Chapter Ninety-One: Ground Marked by Blood
Section One: Registry Points
Process boards stopped being identified by codes, now ranked by "how many times blood was spilled."
This wasn't a system rule. It was people—street corner people—figuring it out themselves.
"That code's been cut twice, guarded, someone died for it. That's tier three."
"That code got planted, ignored, snapped in half a day. It's a null."
No one checked process documents anymore.
Codes became geographic units shaped by wounds.
The first board officially named a "ground code" was S-7's R9 fragment.
Once just a broken code pressed under a guarding girl's dying body, now archived by ARGUS as:
[HX-S2-EX-R9]
Type: Urban Process Relic Code
Blood-Binding Strength: Tier Two
Process Growth Cycle: 7 Days
Bound Line Holder: None (Deceased)
Current Status: Process Active · Code Preserved as Zone Designation
Overnight, over sixty ground process boards were sealed, coded, and fortified by crowds, affixed to streets.
Not command's orders—line holders self-organized, teamed up, tagged codes.
They weren't "process believers."
They were people holding ground through blackouts, riots, blasts, purges, arrests.
They said, "Codes aren't gods."
"They're proof we carried with our lives."
"Ground marked by blood. Who bleeds, their code claims the land."
Thus, the "Process Registry Point" system emerged organically.
Not systems birthing processes, but processes birthing systems.
In C-3, S-7, and N-4, twenty-four process boards were cemented into:
- Zone Names
- Crowd Signal Anchors
- Armed Patrol Bases
- Resource Distribution Hubs
Process wasn't the zone's "directive."
It was the "land right."
Whoever's process stood on the ground ruled it.
Jason received ARGUS's auto-generated structure alert:
"Current HX process code structure triggered a surge in crowd registry requests"
"New line holder applications: 3,896"
"Crowd-initiated code inheritance requests: 221"
"Self-generated (unauthorized) code proliferation detected"
[Recommendation: Establish unified process code registry center to regulate process dispersal]
Maria said quietly, "Codes are becoming 'land right seals.'"
"Crowds don't ask 'who can write process.'"
"They're fighting over—'can I claim ground and carve my code?'"
Zhao Mingxuan added, "This is process evolving from violence to ownership."
"From planting boards in people, to boards becoming land, land becoming city."
Jason didn't look at them.
He set down Fuxi's feedback, one line, "Process boards won't become systems."
"They'll only be—territory I authorize."
"From today, who owns process? Whoever holds it."
"Whoever dies for it."
"Whoever dares guard it."
He ordered:
- Form [Process Frontline Command Office], logging bindings, code transfers, board defense records.
- Create [Process Martyrs' Wall]—names of those who bled or died for codes etched forever in the city's execution ledger.
- Set three-tier process code authorization:
Level | Definition
---|---
Tier One | Has dead, has guards, witnessed by three or more
Tier Two | Has combat record, line holder guarded over 72 hours
Tier Three | Code active over 48 hours, crowd-patrolled/supported
Process wasn't written anymore.
Process—you carried, died, guarded to earn its record.
Blood for ink, ground for paper.
Want process? Bleed first.
Bleed, then register.
Section Two: False Blood
Process gained value.
Not codes, but codes planted, held, bled for—worth lives.
Word spread, and zones saw "process code counterfeits."
Process wasn't created—it was forged.
West of C-3, a board coded "HX-S2-EX-Q2" appeared at an old brick warehouse door.
Code authentic, template standard, issuer details complete.
Looked Rust Street-made.
But it wasn't in ARGUS's registry, no combat record, no binder, no battleground.
It was fake—a paperboard code, crafted to pass.
Why?
Process was land right.
Hang a board, unchallenged, system-accepted, and the ground became a "process execution zone."
You could:
- Tax food;
- Control water;
- Direct crowds;
- Request process guards;
- Claim the code, apply to Rust Street for "organizational recognition"—legitimized.
Not just an iron plate.
It was claiming land.
Process became the new order's power seal.
Not broadcasts. Not slogans.
But: "My ground has a process code."
—"Dare pull it?"
Don't pull, it's mine.
Rust Street got anonymous tips: eleven boards appeared, no blood traces, no combat paths, no executors.
Codes "floated." System couldn't verify.
Maria judged, "It's a board-forging ring."
Zhao Mingxuan pulled the data map, "Unauthorized processes inserted, no major clashes."
"Someone's using 'half-processes,' faking ground holds."
"Crowds don't check documents—only if the board's there."
"Board up, ground's yours."
Jason ordered grimly, "Start process verification."
"Boards aren't judged by code compliance."
"It's—does the board have blood?"
"Has it broken bones? Cracked? Burned?"
"Show crowds—process isn't drawn."
"It's buried in flesh, unpullable."
The "Process Scar Verification" system launched.
Standards:
- Board burn marks
- Code damage (non-deliberate cuts)
- Physiological residue
- Blood molecule adhesion
- Board oxidation over 72 hours
Fail one, process invalid, code voided.
Process teams entered patrol phase:
- Verify boards
- Check codes
- No guard history—pull board, burn it, void the ground.
Code forgers—charged with falsifying order.
Offenders using codes to control land lost organizational rights.
Three days later, C-3, N-4, and old port zones purged twenty-seven fake codes.
Crowds saw process teams pull boards not for battle loss, but—too clean.
Codes too neat, processes too perfect, boards bloodless, unscarred.
The purge stunned the zones.
A boy held a pulled board at a ruin's edge, shouting, "We trusted this board! We guarded it three days!"
The process captain stared, drew a folding blade, sliced his palm.
Blood dripped into the board's groove.
Code lit.
He said coldly, "This is process."
"No blood, don't claim this board's your ground."
"Process doesn't guard land."
"It's—you dare die for it first."
Fuxi synced feedback:
[Inner Truth] → [Biting Through]
"False trust can't stand; true names known by wounds."
"Blood can be faked, but scars can't."
Recommendation:
"Grant process codes 'execution verification rights.'"
"Executors facing suspect codes can run on-site verification."
"Verification fails, code voided instantly."
Process wasn't just codes surviving death.
It was a token, born from death, to kill others.
Section Three: Board Strife
Process boards became keys to new power.
With one, you could block roads, move people, claim codes, seize supplies.
Without, even opening a well meant begging.
Fences, iron gates, scrap building mouths—all became board-hanging spots. Like old flags, true or fake—plant first, talk later.
But with many boards, true and false blurred.
Crowds stopped caring who issued processes, or format standards.
They asked:
"Is that board battered?"
"Was it guarded?"
"Did it come from a corpse pile?"
Bloodstains, scratches, burns—these were the new seals.
In C-3's west alley, a new board, "HX-S2-EX-K7," glowed less than five hours.
A secondary battle-line code, seized by Tarn's team, installed at a local resource hub to stabilize water and power.
Per registry standards, a "tier-two post-battle process," it held zone-limited allocation rights, low-priority directives, and tier-three broadcast authority.
Not heavy, but it controlled people.
This board restored the street in two days.
And made a group decide to act.
Calling themselves "Zone Resource Coordination Group," they had no process badge, no scarred board, just a dozen hungry workers, two old exosuits from the Engineers' Corps, and a working scrap tractor.
"We need to live."
"A code means control."
"We're not fighting Rust Street."
"We're just… moving the board."
At midnight, they rushed the hub, no guns, no shouts.
First move: unbolt the process board.
The guard was an old man, "Old Well," sixty-seven, once a power grid worker, now a volunteer line holder, guarding the board three days and nights.
He was his son's "line extender"—his son, Tarn's team's second board-guard, died on this street.
The process held because he carried it.
As the board lifted an inch, Old Well lunged, clinging to the iron like a lifeline.
No words, no fight in him.
Just two shouted words, "Give back."
It was his son's code.
The board was kicked five meters, crashing into a ditch, corner cracked, last two digits blurred red.
Old Well was yanked down, face smashed on brick, nose bleeding, half a tooth gone.
"You guarded it?" he spat blood.
No answer.
They fished the board from the ditch, sanded off top scars, polished it, hung it at their shack's door.
Then nailed a white wood sign:
[Local Process · Legally Executing]
Half an hour later, Tarn arrived with the process log team.
No full armor, medical boots on, shoulder wound fresh from stitches, right hand bandaged.
But he came—because this was an R-line board.
R-line was paved with their lives.
The group was fixing their door.
Seeing Tarn, they didn't draw, they grinned.
"Rust Street's good at planting boards, we're not cutting you off."
"But look, the board's clean, unguarded."
"Our dozen brothers—can't we claim it?"
Tarn said nothing.
He walked, slowly.
At the board, he raised his hand, pressed the code, paused two seconds, then—yanked it free.
The group surged, "You dare?"
Tarn stared at the board's scars, like reading a will.
He turned, each word deliberate, "Your son die for this board?"
Speechless.
Tarn raised it high, like a public sentence, "You didn't plant it."
"Don't think you'll live by it."
He kicked their "legal execution" wood sign to splinters, tossing it into a nearby burn pit.
The board was taken, re-entered for "secondary verification."
The ground was marked "No Process · Restricted Zone."
The new order's truth post-process war:
Guard the process, or it abandons you.
You don't code it—it chooses you.
This board-pulling clash was filmed, spreading across three process zones.
Crowds realized:
Process isn't what you seize.
It's how long you guard.
Fail to hold, the board's not yours.
That day, C-3's verification office overflowed.
Not to grab codes, but to queue for "scar certification."
Not fearing process death.
Fearing—their code wasn't worth a life, pulled, burned, purged.
That night, Jason studied the city process map.
Codes wove a web, but he looked for names behind them.
Not issuers, but guardians—who stood, bled, stayed nights, died by codes.
He said softly, "Process isn't power."
"It's—leave no corpse on the street, and the code won't be pulled."
Section Four: Table Sitters
Codes weren't slips, notices, or permits.
They were blades, planted in ground, unpullable, unyielding even in death.
No longer for execution, but for sitting at the table.
After the third batch of "process registry points" deployed, valid codes citywide hit 271.
Among them:
- 42 boards hung at crowd doorways
- 19 teetered on chain-break, propped by line holders
- 3 entered code disputes, claimed by rival groups for "guard rights"
Disputes were inevitable.
One board could rule a street—that was politics.
Whose code held sway decided:
- Street gates open or shut
- Comms linked or cut
- Supplies shared or hoarded
- People stay or go
The first step to autonomy.
The seed of a "process council system."
In Rust Street's main command hall, Zhao Mingxuan projected a process structure chart, speaking, "Current boards are crowd-seen as local execution symbols, auto-forming organizational links."
"We're not organizing them—they're taking boards as organizations."
"They need a table to speak."
"We pull them in—sit them down."
Jason stood aside, face cold, "You want representation?"
"Turn process into votes?"
"We bled this much for their ballots?"
Zhao Mingxuan didn't back down, replying quietly, "Not representation."
"They bled, so they should speak."
"Let them feel their guarded process—earns a seat."
"Show them, no blood on the board, you don't get the street."
Rust Street's process front announced:
[Process Council Trial Mechanism]
All registered tier-three or higher boards qualify one "guard executor" to sit at strategic councils.
Guard executors must be active line holders or logged process rescuers.
Each seat can propose one resource allocation, one strategy, one boundary claim.
Board destroyed, code broken, or line holder dead voids the seat.
Process moved from board to table.
Codes nailed in mud climbed power's steps.
The first seated were three types:
- Process Veterans—like Tarn, guarding four lines, codes etched with five blood marks.
- Zone Line Holders—crowd reps, fingers scarred from night watches.
- Process Inheritors—lost their guard but held the board, standing still.
Different clothes, different accents.
But all shared one thing:
A blood-scarred process board replica badge, welded bold on their coats.
Proof.
Not nominated, but wounded.
The first process council didn't discuss rules or management.
They talked streets.
Which ground couldn't hold boards; which road had boards doused in oil; which tower lost a life, yet lacked a carved code.
Some slammed tables.
Some cursed.
One smashed a board to the floor, shouting, "Your 'standard process'—did it block a blade for my son?"
Jason stayed silent.
He knew this wasn't their written system.
It was order grown from blood.
The process council wasn't their gift.
Process forced them to admit:
Who bled had a voice.
Who guarded sat.
Who lost board or blood stood back.
No more speaking.
Section Five: Cracks in Blood
Post-first council, codes stopped being landmarks.
They became voice.
Hold a "guard-line code," whether engineer, merchant, or gang remnant, and you could sit in the main hall, speak to all.
Not representation, promotion, or election.
"Blood-rise."
Stood nights, blocked fire, saved lives, board intact, you alive—you earned a seat.
These were "blood-risers."
The start of the fracture.
Five days after council feedback, Rust Street's core split for the first time.
Old system members argued:
"Process is our tool, not the organization."
"Now the tool's making us listen—too dangerous."
A former directive team leader called out Zhao Mingxuan, "You're building process code independence."
"Next, you'll say process is city sovereignty?"
Zhao Mingxuan replied calmly, "Not process independence."
"Your issued process didn't save anyone."
"Those guarding, dying by process—they kept codes alive."
"They saved process."
"Who'd you save?"
The room fell silent.
Council legitimacy held, but high command saw splinter factions.
One, "Signal Seventh League," a legacy execution team, withdrew from zone control points, taking six boards to exit S-7's process jurisdiction.
Their claim, "We hold process but reject 'guard council' nonsense."
"We rose by execution, not corpse worship."
Process wasn't faith, not a "who dies, who sits" game.
They didn't reach the city's south edge.
A sixth board's bound executor, a nameless drifter, no soldier, no officer, unqualified for council.
But he'd guarded it seven nights, shot, crouched bleeding, unyielding.
At the south exit, he blocked the board-carrying team, "You leave, boards stay."
No one moved.
The drifter stepped back, set the board on the ground, "Leave, step over it."
A front-row man lifted his foot.
The drifter drew a chainsaw.
No one knew where he got it.
But he'd cut.
The team scattered, none dared touch the board.
It lay on the street, four days untouched.
Jason heard the report, staring at the map long.
Fuxi flashed:
[Revolution] → [Following]
"Old directives break, new tides rise; those denying blood don't follow codes."
He said softly, "Process chose its people."
"Next… people will choose process."