The Advanced Special Section of Dormitory Block D was an isolated compound of sleek, minimalist concrete structures bordered by the dense, rustling pine forests of the academy’s northern edge. By 10:00 PM, the artificial courtyard lights had been dimmed, throwing long, geometric shadows across the pristine stone walkways.
Inside Room 409, Lin Feng sat cross-legged on the floorboards, completely naked from the waist up.
His porcelain-smooth chest and shoulders were covered in a thin layer of crystalline, sapphire sweat. Within his
Dantian
, the liquid engine of his
Qi Circulation—Stage 1
foundation was spinning with a high-velocity, condensed hum. Every breath he took was micro-filtered, his lungs extracting the faint, stray currents of pre-awakening energy that leaked through the concrete foundation from the campus’s deeply anchored leyline reservoir.
The screening array incident has completely forced the capital's hands,
Lin Feng calculated, his internal gaze tracking the perfectly aligned fluid pathways of his
Ren Channel
.
The core branch directors of the Zhao Clan have already placed an active tracking block on my public student registry, and the Bai family’s information runners are frantically auditing my background logs in Jiangnan. But they are still thinking within the parameters of linear mortal conflicts. They have no idea that the global countdown is about to experience its first local collapse right beneath their feet.
He opened his hand, looking down at his palm. The deep hand-mold he had impressed into the solid carbon-alloy pillar during the morning screening had been logged by the Central Bureau as a fatal structural error, but to Lin Feng, it was simply an optimized deployment of his baseline mass.
Suddenly, a cold, sharp vibration rippled across his skin.
It wasn't a physical draft from the open window. It was a sudden, violent drop in the atmospheric pressure grid across Sector 01. The air inside the dormitory room instantly grew heavy, the scent of sulfur, crushed ozone, and raw, untamed ancient leyline energy bleeding through the ventilation ducts.
Lin Feng’s eyes snapped open, a brilliant, blinding flash of pure golden light illuminating the dark corners of the room before settling back into a calm, deceptive vacancy.
It’s starting,
his mind calculated, his pulse remaining a flat, unhurried sixty beats per minute.
The first true dimensional tear. The timeline has shifted by forty-eight hours because the data drive I delivered at the Southern well forced the Central Bureau to prematurely destabilize the western fault anchors. The spatial friction has localizing itself entirely beneath the North Training Grounds.
He stood up smoothly, sliding into a fresh black cotton t-shirt and slung his worn utility backpack across his shoulder. He didn't pull on his gray jacket; his Stage 1 internal loop was radiating enough kinetic heat to completely repel the damp, freezing mountain fog rolling over the window ledge.
He slipped through the rear fire exit of Dormitory Block D, his boots touching the wet grass with absolute, terrifying silence.
The North Training Grounds was a massive, subterranean combat dome excavated forty feet into the granite bedrock beneath the academy’s secondary campus. During the day, it was used for high-tier kinetic armor testing and tactical drills. At 10:30 PM, the facility should have been completely dark and locked behind multi-ton automated steel bulkheads.
But as Lin Feng emerged from the pine forest line overlooking the dome’s primary ventilation structure, his upgraded senses caught a massive, high-intensity military cordon.
Twelve heavily armored tactical transport vehicles from the
Central Regulatory Bureau’s Vanguard Elite Division
had formed a defensive ring around the perimeter. High-intensity crimson spotlights swept the dark concrete structures, and nearly fifty black-clad black-ops operatives—every single one a Stage 7 or Stage 8 Flesh Refinement veteran wearing heavy ballistic gear—stood with their weapons extended, their laser sights painting a complex web of red lines through the thick fog.
Standing on an upper evaluation platform overlooking the primary entrance shaft was an elderly man dressed in a high-collared, immaculate midnight-blue military coat adorned with three silver stars. This was Director-General Sun, the absolute head of the Central Bureau's Deep Directory.
Beside him stood Zhao Ming, along with three other legacy geniuses from the Advanced Special Section, their faces completely pale, their breathing frantic under the immense atmospheric weight dropping from the sky.
"The tectonic variance readings have crossed the critical threshold!" a technician roared from an open mobile command vehicle, his fingers frantically flying across a holographic interface that was violently flashing with red alerts. "Director-General! The internal density of the fault anchors has dropped to zero! The leyline energy isn't leaking—it's tearing a hole through the spatial fabric! Estimated breach point: the absolute center of the North Training Pit!"
Director-General Sun didn't show panic, but his weathered hand was gripping the stainless-steel railing of the platform so tightly that the metal groaned under his pressure. "Where is the Jiangnan representative? Where is Lin Feng? Did the special observation detachment secure his location?"
"He... he wasn't in his quarters, Director!" a guard yelled back, his voice cracked with a sudden, primitive panic. "The automated biometric grids in Dormitory Block D went completely dark ten minutes ago! We can't find his signature on the active campus ledger!"
"A common independent rat," Zhao Ming spat, his teeth clenching as his unawakened lungs violently strained against the suffocating, ozone-heavy air. "The moment the table starts to shake, he runs back to the shadows. He probably realized his fluke rating at the screening array wouldn't save his skin from a live infrastructure crisis."
"Your understanding of the table remains remarkably small, Student Zhao."
The calm, smooth voice cut through the blaring electronic alarms and the thrumming mechanical drone of the tactical vehicles. It didn't sound loud, yet it carried a deep spatial resonance that bypassed the military noise-filtering helmets, echoing directly inside the ears of every single operative within the cordon.
Director-General Sun pivoted his frame instantly, his sharp eyes locking onto the roof of the main ventilation structure.
Standing on the narrow edge of a steel concrete beam was Lin Feng. His hands were loosely tucked into his jeans pockets, his black t-shirt damp from the drizzle, his vacant, bottomless eyes looking down at the multi-million-yuan military blockade with an absolute, unshakeable indifference.
"Student Lin!" Director-General Sun barked, a visible flash of relief crossing his hardened features. "Get down from that structure! The North Training Ground is experiencing a localized spatial collapse! The containment rifts are breaking! Step into the armored vanguard transport immediately!"
Lin Feng didn't jump down toward the vehicles. He slowly walked across the steel beam, stopping right above the grand entrance shaft leading to the subterranean dome.
"The armored transport won't hold the smoke, Director-General," Lin Feng said softly, his porcelain-smooth hand pulling the unbranded transponder from his pocket and tossing it casually through the air. The device landed flawlessly at Sun’s feet, its screen completely wiped of memory cache logs.
"The data drive I gave your operatives at the Southern well was an absolute map," Lin Feng continued, his voice echoing unnaturally through the valley as the ground beneath the tactical trucks violently groaned. "You thought you had forty-eight hours to establish a synthetic containment circle. You didn't realize that when a dragon's nest cracks open, the first things that crawl through the tear aren't resources... they are hunters."
CRACK—BOOM!
Before Zhao Ming or Director-General Sun could utter a single syllable of response, the entire concrete foundation of the North Training Grounds violently detonated.
A colossal, vertical pillar of blinding, dark violet light burst through the center of the dome, ripping the heavy concrete roof apart like wet paper and shooting straight into the black overcast sky. It wasn't sapphire Qi vapor; it was a highly volatile, compressed current of abyssal energy originating from the deep dimensional rifts.
The shockwave from the eruption was devastating. The twelve multi-ton armored tactical trucks were violently thrown thirty feet backward across the grass, their reinforced windows instantly shattering into showers of glass shards. Fifty elite black-ops operatives were swept off their feet by the kinetic back-draft, their weapons flying from their hands as they crashed heavily into the perimeter fencing.
Zhao Ming let out a terrified, strangled shriek, dropping onto his knees as his artificial Stage 6 baseline completely imploded under the sheer weight of the abyssal atmospheric pressure.
Within the absolute center of the blinding violet pillar, the spatial fabric of New Huaxia violently tore open, revealing an infinite, bottomless void of purple smoke. From the dark mouth of the rift, a heavy, rhythmic clicking sound echoed—the sound of obsidian-hard claws scraping against the shattered granite bedrock.
Two glowing, crimson ocular lenses—each the size of a human torso—locked onto the panicked military formation below. A Tier-1 Abyssal Dread-Hound, a beast that wasn't supposed to awaken until six months into the official timeline, was slowly pulling its massive, armored frame through the tear.
"God help us..." Director-General Sun whispered, his face turning a shade whiter than ash as he reached for the compact tactical sidearm at his belt—a weapon that looked like a common child's toy in the face of a trans-dimensional monster.
High up on the warped steel framework of the ruined roof, completely unbothered by the screaming sirens, the blinding violet strobe lights, or the suffocating weight of the void, Lin Feng let his backpack slide to the ground.
A cold, undefeated smile played at the edge of his lips as his
Ren Channel
violently surged, his liquid Qi circulating at maximum velocity.
The mishap of the accelerated timeline had officially brought the first true execution grounds to his feet. The global clocks were shattered, the capital's elites were paralyzed in the mud, and the undefeated apex of modern Huaxia was already stepping off the ledge to claim his first kill.