Inside the command center of the Geothermal Terminal, the cheers of victory had barely faded before they were torn apart by a shrill, ear‑splitting alarm.
The enormous resonant crystal flashed violently at a frequency never seen before, its soft white light completely swallowed and overwritten by an ominous dim blue.
"What's going on?"
"Report! All external communications have been cut!"
"Our firewalls… are being rewritten from the underlying protocols! My God, what kind of monster is this?"
Spanner rushed to the console, staring at the rapidly scrolling gibberish she could not understand, the blood draining from her face bit by bit.
She snapped her head back to the man on the stretcher, still muttering in agony.
"Eyes… so many eyes…"
Jin Wanchao's voice was weak, yet it struck Spanner's heart like a heavy hammer.
Her mind exploded, and everything fell into place.
They were no longer fighting Valerius, no longer the Black Iron Guard.
A far more terrifying, far colder enemy had awakened.
The entire city had turned against them.
"Brother Wanchao!" Spanner dashed to the stretcher and shook him desperately. "Wake up! Please wake up! We need you!"
At that moment, Jin Wanchao's eyes snapped open.
There was no confusion after unconsciousness—only a cold clarity that seemed to reflect the very veins of the city.
He seized her wrist with a grip so tight it hurt.
"It's too late."
Jin Wanchao struggled to sit up, his gaze sweeping over every panicked face in the command center, his voice hoarse but eerily calm.
"The Geothermal Terminal has been exposed. It is no longer a fortress. It is a tomb."
Old Zhong hurried over, his cloudy old eyes filled with worry at the blood seeping from Jin Wanchao's seven orifices. "Child, your body…"
"I'm fine," Jin Wanchao cut him off, his eyes turning to the massive city map. "Valerius has handed the city's highest defense authority to an AI. Every orbital cannon, defense array, and lockdown system in this city… has come alive. Their target is right here."
A deathly silence fell over the command room.
If their earlier battle with the Black Iron Guard had been a war among mortals, what they now faced was the ruthless, utterly rational annihilation of a colossal steel beast.
"Then we…" a young member stammered. "We're done for?"
Despair began to spread.
"No." Jin Wanchao's voice was sharp and decisive. "We still have a chance."
His finger traced across the map, gliding past every known district on the surface, before finally stopping at an unmarked location deep underground.
"Strategic retreat. We must leave here at once, for a new location."
Old Zhong leaned in and saw the marker. For the first time, extreme shock flashed across his wrinkled face.
"The Core Fortress?!" he cried out. "The legendary last refuge of the First Artisans against the great cataclysms? But that's only a myth…"
"It is no myth." Jin Wanchao looked at Old Zhong, his gaze unshakable. "I have seen it. And I know the way there."
He turned to Spanner. "I need you now. Get everyone moving. We must carry out an evacuation unlike anything before. Destination: the abandoned Third Mining Tunnel, deep underground."
Spanner stared into Jin Wanchao's unyielding eyes, and her fear and panic were forcibly suppressed by an overwhelming will.
She took a deep breath, grabbed the communicator, and shouted at the top of her lungs:
"All teams, attention! Highest order! Execute Scorched Earth protocol! Abandon all non‑essential supplies. Assemble in Sector B7 in ten minutes! Repeat, this is not a drill!"
The orders spread quickly.
Though still dazed from their victory, the people moved almost instinctively, bound by the iron discipline of the Fire Cult.
The sounds of disassembly, footsteps, and commands intertwined. The entire Geothermal Terminal, like a roused behemoth, began its final operation in a tense, orderly rhythm.
The engineering corps blew open the backup blast gate leading to the deep mining tunnels at top speed.
Ah Huo silently organized the children rescued from the Nursery Factory. Having been through hell, obedience was etched into their bones. They did not cry or make a sound, holding one another's hands and following Ah Huo, their numb eyes fixed only on his tall back.
Jin Wanchao stood at the entrance to the tunnel, watching the "Sanctuary" he had built with his own hands being emptied at once, without a trace of attachment.
He knew: as long as the people lived, the flame would never die.
"Move out!"
At his command, the massive procession began, like a giant dragon, slowly vanishing into the pitch‑black mining tunnels deep underground.
Old Zhong led the way, navigating the complex forks by memory and by the guidance that occasionally echoed in his mind from Jin Wanchao.
Spanner and Ah Huo took up the rear.
Just as the last group was about to enter the tunnel, the earth shuddered violently without warning.
Boom——!!!
A deafening boom, as if coming from both the sky and the core of the earth, threw everyone off balance.
A piercing sound of twisting metal came from above: the steel dome of the Geothermal Terminal was being torn and crushed by an unimaginable force.
Spanner looked back in horror. Through the still‑closing gap of the blast gate, she saw a sight she would never forget.
Several scorching beams of light, thick as spears of divine punishment, fell precisely from the black night sky, piercing and vaporizing every exit, every fortification, even every decoy they had left behind.
They were the Parliament's orbital cannons.
They carried out their "purge" order in the coldest, most efficient way imaginable.
One minute later—no, even ten seconds later—and all of them would have been buried alive beneath the fortress they once took pride in, not even ash remaining.
Cold sweat soaked Spanner's back in an instant.
She looked ahead at the pale, yet still straight and unyielding figure surrounded by the crowd, her eyes filled with awe like never before.
This man did not merely see the road beneath his feet.
He saw the threads of fate.
The heavy blast gate closed slowly behind them, sealing off the destruction outside—and all light.
In the darkness, only the heavy breathing of the crowd could be heard, along with the beginning of a long, uncertain migration ahead.