Chapter Forty-Nine: Seventy-Two Hours

"Enjoy."

When Anderson’s message, brimming with the arrogance of a god, appeared on the main screen of the Shadow Bureau’s command center—together with the relentless, death-knell countdown of “72 hours”—the last taut nerve of the entire team finally snapped.

Despair, cold and formless as the sea, flooded the room in an instant, drowning every soul within.

“It’s over…” The elderly finance expert, hair white as frost, stared at the screen—at the three-dimensional blueprint of a crime so perfect it seemed unreal—and collapsed into his chair, his body trembling uncontrollably. “…Flawless… This… This is a deathtrap without a single weakness…”

His words crashed down upon them all like a boulder.

In a heartbeat, the command center erupted into a frenzy of hysterical, hopeless argument.

“Defend? Defend against what?” Old K, the technical chief, raged like a cornered beast, jabbing at the two blood-red attack paths on the screen—labeled “Scepter of God” and “Pangu.” “All our firewalls are nothing but rice paper before this kind of ‘hybrid attack’! Not even a second! We couldn’t withstand it for even a second!”

“Then protect the Financial Settlement Center!” another finance expert shouted back, eyes bloodshot. “Let the network crash! Let public opinion run wild! But the lifeblood of finance—if that’s severed, then the country is truly finished!”

“How? With our lives? When hundreds of millions of cell phones nationwide become the enemy’s weapons? Even if we had a hundred arms, we couldn’t stop it!”

The storm of arguments, curses, and wails of despair swept through the command center.

They were the nation’s brightest minds, its elite.

But before this incomprehensible, overwhelming force—disaster incarnate—they were as helpless and terrified as any ordinary person.

Xiao Ran stood silently at the eye of the storm.

She said nothing.

She simply stared at the mercilessly ticking countdown on the screen.

With every beat, her heart was hammered deeper into an abyss without end.

She knew they were right.

Defend? Impossible.

Protect? Hopeless.

This was, truly, a dead end.

…

Just as the epidemic of despair was about to overwhelm everyone and snuff out their last embers of resistance—

On the main screen, the communications window that had been blacked out since Lin Feng’s collapse—

Suddenly, without warning… lit up!

Everyone stopped arguing, staring in disbelief at the window.

Was it him?

He’d awakened?

But the voice that came through was not Lin Feng’s.

Instead, it was crisp, cheerful, and utterly out of place—a young girl’s voice.

It was the AI assistant, “Mouse.”

“E-everyone… just stop shouting…”

To their shock, “Mouse” spoke with a tone it had never used before—uncannily mimicking Lin Feng’s usual lazy, mocking drawl.

“Boss says…”

“…you’re all…”

“…idiots.”

…

The command center fell dead silent.

Everyone stared at the AI, as if it had become something monstrous.

“Defend? With what, your heads?” “Mouse” continued, still channeling Lin Feng’s style. “Anderson’s plan is flawless. Any attempt at passive defense from one angle will be shredded by coordinated attacks from the other two.”

“You’ve been thinking about this wrong from the very start.”

Its words were like a key—unlocking the door in Xiao Ran’s mind, a door nearly rusted shut by despair.

She jerked her head up. In her once-dim eyes, an uncanny brilliance blazed anew.

“Yes…” she murmured, “why must we insist on ‘defending’?”

She strode to the main screen, facing the AI that now embodied Lin Feng’s will, her voice urgent, trembling with hope.

“Did he… has he found a way to break the deadlock?”

“Of course!” Mouse’s tone instantly shifted back to its adorably childish voice, full of pride. “My boss is the most brilliant in the universe!”

It projected onto the screen the one and only, and most insane, solution Lin Feng had devised—an idea he’d simulated countless times before falling unconscious.

It was a line of code commentary.

Just one word—

[GPS Dependency]!

…

Xiao Ran stared at that word. After her initial confusion, her own elite mind instantly grasped Lin Feng’s entire design.

“I see now…” Her voice trembled with excitement. “‘Scepter of God’ and ‘Pangu’ may be two systems, but their underlying ‘heartbeat’ protocols share the same origin! Both rely on GPS signals for calibration and positioning!”

“So…”

“You mean…”

She looked up at the AI, which gazed back at her, and spoke the words that would drive every listener mad with hope.

“…We stop defending.”

“We…”

“…strike directly at his Achilles’ heel?!”

“Mouse” nodded emphatically.

And in that moment, its childish voice took on an epic, fateful grandeur.

“Boss said.”

“To fight a god, first…”

“…turn off his sun.”

…

A plan, unprecedented and perhaps never to be repeated—a mad, ultimate counterattack—was born, quietly, in the dialogue between Xiao Ran and Lin Feng’s AI.

“‘Electromagnetic Umbrella’…”

Xiao Ran read aloud the plan’s title as it appeared on the screen, her voice barely above a whisper.

“…To make all GPS signals in Shanghai disappear?”

“Yes!” Mouse replied with pride. “Before he fell unconscious, Boss completed the final version of the [Guardian] assault program! As long as we get that legendary ‘highest authority,’ we can…”

“…let this city raise a shield for us—one that will last only three minutes…”

“…an ‘umbrella’!”

…

Inside the command center, everyone was struck dumb by the sheer audacity—madness, even—of the plan.

To make all GPS signals vanish for three minutes in a super-financial metropolis of thirty million people?

How was that any different from detonating an electromagnetic pulse bomb in the heart of the city?

“No…” Old K stared at the plan, his voice shaking. “This… This is impossible! It would require… the mythical ‘Dragon Soul’ authority!”

“It’s just not possible—it would never be approved…”

But before he could finish, Xiao Ran quietly walked over to the red, encrypted phone—a symbol of supreme authority.

She glanced at no one.

She hesitated not a moment.

She simply picked up the phone.

Her gaze seemed to pierce walls and ages, as if beholding the spirits of those who had once given their lives to protect this land.

“At this point,” she murmured, looking out at the city about to be plunged into war, her voice soft yet unyielding,

“…there’s nothing left but to ask the living ‘Dragon Souls’…”

“…whether they are still willing, for this land they once guarded with their lives…”

“…to go mad one more time.”

Chen Han spoke as he handed his robe, insignia, and his messenger talisman to Long Pingfan, who in turn gave Chen Han his own talisman. After storing it away, Chen Han took his leave.

For the following days, the Xuanhan Mountains bustled with activity. Everyone threw themselves wholeheartedly into building the sect they envisioned, displaying a rare and unprecedented unity.

An Bang lounged in his room watching television. There were few programs—just one Chinese channel, airing old Hong Kong dramas from the nineties and bits of Vancouver’s local Chinese news. This was his daily routine: eat, watch, sleep—never leaving the house, with little else to do.

“I’m all ears,” Li Qiao replied solemnly. In truth, he already had a faint suspicion about the other’s identity.

“Ji Chengdu has already seen my face—what’s the point in wearing it now?” Although I still had to wear it, I couldn’t help feeling a little indignant.

Wang Xuhui’s energy surged within him, as if he were on the verge of a breakthrough. He immediately concentrated on his cultivation technique, planning to break through before taking further action.

“How can that be? Wasn’t it rumored that after Dong Ping’an defected from Great Qian, he was assassinated by imperial agents while fleeing, his body and soul both destroyed? How could he appear here?!” Chen Danqing’s face was a mask of disbelief and horror.

Dai Linran no longer held back, channeling his power with all his might. In his hand was a sword, a mid-grade magical weapon.

The five exchanged glances, then joined forces to unleash a sword-light that tore open the void, ripping a rift through which they tried to escape.

Within and beyond the Xuan Shui Sect’s mountains stood many great halls, dining rooms, disciplinary courts, martial arts grounds…

At that, he fell silent. He never asked, “Are you plotting something?”

Dongfang Linfeng’s eyes were full of wariness as he glanced at Zong Jian beside him, who remained cold and impassive, clearly not intending to act here.

Yet fate is cruel. Now, for his sake, Dan Tai Wan’er was gravely injured, lying once more in this dim, chilling place, and he could only stand by, powerless, as she suffered in silence.

“Who are you, really?” Shen Guangjing’s voice trembled as he watched Lin Yu’s transformation, retreating in panic.

Seeing the impasse—no more buyers, only sellers—he promised the latecomers more goods tomorrow, tidied up the tables and chairs, turned off the lights, locked up, and retired for the night.

“I just wanted you to see the place where I usually live.” Raising his hand, Lin Chong led the six commanders into his quarters.

Though it was supposed to be consoling, she couldn’t help but laugh—Yun Xuan’s earlier words had been utterly absurd.

“What a perfect trap—like catching a turtle in a jar. The whole area is probably covered by mechanical hawks, leaving no path of escape. Even with wings, Longci might not get out.”

Perhaps because its food had run out, the golden-armored cicada angrily spread its wings, its sharp jaws lunging at Su Jue.

Watching the now-humble Jia Lian, Yun Xuan’s lips curled into a faint smile. The coins in his palm clinked together with a crisp metallic ring as he tossed them lightly.

Qi Ren listened to the repeated words, tilting his head in thought. The first term was easy enough to understand—just like on Earth, the Stone Fortress had hospitals and clinics, though people here called them “apothecaries” rather than doctors.