The chip in the blade of the Autumn Water Sword was microscopic, invisible to the naked eye, but to Ye Bai, it looked like a canyon. He sat in the meditation garden of the guest quarters—a stark, concrete courtyard Jiang Chen had assigned to him. He ran his thumb over the imperfection again and again, feeling the jagged edge where his spiritual steel had failed against the vibrating saw-blade of a machine.
Two hundred years ago, Ye Bai had been a disciple of the Flowing Water Sect. He was a prodigy, believing that one sword could protect the world. Then came the Great Beast Tide of the Southern Swamps. For three days and three nights, he fought. He killed ten thousand beasts. The river ran red with his enemies' blood. But on the dawn of the fourth day, his Dantian ran dry. He stood amidst the corpses, sword heavy as a mountain, unable to lift his arm. He watched helplessly as a single, weak Mud-Stalker—a beast he could have killed with a sneeze a day prior—tore the throat out of his junior sister.
He had ascended to Spirit Severing to ensure he would never be weak again. He believed power was the only answer.
But on the highway, facing the Iron Prince, he had felt that same emptiness threatening him. His Void Cut had consumed 80% of his reserves. If the fight had continued for ten more minutes, the machine—powered by an inexhaustible nuclear ghost—would have slaughtered him.
"You are thinking about the battery."
Ye Bai didn't look up. The heavy, rhythmic thud of hydraulic footsteps announced Jiang Chen's arrival. The Administrator wasn't wearing his helmet, but the chest reactor was glowing softly, humming with a sound that grated on Ye Bai's spiritual senses.
"You asked me why I surrendered," Ye Bai said, sheathing his sword. "A Spirit Severing cultivator does not bow to metal."
"You didn't bow to metal," Jiang Chen said, sitting on a stone bench that groaned under his weight. "You bowed to the logistics."
Ye Bai looked at the young man—this cyborg abomination who had rejected godhood.
"My sister died because I ran out of Qi," Ye Bai said softly. "I swore I would reach a realm where my energy was infinite. But you... you showed me that the vessel itself is the limit. Flesh tires. Spirits fade. But your machines..."
"My machines break too," Jiang Chen interrupted. "But when a tank breaks, I build another one. When a rifle jams, the soldier picks up a spare. We don't rely on a single 'Hero' to save us, Ye Bai. We rely on the system."
Jiang Chen leaned forward, the green light casting shadows on his pale face.
"That is why I need you. My soldiers have the endurance of machines, but they lack the intent of a warrior. Teach them to strike so that they don't need to fight for three days. Teach them efficiency."
Ye Bai looked at the chip in his sword one last time. He finally understood the nature of this city. It wasn't about replacing humanity; it was about ensuring humanity survived its own limitations.
"The Ronin Guard," Ye Bai stood up, his aura sharpening again, not with arrogance, but with resolve. "They are clumsy. Their footwork is atrocious. If I am to teach them, I will require a training hall that can withstand my intent."
"I'll have the drones pour the concrete tonight," Jiang Chen smiled.
Six weeks later, the noise in Sector 05 was deafening. It wasn't the usual clang of the steel mills or the roar of the testing range. It was a deep, resonating hum that vibrated in the chest cavities of every worker in the district.
Old Man Liu, the village elder who had received the first radio, was now a foreman in the logistics yard. He wiped coal dust from his face and looked up at the leviathan suspended in the gantry.
It was the size of a mountain turned upside down. A massive, flat hull made of reinforced titanium-steel alloy, stretching four hundred meters long. It didn't look like a boat. It looked like a fortress that had forgotten gravity existed.
Along the underside of the hull, massive circular arrays glowed with a soft, golden light.
"They say those are the Monk Runes," a young worker shouted over the noise of a welding torch. "The ones we took from the Holy Land guys."
"Anti-Gravity Arrays," Liu corrected, proud of the new words he had learned from the night school broadcasts. "Reverse-engineered. But runes aren't enough to lift ten thousand tons of steel."
"Then what lifts it?"
Liu pointed to the rear of the ship, where four colossal exhaust ports, each the size of a house, were being fitted.
"The Atom," Liu grinned. "The boss put a sun in the trunk."
On the command deck of the UNSC Kunpeng (named after the mythical giant bird-fish), Jiang Chen stood plugged into the central interface. Cables ran from his chest reactor into the ship's mainframe. He wasn't just piloting it; he was jump-starting it.
"Reactor One, online," Jiang Chen's voice echoed through the ship. "Steam pressure stable. Turbines spinning."
Beside him, Ye Bai stood with his arms crossed. The Sword Saint looked out of the reinforced glass bridge. He had felt powerful flying on a sword, but this... standing inside a floating city... was a different kind of power.
"It is heavy," Ye Bai muttered. "It insults the sky."
"It dominates the sky," Jiang Chen corrected. "Engage the Gravity Runes."
Old Wu, now wearing the uniform of a Fleet Admiral, pulled the main lever.
Underneath the ship, the golden arrays flared. The hum pitch shifted into a whine. The workers on the ground cheered as the massive shadow began to move.
The scaffolding groaned and fell away. The Kunpeng didn't shoot up like a rocket. It rose with terrifying, inexorable slowness. It bullied gravity into submission.
Ten meters. Fifty meters. Five hundred meters.
The Aerial Aircraft Carrier broke the smog layer of the city. The sun hit its grey armor plates, gleaming off the rows of Flak 88 turrets and the flight deck where twelve P-47 Thunderbolts sat ready for launch.
"Altitude stable at 3,000 feet," Old Wu reported, his eyes wet with tears. "She flies, Administrator. She flies."
Jiang Chen disconnected the jump cables. The ship's internal nuclear reactor—a larger version of the one in his chest—took over the load.
"This is not just a ship," Jiang Chen broadcasted to the crew. "This is our sovereignty. The Sword Saint controls the ground. The Kunpeng controls the horizon."
High above the clouds, in a realm invisible to the naked eye, a pair of eyes opened.
This was the Upper Realm Observation Post, a pocket dimension anchored to the planet's stratosphere. For thousands of years, the Envoys of the Upper Realm had watched the mortal plane, ensuring no one broke the limits of the Grand Array. They allowed Nascent Souls. They allowed Spirit Severing. Those were part of the system.
But they did not allow this.
Envoy Azure, a being of pure energy in a human shape, looked down at the grey slab of metal defying the laws of magical flight.
"It has no wings," Azure whispered. "It uses no beast souls. It floats by... pushing against the fabric of space with brute force."
Beside him, Envoy Crimson scowled. "And the energy source... it is not Qi. It is the splitting of the fundamental particle. It is the Forbidden Fire."
The Kunpeng drifted through a cloud bank, its radar dishes sweeping the sky.
"The balance is broken," Crimson stated. "If the mortals learn they can conquer the sky without offering tribute to the Heavens, the Faith Harvest will end."
"Shall we strike it down?" Azure asked, raising a hand that crackled with celestial lightning.
"No," Crimson lowered his hand. "Direct intervention violates the Treaty. But... we can accelerate the Tribulation."
Crimson pointed to the deep ocean, thousands of miles to the East.
"The Sword Saint is in that metal box. The land is protected. But the sea... the sea is wild. Wake the Deep Ones. Let us see if their 'Science' can float when the ocean rises to meet them."
On the deck of the Kunpeng, the radar operator frowned.
"Administrator," the operator called out. "I'm picking up a massive atmospheric disturbance. Barometric pressure is dropping instantly."
Jiang Chen walked to the console. The screens were showing a storm system forming off the Eastern Coast—the territory of the Endless Sea. But storms didn't form in seconds.
"It's not weather," Jiang Chen said, his chest reactor pulsing as if sensing a challenge.
"Ye Bai," Jiang Chen turned to the Sword Saint. "You said you failed to stop the Beast Tide because you ran out of energy. What if the Beast Tide wasn't on land?"
Ye Bai looked at the storm on the screen. He felt a familiar, sickening dread. The pressure radiating from that storm was older than the Empire.
"The Ocean Kings," Ye Bai whispered. "They have slept since the Age of Myths. Why do they wake now?"
"Because we got too loud," Jiang Chen walked to the window, looking east. "We built a roof over the world, and the landlords are angry."
He keyed the PA system.
"All hands, battle stations. Set course for the Eastern Coast. Load the Depth Charges."
"And bring the Mark IV Ronin to the flight deck."
Jiang Chen looked at his metal hands.
"I think I'm going to need a bigger sword."