Chapter 47 - Enemy Mine

Lin Feng

"Team Alpha, please confirms the setup on your side is ready."

"Command, Team Alpha confirms all is ready at our end." Lin Feng replies over his handheld radio.

Lin Feng is currently on the outer perimeter of Savage Corpse Cult's only spirit stone mine. This clandestine operation against the Savage Corpse Cult has been entirely mapped out by the strategic department for quite some time now. It was just waiting for the emergence of third major realm cultivators for the plan to become viable.

Lin Feng's breakthrough to the third major realm two Earth weeks ago made operation to become viable. Minus those cultivators that died somewhere in between since the launch of , the first batch of Earth cultivators in the third major realm started to rise in numbers since then. Recruiting the eleven additional third major realm cultivators for the operation isn't too time consuming but some time is needed for them to stabilize their new found strength. 

As a Martial pathway cultivator, Lin Feng is now at the Physical Consolidation realm. The spiritual root equivalent is a Golden Core cultivator and in most popular Xianxia novels, cultivators start to transcend their mortality. Take Lin Feng for an example, his regeneration capability has reached a point where he can survive a crippling blow to most of the major organs. As for his heart or brain, it will be fully regrown as long as he doesn't lose more than half of the organ. Lin Feng took an entire Earth week to be fully understand his new regeneration limit and controlling the significant jump in strength. 

Being difficult to kill might be a big bonus for Lin Feng but the third major realm is a key milestone where he could no longer recklessly put his life at risk. Starting from the third major realm, cultivation progress will start to slow down significantly. Even if all goes well, it will take Lin Feng more than four years to breakthrough to the fourth major realm. Any normal players will be driven insane losing years of gaming progress if is just a game but the fact is, it is more than just a game with real life implication. One can just imagine the frustration and grief of going back to the cultivation starting line after years of effort. It is no different from a working adult being told that they need to restart their career as a junior executive after being promoted to the role of manager after years of hard work.

The sect does offer a special revival service to ensure the cultivation progress is not lost but the cost rises to such a prohibitive level for the third major realm that the service might as well not be there for most cultivators. Even with Lin Feng's entire family earning potential, it will still take them an entire year's worth of income to pay for a single special revival service. That is a very substantial amount given how much his family is earning nowadays. Bai Xue has done such a great job transforming the family's business that their restaurant chain is now one of the largest owned by an Earthling. If all goes well, the family will begin to foray into lodging services this year, laying the initial groundwork for the high-end resort empire that he has originally envisioned. There is no way he can request Bai Xue to funnel the family's fortune for a special revival service, throwing the family's business expansion plan in disarray.

"Command to all teams. Go on full alert. T-minus eleven minutes until operation commence."

The Savage Corpse Cult spirit mine has one security measure that will make the whole operation time sensitive. The spirit mine has an artifact that will regularly send out a signal back to the sect every fifteen minutes to indicate everything is in order at the spirit mine. Savage Corpse Cult will immediately organize a rescue mission if the Elder assigned to safeguard the spirit mine can't be reached if the signal stopped. On a conservative estimate, the Savage Corpse Cult rescue team will arrive at the mine in thirty minutes after that. That gives Lin Feng and his team less than forty-five minutes to accomplish their mission and withdraw without being discovered by the rescue team.

*****

"Command to all teams. Signal has just been sent out. Initiate operation now."

An isolation barrier quickly came up, cutting off the Savage Corpse Cult spirit mine from the rest of the world. Soon after, a fleet of military vehicles sped into the spirit mine's compound. During the pre-operation briefing, it has been told that the spirit vehicle fleet will be doing most of the fighting in this operation. Who could have guessed that after all the effort the country took to secure the service of twelve third major realm cultivators, they ended up relegated to supporting characters for the most part of the operation. Lin Feng, along with seven other third major realm cultivators have been spread across the spirit mine perimeter for the sole purpose of stopping the Savage Corpse Cult elder from ever escaping. The chance is slim but confidentially of this operation compel the wasteful use of third major realm cultivators are perimeter guards. The four remaining third major realm cultivators will be accompanying the fleet of military vehicles to provide protection and are only supposed to take action after the enemy's third major realm cultivator has been eliminated.

The six infantry fighting vehicles that are still charging towards the spirit mine aren't of much interest to Lin Feng. Sure, the infantry fighting vehicles is designed based on the latest Type-19 Infantry Fighting Vehicle back on Earth but there is nothing exciting with its weapon system. The runic autocannon is nice but it can only threaten second major realm cultivators at most. His attention is fully focused on the two military vehicles that have stopped midway and started deploying for action. The two military vehicles are based on LY-70, the country's latest medium-range air defence missile system but the main character are the missiles it is carrying. The country will be testing the effectiveness of the recently developed hypersonic runic missiles in eliminating a third major realm cultivator. The scientist on this weapon development program will have a field day studying the after-battle report.

The major countries do have its privileges. Lin Feng is well aware that the direct disciples and named disciples of the twelve Pavillion Masters have also began operating out of Eldorin, in the other part of the lower realm worlds. However, none of those disciples have it easy from the post he read on the forum. The sect has a standing order that no novel Earth weapons are to be revealed out in the open to the rest of the cultivation world. It is only under an isolated controlled environment that such weapons can see limited used. In short, no surviving witness to reveal the existence of such weapons. That is not a condition that most of the disciples without the backing of a country could easily fulfil. Even he finds the deployment of twelve third major realm cultivators at this point in time to be an extravagance.

Lin Feng concludes that even deviant cultivators aren't fallible to hubris. Deviant cultivators are notorious for their subterfuge and a penchant for raiding high value sites but the security measure of this spirit mine is severely lax to his professionally trained eye. As the local overlord, Savage Corpse Cult might be overconfident that no one in the local area will dare to challenge their authority. 

The approaching military fleet was quickly detected and the Savage Corpse Cult elder and all defending disciples quickly rushes out to confront the approaching unidentified force. Time is of the essence in this operation and there is no time for pleasantry. The moment the Savage Corpse Cult elder reveals himself, the two LY-70 missile system immediately launches a hypersonic runic missile at him. The two missiles speeding toward its target reached Mach 1 within a few seconds and the speed continues to increase along its trajectory.