“What?!”
Not only was Hualan stunned, but officials in the neighboring country were equally dumbfounded.
They never imagined that the Prime Minister, who claimed he was visiting the military base to boost morale, had actually secretly exercised his supreme authority as head of state, colluding with his Secretary-General to press the button that should never be pressed lightly.
Only then did they realize, to their horror, that the Prime Minister and his Secretary-General were both members of the organization. It was hard to believe—a nation’s leader had never before been exposed as a mole for a criminal group.
The launch command for the nuclear missile system couldn’t be reversed. Once fired, the missile would hit its target and detonate.
When soldiers burst into the room, neither the Prime Minister nor his Secretary-General put up any meaningless resistance. They raised their hands and quietly allowed themselves to be handcuffed and led away.
Yet the launched nuclear warhead was already speeding relentlessly toward Hualan’s capital, Yunjin Prefecture.
With no other choice, they could only immediately notify Hualan of the catastrophic news, urging them to find a countermeasure and minimize casualties.
“At a time like this…” Madam President clenched her fists tightly. Having no alternative, she opened her eyes, her gaze sharp and resolute. “Command the Atavist family members heading to Xiang Prefecture to abort their mission. They must remain within the prefecture to deal with this missile. We cannot allow it to touch the ground or detonate within our borders!”
Nuclear weapons remained the most feared arms on Earth. Beyond their terrifying blast yields, the true nightmare lay in the radiation that would linger for decades or centuries, poisoning generations to come. Atavists with lower purity levels could not withstand nuclear radiation either; in fact, the lasting effects on them could be even more devastating than on ordinary humans.
Yet precisely because Atavists existed, humanity still held a slender ray of hope when facing such a catastrophe.
Possessing nuclear weapons proved whether a nation was strong, but successfully neutralizing one measured whether a nation was truly a superpower.
Feng Yilian and the others had just boarded the airship, eagerly preparing to dive into the Ice Age Realm for the rescue mission, when an emergency recall order brought them to a dead halt.
“We have no choice! The neighboring Prime Minister was an organization mole—he just launched a nuclear missile at us!” the messenger reported in fury. Every Atavist who heard the news felt righteous rage ignite within them.
Hualan stood as the world’s preeminent superpower. No foreign power dared cross its borders lightly, let alone launch a nuclear strike. This act was a direct insult to every citizen of Hualan.
Had the neighboring government not swiftly arrested the Prime Minister and offered breathless apologies—swearing his actions did not reflect the nation’s will—the price they would have paid after this crisis would be beyond measure. Neither the central government nor the citizens of Hualan would ever let it slide.
“But if we all turn back, what about Xiao Jin and Qiu Fa?” Tang Qiaoqiao asked, her voice laced with hesitation.
Aside from Yunjin Prefecture’s Atavists, those from neighboring prefectures were ordered to rush to the capital as a contingency. The remaining Atavists had to defend their own cities. There was simply no spare personnel left for a rescue mission into another dimension, and ordinary humans could never survive those temperatures, even with cutting-edge thermal gear.
“Leave it to Xiang Prefecture. That’s our only option,” Feng Yilian sighed deeply. “Or… place our faith in Qiu Fa and Xiao Jin.”
The Wu family quickly moved into position. Wu Ying hurled her tortoise shell toward the sky. For generations, the Wu family had stood as the guardians of Hualan. As Atavist power surged into the shell, it expanded at a visible rate.
Yet expanding it enough to envelop Yunjin Prefecture—a massive territory housing over one hundred million people—required far more energy than the Wu family alone possessed. The strength of other Atavists was vital.
Thus, all Atavists originally bound for the Ice Age Realm redirected their path, racing back to Yunjin Prefecture.
Meanwhile, in Xiang Prefecture, within a spacious underground sewer intersection in the outskirts, three rift-breaking machines had already opened the portal to the Ice Age Realm.
Armed soldiers and police officers gathered in droves, all bundled in thick, self-heating high-tech thermal jackets, their breath pluming into white mist.
“The Atavists coming to help can’t make it. We’re on our own.”
“Even the elite soldiers would freeze in seconds. We can only hope Director Qiu is still alive and can walk out on his own.”
“The real issue is, how massive is that dimension? The organization is insidious. The rift might not even be anywhere near where they fell in—it could be hidden in some remote corner on the opposite side of that world!”
They knew the organization all too well. The rift was indeed opened at an immense distance from Qiu Fa and Jing Pei—far beyond sight or sound, on the opposite side of a frozen world roughly the size of Earth.
“We need a way to let them know the exit is here!”
They first tried lowering a plastic loudspeaker playing a looped recording—”Director Qiu, the exit is here!”—into the rift, but the device froze and shattered before even fully crossing the threshold.
Next, they wrapped a cutting-edge robot in self-heating thermal material and lowered it in on a pole. When they pulled it back out a second later, the machine had frozen so brittle that touching the ground shattered it into glass-like fragments.
“This isn’t working! Get the scientists on this! If we can’t send people in, we must at least broadcast a sound or signal Director Qiu can detect!”
They racked their brains in desperation, waging an entirely different kind of battle.
As the giant tortoise shell expanded across the sky, blocking out the sun, citizens jammed on streets and sidewalks—who had been nervously watching Lou Ting’s judgment ring approach—looked up in awe.
“What is that?”
“I know! That’s the Black Tortoise Clan’s shell! They say it’s the strongest defense in the world—it can even withstand a nuclear blast!”
“Is it meant to block the judgment ring?”
“How could it block that? Look, the ring is already passing through!”
“It must be for a nuclear missile!”
“What?! Are you crazy?! Where would a nuclear missile come from out of nowhere?!”
Yet as the shell grew larger, public suspicion drew closer to the truth, sparking widespread panic. Could a nuclear warhead really be incoming? Their nation had never suffered a nuclear attack, but they had seen the terrifying aftermath in other countries—the harrowing devastation and nuclear pollution that poisoned land and people for generations.
Lacking experience with such an emergency, no one knew if the tortoise shell could truly shield them, and chaos quickly erupted.
Chimes rang out from thousands of phones as emergency broadcast messages from the government arrived, urging calm. While many settled down upon reading the alert, opportunists seized the moment to spread rumors, stoking public anxiety into outright hysteria.
Vehicles barged recklessly through traffic, causing a chain of accidents. Stampedes broke out in several malls and plazas as terrified crowds fled, desperate to return home and huddle with their families.
Maintaining order, arresting fearmongers, and rescuing the injured required immense manpower. The police force was overwhelmed, forcing Tribunal Division Atavists and even military units originally bound for the southern coast to redirect their efforts toward riot control.
“Now is our chance,” Jiang Qing commanded. “Deploy the mercenaries to stall our pursuers, and slow the bubble’s movement speed until its signal wave stops fluctuating.”
The organization members, strung tight with tension, snapped out of their daze and frantically carried out his orders.
The mercenaries deployed smoothly through the exit hatch. Now safely outside Lou Ting’s judgment range, they felt no fear, viewing this mission as a chance to redeem themselves for bringing this crisis upon the organization.
Meanwhile, Yunjin Prefecture’s Atavists were pinned down by the nuclear threat, failing to rendezvous with the military in time. Though the military’s anti-Atavist weapons were formidable, the mercenaries only needed to delay the advance for a few minutes before diving into the ocean to escape—a far safer battlefield for them than land.
Under the cover of this chaos, the organization vanished from Hualan’s radar screens.
Hualan’s military knew the organization’s spatial bubble had slowed down, smoothing out its signal fluctuations. It remained within Hualan’s borders, floating silently in their airspace, yet pinning down its precise coordinates had once again become an impossible task.
The enemy mole’s true objective in launching the nuclear warhead had been achieved.
“At a time like this! Such convenient timing—it’s obvious someone tipped off the organization and coordinated this whole mess just so they could slip away!”
“Who could it be?”
A high-level mole was definitely lurking among them.
Inside the high-level briefing room, sharp, accusatory gazes darted across the table.
Just then, the official tasked with investigating the neighboring nation’s emergency call returned, his expression grim.
He looked toward Madam President’s Secretary-General, who stood gazing out the window, and spoke in a chilly voice, “The neighboring government confirmed they received an official call claiming Hualan requested military support, which enabled their Prime Minister to access the base and launch the missile. The person who made that call was Madam President’s Secretary-General.”
As the President’s longtime right hand and official representative, colluding with a foreign head of state made orchestrating such an operation child’s play.
Their shocked, disbelieving eyes fixed on the Secretary-General in silence.
Looking outside, she watched Lou Ting’s golden judgment light sweep over the glass facade of the opposite skyscraper. With the giant tortoise shell blocking the daylight, the golden radiance burned with blinding intensity.
She turned toward Madam President, her expression a complex tangle of emotions. “I am sorry, Excellency. I have failed your trust and expectations. But this was the purpose I was born for; I had to do it.”
Madam President stared at her in utter disbelief. She had watched this woman grow up, grooming her to be her successor. To think that she… she was…
“I am sorry,” the Secretary-General whispered again, her lips trembling as she closed her eyes.
As her words faded, Lou Ting’s golden light swept across the Central Government Building. Having knowledge of Jiang Qing’s operation, she had turned a blind eye and actively enabled the ambush.
Ding—
The golden Scales of Judgment materialized, drawing the Secretary-General onto one side.
Her sins were dragged from the depths of her soul: born inside the organization to high-ranking operatives, sent to an orphanage as a two-year-old spy, adopted by a decorated veteran colonel, and raised with full organization backing. She had climbed relentlessly—even murdering her strongest rival—until she reached the side of the nation’s leader.
Had this crisis not forced her exposure, she might have eventually become Hualan’s leader, just as her counterpart had in the neighboring nation.
The leader of the world’s sole superpower! When that day came, what force on Earth could have stood against the organization?
Yet even without reaching the presidency, her position had granted her terrifying influence. They had been on the verge of wiping out the organization’s leadership and averting doom, only for her sabotage to squander that golden opportunity!
The Secretary-General was burned to ash by karmic fire within the scales. Inside the briefing room, dead silence reigned.
Out at sea…
“We… we survived!”
“Haha! Fate is on our side!”
Inside the organization headquarters’ conference room, high-ranking executives collapsed onto the floor in relief as pursuers faded from view. Even Mr. Fei leaned against the table to steady himself. Their clothes were soaked with sweat; several executives clutched their chests on the floor, though no one bothered to check if they were alive.
Jiang Qing’s shirt was equally drenched, his posture disheveled, yet a wild, manic grin stretched across his face. Hahaha! You lost, Long Jin! You used yourself as bait, got yourself critically injured, and ended up trapped in the Ice Age Realm. You gambled your life, and for what? Our spatial bubble’s signal was tagged, sure, but as long as we move slowly and carefully from now on, we’re completely fine—virtually untouched!
In a game of Go, I’ve won by at least half a point.
“It’s a pity, though. Our most valuable mole—the one meant for the final stage—had to be burned,” one executive lamented.
“She saved headquarters! How can you call that a pity?”
“Exactly! Moles exist for moments just like this!”
The chatter faded from Jiang Qing’s ears. His expression slowly froze, his eyes narrowing as color drained from his face. No… could it be that Long Jin’s true objective was never to wipe out headquarters in one go, but rather…
“Excess branches are those that make a plant look lush on the outside, but actually steal nutrients from the main trunk, preventing it from bearing rich fruit. If you don’t prune them, you’ll get small, sparse fruit at best—or a complete crop failure at worst.”
Inside the Ice Age Realm, Qiu Fa trudged forward through howling blizzards and snow. Tucked against his heart, Jing Pei spoke softly to him.
“You’re saying… there were still organization moles hidden among our ranks?” Qiu Fa deduced after a brief moment of thought.
“Bingo! You really are a clever big kitty—truly my dream man,” Jing Pei coaxed with a playful compliment.
Qiu Fa: “…We’ve dug out mole after mole. Could there really have been ones hidden even deeper?”
“Precisely. So deep that even I, the Information Broker, couldn’t pinpoint their exact locations,” Jing Pei admitted with a soft sigh.
After all, this world had become real, subject to the butterfly effect. Events wouldn’t unfold strictly according to her written manuscript—especially since she had never finished writing it.
In her original novel, only a handful of major moles had names and backstories. She had tasked Mo Weiwei with using his super-intellect to trace the rest, and he had rooted out every single one he could find.
But were they truly all gone? Had that treacherous son of hers not secretly shielded a few?
A tiny ant hole could collapse a thousand-mile dike. Meticulous by nature, Jing Pei needed to eliminate every potential point of failure while she still had time. To ensure ultimate victory, she had exploited Jiang Qing’s deep hatred for her to craft a scheme that forced those top-level moles—protected by plot armor or possessing abilities that masked their tracks—into the open.
“Lou Ting will wipe out anyone who harmed me, even passive onlookers. His area-of-effect judgment is very useful. Of course, every power has limits, so a few might slip through, but every mole removed counts. The survivors will panic and leave tracks after this crisis, making them much easier to catch… don’t you think?” Sensing Qiu Fa was still upset, her dark, scheming tone instantly turned sweet and affectionate.
Qiu Fa wasn’t buying it. “No matter how flawless your calculations are, did you calculate being thrown into this frozen hell?”
“That’s because I didn’t calculate that you’d rush back for me…!” Jing Pei pursed her lips tightly.
Qiu Fa: “If I hadn’t rushed back, Jiang Qing wouldn’t have felt forced to throw you in here. So it’s my fault.”
“Absolutely not! You have no idea how happy I was to see you rush back for me. When someone is hurt and suffering, all they want is to see the person they love most, right? I’m so happy. Thank you for traveling thousands of miles for me.” Jing Pei pressed a soft kiss toward his heart through the barrier of Atavist energy.
“Hmph,” Qiu Fa grunted disdainfully, though his tiger tail wagged uncontrollably behind him.
“Besides, I had already considered the possibility that Jiang Qing might dump me into another dimension. More than bringing me to headquarters, he wanted me dead. But if the situation hadn’t become urgent, the organization wouldn’t have permitted him to throw me somewhere lethal—they wanted the Dragon Pearl. So even if I got thrown into a dimension, they would have opened a portal at headquarters to pull me back, and Lou Ting would have eventually coerced them into letting me go.”
“By then, the organization would have subjected you to countless tortures!” Qiu Fa instantly caught the flaw, his tone hardening with anger again. His massive tiger tail slammed against the snow, sending up a white spray and cracking the deep ice beneath.
Jing Pei fell silent. He was right.
“But if we want to reach our goal, how could there be no price to pay?” Jing Pei whispered, her voice calm enough to unsettle. If Qiu Fa hadn’t arrived, the torture waiting for her would have been no worse than skipping a meal.
“In every scheme I’ve carried out, every person sacrificed in my trolley problems suffered. Even you were hurt by me, weren’t you? This time, the person sacrificed just happened to be me. There’s no difference, and nothing wrong with that.”
“You!” Qiu Fa wanted to scold her, but the words caught in his throat. His fury dissolved into an overwhelming ache of heartache and pity.
What kind of environment had forged such a reckless, selfless nature? He didn’t know, but he knew one thing with absolute certainty: someone raised with genuine love would never view their own suffering with such cold detachment.
Jing Pei was acutely sensitive to emotional shifts. Seizing the opportunity, she clung to his rapidly beating heart and cooed pitifully, “Don’t be mad at me. I promise I’ll change in the future. I suffered so much in the past—it takes a whole lot of love to heal me, you know?”
After a long pause, Qiu Fa’s voice finally sounded.
“There had better not be a next time.”
His tone remained stern, but every trace of anger had evaporated.
