The high-rise headquarters of the Capital Zhao Core Branch occupied the top forty floors of a skyscraper wrapped in obsidian smart-glass, towering over the neon-drenched grid of Sector 01. Inside the main boardroom, a massive, oval table carved from ancient, Qi-conductive ironwood reflected the tense faces of seven senior directors.
The typical humming servers and automated stock tickers were silent. Instead, the focus was centered entirely on a flickering, multi-spectrum holographic rendering of the ruined North Training Grounds.
Zhao Ming sat near the foot of the table, his white linen shirt wrinkled and stained with gray ash. His hands were clasped tightly between his knees to hide their uncontrollable trembling. Beside him, Old Tang stood in the shadows of the arched doorway, his thick, refined ears flattened in absolute submission.
"A total grounding," a senior director across the table rasped, slammed his open palm against the ironwood surface. "Director-General Sun implemented a Code Black administrative shield across the entire academic sector. Our information runners inside the Central Bureau had to bribe three separate data technicians just to secure a partial biometric read before the logs were purged."
He tapped a key, and the holographic image shifted, displaying the deformed, hand-shaped mold pressed into the carbon-alloy crystal screening pillar, followed by a blurred optical trace of the Tier-1 Abyssal Dread-Hound dissolving into ash.
"Lin Feng," the director muttered, the name sounding heavy in the cold room. "An independent undergraduate from the Jiangnan registry. No clan lineage, no martial backing, no corporate allocation. Yet, he bypassed the screening metrics entirely with a rating of 999-plus, and then proceeded to liquidate a trans-dimensional apex beast using nothing but a three-inch compact physical flex."
"It's a regression script," an elderly woman sitting at the head of the table whispered, her voice like cracking autumn leaves. She wore traditional, deep violet silk robes that bore the golden thread insignias of the Capital’s primary branch. Her eyes, clouded with cataracts yet burning with a sharp, industrial madness, locked onto Zhao Ming.
"Young Master Ming," she called out softly. "You claimed that the trace of the Mount Tai white jades disappeared right inside your high-speed rail carriage block. Did you look at this boy?"
Zhao Ming swallowed hard, his voice dry. "He... he was sitting right in our row, Elder Matriarch. He wore a cheap utility jacket, reading a public article on a standard smartphone. Biometric scans showed zero unawakened muscle mass or cellular heat. I... I dismissed him as a common laborer who lucked into a regional trench collapse."
"A loophole," the Elder Matriarch whispered, her long, silver-plated nails scratching a line across the ironwood. "He didn't activate an external Qi barrier or use a traditional breathing form on that train. He grounded his internal loop so perfectly that the obsidian watch treated him as empty space. This child isn't just a fluke of luck—he possesses future knowledge of the fault lines."
The boardroom doors suddenly slid open with a sharp hydraulic hiss.
A young female operative wearing a slick, dark crimson tactical windbreaker stepped into the room, bowing deeply toward the Elder Matriarch. "An emergency update from the regional borders, Matriarch. The Bai Family Conglomerate has just pulled their liquidity out of the northern logistics hub. They have shifted their entire automated drone fleet to shadow the Central Bureau’s engineering columns moving toward Sector 04."
The senior directors shifted uncomfortably in their seats, their tablets lighting up with rapid financial alerts.
"Bai Qingxi is moving her pieces," the lead director analyzed grimly. "She knows that 'Xuanwu' is operating inside the Capital. She’s using the Bureau’s military maneuvers as a shield to map out the next inheritance nodes before our core branch can establish physical drop-points."
"The table is fracturing," the Elder Matriarch declared, her gravelly voice flattening into a cold execution order. "Director-General Sun thinks he can use this boy’s telemetry to stabilize the state's military defense lines. He doesn't understand that when the primary grand rifts split open during the winter solstice, a state charter will have no more value than wet paper."
She looked back down at the holographic rendering of Lin Feng's smooth, unblemished palm.
"We cannot allow an independent variable of this caliber to remain unaligned," she commanded. "Activate the
Gilded Fang's
primary death-row detachment in the capital—the
Iron-Core Executioners
. Tell them to bypass the Academy’s northern perimeter fencing during the midnight shift. If Student Lin refuses to hand over the complete structural mapping of the Sector 04 fault lines... liquidate his marrow and return his container to the clay."
Zhao Ming looked up, a cruel, desperate flash of validation returning to his ash-colored features. He knew that the Iron-Core Executioners weren't common border mercenaries like the ones broken in the Jiangnan alley; they were augmented Stage 9 Flesh Refinement monsters who had undergone total neural stripping to survive the toxic pressure of early-stage abyssal leaks.
"Understood," the crimson-jacketed operative replied, bowing before retreating into the elevator shaft.
Far away, across the rain-swept metropolis, the alarms of the Imperial Academy had finally fallen silent under the creeping morning fog. The corporate giants were drawing their heaviest blades to secure the board, completely blind to the fact that the independent monster they were hunting was already waiting for them in the dark.