The fighter-vessel pierced the final atmospheric ceiling of New Huaxia, banking sharply toward the geometric epicenter that hung like a shimmering, silver-white tear in the fabric of the sky above the capitalās ruins.
This was the entrance to the First Celestial Realmānot a dungeon, not a spatial rift, but a genuine fragment of the ancient era that had been anchored to the planetās crust for millennia. The gateway didn't pulse with the volatile violet static of the deep-sea trenches; it hummed with a cold, absolute, and pristine frequency that felt like the vibration of a perfectly tuned bell.
Lin Feng sat in the pilotās cabin, his eyes tracing the massive, interconnected geometric arrays projected across the fighter's console. The moment the vessel crossed the gateway's outer perimeter, the onboard navigation systems went completely dormant, their logic boards unable to calculate the spatial dimensions of a zone that existed simultaneously within and outside of conventional planetary gravity.
"The structural integrity of the gateway is absolute," Instructor Meng announced, her voice strained as she fought the immense, localized spatial torque pressing against the fighter's hull. "We are losing telemetry with Director-General Sunās command bunker. The entire sector is being isolated from the standard registry."
Lin Feng didn't look at the console. He stood up, his sneakers clicking sharply against the vibrating metal floorboards. He walked toward the primary exit ramp, his silhouette backlit by the brilliant, silver-white starlight bleeding through the gateway.
"The gateway isn't isolating us, Instructor," Lin Feng said, his voice calm and resonant. "It is verifying our foundation. It only permits the passage of containers that can withstand the absolute pressure of the celestial era."
He looked back at Han Xue and Bai Qingxi. The two heiresses were visibly struggling, their internal meridian foundations vibrating violently as the atmospheric purity of the realm forced a rapid, involuntary stabilization on their nervous systems.
"You have come this far," Lin Feng noted, his voice devoid of judgment. "But the First Celestial Realm is the final audit. If your marrow is not scoured, the incoming starlight will turn your internal foundations to common clay. Stay with the vessel. I will open the ledger."
Without waiting for their protests, Lin Feng stepped off the ramp and directly into the heart of the silver-white light.
Inside the First Celestial Realm, gravity did not exist as a constant. The landscape was a vast, sprawling garden of white marble and floating lotus-pools, suspended in a boundless, starlit expanse that echoed with the soft, melodic chanting of the ancient era.
At the center of the garden stood the Celestial Gatekeeperāa towering entity of pure, condensed starlight that possessed the face of a stern, ancient sage. It held a giant, open ledger of burning, translucent scroll-paper, waiting for the candidate who could rewrite the history of the coming era.
The Gatekeeper turned its gaze toward Lin Feng, its eyes glowing with the intensity of a collapsing sun.
"The ledger of New Huaxia is locked," the Gatekeeper intoned, its voice echoing through the chamber like the tolling of a great bell. "Many have come to claim the First Realm, but their containers were filled with the impurities of the modern age. You have come from the bedrock, mortal. What right do you have to rewrite the foundation?"
Lin Feng stood perfectly still, his eyes meeting the Gatekeeperās solar glare with the unflinching, mountain-like density of a regressor who had already lived the history it tried to protect.
"I am the regressor who scoured the board," Lin Feng whispered, his voice carrying an unhurried, final weight. "I have balanced the debt of the fault lines, grounded the maritime rifts, and dismantled the sectors that sought to containerize the earthās evolution. My foundation is absolute."
He stepped toward the ledger, his hands outstretched, the
Dao Blueprint
within his lower abdomen pulsing with a blinding, perfect golden light that instantly matched the radiance of the entire Celestial Realm.
"I am not here to claim a seat at your table," Lin Feng declared, his golden-flecked eyes burning with a quiet, undefeated resolve. "I am here to rewrite the ledger entirely."
As he pressed his palm against the burning scroll, the First Celestial Realm erupted in a brilliant, harmonious light that spanned the entire horizon of the capital, signifying the end of the old era and the beginning of the regressor's total, undefeated dominion.