The square was silent.
In the phalanx of fifteen thousand men, even the clattering of armor had vanished. Every neck was frozen at a single angle, every eye fixed on the tank that had just smashed the Purple-Gold Gates to pieces.
The longsword in Lin Zhentian's hand nearly slipped; he gripped it with white-knuckled intensity. The blade trembled slightly, and the Battle Qi patterns on his dark-gold armor flickered unsteadily.
Lin Zhentian stared deathly at the young man atop the tank's turret. Black trench coat, a cigar, eyes that didn't even bother to glance in his direction.
On the outskirts of the square, the crowd of Imperial nobles invited to witness the ceremony had already descended into chaos. Several old patriarchs in silk robes pushed and shoved each other to retreat. One, his legs giving out, collapsed directly onto the ground. A servant tried to pull him up, only to be kicked away—the old man scrambled up and kept running.
"Is that… is that the fourth son of the Lin family?"
"Wasn't he exiled? How—"
"Tanks! Look at those tanks! The reports from the Northern Frontier were true!"
The cacophony of panicked murmurs lasted less than ten seconds.
A second tank ground its way through the shattered gate frame. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth. The roar of the engines choked the words out of everyone's throats.
Lin Zhentian's lieutenant leaned in, his lips trembling.
"My Lord, what do we do? These iron—"
"Shut up."
Lin Zhentian shoved the lieutenant aside. He took a deep breath, forcing the dense Battle Qi patterns on his chest plate to glow, suppression the surging turmoil in his heart.
Lin Yuan watched it all. He held the cigar between two fingers and flicked the ash.
Lin Zhentian spoke. His voice was lower than before, but the amplification arrays carried every syllable to every corner of the square.
"You rebellious son."
Lin Zhentian held his longsword horizontally across his chest. The enchantment runes on the blade ignited, orange-red light flowing along the fuller like molten lava.
"You think you can storm the Imperial Capital with a few pieces of alchemical puppetry?"
He took a step forward, standing at the very edge of the command platform.
"Five thousand enchanted knights. Ten thousand family guards. An Ancestor of the Dark Gold rank presiding over us."
Lin Zhentian pointed to the ground beneath his feet.
"This is the Lin residence. Not that scrap-metal shack of yours in the North."
Lin Yuan, puffing on his cigar, was scrolling through a system panel, paying him no mind.
Veins bulged on Lin Zhentian's hand.
"All troops, form ranks!"
Below the platform, the fifteen thousand elite soldiers finally snapped out of their stupor. Silver-armored knights vaulted onto their steeds, horses neighing as they formed three rows. In the rear, magical archers drew their bows, the arrowheads glowing with blue light. The ten thousand guards moved as well. Front-row shield-bearers slammed down two-meter-high enchanted pavises, locking them together to form a wall of metal, while spearmen thrust their tips through the gaps.
The fifteen thousand elites completed their formation with lightning speed. During the transition, a few archers couldn't resist firing at the tanks; the enchanted arrows struck the frontal armor and ricocheted off, leaving not even a white scratch.
Lin Zhentian leapt from the platform, landing steadily. His Dark Gold Battle Qi erupted in a shockwave, cracking the stone tiles beneath him. He turned and glanced toward the depths of the estate.
High atop the roof of the ancestral hall at the very back of the manor, a withered old man sat cross-legged. White hair, white beard, eyelids half-closed. Lin Cangqiong. Dark Gold rank. The old man didn't open his eyes, but the pressure he exuded was heavy enough to suffocate.
Lin Zhentian regained his confidence. He turned back to Lin Yuan, lifting his chin.
"Your last chance. Kneel, hand over the manufacturing methods for these iron lumps, and I will leave your corpse in—"
Lin Yuan swiped to the "Building Summons" tab on his system panel and tapped. Confirm. The panel flashed a consumption figure, which he dismissed after a quick glance.
A heavier engine roar echoed from the perimeter of the estate. At the gap on the eastern side of the square, a heavy vehicle over eight meters long crawled into view behind the tank line. Eight massive wheels crushed the rubble. The rear half of the vehicle carried a set of inclined launch rails, and resting upon them was a thick, metallic cylinder. The missile was five meters long, with a spiral drill-bit at its tip, its body covered in dark-red magical circuit carvings and four folded tail fins at the rear.
A Bunker-Buster Drill Missile.
The launcher's hydraulic stabilizers deployed, four steel pillars slamming into the stone ground. The rails slowly rose, adjusting the angle, aiming at the sky.
Lin Zhentian's taunts came to a grinding halt.
He didn't recognize this object, but his instincts as a Dark Gold powerhouse made his skin crawl.
Lin Zhentian suddenly crushed a jade talisman at his waist. The talisman exploded, and a brilliant emerald light shot into the sky, rapidly expanding over the estate. The moment the light fell, a semi-transparent dark-gold dome rose from the array pillars at the four corners of the manor, sealing shut at the apex.
The Dark Gold Family Defense Array.
Dense runes flowed across the inner surface of the barrier, each one connected to the ley lines of the Imperial Capital. The entire estate was now encased in a golden shell.
Lin Zhentian finally laughed. He looked up at the shimmering barrier.
"Rebellious son!"
Lin Zhentian pointed a finger at Lin Yuan atop the turret.
"This array is linked to the ley lines of the capital. Its core was hand-carved by a Saint-rank master five hundred years ago. Even if you throw all your iron lumps at it, you won't crack a single corner by next year!"
The soldiers inside the barrier breathed a sigh of relief. A few guards lowered their shields, patting each other on the shoulder.
Lin Yuan took the cigar out of his mouth, tapped the ash against the edge of the turret, and looked down at the data on his panel.
Dark Gold Rank Defense Array. Connected to ley lines. Ley line node.
Lin Yuan tapped three points on the 3D map with his fingertip. The system radar highlighted the energy flow beneath the estate—seven ley line branches converged at a core node forty meters underground, directly in the center of the manor.
Lin Yuan closed the panel and looked up at Lin Zhentian. For the first time, he actually looked at him.
"Finished?"
Lin Zhentian's smile twitched for a split second.
Lin Yuan turned toward the launcher vehicle and raised his right hand.
"Fire."
The electromagnetic coils on the rails energized instantly. The magic arrays at the base of the missile ignited, and the four fins snapped open. A plume of brilliant white flame erupted from the rear, the heatwave flipping rubble within a ten-meter radius.
The five-meter-long drill missile detached from the rails, trailing a straight white line of smoke as it screamed into the sky.
After reaching high altitude, the missile curved, diving down toward the top of the dark-gold dome.
Lin Zhentian stared at the white trail, his pupils shrinking violently.
"Intercept—"
Too late.
The missile hit the top of the barrier, but there was no explosion. The high-frequency vibration drill at the tip began to spin, reaching its maximum RPM in 0.3 seconds, emitting a piercing metallic shriek.
The moment the drill touched the barrier, the runes on the surface flickered frantically. The golden lines tried to repair the energy layer being shredded by the drill, but the drill's rotation speed far outpaced the runes' self-healing capacity.
One second.
The drill pierced through the dome.
The entire missile body slipped through the breach, trailing white smoke as it plummeted straight into the ground. Stone plates shattered, soil sprayed, and the missile vanished into the earth.
Everyone in the square stopped.
The smile on Lin Zhentian's face was completely frozen. He looked down at the two-meter-wide hole at his feet, the surrounding stone still crumbling into the abyss.
Three seconds later, a muffled thud echoed from deep underground. It wasn't loud, but the entire estate jumped.
The second sound was three times heavier. Cracks spread from the hole in all directions, moving faster than the eye could follow.
The third sound wasn't a thud—it was a rupture.
The ley line node had been detonated. Forty meters below the manor, five hundred years of accumulated ley line energy, catalyzed by the missile's explosive arrays, went critical. It surged back through the seven branch lines, snapping every connection instantly.
The dark-gold dome overhead trembled violently.
Runes began to shatter, one by one. Golden dust fell like snow, landing on the soldiers' armor and on Lin Zhentian's head.
Fissures raced from the apex down to the base.
Lin Zhentian stared up at the collapsing barrier, his lips trembling, unable to squeeze out a single word.
The dome shattered. The entire dark-gold barrier exploded into countless points of light in the same second, raining down from the sky.
Five hundred years of heritage. One missile. Four seconds.
The fifteen thousand people in the square fell into a collective silence.
Lin Cangqiong, atop the ancestral hall, finally opened his eyes. The old man's pupils shifted, watching the falling golden shards. It took him one second to comprehend what had happened, and then he stood up.
His white hair flared out. A visible wave of dark-gold Battle Qi exploded from him, pulverizing every roof tile within thirty meters. The old man shoved his palms forward, and a twenty-meter-wide Battle Qi shield materialized in the air, hanging over the manor.
The soldiers in the square felt the crushing pressure of the shield; some felt their knees buckle.
Lin Yuan didn't give him a chance for a second move.
"Self-propelled Artillery Battery."
Lin Yuan raised his hand.
"Three rounds, rapid fire."
His hand dropped.
"Plow the earth."
On the outskirts of the estate, the muzzles of fifty 155mm self-propelled howitzers rose simultaneously to their preset angles.
Boom.
The first volley. Fifty high-explosive fragmentation shells arched across the sky. Twelve of them slammed into Lin Cangqiong's Battle Qi shield. The fire of the explosions was held back by the shield, but nearly a quarter of the kinetic impact was borne by the old man alone. The roof ridge beneath him crumbled inch by inch, and he sank half a foot into the structure, but he held.
The remaining thirty-eight shells landed in the middle of the knight phalanx. As the fireballs rose, the shockwaves tossed knights and horses into the air like toys. Enchanted armor meant nothing in the face of high-explosive shells; shrapnel shredded the plates and carved into flesh. Every soldier within the blast radii fell.
Eight seconds later, the second volley. The impact zone shifted fifty meters back, covering the guard's shield formation. Two-meter-high pavises were flipped by the air pressure, sent tumbling along with the men holding them. Another dozen shells concentrated on Lin Cangqiong's position. Blood leaked from the old man's mouth, cracks appeared across the giant shield, and the dark-gold light began to flicker.
The third volley. The impact zone continued to shift back, sweeping the remnants.
Lin Cangqiong's Battle Qi shield shattered. The remaining shells screamed through the fragments of light and slammed into the ancestral hall. The old man was thrown through the air, crashing through the roof of the hall and disappearing into the ruins. No sound came from the rubble.
Three volleys. Less than thirty seconds. The entire front half of the Lin estate had been turned over by iron and fire. The ground was nothing but craters, rubble, and scattered remains. Fewer than three hundred people remained standing.
Dark Gold rank. Three volleys.
The firelight reflected on Lin Yuan's face as he looked down from his turret.
At the edge of the ruins, a hand reached out from beneath the broken bricks.
The dark-gold armor was mostly shattered, the remaining pieces scorched and twisted. The protective Battle Qi layer inside the armor was so dim it was almost invisible—Lin Zhentian had funneled every drop of his Qi into the armor at the final moment to avoid being torn to pieces. But that was all he could manage.
Lin Zhentian crawled out of the debris, his left leg dragging behind him—the lower half of his leg bent at an unnatural angle. His face was covered in blood, half his hair burned away, and his right eye had been slashed by a shard, leaving blood matted across half his face.
Lin Zhentian looked up.
Lin Yuan's military boot landed in front of him. The sole pressed down on Lin Zhentian's face, grinding the half of it that was still intact into the dirt and rubble.
Lin Zhentian let out a muffled, choked groan.
Lin Yuan squatted down. He brought his cigar close to Lin Zhentian's remaining left eye, the red glow of the ember reflecting in the bloodshot pupil.
"Now," Lin Yuan said. "I ask. You answer."