Chapter Fourteen: The Descent of the Code Deity

Absolute darkness, a silence as deep as death.

On the third floor of the parking garage, within this vast steel cage, Xiao Ran and her remaining nine teammates pressed their backs against the cold cement support pillars, forming a desperate ring of defense.

The air was thick with the stench of blood, mingled with the acrid tang of gunpowder and crumbling concrete. Each breath they took was as heavy as a broken bellows.

Their ammunition was nearly gone.

A young team member, his hands trembling, groped through his tactical vest and pulled out his last magazine, slowly loading it into his rifle. He knew that when the last of these thirty rounds were spent, so too would be his life.

He turned his head to glance at the deputy captain beside him, who was pressing an emergency bandage against a comrade’s wound with grim determination. There was no fear left in his eyes, only a resolute courage that comes from choosing life in the face of death.

They were the sword of the national security agency—invincible wherever their blade pointed.

But today, it seemed this sword would be broken here.

In the darkness, footsteps echoed from both above and below—the enemy, drawing their net tighter, their movements animalistic and relentless. Like patient hunters, they were savoring the prey’s last desperate struggles.

Leaning against the opposite side of the pillar, Xiao Ran chambered the final bullet in her pistol.

Yet, within her, a strange calm had settled. All fear, rage, and frustration seemed trivial when faced with death.

She felt only regret.

Regret that she hadn’t personally captured Anderson, to avenge her fallen comrades.

Regret that she hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to that stubborn, soft-hearted madman, who was probably now several dozen kilometers away, frantic with worry.

“Prepare to fight,” she said quietly, yet her voice carried clearly to each member of her team.

“On the road to the underworld, we will not be alone.”

…

Meanwhile, inside the mobile command vehicle.

Lin Feng paced like a caged beast on the verge of madness.

On the main screen, the static that represented “signal lost” seemed to mock his impotence.

The eyes that always held a hint of mischievous defiance were now bloodshot with exhaustion and fury.

He hammered away at the keyboard, desperately trying to break through the wall of electromagnetic interference. Every attempt disappeared without a trace.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” he roared, slamming his fist onto the cold control console.

The hard alloy surface dented under the force of his blow.

For the first time, he truly hated his own powerlessness.

His skills, no matter how advanced, could not pierce the veil of physical isolation. His code, no matter how fast, could not outrun the scythe of death.

Unless…

Unless he bypassed the “communications” barrier and took direct control of the building itself.

A mad idea exploded in his nearly shattered mind.

He jerked his head up, his bloodshot eyes locking onto another port on the console—the interface for the “City Neural Network,” which connected to the entire urban subsystem and held the highest level of authority.

He knew that if he did this, he would be exposing his greatest secret to the full might of the state.

He would no longer be the free “Zhurong.”

But…

In his mind flashed the memory of Xiao Ran’s always-cold face, that had once, in the cemetery, become fragile because of his words.

He remembered her stubborn eyes, refusing to yield.

“To hell with it!”

Lin Feng growled, discarding all hesitation.

With a motion that felt like a sacrifice, he slammed his laptop’s military-grade data cable into the forbidden port.

“Mouse!” he shouted.

“Here, boss! Ready to power up for love at any time!”

“Hack this building for me! Use all our resources! Everything!”

“Warning! Unauthorized operation detected! System will forcibly disconnect in ten seconds!” The cold system alarm echoed through the vehicle.

But Mouse’s sweet, childlike voice now carried the same feverish battle-lust: “Roger! Boss! ‘Singularity’ system overload mode is on! We’re tearing through the firewall—violently!”

A terrifying light blazed in Lin Feng’s eyes. He stared at the virtual schematic on his screen, representing the parking building’s power, fire, security, and mechanical systems, and howled the key line:

“Then overload it!”

“Today, I’ll show Anderson that he hasn’t provoked just one man—”

“…He’s provoked the servers of an entire city!”

…

Parking garage, third floor.

Just as the enemy was about to launch their final assault from above and below, everything suddenly changed.

Act One: Fire System—Create “Mist” and “Chaos”

Without warning, all fire sprinklers and foam extinguishers on the third and fourth floors burst into life! High-pressure water jets sprayed dense mist like waterfalls, unleashing the effect of hundreds of smoke grenades that instantly filled the entire floor. The enemy upstairs lost all visibility, hearing only the roar of water, unable to see anything below.

Meanwhile, slippery firefighting foam covered the floors, sending those about to storm up from below sprawling, their formation thrown into chaos.

Act Two: Power System—Create “Light” and “Darkness”

With a snap, as everyone reeled from the sudden “flood,” Lin Feng struck again.

He forcibly activated all lighting on the fourth and fifth floors, where the enemy was located, sending it into a hysterical, high-frequency strobe. Blinding flashes, like hundreds of flashbangs exploding at once, pierced even the water mist. The mercenaries wearing night vision goggles screamed in pain as their world of dim green was obliterated by searing white light. The expensive sensors in their goggles overloaded and burned out, leaving them instantly blind.

At the same time, Lin Feng cut all power—including emergency lighting—to the third floor, where Xiao Ran’s team held out.

Ultimate “they in the light, we in the dark” achieved.

Act Three: Mechanical System—Create “Traps” and “Annihilation”

With a thunderous crash, just as the enemy below tried to recover from the foam and regroup, Lin Feng unleashed his deadliest move.

He activated the long-abandoned, but still powered, mechanical car-stackers on the second floor. The steel platforms, carrying tons of derelict vehicles, began to move, swinging and rising without warning like the jaws of giants.

A mercenary climbing the stairs suddenly found the ground vanish beneath him—he plunged, screaming, from the parking racks to the concrete below.

Elsewhere, a rusted sedan, suspended above a newly regrouped enemy squad, was dumped by the conveyor system like trash, crushing men and equipment into a mangled heap.

This was no longer battle.

This was—divine retribution, visited upon mortals.

…

The three movements unfolded without pause.

In just thirty seconds, the battlefield transformed from a professional military sweep into a one-sided massacre conducted from the shadows by Lin Feng, the “god” behind the scenes.

The enemy was thrown into utter chaos. Their comms filled with terrified shouts and curses in a babble of languages.

“What the fuck is going on?!”

“There are ghosts! Ghosts here!”

In the darkness, Xiao Ran and her team watched, stunned by this miracle unfolding before them.

Then, her tactical visor suddenly lit up.

One by one, red thermal dots—enemy positions, marked in real time by Lin Feng through their soldier terminals—appeared clearly in her field of vision.

At last, after the initial shock, she understood.

It was him!

The madman she thought could only rule cyberspace!

The idiot who, in the real world, couldn’t even find his way down a street!

He had, in a way she could not comprehend, descended onto this battlefield.

All the rage, fear, and humiliation that had burned within her for an entire chapter now transformed into a tidal wave of exhilarating fighting spirit.

Her communicator, too, miraculously came back to life.

Through it came Lin Feng’s exhausted, ragged voice, scarcely more than a whisper.

“…The stage… is set for you…”

A cold, bloodthirsty smile curled at Xiao Ran’s lips.

Into the comm, she unleashed a queen’s roar that split the darkness:

“Team A! Engage thermal mode! Free fire!”

“Counterattack!”