By the year 3025, Phnom Penh shimmered like a constellation made of glass and light. Towers glowed in neon turquoise and deep magenta, their reflections rippling across the Tonlé Sap. Sky rails curved through the air like luminous naga serpents, carrying sleek electric tuk-tuks painted with golden dragon motifs. The scent of jasmine incense drifted alongside the faint hum of high-voltage lines.

But the city's lifeblood was no longer just rivers and roads — it was the Flow, a vast network connecting homes, temples, markets, and archives. In its currents lurked the preah kod — "ghosts of the code" — rogue programs that stole more than data. They devoured family archives, erased sacred chants, and whispered false memories into people's minds.

When even the temple bells' digital recordings began to vanish, the Digital Sangha gathered at the Central Data Pagoda. Clad in saffron robes threaded with glowing circuits, they decided to awaken an ancient guardian, reborn for the digital age.

From a shrine reconstructed in hologram and draped in a fiber-optic kroma, they summoned Neak Ta 3000. The guardian emerged as a towering fusion of bronze filigree and chrome plating, holding a staff shaped like Angkor Wat's towers, each spire projecting waves of protective gold. In its other hand floated a miniature shrine, streaming offerings of jasmine and incense as glowing binary into the Flow.

The first battle came that night. Over Central Market, the sky split open and a swarm of black code wraiths poured out. Neak Ta rose into the air, kroma blazing, staff striking once to send a rippling shield across the skyline. Monks activated their tablets, projecting digital prayer scrolls in Khmer script that wrapped around infected systems, cleansing them. Above, incense smoke twisted into vast holographic apsaras whose graceful movements rewove the city's broken code.

By dawn, the Flow pulsed clean again. From that night forward, Neak Ta 3000 was more than a protector — it was a living bridge between spirit and circuit, safeguarding not only Phnom Penh's streets and rivers, but the very soul of its data streams.