The freezing, sub-zero wind howling through the collapsed lines of the Mount Tai mountain pass carried no residual warmth from the Southern Syndicate’s broken flame shroud. Rusted metal shards from the imploded mobile plasma turrets groaned as they rapidly cooled, settling into the gray volcanic sand like forgotten tomb markers.
Lin Feng walked unhurriedly up the steep, winding mountain path that sliced toward the highest peaks of Sector 02. His sneakers left no deeper impression in the frozen clay than a drifting leaf, his posture completely fluid and loose beneath his gray utility jacket. Within his lower abdomen, his
Dantian
spun with an immensely condensed, silent density—the uncorrupted geocentric core fuel completely digested, locking his
Stage 2 Meridian Loop
into an absolute state of ironclad equilibrium.
Behind him, Han Xue and Bai Qingxi followed with stiff, silent strides. The corporate heiress had entirely deactivated her shattered wrist interface, her clear pale face reflecting a profound, quiet calculation. Beside her, the successor of the Northern Frost Sanctuary kept her hands tucked deeply inside her black silk trench coat, her mind still frantically auditing the sheer physical mass that had dissolved Marshal Huo’s terminal execution arc with a mere twitch of a bare shoulder.
"The regional defense logs have completely flatlined, Lin Feng," Bai Qingxi said, her crisp, aristocratic voice carrying a steady, measured pace across the ridge. "The Southern Syndicate's core branch directors have officially frozen their liquid accounts inside the capital grid. They are no longer attempting to contest your registry parameters through the state bureau. They are abandoning their infrastructure entirely to retreat behind their ancestral seals."
"A retreat will not save their ledgers, Director Bai," Lin Feng replied softly, his voice cutting through the whistling mountain draft with an unhurried density. "They spent forty years assuming that by siphoning the stray, impure energetic leaks of the earth, they could own the coming solstice. They failed to realize that when the primary fault lines split the continent, a house built on corrupted foundations will be the first to turn to ash."
He stopped smoothly at the edge of a massive, circular granite plateau that formed the absolute summit of the Sector 02 mountain ridge.
The environment here was terrifyingly bare. Below them, the sprawling metropolis of Capital Grid Sector 01 was barely visible through a thick, swirling curtain of rust-colored electromagnetic smog. But above the plateau, the sky didn't resemble the overcast clouds of New Huaxia. The atmosphere had warped into a massive, shimmering geometric lens of pale sapphire light—the absolute external anchor of the
Mount Tai Primary Grand Rift
.
Standing at the perfect center of the granite plateau, completely unbothered by the sub-zero mountain draft, was Director-General Sun.
He didn't wear his formal midnight-blue military coat or his tactical command harness. He stood dressed in a simple, dark green training tunic, his weathered hands resting firmly behind his back as his sharp, bloodshot eyes scanned the approaching trio. Behind him, parked at the very edge of the landing zone, was a single, unbranded black-ops stealth transport vehicle, its twin-rotor propulsion engines emitting nothing more than a low, rhythmic whisper through the white steam.
"The outer cordon is permanently secured, Student Lin," General Sun stated, his gravelly baritone carrying the unyielding weight of a state executioner. He didn't look at the corporate or sanctuary heiresses as they stepped onto the stone. "The Bureau’s Deep Directory finalized the administrative purge ten minutes ago. Every single data technician, tracking drone fleet, and corporate information runner inside Sector 04 has been pushed beyond the military exclusion lines under Code Black federal decrees."
"The state has chosen the correct matrix, General," Lin Feng said smoothly, slinging his worn utility backpack from his shoulder and letting it rest casually against a flat granite block.
He walked to the absolute center of the plateau, stopping exactly three paces from the head of the Central Bureau. To General Sun's upgraded tracking senses, the youth's energetic reading remained completely invisible—a flat, vacant void that running on a perfect internal loop that swallowed any external tracking signatures.
"The legacy clans are completely blinded," General Sun continued, his voice dropping into a low, quiet register meant only for the inner circle. He pulled a heavy, ruggedized obsidian data pad from his tunic lining and held it forward. "But our geological monitoring satellites just logged a zero-point pressure drop beneath the Mount Tai central roots. The primary fault line isn't waiting for the winter solstice timeline anymore, Lin Feng. The core sanctuary is scheduled to fracture open exactly twenty-four hours from this breath."
Lin Feng casually accepted the data pad, his golden-flecked eyes calmly scanning the scrolling rows of uncorrupted golden code and prehistoric tectonic mappings cascading across the screen.
[ MAXIMUM PROTOCOL INITIALIZED: MOUNT TAI SECTOR 01 CORE]
[ESTIMATED BREAKTHROUGH GEOMETRY: 100% COHESION]
[WARNING: THE FIRST ANCESTRAL INHERITANCE REALM IS TEARING OPEN THE BEDROCK]
A cold, undefeated smile curled the absolute corners of Lin Feng’s lips under the shimmering sapphire lens of the sky.
The corporate vanguards were broken, the hidden sanctuaries were thoroughly stripped of their resource monopolies, and the institutional chessboard of the country had been completely scoured according to his blueprint. The classroom stage of the capital was officially finalized, but the true war for the absolute apex of modern New Huaxia was already opening its gates right beneath his feet.
"Get the transport ready, General," Lin Feng commanded softly, his smooth voice carrying a deep spatial resonance that caused the massive slate of granite beneath their boots to hum in perfect geometric unison. "The ledger is open, and it's time to claim the first true crown of the earth."