At Fuzhou No. 7 High School, the name Wei Heng had become a legend overnight, though not the kind he would have chosen. News of a third-year student founding an A-Rank Guild with a 200-million-yuan endowment spread like wildfire. In the hallways and classrooms, whispers followed him like a shadow.
"That's him, Wei Heng." "I heard he's the illegitimate son of a billionaire." "No, my friend said he won an interdimensional lottery." "He never even stood out in class. How is this possible?"
Wei Heng ignored it all with a placid calm that only further unsettled his classmates. To them, this was the pinnacle of their existence. To Wei Heng, it was merely a minor distraction, background noise in the grand symphony he was composing. As his chemistry teacher droned on about covalent bonds, Wei Heng's mind was elsewhere, reviewing the progress of his pillars and calculating the variables for his next move.
'Titan is building his foundation. Oracle is mapping the digital world. Lifeweaver is unlocking the secrets of monster biology,' he thought, his gaze vacant on the whiteboard. 'The Shield, the Eye, and the Hand are in place. Now... Aegis needs its sword.'
His mind settled on the fourth name on his list, the most unstable and dangerous case of them all.
Target Profile: Chen Ling.
Codename: Valkyrie.
Age: 18.Current Occupation: Fugitive, homeless.
Known Affiliations: None.
Original Timeline Awakening: Latent S-Rank Uncontrolled Combat Enhancement.
Original Timeline Fate: Captured by the Iron Fist Clan after causing massive collateral damage. Turned into a mentally unstable living weapon, eventually dying on a suicide mission.
Wei Heng remembered Chen Ling's tragedy with perfect clarity. A girl whose power awakened in a panic to protect her family from a monster attack, only to lose control and accidentally injure the very people she sought to save. Cast out by her terrified parents, she fled, living in fear of her own power, a volatile, explosive curse she tried to suppress at every moment.
'Her power is a blade without a hilt,' Wei Heng concluded. 'They saw a monster. I see a perfect weapon, waiting to be forged.'
This time, he would not go alone. This was a test for his first pillar.
Gao Qiang stood in Fuzhou's old port district, a labyrinth of abandoned warehouses and narrow alleys that smelled of salt and desperation. He felt awkward in his new, clean clothes and the phone Wei Heng had given him. A few weeks ago, he would have been here working a night shift, too tired to think of anything but his next meal. Now, he was here on a mission for his master, his body thrumming with the warm, steady power of Qi.
Wei Heng's instructions had been clear: "Find Chen Ling. She is being hunted. The Iron Fist Clan has tracked her down. They don't want to recruit her; they want to cage her. Do not fight them. Do not harm anyone. Your mission is to protect her and extend our offer. Be a shield, not a sword."
Gao Qiang had spent his life using his physical might to break things. The idea of using it purely for defense was new, a challenge that tested Wei Heng's teachings of control.
He found Chen Ling cornered in a dead-end alley. She was thin and grimy, her eyes wild with fear and hunger. Before her stood five members of the Iron Fist Clan, tough-looking men with predatory smirks. They weren't wearing their official guild uniforms; this was an off-the-books operation.
"Nowhere left to run, little girl," their leader, a burly man with a scarred face, said. "Come with us quietly, and we might not have to break your legs."
"Stay away from me!" Chen Ling screamed, her voice hoarse with panic.
Gao Qiang saw the signs—the vibration in the air, the unstable aura of energy radiating from the girl. She was a bomb about to go off. He had to act now.
He stepped out of the shadows, his large frame blocking the alley's entrance. "Leave her alone," Gao Qiang said, his voice calm and deep.
The Iron Fist hunters turned, startled. They sized him up—a big kid, unarmed and wearing no combat gear.
"Who are you? Her boyfriend?" the leader sneered. "Step aside, kid, before you get hurt."
Gao Qiang didn't move. He planted his feet, settling into the stance of the 'Unmoving Mountain Foundation Method,' and channeled his Qi throughout his body. He wasn't preparing to attack. He was preparing to endure. He became a mountain.
The leader lost his patience. "Take him out."
Two guild members rushed forward, their fists crackling with enhanced energy. Gao Qiang didn't raise a hand to strike back. He simply crossed his arms over his chest. The blows landed with the sickening, meaty thuds of flesh hitting stone. Gao Qiang didn't even budge. He absorbed the force of the punches, channeling it into the ground beneath him. The attackers stumbled back, their hands shaking from the impact.
"What the hell?" the leader muttered, his eyes widening.
Chen Ling stared in disbelief. This huge man was taking blows that would have cracked concrete without blinking. He wasn't fighting back. He was just... standing there. Protecting her.
"I won't say it again," Gao Qiang said, his voice still calm. "Leave her alone."
Enraged, the leader drew an energy pistol. "If you won't move, I'll put a hole through you!"
He fired. A sizzling beam of blue energy shot across the alley. Gao Qiang didn't dodge. He just shifted his stance slightly, and the beam struck him in the shoulder. There was a hiss of burning fabric and the smell of seared flesh, but he remained standing. He didn't even flinch. The pain was sharp, but the Qi within him was already at work, dulling the impact, beginning the healing process.
Behind him, Chen Ling gasped. This man had taken a bullet for her.
The Iron Fist hunters froze, thoroughly intimidated. They were brawlers, not soldiers. They were here to bag a scared girl, not fight an indestructible monster who didn't even care about energy blasts.
"She's not worth this," one of them said, his voice strained.
The leader looked at Gao Qiang, then at Chen Ling, and spat on the ground in disgust. "Fine. You can have her. But when she blows up and takes out half the district, that's on you."
They retreated, melting back into the shadows.
The alley fell silent. Gao Qiang finally relaxed his stance, letting out a shaky breath as the adrenaline faded. His shoulder throbbed. He turned to face Chen Ling, who was now staring at him with a mixture of fear and confusion.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"My name is Gao Qiang," he said, his voice gentle. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to help."
He held out a large, unthreatening hand. "My master knows about your power. He doesn't see a monster. He sees potential. He can teach you to control it. He's offering you a home."
In her office, Lin Xia read the incoming report. A disturbance in the port district. An unidentified girl with unstable power surges. And the intervention of a single individual. Eyewitness descriptions were vague, but consistent on one point: a large man who seemed impervious to pain, who didn't fight back but simply stood as a human shield. No known guild affiliation.
"Aegis," she whispered. It had to be. Wei Heng wasn't just registering a name; he was actively recruiting these powerful unknowns. Ghosts moving in the shadows. Her grandfather was right. Wei Heng's actions were far more revealing than his absurd identity.
She pulled up Wei Heng's file again, staring at the unremarkable face of the high school student. The puzzle was deepening, and the stakes were getting higher.
Chen Ling followed Gao Qiang to the luxurious loft with trepidation. Every instinct in her screamed that this was a trap. But the man who brought her here had taken a bullet for her. He had shown no aggression, only a quiet, protective strength.
She stepped inside and saw him. Wei Heng. He was standing by the window, turning to face her. He looked younger than Gao Qiang, just a boy. But his eyes... his eyes were the oldest things she had ever seen.
He didn't look at her with fear, as her parents had. He didn't look at her with greed, as the Iron Fist hunters had. He looked at her with the calm appraisal of a master smith examining a powerful but flawed blade.
"Chen Ling," he said, his voice resonating with an authority that belied his age.
She flinched, ready to run, ready to let the power inside her explode.
"Peace," Wei Heng said. "I will not harm you. Nor will I cage you."
He took a single step closer, and his calm gaze seemed to quell the storm that always raged within her.
"They call your power a curse," he said, his words cutting directly to the heart of her fear. "I will teach you how to make it a gift."
In the boy's eyes, Chen Ling saw not a captor or a master. She saw the only way out she had ever been offered. She saw hope.
The sword of Aegis had been found. Now, its forging would begin.