The stealth transport fighter tore through the thin, sub-zero atmosphere at a terrifying altitude, its engines running in a silent, high-efficiency vibration loop that bypassed standard sensory detection. Outside the reinforced ballistic viewing ports, the azure sky of the deep-sea trenches had long since faded, replaced by the deep, terrifying indigo of the upper-atmospheric void.
This was the Celestial Thresholdâthe narrow, high-altitude belt of reality where the worldâs atmosphere thinned and the barriers between dimensions were at their most brittle.
Lin Feng sat in the primary command seat, his eyes locked onto the holographic projection of the
Silver-Winged Sectâs
incoming vanguard vessels. Unlike the heavy, industrial cruisers of the Western Sanctum, these ships were elegant, sweeping arcs of bioluminescent white metal that seemed to glide through the air on currents of solidified starlight.
"The celestial gates have stabilized at three thousand meters," Instructor Meng reported, her voice steady despite the massive structural G-forces slamming against the fighterâs airframe. "They aren't deploying kinetic railguns or energy-dampening fields. They are initializing
Void-Grade Sonic Resonance Arrays
. If they hit this altitude with a full-spectrum frequency burst, every piece of electronic equipment in the Jiangnan corridor will instantly liquefy."
"They don't know they are flying into a scoured foundation, Instructor," Lin Feng replied, his voice calm and unhurried. He leaned forward, his bare fingertips dancing across the holographic control interface.
He didn't activate the fighter's weapon systems or engage the defensive ECM flares. Instead, he accessed the
Dao Blueprint
internal interface and manually re-routed the transport vessel's energy output. He diverted the entire power load of the fighter's engine coreânot into propulsion or weaponry, but into a single, high-frequency geocentric grounding frequency that he had scoured from the abyssal vaults.
HUMMM.
The entire fighter-vessel suddenly vanished from the radar signatures of the incoming Celestial ships. It didn't employ a standard electronic cloak; it simply aligned its internal energetic frequency so perfectly with the surrounding high-altitude void that it became physically indistinguishable from the background atmospheric vacuum.
"The Vanguard is decelerating," Bai Qingxi noted, her eyes wide as she watched the primary target vector on her terminal screen suddenly shudder. "They've detected a massive energetic anomaly in the flight path, but their sensors can't resolve the source. Theyâre assuming it's a localized spatial collapse caused by the rift itself."
"Let them make their mistake," Lin Feng murmured, a cold, undefeated smile curling the corners of his lips as the three Silver-Winged Sect vessels drifted into the perfect kill-zone.
The celestial entitiesâtall, ethereal beings draped in flowing robes of woven starlightâemerged from the main gate of their lead flagship, their wings of solid, burning white flame spreading to illuminate the entire sky. They held aloft ornate, crystalline staves that pulsed with the crushing weight of pre-awakening era power.
Lin Feng stood up, his sneakers clicking sharply against the reinforced metal floorboards of the fighter. He didn't check his armor or take a deep breath to brace his core.
He reached out and pulled the emergency manual release for the fighterâs rear loading ramp.
The heavy composite doors glided open, and the freezing, thin air of the upper atmosphere rushed into the cabin with a violent, roaring vacuum force. Lin Feng didn't use a parachute, a stabilizer harness, or a pressure suit. He simply walked to the open edge of the ramp and stepped out into the three-thousand-meter fall, his body plunging toward the lead celestial vessel like a falling stone.
As he fell, the internal dual-loop circuit within his Dantian accelerated to an absolute, blistering peak, his entire skeletal framework glowing with the silver-white, pearlescent luminescence of a tectonic fault line.
He was no longer just an apex cultivator; he was the primary anchor of the world's inheritance. And as the celestial vanguard prepared to judge the world, they found themselves staring into the face of a regressor who had already written the conclusion to their era.