Two weeks of perfect tyranny.
Wang Chao now lived in the Azure Spire's underground garage.
Uniform: cheap polyester, name tag that read "Driver #3".
Every morning he polished the Rolls until he could see his own dead eyes in the paint, then opened the door for the man who ended his bloodline.
Students filmed it daily. The clip trended under #FallenPrince.
Xiao Yan's new office was a windowless cubicle on the 3rd floor.
Her job: hand-write a 500-page ledger titled
"Complete List of Every Person Who Ever Looked Down on Lin Feng, Ranked by How Much They Will Cry."
She wrote in perfect calligraphy, tears occasionally smudging the ink.
When she delivered the pages to the penthouse she knelt, forehead to marble, until dismissed.
Li Wei alone walked with her head high.
COO of Phoenix Legacy.
She had already cured three "incurable" diseases in secret labs funded by pocket change.
Lin Feng watched her work and felt something dangerously close to peace.
Then he got bored.
Observation deck, 88th floor.
Midnight. City lights like a circuit board.
Lin Feng placed both palms on his own chest.
DING!
Godhand → Target: Self (SSS-Rank Vessel)
Core concept extracted: System Integration
Refined → Absolute Refinement (SSS++)
All existing skills are permanently optimised. Efficiency → ∞. Flaws → 0.
New passive: Reality Coefficient = Host Will.
He exhaled once.
The city's power grid dipped for 0.3 seconds, then stabilised stronger than before.
His power no longer leaked.
It obeyed.
The next afternoon he walked the university botanical gardens for the first time without suppressing anything.
Bamboo pavilion.
Qin Yue sat in full lotus, breathing so perfectly that the air itself seemed to kneel.
Hidden Realm cultivation: Late-stage Foundation Establishment, edging toward Core Formation.
In mortal terms, it could kill an armoured battalion with a paper fan.
Her eyes snapped open the instant his foot touched the stone path.
Jade green, ancient, and instantly hostile.
"You're the anomaly," she said, voice like winter wind across steel.
"Two weeks ago the city's Qi screamed. A corporation died in eight seconds. That ripple reached the ancestral grounds. The elders are… displeased."
She rose. Silk robes whispered like blades leaving sheaths.
"Name yourself, rogue cultivator."
Lin Feng smiled the small, polite smile he used right before planets cracked.
"Lin Feng. No clan. No sect. Just a rental agreement with downstairs."
He let the Shroud drop by 0.01 %.
The temperature in the garden plummeted fifteen degrees.
Every leaf flash-frosted.
Qin Yue's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Because what she felt wasn't Qi.
It was an absence.
A hole in reality wearing human skin.
She reacted instantly; lethal tranquillity palm strike, invisible, fast enough to punch through tank armour; aimed at his heart meridian to cripple, not kill.
It never landed.
Lin Feng didn't move.
Absolute Adaptation triggered passively.
Attack registered → countered → absorbed → refined.
The invisible palm force reversed mid-flight, wrapped itself around Qin Yue's own meridians like frozen chains, and squeezed.
She dropped to one knee, blood trickling from the corner of her perfect lips.
One heartbeat. That was all it took.
Lin Feng crouched, eye-level.
"I don't cultivate Qi," he said conversationally.
"I cultivate consequences."
He placed two fingers under her chin, tilted her face up.
Devil's Charm at 3 % power; just enough for truth serum.
"Tell your elders the city has a new apex predator.
If they want to test the food chain, I'll come personally.
I'll even bring snacks."
He released her and stood.
Qin Yue stayed kneeling, frost spreading from her knee across the stone.
For the first time in her life, the untouchable heiress felt small.
Lin Feng turned to leave, then paused.
"Oh. One more thing."
He flicked a finger.
DING!
Digital Dominion → remote intrusion
Target: Qin Clan ancestral formation (coordinates auto-scanned from her muscle memory)
A single character appeared, burned into the marble between them in ancient seal script:
林 (Lin)
Underneath, in real time, the Qin Clan's thousand-year protective formation, covering three mountain ranges, cracked like old ice.
Somewhere far away, eighteen hidden elders spat blood in unison.
Lin Feng walked away.
Behind him, Qin Yue stared at the burning character, jade eyes wide with something that hadn't existed in her bloodline for six centuries.
Fear.
DING!
First Hidden Clan registered as hostile.
Hidden quest unlocked:
[Dragon Slaying Season]
Subdue or shatter every Ancient Clan within 1000 km.
Bonus: Collect their heiresses (loyalty ≥ 90 %)
Reward: Early Devil Evolution + title "Heaven Defier"
Lin Feng stepped out of the garden.
Wang Chao was already holding the Rolls door open, head bowed.
"Drive," Lin Feng said. "We're going shopping for a bigger cage."
As the Ghost purred to life, his phone buzzed; Li Wei.
Message:
"Grandmother is awake and asking for you. Also… eighteen hidden realm distress signals just lit up the dark web. Whatever you did, they felt it in their souls."
Lin Feng smiled at the city lights.
Good.
Let them feel it.
The Devil's rental clock kept ticking.
99 years, 350 days, 9 hours…
Plenty of time to break heaven itself.