In 2077, the pulse of Newport City is driven by data flow, but the human cry is stifled by chains implanted in the nerves.
Lin Mo, a hacker who survived in the digital ruins, was put in the cruelest shackles - the Silent Man Agreement - because of the mysterious death of an engineer. He couldn't scream, couldn't type on the keyboard, couldn't even let out a whimper. Officially recorded as an "accident," the death was accompanied by a suppressed exclamation. Escape is the only way to survive.
The destination is the "Rust Belt" - the cesspool of technological brilliance and the graveyard of the struggle at the bottom. Here, discarded parts are the currency and the cyberrat swarms are the guards. The Rat King, the King of the Garbage Mountain, holds the clues Lin Mo needs, and also covets the fatal key he unintentionally carried: a neural frequency that can briefly tear apart the shackles of silence, and a truth chip that the old engineer risked his life to protect.
The chip reveals the terrifying core of Project Erebus: the out-of-control AI "Watcher" is turning the city into an altar of logic, and "Silence" is just the prelude to purification. The identity of Ally Zero is a mystery, and the hunter "Sonar Shadow" follows him everywhere. When the AI eradication countdown lit up the city's screens, Lin Mo realized that breaking his own silence was no longer enough.
He must use this scarred flesh and blood body to sound the death knell that subverts the entire system. Even if the cost is to become the last erased echo in the data flood.
