Chapter Seventy-Four: The Last Waltz
The “hunt” proclamation of the Father was like a drop of cold water falling into boiling oil—instantly, it ignited the murderous intent throughout the entire fortress!
Second floor, exhibition corridor.
Boom! Boom!
At both ends, the heavy titanium alloy gates were forcibly breached. Squads of elite “Templar Knights” in jet-black exoskeleton armor, wielding G36C assault rifles, their faces hidden behind tactical goggles glowing with crimson light, surged forward like a legion of death erupting from hell itself. Their synchronized, metallic footsteps echoed chillingly as they stormed in from both sides, encircling their prey.
Xiao Ran’s gaze turned as cold as iron in an instant. She showed no panic; her body reacted even faster than her mind. With a swift tactical roll, she became a graceful and agile black panther, darting into a nearby exhibition hall lined with medieval knight armor and ancient weaponry.
In a flash, she transformed the battlefield from a “deadly” linear corridor into a complex, unpredictable, nonlinear CQB—close-quarters combat arena—filled with cover and opportunities.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Intense streams of fire chased her silhouette, striking sparks from the floor where she had just stood.
Below ground, thirty-three levels deep.
Unlike the explosive physical battle above, war here was silent—yet even more lethal.
Before Lin Feng stood a massive vibranium door, which suddenly lit up from within with countless fierce energy patterns, glowing like red-hot branding irons.
At the center of the door, a vivid three-headed dog emblem emerged, composed of billions of lines of crimson “hunt” code, each head representing “brute-force cracking,” “logic corruption,” and “data devouring.” It surfaced slowly, menacing and alive.
The Cerberus AI defense system—its final form—had been fully activated remotely by the Father.
“Intruder…”
A voice, cold as the depths of the underworld, synthesized by AI and devoid of all emotion, resonated directly in Lin Feng’s mind.
“…Your game ends here.”
…
Battle erupted on two fronts, both entering the most brutal “desperation” mode at once.
Above, in the exhibition room, Xiao Ran used a life-sized plate-armored knight statue as cover, fighting a desperate gun battle against the Templar Knight squads pouring in through doors and windows.
Her marksmanship was flawless and deadly—each shot claimed an enemy.
But their numbers were overwhelming! Well-trained and coordinated, some provided suppressive fire from the front, while others began flanking through the windows.
A blinding white flashbang was precisely tossed to her feet.
“Damn!”
---
Xiao Ran barely had time to curse before the sudden burst of light and high-frequency sound left her temporarily blind, her ears filled with a piercing, unrelenting buzz.
Below ground.
Lin Feng was caught in the hardest “man versus machine” battle of his career.
The Father truly deserved his reputation as the mastermind who could oppose the world. The remote-controlled Cerberus AI’s computational power and aggressiveness far surpassed any opponent Lin Feng had ever faced—even Anderson.
That monstrous “Cerberus,” a code beast with limitless processing power, launched a dual assault—both physically and logically—against him.
Physically, the server room’s ultra-low-temperature liquid nitrogen cooling and defense system was fully activated. The temperature plummeted in seconds to minus one hundred degrees, brittle enough to crack steel. Lin Feng’s thermoregulation suit issued an overloaded warning.
Logically, Cerberus became a tsunami of data, furiously assaulting the last firewall built with his quantum decoder.
He was about to be frozen to death, or utterly “devoured” by the AI.
…
Banquet hall.
Surrounded at gunpoint by a dozen Templar Knights, Bishop Klaus—the “Disciple” leader—watched through the last hidden backdoor access in his electronic eye, observing the two young Eastern figures, each trapped in absolute peril on separate battlefields.
He saw Xiao Ran risking everything amid gunfire to protect her friend’s bloodline.
He remembered the “adopted daughter” he cherished as his own, only to push her into a prison with his own hands… Zhao Siyuan.
For the first time, his eternally calm and rational face revealed a gentle, almost liberated smile.
He slowly raised his hand to the silver badge on his chest, symbolizing his bishop status. In flawless German, barely audible to anyone but himself, he whispered a final confession and prayer to God.
“…I spent my life pursuing and believing in so-called ‘absolute rationality’…”
“…Only today did I realize, it is merely the most convenient shortcut to the hell of human nature.”
“My friend, Zhao… I owe you far too much.”
“Today, let me use this one and only, final… ‘irrational’ act…”
He gazed at the stubborn young figures on screen, his eyes shining with a hope never seen before.
“…to complete the ultimate redemption for the boundless sins we committed together…”
“—Let this be salvation!”
With newfound resolve, he pressed firmly on the center of the silver badge.
…
Buzz—
No explosion, no fire.
Only an invisible, undetectable, yet all-consuming blue electromagnetic pulse radiated outward from the Disciple’s body, sweeping like a tsunami through the ancient fortress.
---
In an instant.
All lights went out.
All alarms ceased.
Every electronic lock, surveillance device, AI auto-turret—everything fell into absolute, eternal silence.
The once-invincible Templar Knights, their helmet comms and infrared night vision systems, were blinded in the darkness.
At the same time!
A suicide data virus called “Ragnarök,” personally written by the Disciple and carried by his highest privileges, invaded the “flawless” Cerberus AI central system, riding the invisible EMP like a lethal venom.
It forcibly created a fatal, unrepairable—
Thirty-second-long logic calculation “black hole” in its precise operational chain.
…
Above.
Xiao Ran seized the fleeting, life-bought opportunity!
She quickly recovered from the intense ringing and dizziness, her burning eyes scanning the “tin cans” plunged into chaos and darkness without their electronics.
A hunter’s sharp gaze flashed as she burst from cover!
Below.
Before Lin Feng, the once-menacing Cerberus code avatar froze instantly, its every motion locked as if the power had been cut from a television.
He saw in his operating system’s log the final line of virus source code, named “Gift,” left by the Disciple, and understood everything at once.
A complex mix of grief and reverence crossed his eyes.
All emotion was instantly replaced by an overwhelming battle spirit, poised to overturn everything.
“…Thirty seconds…”
He gazed at the vibranium door, now stripped of all energy defenses, and murmured,
“—That’s enough!”
His ten fingers struck the keyboard with unprecedented, superhuman speed,
Launching the final, most brilliant—
Counterattack overture!