The scarred woman's ultimatum hung in the sulfur-tinged air. Dawn tomorrow. The Great Maw. Alone.
Ming's hair burst into a silent, furious inferno, painting the cracked ground with flickering orange light. "It's a trap! They'll take you and kill Kai anyway!"
Ren shrank deeper into the shadows, his small voice trembling. "They have formations there… big ones. I can feel them from here. Walls of… quiet."
Ling Xiao stood motionless, his mind a vortex of conflicting patterns. The planetary countdown thrummed in his bones: 6 DAYS, 23 HOURS. The straight line path was clear: he had one week to attempt the impossible at the planet's heart. Walking into the Alliance's strongest fortress was a detour into certain death or capture.
But another pattern, just as compelling, played behind his eyes: Kai's stubborn face as he volunteered to be the diversion. The weight of his stony hand on Ling Xiao's shoulder after a hard lesson. The unspoken oath Ling Xiao had made when they'd followed him out of the tunnels: protector.
He couldn't save the planet if he abandoned what it meant to be human. Feng had died for a message. Li Ming had died for a distraction. He would not let Kai die as bait.
"We're not waiting for dawn," Ling Xiao said, his voice quiet but final. "We're going now. And we're not walking in the front gate."
·
The Alliance headquarters wasn't a castle; it was a fortification built into and around the Great Maw—the single largest spirit stone mine on the continent, a gash in the earth miles wide and unfathomably deep. It was the nerve center of the planetary crisis, and thus, the most heavily defended point on the surface.
From a precarious perch on a neighboring cliff, they watched. The perimeter thrummed with layered formations: shimmering domes of force, forests of crystalline detection spires, and patrols of elite cultivators moving with machinelike precision. At the center, the Maw itself glowed with an ugly, artificial blue light—the glow of the Star-Seer extraction arrays, sunk deep into the planet's flesh.
"Impossible," Ming whispered, her fire guttering low in awe and fear.
"Nothing is impossible," Ling Xiao murmured, his eyes not seeing the defenses, but reading the patterns of energy flow. "It's a system. All systems have inputs, outputs, and waste."
He pointed. "See the conveyor lines carrying raw stone from the deep pits to the refineries? And the waste slurry being pumped out into those containment lakes? That's a flow. A chaotic one, filled with rock dust, residual energy, and misery. It's beneath their notice."
Ren perked up, his shadowy senses extending. "The slurry pipes… they go under the outer wall. The formations there are weaker. For… corrosion shielding."
A plan, desperate and vile, formed. They would not go over or through the walls. They would go with the waste.
They found a runoff stream fed by the slurry lakes, a toxic, greyish river that stank of crushed minerals and spiritual stagnation. Ling Xiao used his Chaos Breathing to draw the ambient misery of the place into a thin shell around them, masking their own signatures with the location's pervasive despair. Ren wrapped them in shadows that mimicked the water's oily sheen. Ming kept their body heat contained to a bare minimum.
They slipped into the foul stream and let the current carry them toward a grille where a massive pipe disgorged waste under the fortress wall. The anti-intrusion formations here were designed to detect spiritual breaches or physical force, not to scrutinize the miserable flow they were meant to contain.
Ling Xiao focused his Disruption Field to its finest point, not to break the grille's formation, but to temporarily mimic its "permission" for the slurry to pass. For three seconds, the grille read their group as a chunk of inert, toxic sludge.
They were through, vomiting up bitter water inside a maintenance tunnel deep within the fortress.
The interior was a study in panicked order. Cultivators ran through halls with scrolls and crystals, their voices tense. Broadcast orbs repeated calming messages about "containment protocols" and "stabilization efforts," but the energy in the air was one of grim triage.
Using Ren's ability to sense attention and Ling Xiao's pattern-reading to avoid patrol routes, they moved like ghosts through the bustling complex. Ling Xiao followed the fading, familiar resonance of Kai's earthy chaos, a faint tremor beneath the overwhelming ordered signals.
It led them not to a dungeon, but to a secure data-analysis chamber labeled Projections & Evacuation Timelines. The door was sealed, but through a crystal viewing port, they saw Kai. He was not in a cell. He was suspended in a cylindrical energy field, his stone-skin actively being scanned by complex machinery. Data streams flowed around him, and several high-ranking Alliance officials were observing, including the scarred woman—Commander Lira.
"—chaos output is consistent and potent," a technician was saying. "If we wire him directly into the primary extraction array as a supplemental buffer, we can increase the energy draw by fifteen percent. It will shave another twelve hours off our evacuation window for the elite contingents."
A man in lavish gold-trimmed robes, the nominal Alliance Leader—Elder Huang—nodded gravely. "A necessary sacrifice. The Storm-Reader himself would be ideal, but this will suffice. Proceed with the integration. And keep the bait active at the gate until dawn. If the primary anomaly takes it, all the better."
Ling Xiao's blood ran cold. They weren't just using Kai as bait. They were using him as a battery to fuel their escape.
But the greater horror came next. Elder Huang gestured to a massive, holographic map of the planet. "Confirm the final evacuation list. Core Formation elders and above from contributing sects, their direct bloodline descendants, Star-Seer Alliance personnel, and essential technical staff. All others are to be considered… non-essential for the continuity of ordered cultivation."
A subordinate cleared his throat. "The mortals, Elder? The billions in the cities and farms? The lower-realm disciples?"
Elder Huang's face showed no more emotion than a man discussing crop rotation. "The spatial arks have limited capacity. The foundation of our future must be pure, strong, and orderly. The chaotic die-off of the unstable masses is… regrettable, but inherent to the planet's condition. We did not cause the instability; we are merely acting as stewards of what can be saved."
The sheer, bald evil of it stole Ling Xiao's breath. They knew. They knew the planet was dying, and they were using its last moments to loot its core and save only themselves, blaming him for the disaster.
He saw Ming's fists clench, her hair threatening to flare. He placed a calming hand on her shoulder, his own rage a cold, focused point.
They needed Kai, and they needed proof.
While the officials were distracted, Ling Xiao focused on the door lock. It was a complex spiritual seal. He couldn't break it quietly. But Ren, understanding his glance, pointed a trembling finger at a nearby ventilation duct. The grate was fastened with simple screws, overlooked.
They slipped into the duct, crawling over the chamber, and dropped silently from a ceiling panel behind the preoccupied technicians.
Ling Xiao moved. He didn't attack the people. He touched the console connected to Kai's suspension field. He poured a thread of chaotic energy into it, not to destroy, but to persuade the machine that its containment protocols were satisfied and its subject could be released for "transport."
The field flickered and died. Kai dropped to the floor, gasping.
Alarms didn't sound immediately—the system thought it was following a command.
"You!" Commander Lira spun, her lightning-spear flashing to life.
There was no time for stealth. "Get the data!" Ling Xiao shouted to Ming, shoving Kai toward Ren. "From that main console! Everything!"
He turned to face Lira and Elder Huang. He didn't have Feng's sword skills. But he had the element of catastrophic surprise.
As Lira lunged, Ling Xiao didn't dodge the spear. He let its tip enter his Chaos Disruption Field. The perfectly ordered lightning energy encountered local lawlessness and diffused into a shower of harmless sparks. Lira stared, stunned for a critical second.
Elder Huang raised a hand. "Foolish child. You interrupt the salvation of our race." A wave of crushing spatial pressure filled the room, aiming to immobilize them all.
Ling Xiao did the only thing he could think of. He redirected his field, not to protect himself, but to envelop the main holographic projector and the primary data crystal array. He poured chaos into ordered data storage.
The planet map flickered, replaced by screaming static. Then, raw, corrupted data streams burst forth—classified schematics of the Star-Seer extraction arrays, internal memos about "acceptable core stress levels," mining yield reports that showed exponential increases over the last century.
One document flashed, clear as day, before the system died:
"Conclusion: Unrestricted high-yield extraction from primary planetary spirit veins (Project Deepdrill) has induced critical fractures in the planetary core matrix. Collapse is inevitable within a dec— (DATA CORRUPTED)"
The irony was a physical blow. Their sacred "Order," their pursuit of pure energy, had been the poison all along.
"You… you mined the world to death," Ling Xiao breathed, the truth a weapon in his hand.
Elder Huang's face darkened from serenity to fury. "A necessary resource for ascension! The weak planet was always destined to be used by the strong! You are a symptom, not the cause! Guards! Seize them! Scrub this entire sector!"
Alarms finally blared. Doors slammed open. They were out of time.
"Go!" Ling Xiao yelled. Ming slammed a fist onto the console, absorbing a final burst of data into a fire-hardened crystal she'd ripped from the machine. They ran for the maintenance tunnel, Ling Xiao throwing up a roiling, chaotic barrier behind them to slow the pursuit.
They fled back through the pipes, the fortress erupting into chaos behind them. They burst out of the slurry stream, filthy and gasping, as the first true light of dawn touched the sky.
They had Kai. They had the truth, burning in Ming's crystal.
Panting on the riverbank, Kai looked at Ling Xiao, his eyes full of a new, grim understanding. "They're leaving everyone to die."
Before Ling Xiao could respond, a new, deeper vibration shook the earth—not a natural tremor. It was a coordinated, massive energy surge from deep within the Great Maw. A sound like a continent-sized engine powering up.
High above, on the fortress spires, giant spatial gates began to tear open, glowing with ominous light. The Alliance wasn't waiting for the core to collapse.
They were launching their arks. Now.
---
END OF CHAPTER 22