NOVEL NEXT Chapter 150: Compromised
Jiang Xiao Yu's hands slowly rose to her temples. Her voice, when it came, was low, brittle, and vibrating with tension. "We are investigating a national security threat. A potential high-level conspiracy. Possibly treason. And you people just recruited a squirrel."
Elly, still proud as a fox in a henhouse, beamed. "Technically, he recruited himself. We were just open to talent."
"Not helping," Jiang Xiao Yu muttered, seriously contemplating knocking all three of them unconscious with a single mana burst and calling it a day.
Meanwhile, several blocks away, Squi-Squi was in his element. He zipped across three rooftops with precision that would've made elite scouts weep, his tiny tracker blinking rhythmically with each perfectly timed leap.
Ji Chen sat with his tablet, eyes sharp behind his glasses, monitoring the little guy's movement across a digital map.
"Target reached," Ji Chen said. "He's inside a Division 11 relay zone, about fifteen meters from the main junction node."
On screen, Squi-Squi launched himself into an open toolbox. Seconds later, he popped out of the other side holding a bolt in his paws and chirped once. Within moments, half the engineers on site had dropped their equipment and gathered around him like children at a festival.
One of them crouched down reverently and offered him a cracker. Another produced a juicy apple from his lunch box. Not to be outdone, a third one gave him a full slab of Wagyu Beef Steak.
"...He's infiltrated them flawlessly," Ji Chen deadpanned. "I think they've adopted him."
While basking in snacks and praise, Squi-Squi trotted over to a cracked mana conduit, ears twitching. He sniffed once, his tiny nose scrunching. The hum of unstable energy danced along the pipe, invisible to human senses but not to his enhanced instincts.
He tried to use one hand to tinker with the circuit while the other hand held a massive biscuit he got from one of the engineers. But he lost his balance and dropped the biscuit!
"Squeee!!!"
Squi-Squi shouted with rage.
The biscuit rolled into a crevice and clink! It hit something metallic.
Click.
A panel slid open.
A faint pulse surged outward, silent, invisible, but sharp. Like a scream muffled by layers of concrete and static.
Ji Chen straightened. His screen flickered once.
"...I just intercepted a ping," he said, voice tightening. "Encrypted. Not military-grade. Somebody just got alerted. A rogue frequency just activated a response signal."
His fingers moved like lightning, tracing the source.
"Got a badge number. Unauthorized access. Site 4B. Seven minutes ago."
He turned the screen around. "Bingo."
Everyone froze.
Damien stood up slowly, eyes cold and sharp, the shadows around him shifting like they were listening.
"That's enough," he said. "We report this."
And just like that, the room lost its playfulness. Elly's ears twitched. Fatty straightened. Even Jiang Xiao Yu's expression softened from irritation into solemn focus.
The squirrel had spoken, in his own weird way.
Within minutes, Damien stood in the underground war chamber of the Eight Heavenly Generals.
They were supposed to be retired.
But in this critical period, their retirement was all but in name.
Their strength, their experience and their authority were very much required.
The air was unusually cold, the stone walls echoing faintly with the hum of warding spells and containment seals. A central table displayed a glowing topographic map of Beijing's mana grid, updated in real-time until Ji Chen's feed overrode it.
"Begin playback," Damien said quietly.
The room dimmed, and the presentation began.
Elly's illusion spell sharpened the projected footage: convergence points glowing red with illegally pooled mana, stolen military-grade components embedded deep into the infrastructure, the rogue signal intercepted by Ji Chen, and finally… a simulation of what would happen if those hidden devices detonated.
The numbers didn't lie.
And for once, the Eight Heavenly Generals, men whose voices had shaken stadiums and shattered enemy morale across entire continents, were silent.
The presentation ended with one final still frame: 90% system failure. One hour. No defenses. No shields. No turrets.
General Hong Fei's face turned ghostly white. "T-this much mana… pooled beneath the convergence cores… if triggered simultaneously… the city would be paralyzed. Beijing's defense grid would collapse for a full hour."
General Liang's knuckles were white where he gripped the edge of the table. "Deploy suppression squads. Now. Mobilize the Shadow Corps. Clean out the grid zone by zone!"
Damien didn't speak. Not yet. He waited until the frantic rustling of chairs and the hastily issued orders slowed. Then he looked up, voice quiet but cutting.
"And what if it's not just Beijing?"
The room stopped. Completely.
Even the spells humming along the chamber walls seemed to hesitate.
General Riki, once so loud he could shake ceilings, clenched his fists slowly. "If every city has a siphoning setup like this…"
"We wouldn't just lose the capital," General Maru finished grimly. "We'd lose the entire damn country before the first beast even roars."
Damien gave a single nod. "You need to assume the entire grid is compromised. All major cities. Maybe all military hubs. If these devices go off, we don't get a second chance."
General Hong Fei was already moving, hands flying across his comm tablet, calling for emergency protocol activations.
General Liang barked orders to the tech teams to initiate mana pool scans in every region.
General Maru didn't speak. He stared at the projected map for a long moment, then slowly pulled off his gloves and set them on the table.
"I'll call the President," he said. "She'll need to trigger the nationwide disaster protocols. Get the backup generators online. Wake up the Strategic Reserve Corps."
General Riki glanced at Damien, expression unreadable. "You saved Beijing, boy. Possibly all of China. You know that, right?"
Damien's voice remained calm. "It wasn't just me."
The doors to the war room slammed open with a reverberating crash.
General aides, strategists, and high-ranking officers rushed in like a flood, breathless and grave.
The atmosphere inside shifted from grim contemplation to razor-edged urgency. Holographic screens flared to life across the chamber walls, flooding the room with red alerts and mana trace overlays.