The concrete landscape of Jiangnanās northern outskirts was an oppressive jungle of abandoned factories and rust-streaked warehouses. The relentless heavy rain had downgraded into a persistent, oily drizzle that coated the broken asphalt lanes in a slick, dark sheen.
Lin Feng walked down an isolated alleyway behind an old chemical processing plant, his footsteps perfectly silent. He had deliberately chosen this path, away from the active surveillance nets of the city center. Within his lower abdomen, his
Dantian
remained perfectly composed, guiding a single, dense channel of liquid Qi through his
Ren Channel
in an unbroken, rhythmic cycle.
The state regulatory bureau has already begun shifting its logistics divisions toward the Western Mountains based on the telemetry data I left them,
Lin Feng calculated, his hood pulled low to shield his eyes from the gray glare of the overcast sky.
The Zhao Groupās ancestral manor is wrapped in an official federal seal, and the Bai family is too busy liquidating corporate assets to look beyond their balance sheets. The civilian populace is still entirely oblivious, but the institutional chessboard has already altered its orientation ahead of schedule.
Suddenly, Lin Feng paused mid-stride.
He didn't turn his head, nor did he break his slow, rhythmic breathing pattern. But his newly stabilized
Qi Circulation ChannelingāStage 1
awareness caught a sharp, highly coordinated shift in the localized atmospheric pressure fifty meters behind him.
The scent of wet iron and ozone began to bleed through the humid air.
Three tracking signatures,
Lin Feng noted mentally, his pulse remaining flat and unhurried behind his mask of student-like simplicity.
High-frequency, rhythmic footfalls that match the specialized weight-displacement forms of northern border mercenaries. The Gilded Fang.
From the deep shadow of a collapsed corrugated metal overhang behind him, three figures emerged into the oily drizzle.
They didn't look like corporate security enforcers or government operatives. They wore loose, weathered combat jackets over dark mesh armor plates that had been intentionally stripped of all identification marks. Their faces were partially obscured by heavy linen wraps, but their exposed eyes burned with a sharp, predatory intensity that proved they had been using basic breathing exercises to refine their physical containers for years.
The leader of the group was a lean man who balanced a heavy, military-grade tactical recurve bow across his shoulder. The arrows in his side quiver weren't tipped with steel; they were tipped with dark, uncut pieces of volcanic glass that vibrated with a faint, volatile crimson hue.
"The trace is absolute," the archer said, his voice a flat, rasping drawl that carried a dense internal vibration. "The ambient Qi matrix in this alley is seventy percent higher than the city baseline. The kid is the active conduit. Heās been carrying the Mount Tai white jades without an anti-static containment capsule."
"He looks like an ordinary civilian student," the second mercenary muttered, his hand resting casually on the hilt of a curved trench sword secured to his utility harness. "The database logs him as Lin Feng, a second-year undergraduate at Jiangnan University. No family background, no corporate lineage."
"The database was written before the fault lines cracked," the archer replied coldly, his eyes locking onto Lin Feng's back. "The capitalās shadow brokers don't pay fifty million yuan for a normal student. Move in. Code Iron. Clear the alley and secure the backpack before the regional patrol grids sweep this sector."
The three mercenaries split instantly, their boots eating up the distance across the wet asphalt with a fluid, terrifying mechanical speed that left zero impressions in the shallow puddles.
Within three seconds, they had established a perfect triangle configuration, completely locking Lin Feng within a twenty-meter killing zone.
Lin Feng didn't reach into his pockets or attempt to pivot his frame into a defensive martial stance. He slowly let his backpack slide down his right arm, dropping it casually onto a dry wooden pallet leaning against the brick wall of the factory.
"The capital's shadow brokers are remarkably short-sighted," Lin Feng said softly, his voice carrying a deep spatial resonance that caused the oily drizzle falling around him to deflect outward by half an inch. "They sent their premier tracking hounds to recover old river stones, yet they failed to check if the hound was big enough for the mountain."
The lead archer didn't waste breath on a verbal retort. His response was purely tactical.
With a movement that blurred past the optical tracking capabilities of an ordinary human, he notched a single volcanic-glass arrow against the string of his high-tensile recurve bow, drawing it back to full extension in a fraction of a millisecond. The dark crystal tip of the projectile violently flared, its internal matrix compressing the ambient pre-awakening Qi of the alley into a single, needle-sharp point of kinetic heat.
Thwang.
The release of the bowstring generated a sharp, explosive crack that shattered the rusted windows of the adjacent warehouse. The volatile crimson arrow tore through the rain at four times the velocity of sound, dragging a long, boiling line of vaporized moisture that pointed straight toward Lin Fengās left lung.
To an early-stage martial practitioner or an unawakened corporate enforcer, an augmented strike at this distance was an absolute terminal pay-off. It was too fast to track visually, and its energetic composition was designed to detonate upon making contact with an organic cell barrier.
But to Lin Feng, currently circulating genuine, liquid Qi through his
Ren Channel
, the ballistic sequence unfolded like a slow dance.
He didn't step back. He didn't invoke an external barrier.
As the burning crystal tip came within three inches of his chest, Lin Feng simply raised his bare left hand, his fingers closing around the shaft of the supersonic arrow with effortless, loose precision.
CRACK.
The supersonic kinetic momentum of the projectile was instantly brought to an absolute halt within his palm. The volatile crimson energy locked inside the volcanic glass tip detonated furiously, letting out a sharp flash of heat that tried to incinerate his flesh, but the moment the explosion struck Lin Feng's pearlescent, Stage 1 skin, the force was completely absorbed and grounded into the concrete floorboards beneath his heels.
Lin Feng stood perfectly unmoving, looking down at the broken carbon-fiber shaft resting harmlessly between his bare fingers.
"Your weapon alignment is too volatile," Lin Feng remarked smoothly, looking through the white steam toward the lead archer. "You're sacrificing structural integrity for localized thermal damage. When the deep rifts split open, a Tier-2 beast's hide will look like reinforced concrete to a toy like this."
The three mercenaries from the Gilded Fang stood completely paralyzed in their tracks, their internal tracking visors failing to log how a bare human hand could intercept a supersonic, Qi-conductor projectile without a single mark of friction or chemical burn.
"Qi Circulation..." the archer whispered, his rasping voice dropping its stable, predatory rhythm as his fingers instinctively reached for a secondary, heavier quiver. "Heās not a mortal refinement student... heās already forced open a true channel before the global awakening."
Lin Feng let the ash from the shattered arrow slide through his fingers, a cold, undefeated smile curling his lips amid the gray drizzle.
The mishap of the capital's pursuit was thoroughly delivered to his door, but the stage was already clear.