Three hundred miles east of the burning plains, the Patriarch of the White Cloud Sect stood on the highest peak of the Cloud Sea Mountain. The air here was usually thin and pure, a place for meditation on the Dao. Today, it tasted of ash.
Patriarch Yun Long held the shattered fragments of Elder Mo's Life Tablet in one hand. In the other, he held a report delivered by a terrified scout who had watched the western horizon turn into a wall of liquid fire.
"Sky Fire," Yun Long whispered, his voice vibrating with a Golden Core frequency that cracked the stone tiles beneath his feet. "Liquid flame that burns on water. Metal birds that move faster than sound. And a weapon that can erase a zombie horde in a single breath."
The council of Elders kneeling behind him remained silent. They were powerful men—arrogant masters who could fly on swords and crush boulders with their fists. But they were not stupid. They had seen the coffin sent back with the Shadow Killer's dagger. They understood the message: Send a hammer next time.
"Elder Mo was careless," one Elder ventured cautiously. "He underestimated the mortal's artifacts. We should mobilize the Sect Guard. Crush them with overwhelming numbers."
"Numbers?" Yun Long turned, his eyes glowing with white lightning. "The Corpse Refiners sent numbers. Ten thousand dead. Vaporized in seconds. Do you want to send our disciples into a furnace?"
He crushed the report in his hand.
"This Jiang Chen... he does not fight with Qi. He fights with speed and range. Our flying swords are too slow. Our barriers are too brittle against his 'kinetic' weapons."
Yun Long walked to the edge of the cliff. He looked down into the forbidden abyss below the mountain, where the clouds turned dark and storm-tossed.
"If we want to kill a man who controls the sky, we must rule the sky."
"Patriarch," an Elder gasped, realizing his intent. "You cannot mean... the Sky Rays?"
"Unseal the breeding grounds," Yun Long commanded. "Feed them the Stimulating Pills. Graft steel onto their hides if you must. I want a fleet of beasts that can fly higher and faster than his metal birds. If he wants an arms race, the White Cloud Sect will show him the true terror of biology."
While the Sect plotted in the clouds, a very different kind of power was arriving at the gates of Beiluo.
The Imperial Envoy, Minister Zhang, peered through the silk curtains of his carriage. He was a high-ranking official of the Grand Xia Empire, accustomed to the finest luxuries of the capital. He had been sent to investigate the death of a City Lord and the reports of a "rebellion." He expected to find a ruined city, starving peasants, and a barbarian warlord sitting on a pile of skulls.
What he found was a paved road.
The carriage jolted as it transitioned from the muddy, rutted imperial highway onto a surface that was impossibly smooth. It was black, hard as stone, and painted with precise yellow lines.
"What magic is this?" Zhang muttered, touching the glass of his window.
"Minister," his bodyguard, a Golden Core cultivator named General Hu, rode alongside the carriage. Hu's face was grave. "Look at the walls."
Zhang looked up. The walls of Beiluo were no longer crumbling stone. They were reinforced concrete, topped with razor wire and strange, rotating metal heads that followed their movement. But it wasn't the defense that shocked him.
It was the lights.
It was high noon, but the streetlamps lining the road were buzzing with a faint electric hum. Beyond the gates, smoke rose from massive stacks—not the erratic black smoke of a chaotic fire, but the rhythmic, white plumes of industry.
The carriage stopped at the checkpoint. A soldier in a sharp grey uniform, holding a rifle, stepped forward. He didn't bow. He didn't kowtow. He saluted—a crisp, sharp motion of the hand to the brow.
"Identification," the soldier requested. His tone was polite but immovable.
"Insolence!" General Hu barked, his horse rearing. "This is Minister Zhang, Envoy of the Emperor! Open the gate, or I will—"
The soldier didn't flinch. He simply tapped his earpiece.
Suddenly, the metal heads on the wall—four of them—swiveled down. They locked onto General Hu with a menacing mechanical whir.
"General," Minister Zhang said quickly, sensing the sudden spike in killing intent. "We are diplomats. Show him the seal."
Hu gritted his teeth, humiliated, and flashed the golden medallion of the Empire.
"Access granted," the soldier said. The heavy steel boom gate lifted automatically, powered by hidden hydraulics. "Proceed to the Administration Center. Do not deviate from the yellow line. Speed limit is 20."
As the carriage rolled into the city, Minister Zhang sat back, fanning himself. He had traveled the entire continent. He had visited the spirit cities of the great clans. But he had never felt so... small.
The city outside the window was alien. The slums were gone. In their place were rows of identical, rectangular housing blocks made of prefab concrete. They were ugly, but they looked warm. Glass windows—actual clear glass, a luxury worth more than gold—were everywhere.
And the people. They weren't cowering. They were rushing. Men in blue jumpsuits walked with purpose, carrying metal lunchboxes. Carts moved without beasts, putting around on small, loud engines.
"They are all... fat," Zhang whispered. "Look at that child. He is eating a sausage. A whole sausage."
Jiang Chen waited in the reception hall of the former City Lord's mansion. He had stripped the room of its gaudy tapestries. Now, it was a showroom of minimalism. A glass table. Steel chairs. A map of the region projected onto the wall by a light-crystal array.
When Minister Zhang entered, flanked by the scowling General Hu, Jiang Chen didn't stand up immediately. He finished typing a command into his wristpad.
"Minister Zhang," Jiang Chen finally stood, offering a hand. "Welcome to Sector 01. Did you enjoy the road? We just laid the asphalt last week."
Zhang stared at the extended hand, confused by the gesture, before bowing slightly. "Prince Jiang Chen. Your... city... is unexpected. I came to inquire about the death of Lord Fatong."
"Fatong died of a workplace accident," Jiang Chen said smoothly, gesturing to a chair. "Please, sit. Coffee?"
"Coffee?"
Jiang Chen signaled a drone. It hovered over, pouring a steaming black liquid into a porcelain cup. "A stimulant drink. Try it. It helps with the altitude."
Zhang took a sip. It was bitter, rich, and instantly cleared the fog in his mind.
"Prince Jiang," Zhang set the cup down. "The Empire is tolerant. But you have killed a noble. You have annexed an iron mine. And reports say you burned the western plains with demonic fire. The Emperor demands an explanation. You must disband your army and submit to Imperial inspection."
General Hu stepped forward, his Golden Core aura flaring slightly—a threat. "Or the Empire will send the Legions."
Jiang Chen didn't look at the General. He looked at his wristpad. It was vibrating.
"I can't disband the army," Jiang Chen said calmly. "Who would kill the monsters?"
"The Empire protects its citizens!" Hu roared.
RUMBLE.
The floor shook.
The coffee cup rattled on the table. The projection on the wall flickered.
"Earthquake?" Zhang grabbed the table.
"No," Jiang Chen stood up, his face serious. "Recall the question about the demonic fire? We burned ten thousand zombies yesterday. The heat... soaked into the ground."
THOOM.
A second tremor, stronger than the first. Dust fell from the ceiling.
"General Hu," Jiang Chen looked at the cultivator. "You are a Golden Core master. You have strong spiritual senses. Tell me, what do you feel below us?"
Hu frowned. He extended his senses downward.
His eyes widened. His face turned the color of ash.
"It... It's vast," Hu whispered. "It's enormous. It feels like... a mountain is waking up."
"The heat from the napalm woke it up," Jiang Chen said, grabbing his coat. "Minister, if you want to inspect my city, let's start with the basement. I might need your General's help."
They descended not by stairs, but by a freight elevator—a metal cage that dropped into the earth at stomach-churning speeds. Minister Zhang clung to the railing, praying to his ancestors.
When the doors opened at the 2,400-meter mark, the heat hit them.
The cavern was bathed in emergency red light. The mining drones were scurrying away, chirping alarms.
And in the center of the chamber, the Earth Shaker was moving.
The napalm fire on the surface had raised the ambient temperature of the bedrock. The golem's internal sensors had interpreted this as a breach of its thermal regulation. It was waking up in defense mode.
The fifty-meter tall machine groaned, shifting its weight. Dust and rock cascaded off its shoulders. Its eyes—those twin crimson searchlights—flickered on, sweeping the cavern.
"By the Gods..." Minister Zhang fell to his knees. "What is that?"
General Hu drew his sword, but his hand was shaking. He was a Golden Core. He could cut a hill in half. But this? This was a god made of iron. The pressure radiating from it wasn't Qi; it was pure, physical dominance.
"HEAT CRITICAL," the Golem's voice boomed, shaking the very air in their lungs. "THREAT DETECTED. PURGING SECTOR."
The Golem raised its massive fist. The hydraulic pistons hissed like a thousand snakes. It was aiming for the support pillars of the cavern. If it struck, it would collapse the entire city above.
"It's confused!" Jiang Chen shouted over the noise. "It thinks the city is the heat source attacking it!"
He sprinted toward the control platform on the Golem's chest.
"Prince! You'll be crushed!" Zhang screamed.
Jiang Chen didn't stop. He fired a grappling hook from his wrist, zipping up to the chest plate. He landed on the interface console.
The Golem swatted at him—a hand the size of a house moving with terrifying speed.
"General Hu! Distract it!" Jiang Chen ordered via the PA system.
Hu acted on instinct. He flew up, slashing his sword against the Golem's face. "Golden Splitter!"
CLANG.
The sword struck the Celestial Steel. It didn't even scratch the paint. But it annoyed the machine. The Golem turned its head, distracted by the buzzing fly.
That bought Jiang Chen ten seconds.
He jammed his hands into the interface. The heat from the napalm had scrambled the Golem's external sensors.
"System! Override thermal safeties! Reroute the Spirit Vein coolant to the Golem's core!"
[Rerouting... Efficiency at 40%...]
"Not enough! It's going to purge!"
Jiang Chen looked at the massive power cables connecting the Golem to the city grid above. The city was draining the Golem. He needed to reverse the flow.
"Cut the city power!" Jiang Chen screamed into his comms. "Blackout! Now!"
"But Sir, the life support..." Old Wu's voice crackled.
"DO IT!"
In Beiluo City, the lights went out. The factories stopped. The elevators froze. The entire city plunged into silence.
Deep underground, the surge of returning power slammed back into the Golem.
The Golem shuddered. The red lights in its eyes turned amber. Then blue.
The fist, raised to crush the pillar, froze mid-air.
"SYSTEM... STABILIZED," the Golem rumbled. "EXTERNAL HEAT SOURCE... ISOLATED."
The machine lowered its arm. It sat back down into its lotus position, the ground shaking one last time as it settled.
Jiang Chen collapsed on the console, gasping for breath. The silence in the cavern was heavy.
He looked down at the platform below. Minister Zhang was lying flat on the ground. General Hu was floating in the air, staring at his sword, which had chipped against the Golem's face.
Jiang Chen stood up, straightening his coat. He tapped his headset.
"Restore power. Slowly."
One by one, the lights on the Golem's hull flickered back to life, pulsing with a gentle blue rhythm.
Jiang Chen rode the grappling line down to the floor. He walked up to the terrified Imperial Envoy.
"My apologies, Minister," Jiang Chen said, dusting off his shoulder. "The boiler room can be temperamental."
Zhang looked up at the fifty-meter Titan behind Jiang Chen. He looked at the man who treated it like a faulty furnace.
"You..." Zhang swallowed dryly. "You control... that?"
"We have an understanding," Jiang Chen said. "Now, about your demand to disband my army..."
"No," Zhang scrambled to his feet. He grabbed General Hu's arm to steady himself. "No. That will not be necessary."
He looked at the Golem again. He realized something terrifying. If Jiang Chen wanted to, he wouldn't need an army to take the Capital. He could just walk this thing through the Imperial Palace walls.
"The Empire... values stability," Zhang said, his voice trembling but regaining some diplomatic composure. "It seems Administrator Jiang has the situation under control. Beiluo City is... clearly in capable hands."
"I'm glad we agree," Jiang Chen smiled. "I would hate for the Empire to send a Legion. They might trip over the furniture."
As the elevator took them back up to the surface, Minister Zhang didn't look at the lights or the asphalt anymore. He looked at Jiang Chen with a new emotion. It wasn't disdain for a barbarian. It was the terrified respect one gives to a sleeping dragon.
When the Envoy's carriage left the city an hour later, speeding away down the paved road, General Hu looked back at the smoke stacks.
"Minister," Hu whispered. "We must report this. That thing... it rivals the Guardian Beasts of the Founding Emperors."
"Report it?" Zhang shook his head, closing the curtains. "We will report that the Prince is loyal. We will report that Beiluo is a model city."
"Why?"
"Because, General," Zhang's hands were still shaking. "If we declare him an enemy, he might decide to visit us. And I do not want that iron god knocking on my door."
Back in the command center, Jiang Chen watched the carriage leave on the monitors.
"He's scared," Chen Wei observed.
"Good," Jiang Chen said. "Fear buys time."
He turned to the main screen. The Golem was dormant again, but its internal reactor was now fully integrated with the city's grid. The power output bar was climbing off the charts.
[Energy Surplus: 500%.][Tier 3 Technologies: Fully Powered.]
Jiang Chen looked at the blueprint for the Centrifuge Array he had unlocked earlier.
"The Golem is a shield," Jiang Chen muttered. "But I still need a sword."
He pointed to the new facility construction site on the map.
"Begin the enrichment. The White Cloud Sect is building monsters in the sky. I want to be ready to drop the sun on them."
But as he planned, the radar officer spoke up.
"Administrator. New contact. South Gate."
"The Envoy returned?"
"No, Sir. It's a single vehicle. Primitive combustion engine. It's... painting?"
Jiang Chen switched the feed.
A brightly painted, steam-punk style truck had stopped at the gate. A man in flashy red robes jumped out, holding a megaphone.
"Greetings, O Iron Lord!" the man shouted at the turret cameras. "I am Merchant Jin of the Blood Fire Sect! We heard you burned the Zombie Horde! That was beautiful! Simply beautiful! We would like to buy your fire!"
Jiang Chen blinked.
He smiled.
"Let him in. If he likes fire, show him the Napalm vats. Let's see how much gold the Blood Fire Sect has."
The world was changing. The ancient powers were waking up, terrified and hungry. And Jiang Chen stood in the center of the storm, selling the matches.