiar surgery: armoured figures extracting glowing scales from a chained woman's chest. Her finger traced the surgical sigils - identical to those in her transplant records.
"Sùlí..." The name escaped her lips unbidden.
The orderly's eyes bled mercury. "She's been trying to warn you since the first arrhythmia." His hand phased through Lin's chest, icy fingers brushing her artificial heart. "This isn't a transplant. It's a resurrection."
Alarms wailed as containment seals failed. Lin's vision exploded into fractal patterns - she was falling through layered realities:
1. Modern hospital corridors choked with bioluminescent mist
2. An ancient battlefield where soldiers wore respirators forged from dragon teeth
3. A glass-walled chamber where her own body floated in amber liquid, chest split open to reveal a glowing scale
Jiu You's laughter followed her through dimensions. "Welcome to the Soul Forge, little surgeon."
Present
The black SUV crawled through neon-lit Chinatown. Lin clutched the military-issued duffle bag containing her demanded items, each object vibrating with forbidden energy. The pendant between her collarbones had grown into a proper scale, its edges cutting through fabric.
"Would've been helpful to mention that before I stuffed it in a gym bag," Lin muttered through clenched teeth. The driver eyed her via rearview mirror.
They stopped at a derelict acupuncture clinic. Carter shoved her toward a basement door humming with wrongness. "Your spectral friend specified the venue."
The moment Lin crossed the threshold, the world inverted.
She stood in a circular chamber blending ancient alchemy and modern surgery. Bronze meridians pulsed along stainless steel walls, IV bags dripped liquid jade into a central cauldron. The thirteenth rib floated above the brew, etching ghostly characters in the steam.
As Lin complied, her movements gained unnatural precision. Muscle memory from someone else's lifetime guided the ritual. When she plunged the autopsy saw into the cauldron, reality tore.
A woman materialized in the boiling broth - battle-scarred and regal, her chest gaping where a scale should be. Lin's stolen heart spasmed in recognition.
The vision shattered as armed men burst in. Not humans - their pupils glowed with the same fractal gold as the cadaver from OR-4. Carter's head rolled across the floor, his body still standing.
"Harvest time," the lead operative sang, extending bone blades from his fingertips.
Lin's hands moved before her brain processed the threat. Jade ash became shrapnel, autopsy saw singing as it transformed into a crescent blade. The voice in her head chanted war poetry as they danced through attackers, each strike guided by millennia-old combat memory.
When the last operative fell, his dissolving body revealed the truth - these weren't humans, but porcelain dolls filled with wriggling shadow veins.
The cauldron erupted. Lin caught a final glimpse of the armored woman's face in the steam - her own reflection wearing ancient war paint.