30: Chapter 30: A monster three destroyers couldn't kill; I crushed its core in two minutes.

The echo of the loudspeaker rolled far across the sea.

The Major held up the loudspeaker, his arm kept at an upward angle, his neck tilted back to its limit.

Everyone on the deck had their eyes pinned on the figure thirty meters in the air, stepping on white flames.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

That person did not lower his head.

He didn't even turn his head.

From beginning to end, his gaze passed over the three destroyers, over the brightly lit coastline, and landed on something further away, something no one else could see.

The Major's arm began to ache.

Inside the Command Center, Section Chief Han Zheng gripped the communicator, his knuckles digging into the cracks of the plastic shell.

It wasn't arrogance, nor was it ignorance.

If you use a loudspeaker to shout at an eagle from thirty meters away, the eagle won't pay you any mind.

It's not because it looks down on you; it's because one is in the sky, and one is on the ground.

The white flame steps began to dissipate.

From the lowest step upward, the flame light retreated inch by inch.

The sea surface beneath his feet returned to its dark, somber color, the choppy waves slapping against the sides of the destroyers, the cold sound of water washing back into everyone's ears.

The last flame step converged into a single point of light beneath his feet.

Then that person glanced at the deck.

Just one glance.

The Major instinctively straightened his back.

But that gaze wasn't for him.

The direction it swept landed on a person in the corner—Wang Hao.

It only paused for half a second.

The air wrinkled.

Silent, transparent ripples spread out from that position, one circle, two circles, exactly like the wrinkles in the living room of Liu Yuyan's house a week ago.

The ripples faded away.

There was nothing left in the sky.

The wind on the deck turned cold.

The Major slowly lowered the loudspeaker. As his arm fell, he realized his entire arm, from shoulder to fingertips, was numb.

The Command Center was deathly silent.

Section Chief Han Zheng set the communicator back on the table. He didn't slam it down, he set it down very gently, but everyone heard it.

"Section Chief Han..."

A staff officer hesitated for a long time before speaking, "Did he leave?"

Section Chief Han Zheng didn't answer.

Wang Hao stood in the corner.

The heat in his chest hadn't fully faded yet.

He stared at the night sky that had returned to normal, his lips moving slightly.

"Civilization does not extinguish, Kindling burns forever."

The voice wasn't loud.

But the space in the Command Center was so quiet that every word was delivered into the ears of everyone present.

Section Chief Han Zheng turned his head to look at him.

There was no fanaticism or worship on Wang Hao's face.

A middle-aged man who had driven for Didi for eight years used a tone so calm it was almost devout to provide an annotation for the person who had disappeared.

"Kindling saves the world without leaving a name. It has always been this way."

Section Chief Han Zheng's jaw tightened for two seconds.

He wanted to say something. He wanted to say, "We are not enemies," he wanted to say, "Cooperation is beneficial to both sides," he wanted to say, "The country needs to understand you all."

Not a single word came out.

Because Wang Hao's next sentence blocked all his phrasing.

"Section Chief Han, do you think our warships won tonight?"

Section Chief Han Zheng shut his mouth.

Three destroyers, 127 rounds of ammunition, fifteen minutes, all emptied.

The tentacles broke and grew back, broke and grew back; when the ammunition ran out, that thing was unscathed.

Then that person came. Two minutes. Barehanded.

"The people of Kindling do not tie themselves to any country or any power."

Wang Hao's voice was very low, as if he were reciting that ancient memory poured into his mind by golden light.

"It's not looking down on you. It's that we cannot."

"If you follow someone, you have to stand on their side. Once you take a side, you have to pick and choose—saving this side but not that side."

He paused for a moment.

"Next time a beast appears in another country, who will go to save them?"

No one in the Command Center answered.

Section Chief Han Zheng's fingers rested on the table for a long time.

Finally, he put the communicator into his pocket and turned to walk out.

When passing by Wang Hao, he stopped for half a step.

"I will find out about the things you hid from me."

Wang Hao met his gaze.

"Section Chief Han, it's useless even if you find out."

Section Chief Han Zheng didn't look back.

——

30,000 feet in the air.

In the cabin, Su Chen leaned back in his seat, his mask not yet removed.

He first picked up the sandwich on the tray table.

He took a bite.

Ham and cheese, the bread toasted just right, the cheese stretching.

Liu Yuyan sat opposite him, her back straight, not having blinked many times from takeoff until now.

Her mind was still replaying the scene from just now: the white flame steps, the heaven-burning sword pillar, stepping on fire in the air.

Su Chen ate half the sandwich and finally took off his mask.

Liu Yuyan saw that twenty-five-year-old face. Dark circles under his eyes, cheese crumbs on the corner of his mouth.

She gripped the armrest tightly.

"You saw everything just now."

Su Chen picked up the mineral water, unscrewed it, and took a gulp.

"That Abyssal Tide Beast, E-class, the lowest tier."

Liu Yuyan's fingers curled; the lowest tier.

The thing that three destroyers couldn't kill even after emptying their ammunition was the lowest tier.

"In the future, there will be D-class, C-class."

He screwed the bottle cap back on, his voice and speed of speech unchanged.

"Bigger, faster, harder to kill. And more numerous."

Liu Yuyan's breathing hitched for a split second.

Su Chen took something out of his trench coat's inner pocket and placed it on the tray table.

A crystal. Thumb-sized, deep red all over, with a cluster of flame-like light patterns pulsing inside.

It was identical in form to the one he used to break through to Tier 2 a week ago.

Liu Yuyan's pupils locked onto the crystal.

"This is the core crystal of the beast."

Su Chen touched it with his fingertip, "The raw material for creating Kindling."

He looked up; the mask was gone, and his eyes no longer held the deep, desolate look of the "millennial Flame Keeper."

But it was heavier than that.

"I said that only those recognized by the ancient tree can become members of Kindling. Your trial is about to begin."

"By passing the trial, you will be able to possess extraordinary power. The same kind of power you saw tonight."

Liu Yuyan looked into Su Chen's eyes. A twenty-five-year-old face, cheese crumbs still on the corner of his mouth.

"President."

Her voice steadied.

The light in the depths of her eyes was not the sharpness of the business world, but something purer.

"From the day I stepped into the base, I was ready."

Su Chen nodded.

"After you go back, come find me at the base."

Liu Yuyan bowed.

When she straightened up, she blinked hard to suppress the moisture in the corners of her eyes.

Su Chen stuffed the remaining half of the sandwich into his mouth and turned to look at the sea of clouds outside the porthole.

The panel hung quietly in the corner of his vision.

Points: 3250. Reality: 425.

E-tier Kindling production cost: 1000 points + E-tier crystal x 1.

After making it, there will be 2250 left.

He silently calculated the numbers in his mind.

Granting Liu Yuyan the extraordinary sequence, plus the layout of the trial scene, would probably cost another three or four hundred.

He was well-off now.

Su Chen leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

The millennial Flame Keeper was eating a sandwich and resting his eyes on a private jet at 30,000 feet, with a devout believer worth hundreds of billions sitting next to him.

This life is much more enjoyable than writing web novels.

——

West Jingzhou, residential building.

Lin Xiaoman's lollipop fell.

The watermelon-flavored plastic stick hit the spacebar on the keyboard, bounced, and rolled under the mouse pad.

She didn't go to pick it up.

In the surveillance footage, that white flame pillar shooting straight from the sea to the sky, even after four layers of compression, was still blindingly bright.

Lin Xiaoman stared at the blurry frame on the left screen.

At the top of the flame pillar, there was a human silhouette.

Her fingertips pressed against the screen.

Zoom in, enhance, denoise, zoom in again.

The silhouette became barely clearer.

Black clothes, the arc of the wind blowing them up.

Beside it—another human silhouette.

Smaller figure, hair scattered by the airflow.

Lin Xiaoman's breathing stopped.

Liu Yuyan.

Standing together with that person.

All the clues exploded into a web in her mind—the old Liu family residence, the Eastern Chemical Plant, the military blockade, the movement of billions in funds, the East Sea flame pillar.

The center of the web had only one point.

That courtyard house in the western suburbs.

Lin Xiaoman sprang up from her chair.

She tore open the zipper bag under the bed and stuffed two hoodies, a bag of potato chips, three charging cables, and a palm-sized portable terminal into it.

She zipped up the backpack and pulled her hat low.

Her phone lit up.

"Old Sucker Sun."

She picked it up.

"Did you find out! The money I gave you—"

"I'm returning it. I'm not doing this job."

The other end of the line was stunned for two seconds.

"What did you say?"

"I said—"

Lin Xiaoman sandwiched the phone between her shoulder and ear, tying her shoelaces with both hands, her voice soft, as if she were talking about how nice the weather was today.

"I'm not interested in your little mess anymore."

Hang up.

Block.

She stuffed the phone into her pocket and pushed open the door of the rental apartment.

The fluorescent light in the hallway flickered twice, shining on a girl wearing a gray hoodie, with twin ponytails, carrying a bulging small backpack.

One meter fifty-two.

She looked like a high school student going on a spring outing.

Lin Xiaoman walked out of the residential building and took a deep breath of the late-night air in Jingzhou.

The smell of car exhaust and the pancake stand mixed together, making her wrinkle her nose.

She hadn't left the house for forty-seven days.

She opened her phone's map and entered the destination.

Western suburbs of Jingzhou.

The navigation indicated an estimated time of one hour and twelve minutes.

Lin Xiaoman called a ride-hailing car.

While waiting for the car, she looked down at the blurry flame pillar image on her phone screen,

The reflection of the screen light in the depths of her pupils swirled with something she herself found strange.

It wasn't curiosity.

It was hunger.

Eight years.

She had sat behind a keyboard for eight years, breaking through all the digital walls of this world,

The Pentagon, the Kremlin, MI6—not a single door could block her for more than twenty minutes.

Then she got stuck in front of a dilapidated courtyard.

It wasn't because of a firewall.

It was because the thing behind that door was not inside the network cables.

The ride-hailing car arrived.

Lin Xiaoman pulled open the back door, curled into the seat, and hugged her backpack.

"Driver, western suburbs."

The driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

"That place is pretty remote, a young girl out late at night—"

"Just drive."

The car started.

The city lights retreated outside the car window.

Lin Xiaoman pulled her hat down to her eyebrows, curled up in the shadows of the backseat, her pupils reflecting the flowing light outside the window.

What was behind the door, she didn't know.

But she had to go see.