Chapter Fifty-Nine: Reality Strikes

Online, it was a clash of gods and demons.
Offline, it was a hunt of wolves and jackals.
While Lin Feng’s “Guardian Dragon” and Anderson’s “God of Destruction” were locked in a life-and-death struggle at the digital universe’s core, backstage at the press conference—a sanctum symbolizing order and honor—was, in an instant, torn to shreds by violence from the real world!

Muted, heavy sounds like thick cloth being ripped—suppressed by silencers to the extreme.

Anderson’s elite squad, codenamed “Scavenger,” moved like venom seeping from the shadows—swift as specters, coordinated as one.

In just thirty seconds!

All plainclothes state security agents and venue security on outer perimeter duty didn’t even have time to sound the alarm before they were silently felled by precise double-tap shots.

Backstage instantly became a refined yet blood-soaked abattoir.

“A Team! Secure the servers!”
“B Team! Control the hostages!”
The “Scavenger” captain—a man with eyes as cold and venomous as a Siberian viper—issued his orders with tactical hand signals.

The operation was executed with ruthless efficiency.

The four members of A Team swept into the core server room—the beating heart of Huaxin Technologies—like a black whirlwind, expertly planting high-explosive charges on the towering server racks.

Meanwhile, B Team trained their weapons on CEO Chen Jingming and several of Huaxin’s top technical experts, who were in the lounge watching the conference unfold on screens, holding them tightly at gunpoint.

The viper-like captain’s lips curled into a cruel smile. His eyes roved across the trembling hostages and ultimately settled on a young female engineer in the corner, clutching her child—a special exception allowed for her to watch her father receive his award.

With a sinister grin, he strode forward, yanked mother and child from the group, and shoved them to the very front, right before CEO Chen Jingming—like props arranged for a scene.

A cold muzzle pressed mercilessly to the female engineer’s temple.

She, and her child—already sobbing in terror—became the first living shield, forced in front of everyone.

Poisonous.
Precise.
And merciless to the core.

…

“Dark Bureau” Command Center.

When the backup micro-camera backstage transmitted this hellish scene live to the command center’s main screen—

Xiao Ran’s world collapsed.

She didn’t even look at the brutal assailants or the explosives now rigged to the servers.

All her vision, consciousness, and soul were drawn by an invisible black hole—fixed on the female engineer, her child clutched tightly in her arms, a gun pressed to her head.

The world spun wildly, contorting and lurching in her eyes!

Boom—

The rain-lashed alley five years ago!
The savage bandits!
The panicked hostages!
The terrified little boy peering from behind his mother!
The gunshot!
A child’s cry!
And… her partner, throwing himself in front of a bullet deflected by mere millimeters to save that child—collapsing into her arms, his eyes full of confusion and disbelief…

All the nightmares Xiao Ran had locked behind walls of icy rationality burst forth like a billion rampaging demons, shattering her defenses and rending her nerves to pieces!

A strangled gasp of pain escaped her lips.

Her face blanched to a deathly white, her breath coming fast and shallow as if hands were crushing her throat!

Her right hand—the one that once held a gun steady as bedrock—now trembled uncontrollably, spasming with violent, involuntary shudders!

She had to grip the cold edge of the command console with her left hand, knuckles white from the strain, just to keep herself from collapsing.

It was over…

The commander who was always calm, always decisive—Xiao Ran, the war machine—

At this moment, was utterly shattered by Anderson’s most vicious psychological blow.

…

“Commander Xiao Ran, can you hear me?”

The “Scavenger” captain’s voice slithered through the comms, mocking as a serpent’s hiss.

“You have five minutes.”

“Within five minutes, cease your pathetic cyber resistance and let ‘Zhurong’ surrender. Otherwise…”

He tapped the engineer’s cheek with his gun barrel, sneering:

“…I’ll turn this place into the brightest, most splendid fireworks to celebrate the birth of ‘Qiming One’.”

Five minutes!

The countdown to death had begun.

Xiao Ran remained trapped in her abyss, her body wracked with tremors, unable to issue a single order.

At that moment—

On the screen, CEO Chen Jingming, forced to be the “first hostage,” suddenly raised his head!

In his eyes there was no fear, no plea—only the steely resolve of an elder generation of researchers, a resolve that moved all who saw it.

He stared straight into the camera he knew existed, and with all his strength, mouthed a silent message:

“…No!”
“…Don’t!”
“…Worry!”
“…About!”
“…Us!”

…

At the same moment, another, more devastating blow came from the communication channel.

A muffled, pain-laden groan.

It was Lin Feng!

Because of the physical interference and electromagnetic shielding in the server room, his digital-world avatar—the “Guardian Dragon”—suddenly faltered, energy supply disrupted!

Anderson’s “God of Destruction” seized this once-in-a-lifetime chance. Wielding the Thunder God’s Hammer, he brought down a cataclysmic blow on the dragon’s forepaw!

The dragon howled in agony as golden code scattered from its claw in a torrent.

These two crises—one real, one virtual—cut through Xiao Ran’s mental fog like a bolt of lightning, like the harshest slap, yanking her from the self-imposed prison of her past.

Escape?
Tremble?
Fear?
What did her own trauma matter at a moment when the fate of the nation and the lives of her comrades hung in the balance?

She jerked her head up!

The fragility and tears that had filled her eyes just a moment ago were, in that instant, evaporated, burned away—replaced by a raging inferno of wrath and determination.

“Orderly!”

She shoved aside the subordinate who tried to steady her, her voice hoarse yet brooking no argument.

“Come with me!”

She strode from the command center to the temporary command post of the armed police special ops unit, which had already surrounded the backstage, the atmosphere as heavy as steel.

Captain Li of the special ops team hurried to report, seeing Xiao Ran approach—her face pale as death, but her eyes burning with terrifying light.

“Chief Xiao! Enemy firepower unknown, hostage situation—”

She cut him off.

Her eyes, blazing with golden flames, fixed unerringly on the black gun case not far away—the one containing the Type 88 sniper rifle.

She extended her right hand, still trembling but rigid with fury, and pronounced, one word at a time, the forbidden phrase she had once sworn never to utter again.

“…Give me your Type 88.”

She closed her eyes. When she opened them, only boundless killing intent remained.

“—Give!”
“—It!”
“To me!”