The dust of the Loess Plateau did not just settle; it claimed things. It claimed the ancient machines of the Old World, the bones of the unburied, and the memories of those who lived before the Spires. But as Jia-Hao led his small convoy toward the northern horizon, the dust seemed to part.
He rode atop a modified Steam-Walker, its iron legs now sheathed in the shimmering green "Spire-Glass" Aris had cultivated. Behind him followed Lin-Na and a squad of Mandate Guards, their silver-green scales reflecting the harsh midday sun. They were heading for the Tent-City of the Gale, the moving capital of the Nomadic Khanate.
[SYSTEM STATUS: LEVEL 6 (ASCENDANT)] [OBJECTIVE: SECURE THE BLOOD-BOND ALLIANCE] [GRACE PERIOD: 26 DAYS REMAINING]
"You are quiet, Jia-Hao," Lin-Na said. She was riding a "Dust-Strider," a long-legged mechanical beast they had bartered from the refugees. Her bow was slung across her back, but her hand never strayed far from the hilt of her Alloy knife.
"The System is calculating the Khan's temperament," Jia-Hao replied, his voice sounding like two stones rubbing together. "The Administration Pillar says there is a 64% chance he will try to kill me before I speak. He is a man of the old ways. To him, my 'Green Miracle' is a threat to the nomadic life. If the grass doesn't die, why move? If you don't move, you aren't a Nomad."
"Then don't talk to him like a System," Lin-Na said, her eyes softening. "Talk to him like a grandson. Talk to him about the hunger."
Jia-Hao looked at his hands. The metallic sheen was becoming more pronounced. He wondered if he still knew how to speak like a grandson.
The Sea of Crimson Felt
The Khan's camp appeared not as a city, but as a scar of crimson across the white salt-flats. Thousands of yurts made of heavy, dyed felt stretched for miles. In the center stood the Iron-Ger, a massive structure built from the repurposed hull of a pre-Collapse cargo plane.
As they approached, a wall of riders erupted from the camp. These were not the broken scouts of the Wolf-King. These were the Gale-Riders of the Great Khan—men and women who lived in the saddle, their eyes sharp as hawks.
At their head was Batu-Khan. She raised her hand, halting the charge twenty paces from Jia-Hao.
"Sovereign," she said, her voice carrying a mixture of respect and warning. "My father is in a black mood. The 'Moss-Heart' you gave me... it grew too well. It turned his favorite grazing patch into a forest in three days. He says you are a sorcerer who wants to turn his warriors into farmers."
"I am a Sovereign who wants his warriors to have children who live past the age of ten, Batu," Jia-Hao said, dismounting.
He walked forward alone. The Gale-Riders parted for him, not because they were afraid, but because the Sovereign's Aura was pressing against them like an incoming tide. Every horse that passed him bowed its head, sensing the Ecology Pillar's connection to the earth.
The Iron-Ger of Temujin-II
Inside the Iron-Ger, the air was thick with the smell of fermented mare's milk and burning charcoal. Sitting on a throne of wolf-skulls was a man who looked like he had been forged from the plateau's own granite. This was Temujin-II, the Great Khan.
His arms were thick as tree trunks, covered in scars from a hundred skirmishes. Beside him lay a massive curved sword that pulsed with a dull, red heat—a "Heat-Blade" scavenged from a fallen High-Blood General decades ago.
"So," the Khan growled, his voice a low rumble. "The boy who stopped the sun comes to my tent. Do you know what we do to sorcerers in the North, Han Jia-Hao? We stake them to the ground and let the salt eat them."
"Then the salt would have a very expensive meal," Jia-Hao said, standing his ground.
[ANALYZING TARGET: TEMUJIN-II] [MARTIAL REFINEMENT: LEVEL 18 (WAR-LORD)] [THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME]
"You gave my daughter a gift," the Khan said, gesturing to a corner of the tent where a patch of vibrant green moss was growing directly out of the metal floor. "It is beautiful. It is life. But it is a cage. My people are the wind. We follow the dying grass because it keeps us moving. If the grass stays green, we become soft. We become like the High-Bloods, sitting in our white towers and forgetting the taste of the hunt."
"You aren't moving because of the wind, Khan," Jia-Hao countered. "You are moving because you are fleeing the Grave. The 'Sea of Dust' is growing every year. Soon, there will be no grass to follow, green or brown. Your people will die of thirst while they boast about their freedom."
The Khan stood up, his Heat-Blade igniting with a hiss. The air in the tent grew suffocatingly hot. "You dare lecture me on the survival of my people? I have seen three Spires fall! I have eaten the hearts of Judicators!"
"And yet you are afraid of a handful of moss," Jia-Hao said, stepping into the heat of the blade. He didn't draw his spear. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a single, dried grain—the Mandate-Seed.
"This is not just grass, Khan," Jia-Hao said, holding the seed out. "This is Bio-Infrastructure. It filters the radiation from the soil. It stores water in its roots during the dry moon. It doesn't cage you; it gives you a base from which to conquer the sky."
"Conquer the sky?" The Khan laughed. "We are dirt-crawlers. The Spire looks down on us like ants."
"The Spire is a parasite," Jia-Hao said, his eyes glowing gold. "It takes the earth's energy and gives nothing back. I am building a Network of the Soil. If the Khanate joins me, your riders will not just have grass; they will have 'Wind-Steeds' that never tire. They will have armor that the Spire's lasers cannot penetrate. We are not just surviving anymore, Temujin. We are reclaiming the world."
The Trial of the Five Venoms
The Khan looked at the seed, then at the boy's glowing eyes. He saw the "Slow Burn" of an ambition that made his own conquests look like petty brawls.
"A Blood-Bond is not earned with words, boy," the Khan said, sheathing his blade. "If you want the Khanate to bleed for you, you must first survive the Trial of the Five Venoms. It is how we test our leaders. If the Earth truly speaks through you, she will protect you."
"Jia-Hao, no!" Lin-Na shouted from the entrance of the tent, but the Gale-Riders blocked her path.
"What is the trial?" Jia-Hao asked.
"You must enter the Salt-Pit," Batu-Khan whispered, her face pale. "Five mutated creatures—the 'Venoms' of the plateau—are released into the dark. You have no weapons. You have no light. You must survive until the sun touches the Iron-Ger's roof."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: NEW QUEST - THE SALT-PIT TRIAL] [CONSTRAINT: MARTIAL PILLAR DEACTIVATED. USE ONLY ECOLOGY & MUSIC PILLARS.] [REWARD: ALLIANCE WITH THE KHANATE; UNLOCK 'ANIMAL REFINEMENT'.]
Jia-Hao felt the System's restriction like a cold chain around his soul. He could not use his strength. He could not use his spear. He had to face the monsters of the waste with only the "Song of the Soil."
"I accept," Jia-Hao said.
Into the Dark
The Salt-Pit was an ancient missile silo, its bottom filled with a foot of caustic white alkaline dust. Jia-Hao was lowered into the darkness by a rusted chain. The air down here was cold, smelling of rot and ancient chemicals.
As the heavy iron lid slammed shut above him, the silence was absolute.
Scratch. Click. Hiss.
The Five Venoms were not just animals. They were the "Failed Experiments" of the 2025 War—creatures whose DNA had been shattered and stitched back together by radiation.
The Bone-Spider: A creature the size of a dog with legs made of sharpened femur bones.
The Acid-Asp: A wingless serpent that exhaled a corrosive mist.
The Shadow-Cat: A feline whose skin absorbed all light, making it a living void.
The Salt-Leech: A bloated parasite that could drain a man's blood in seconds through the air.
The Hollow-Hog: A tusked beast with a sonic scream that could shatter glass.
Jia-Hao sat in the center of the pit. He didn't try to hide. He closed his eyes and began to hum.
[MUSIC PILLAR: 'THE LULLABY OF THE ANCESTORS'.]
He wasn't singing to the monsters. He was singing to the matter inside them. Even these abominations were made of the Earth's atoms. Even their twisted DNA had a frequency.
The Bone-Spider lunged first. Its skeletal legs clicked against the metal floor. Jia-Hao didn't move. As the creature reached the edge of his Sovereign's Aura, the frequency of his hum shifted.
[ECOLOGY PILLAR: 'GENETIC RESONANCE'.]
The Spider froze. Its central nervous system, built on a chaotic frequency, suddenly found a "Harmonic Anchor" in Jia-Hao's voice. The creature's aggression didn't disappear, but its confusion did. It stopped seeing Jia-Hao as prey and started seeing him as the "Queen-Signal."
One by one, the other Venoms approached. The Shadow-Cat circled him, its void-like fur rippling. The Hollow-Hog prepared its scream.
Jia-Hao poured his life-force into the song. He wasn't just humming; he was mapping their pain. He felt the hunger of the Leech, the burning throat of the Acid-Asp, the constant, jagged agony of the Spider's bone-legs.
"I see you," Jia-Hao whispered, his voice vibrating through the salt. "I feel the poison they put in you. The Spire made you monsters. I will make you Whole."
He reached out his hands. The Ecology Pillar flared with a soft, white light.
He wasn't terraforming the land; he was terraforming the life inside the pit. He used his Level 6 energy to bridge the gaps in their broken DNA, smoothing out the jagged edges of their mutations.
The Hollow-Hog's scream didn't happen. Instead, it let out a low, purring grunt. The Acid-Asp's mist turned from green to clear. The Shadow-Cat rubbed its head against his knee, its fur feeling like cold silk.
The Dawn of the Beast-Master
When the sun finally hit the roof of the Iron-Ger, the lid of the pit was opened.
Temujin-II and the Gale-Riders looked down, expecting to see a pile of bleached bones. Instead, they saw a miracle.
Jia-Hao stood in the center of the pit, the five "Venoms" sitting around him like loyal hounds. The Bone-Spider was weaving a web of Mandate-Silk across the walls. The Shadow-Cat was perched on his shoulder, its eyes now glowing with a calm, emerald light.
"He... he tamed the Venoms?" Batu-Khan gasped, her hand over her mouth.
"He didn't tame them," the Khan said, his voice full of a new, terrifying respect. "He rebuilt them."
Jia-Hao looked up, his eyes two burning suns of golden data. "The Trial is over, Khan. The Soil has spoken. Will you follow the Wind into the grave, or will you follow the Sovereign into the Sky?"
Temujin-II didn't answer with words. He drew his Heat-Blade and slashed his own palm. He knelt at the edge of the pit and let his blood drip onto the salt.
"By the Blood of the Gale and the Soul of the Soil," the Khan roared. "The Khanate is yours, Han Jia-Hao! Until the Spires fall or the Earth breaks, we ride for Xi-An!"
[QUEST COMPLETE: THE SALT-PIT TRIAL] [ALLIANCE SECURED: THE NOMADIC KHANATE (FACTION SYNC 100%)] [NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: 'CHIMERA REFINEMENT'.]
The Shadow of the Traitor
The return to Xi-An was a triumph. A thousand Gale-Riders accompanied the convoy, their crimson banners snapping in the wind. But as they entered the gates of the Green Zone, the Administration Pillar gave a sharp, discordant chime.
[WARNING: SECURITY BREACH DETECTED.] [LOCATION: THE ARCHIVE OF THE SOIL.] [IDENTITY: HIGH-BLOOD SIGNATURE DETECTED WITHIN THE MANDATE GUARD.]
Jia-Hao's heart grew cold. While he had been winning the North, a viper had been nesting in his home.
He didn't go to the celebration feast. He went straight to the Archive—the reinforced room where Aris was storing the decrypted codes from the Sovereign's License.
The door was ajar.
Inside, he found Aris slumped on the floor, his camera-eyes smashed. Standing over the central console was a figure in the silver-green armor of the Mandate Guard.
"Who are you?" Jia-Hao asked, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
the figure turned. It was Chen, one of the first refugees Jia-Hao had saved from the Iron-Wolves in Chapter 1. A man who had been a trusted scout for months.
But Chen's face was different. His eyes were not human; they were the liquid-silver of a High-Blood spy-drone.
"The Overseer sends his regards, Sovereign," Chen said, his voice sounding like a recording. "You were doing so well. You built a city. You won an army. But you forgot that the Spire doesn't just watch from above. It watches from within."
In Chen's hand was a "Data-Purge Spike"—a device that would delete the entire Mandate Network in seconds.
"I gave you a home, Chen," Jia-Hao said, stepping forward, his obsidian spear appearing in his hand.
"You gave me a cage of green," the spy replied. "The Spire offers me Ascension. What do you offer? Hard work? Dirt? The chance to die for a boy who thinks he's a god?"
Chen lunged for the console.
Jia-Hao didn't use the spear. He used the Neural Hegemony. He attempted to shut down the spy's motor functions.
[ERROR: TARGET IS SHIELDED BY 'SPIRE-ENCRYPTION'.]
Jia-Hao lunged, but he was too late. Chen slammed the spike into the console.
[CRITICAL ALERT: NETWORK COLLAPSE IMMINENT.] [FACTION STABILITY DROPPING: 90%... 70%... 50%...]
The green lights of the habitats began to flicker. The Sun-Oak shivered, its leaves turning brown at the edges. The Gale-Riders outside shouted in confusion as their "Wind-Steeds" sputtered and died.
"Lin-Na! Da-Wei!" Jia-Hao roared into the network.
Chen laughed, a hollow, mechanical sound. He pulled a concealed laser-dagger. "It's over, Jia-Hao. You can't lead an empire if you can't even keep the lights on."
Jia-Hao didn't look at the spy. He looked at the console. He saw the black data of the purge eating through the emerald codes of the Mandate.
He didn't try to stop the purge. He did something much more dangerous.
He grabbed the Data-Purge Spike with his bare hand and forced it into his own neural port—the one the System had grown at the base of his skull.
[WARNING! HOST ATTEMPTING 'MANUAL DATA FILTRATION'.] [RISK: TOTAL BRAIN DEATH.]
"Jia-Hao! No!" Lin-Na burst into the room, her bow drawn, but she froze at the sight of him.
Jia-Hao was arching his back, his eyes turning pure, blinding white. The black data was flowing into him instead of the network. He was using his own Ascendant brain as a sponge to soak up the virus.
"Aghhh!" Jia-Hao screamed, the sound echoing with the pain of ten thousand deleted files.
He turned his white eyes toward the spy.
[SOVEREIGN'S WAR-FORM: OVERLOAD MODE.]
A shockwave of pure information erupted from Jia-Hao. It didn't hit Chen's body; it hit his Ascension. The silver liquid in the spy's eyes boiled. The High-Blood connection was severed so violently that the man's head literally smoked.
Chen fell to the ground, dead before he hit the floor.
Jia-Hao collapsed, the Data-Purge Spike falling from his hand. The network stabilized. The green lights returned. The Sun-Oak breathed again.
But as Lin-Na knelt beside him, she saw that the price had been paid. The emerald lattice on Jia-Hao's skin was gone. His hair was completely white. And when he looked at her, he didn't see her name.
"Who..." Jia-Hao whispered, his voice sounding like static. "Who are you?"
[SYSTEM STATUS: SEVERE COGNITIVE FRAGMENTATION.] [MEMORY RECOVERY: 0.04%...] [GRACE PERIOD: 25 DAYS REMAINING.]
The Sovereign had won the Khanate, but he had lost himself. And the Spire was still watching.