Chapter 48: The Stroke of Midnight
“…I understand.”
When Lin Feng's voice, filled with tragic resolve, left its final lingering echo in the communication channel, all connections between him and the entire Singularity Security studio were severed in an instant.
Inside the Dark Game command center, the area that used to display Lin Feng’s holographic projection was now nothing but a cold, static-laden screen indicating a lost connection.
“Lin Feng?!”
“Lin Feng! Respond!”
Xiao Ran screamed into the communicator like someone possessed.
But all that answered her was a despairing silence.
…
A soft beep sounded.
Just as everyone was reeling from this sudden turn of events, the command center’s main computer received an encrypted email—a desperate message sent by Lin Feng with the last strength of his life.
He had traded his own exposure for this final piece of the puzzle.
It was a trophy snatched from the jaws of hell.
…
There was no time for grief.
No time, either, to worry about the fate of that madman hovering between life and death.
Xiao Ran wiped away the tears that streamed uncontrollably from the corners of her eyes.
She forced all her emotions deep into the coldest, most secure vault within her heart.
She became, once more, the absolutely composed, war-machine-like commander she had always been.
“Old K,” her voice was hoarse but carried an irrefutable command, “Wang Zhe.”
“Here!”
“Here!”
“—Break it open.”
…
The next hour became the most tense and frantic session of group decryption in the history of the Dark Game task force.
Wang Zhe, a former traitor, had now become the team’s only hope.
He stared at the data packet Lin Feng had bought with his life. In his cloudy eyes surged endless pain—and a focus that bordered on reverence.
He knew this was his final redemption.
“…Its encryption structure is a hybrid of Ouroboros and Pangu…”
“…Anderson added yet another layer—his own ‘Maze’ algorithm…”
With Old K, the entire tech and financial analysis teams operated like a supercomputer pushed to its absolute limits, peeling back layer after layer of the final puzzle.
[Technical Visualization]
The first layer, the “Weapon Vault,” was unlocked:
They saw, in excruciating detail down to each byte, the technical parameters and remote activation commands for the God Scepter and the Pangu backdoor.
It was an arsenal of evil capable of dragging the entire country’s networks back into the Stone Age.
The second layer, the “Timeline,” was revealed:
They discovered an attack schedule Anderson had named “Symphony of the Apocalypse.”
It meticulously laid out, down to the millisecond, the sequential and interconnected execution of financial attacks, public opinion assaults, and cyber strikes.
It was a score written entirely in the language of death.
The third layer, the “Death Loop,” was exposed:
At last, they uncovered the plan’s most central and vicious component—
How these three seemingly independent attacks interlocked and fed into one another, forming a perfect, inescapable “death loop” that could doom any nation beyond redemption!
…
When every secret had been laid bare, Xiao Ran had Old K consolidate all the analysis onto the command center’s main screen.
A dynamic, comprehensive 3D battle blueprint for “Zero Hour” appeared—crisscrossed with countless crimson attack pathways and flashing death warnings at every time node.
It was a perfect masterpiece from hell.
Everyone in the command center stared blankly at this vast, wicked plan—a model of criminal perfection.
They could see it all, clear as day:
Blue light streams, representing the God Scepter, surged like a plague from the diagram, instantly hijacking hundreds of millions of phones nationwide!
Red streams, representing the Pangu system, erupted from within the Sky Network, paralyzing the nation’s entire internet backbone like the tendrils of hell!
Golden streams, signifying Anderson’s financial capital, ravaged the stock price of Huaxin Technology like a swarm of ravenous locusts!
And all these attacks, with a singular purpose, converged on the map’s center, where a fragile, pulsating heart glowed—
The National Financial Settlement Center!
This was no longer war.
This was… annihilation.
…
As everyone was chilled to the bone by this vision of hell, nearly robbed of hope, the operational blueprint they had just assembled began to move on its own.
At its center, a line slowly materialized—pre-programmed by Anderson in blood-red script—a message for them.
Its tone was suffused with a godlike superiority and the merciless scorn of a victor for the defeated.
“To my dearest friends in ‘Dark Game’:
The show is about to begin.
Enjoy.”
Below the message, a merciless countdown began, each pulse echoing like the heartbeat of death.
Time until Zero Hour: 72:00:00
[71:59:59]
[71:59:58]
…
He wasn’t afraid they would know.
He had even “considerately” started the clock for them.
Inviting them to witness their own demise.
Such boundless arrogance.
Such absolute confidence.
It was as if an invisible hand had closed mercilessly around every throat in the room.
“Madman…”
Old K stared at the dwindling numbers and murmured,
“He’s a complete and utter…”
“…madman.”