The news report was a death knell.
Heading East. It is moving fast, into the eastern suburban sectors.
Lin Hao was out of his chair before the anchor woman had finished the sentence. He was no longer a planner. He was no longer a patient, hidden boss.
He was a brother.
He didn't grab his mask. He didn't grab his robes. He grabbed the keys to his mortal, black sedan and sprinted out of the warehouse. His [Level 7]-enhanced body cleared the 50 feet to the door in two strides. He was in the car, the engine roaring to life, in less than three seconds.
His [Level 6] senses, his High-Grade Gongfa-enhanced mind, made him a perfect, superhuman driver. He flew through the derelict, empty streets of the industrial park, his tires smoking, his internal monologue a cold, sharp, repeating mantra.
Not fast enough. Not fast enough. Not fast enough.
He hit the main highway, the one that led from the city's industrial sector to the eastern suburbs. He was pushing 120 miles per hour, his "Marrow-Cleansed" reflexes allowing him to weave between the few other late-night cars as if they were standing still.
He was making impossible time.
And then he hit the off-ramp.
And the world stopped.
It was a wall. A solid, unmoving, three-lane wall of cars. The entire eastern suburb, in a single, unified, animal panic, had decided to evacuate.
It was a parking lot.
Horns blared, a chaotic, useless, screaming symphony of terror. People were out of their cars, running on the shoulder, their faces pale in the red, flashing taillights.
He was stuck. He, a Level 7 cultivator, was stuck in traffic.
"No... no, no, no, NO!"
He slammed his fist onto the steering wheel.
CRUNCH.
The wheel, a solid core of steel and hard plastic, didn't just bend. It collapsed. It folded in on itself under the "light" tap of his [Level 4: Bone Forged] strength, his hand sinking a full six inches into the dashboard.
He stared at the ruined column, his chest heaving. The car, his mortal tool of speed, was now a useless, metal prison.
He couldn't get through. He couldn't drive.
And he couldn't, as "Lin Hao, the Campus Hero," get out of his car, leap onto the roof of the minivan in front of him, and start running. His "Level 2" persona, the identity he had so carefully crafted, was a cage.
He grabbed the duffel bag from his passenger seat. It contained his real life.
He kicked the door open, the hinges screaming as they bent. He didn't bother with the crowd. He sprinted, a "panicked civilian," off the highway, vaulting a chain-link fence and landing in the dark, silent alley between two suburban houses.
He was hidden. He was alone.
He tore the bag open. His hands were shaking, not with fear, but with a cold, desperate, unleashed rage.
He ripped off his mortal "Lin Hao" clothes.
He pulled on the "Concealment Robe." The black, shadow-like fabric settled on his shoulders, and he felt his [Level 7] aura, his blazing, cultivator's presence, vanish. It was sealed, locked away.
He then grabbed the smooth, gray, featureless void that was his "Perception-Filter Mask."
He put it on.
He was no longer "Lin Hao." He was a ghost. He was an "Expert," an anonymous power, free to act.
He was about to leap to the roof, to finally move, when his mortal phone, the one in the pocket of his new robes, began to vibrate.
He froze.
He pulled it out. The screen, illuminated in the dark alley, read:
Lin Meng
His [Level 7: Viscera Fortified] heart, his "Internal Shield," which he thought was now as tough as iron, seized. It was a cold, agonizing, vice-like grip.
He answered the call. He didn't speak. He just listened.
He heard screaming.
It wasn't just her. It was his mother, a high-pitched, ululating wail of pure terror in the background.
"Lin Hao!" his sister, Lin Meng, shrieked. Her voice was a wet, broken, weeping mess. "Lin Hao, it's here! It's... it's in the neighborhood!, We're... we're stuck in the house! Dad's trying to...
ROOOOAAAAARRRR!
The sound was not in the background. It was loud. It was close. It was a full-throated, [Level 5: Blood Vitality] roar that was so powerful, the phone's microphone distorted into a blast of pure, digital static.
"...stuck in the house!" she screamed again, her voice breaking. "It's on our street! It's... oh god, it's here!"
The line didn't drop. All he could hear was his sister, his proud, naive, [Level 3]-talent sister, dissolving into pure, hysterical, sobbing.
Lin Hao, the man in the gray mask, stood in the dark alley.
His 9330 UP. His "locked" realm. His "prodigy" rivals. His "exponential loop." His entire, meticulous, long-term plan...
It all evaporated.
There was no plan. There was no "hidden boss." There was no "Lin Hao."
There was only a brother, a monster, and the ten-block distance between them.
He looked at the two-story house at the end of the alley. He looked at its roof.
He put the phone in his pocket, his sister's sobbing still echoing in his ear.
He bent his knees.
He didn't run. He didn't climb.
He unleashed his [Level 7] power for the first time, not as a test, not as a performance, but as a weapon.
FWOOM.
He didn't just jump. He exploded upward, a silent, black-robed, gray-masked cannonball. He shot twenty feet into the air, the wind from his passage rattling the garbage cans below.
He landed on the roof of the house without a sound, his Level 7 body absorbing the impact as if it were nothing.
He was no longer driving. He was no longer human.
He was a Level 7 cultivator, in his full, anonymous war gear, and he was flying across the rooftops of his hometown.