The Central Data-Hub of Sector G was a massive, windowless block of reinforced ferrocrete, buried half-underground. Inside, rows upon rows of monolithic Old Era server racks stood like silent sentinels in the dark. The air was stale, thick with decades of accumulated dust and the faint, acrid smell of ozone from the few terminals still operating on backup geothermal power.
Chen Xi slipped through the heavy blast doors, pulling them shut behind him. He didn't lock them. He needed the final guest to come inside.
"Target is one hundred and twenty meters out and accelerating," Sylphe’s voice echoed in his mind, sharp and analytical. "He has equipped a shoulder-mounted Vulcan-Pattern Plasma Caster. He is not bothering with stealth. He is scanning for your biomonitor tag and intends to slag this entire building from the doorway."
"A plasma caster," Chen Xi muttered, dropping his repair kit onto a metal grating. "Magnetic containment field, superheated ionized gas. If he fires that in here, the ambient temperature will flash-boil the moisture in my lungs before the blast even hits me."
"Correct. I suggest we do not let him fire it. Or rather, we dictate how he fires it."
Chen Xi looked up at the ceiling. Running the entire length of the main corridor leading to the server room was a massive, industrial HVAC ventilation duct, meant to cycle cold air over the servers to prevent overheating.
He didn't just see a pipe. He saw a fluid dynamics equation. He saw air pressure, velocity, and particulate distribution.
"The Academy uses these data-hubs for repair tests. That means there's a stockpile of raw materials somewhere," Chen Xi said, his eyes scanning the dark room. He spotted a maintenance locker in the corner, kicked the rusted lock open, and smiled. Inside were sacks of ultra-fine magnesium-aluminum powder—used in thermite welding for heavy infrastructure repair.
"Sylphe, I need you to tap into the Academy's camera feeds for this room. Don't blind them. Just loop the footage of the main terminal for sixty seconds. I need to work fast."
"Looping now. You have one minute before the proctors notice the timestamp discrepancy. What is the design, Chen Xi?"
"Thermobaric resonance," Chen Xi said, his voice dropping into the dead-calm focus of a master craftsman.
He didn't use the Origin Forge. There was no time for miracles, only physics and sweat. He sprinted to the massive HVAC turbine at the back of the room. The access panel was bolted shut with heavy-gauge industrial screws.
Chen Xi jammed his screwdriver into the slots and twisted with brutal, tearing force. The sheer mechanical resistance tore the skin off his knuckles, but he didn't stop. He loved this. The scent of copper wire, the logic of circuits, the unforgiving honesty of machines—this was where he belonged.
He ripped the panel off, exposing the massive, three-phase copper stator coils of the turbine motor.
"Standard blower motors have a built-in step-down transformer to limit the RPMs," Chen Xi analyzed, his hands moving in a blur as he stripped the thick rubber insulation with his wire cutters. "If I bypass the transformer and wire the main geothermal power line directly into the stator coils, it will spin at 600% of its rated capacity. It won't just blow air; it will create a localized wind tunnel."
He grabbed a heavy wrench and began violently adjusting the pitch of the fan blades, bending the thick steel by fractions of a degree. He wasn't just guessing; his mind overlaid the exact aerodynamic calculations required to funnel the air into a highly compressed, high-velocity stream directed straight down the entrance corridor.
Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes. His muscles screamed as he forced the heavy industrial components to bend to his will without relying on his Kinetic Qi. This was pure, grueling mechanical labor.
"Forty seconds, Chen Xi," Sylphe warned. "He is at the perimeter."
Chen Xi sprinted back to the maintenance locker, grabbed a fifty-pound sack of the ultra-fine magnesium-aluminum powder, and hauled it up to the ventilation intake duct. He ripped the bag open and jammed it into the intake.
"Done. Sylphe, drop the camera loop. Let them see me."
"Camera feeds restored to live broadcast."
Chen Xi immediately dropped to his knees in front of a sparking, broken server rack near the back of the room. He grabbed a pair of jumper cables from his kit, adopting the posture of a terrified cadet frantically trying to complete his repair objective to pass the test.
Up in the observation deck, the proctors leaned in.
"We have eyes on Cadet Chen Xi in the central data-hub. He's attempting a hot-swap on a live server," an instructor reported.
"Wait," another proctor gasped, pointing at the secondary feed. "There’s a hostile entering the primary corridor! He’s armed with military-grade plasma artillery!"
Zhao Ming’s eyes widened in manic glee. Burn him. Burn the rat to ash!
Down in the data-hub, the heavy blast doors at the end of the long entrance corridor were kicked open with earth-shattering force.
The third Ironfang assassin stepped into the doorway, silhouetted by the pale light outside. He was heavily armored, a massive Vulcan plasma-caster resting on his shoulder. The weapon whined with a terrifying, high-pitched frequency as the magnetic containment coils spun up, glowing with blinding blue heat.
"End of the line, rat," the assassin’s voice boomed through the corridor.
Chen Xi looked up, his face a mask of absolute, paralyzing terror. "No! Don't! I just need to fix this terminal!" he screamed, his hands shaking violently as he held the thick jumper cables.
He lunged forward, seemingly tripping over his own feet in his panic, and slammed the jumper cables directly into the primary geothermal power relay on the wall.
"Stupid kid," the assassin sneered, pulling the trigger on the plasma-caster.
But Chen Xi hadn't connected the cables to the server. He had completed the bypassed circuit to the HVAC turbine.
With a deafening, mechanical roar, the massive industrial fan engaged at 600% capacity. The sheer torque nearly tore the turbine off its mounts. A hurricane-force gale blasted through the ductwork, sucking the entire fifty-pound sack of ultra-fine magnesium-aluminum powder into the airflow.
A dense, shimmering cloud of highly conductive, highly flammable metal dust was shot down the corridor directly at the assassin, traveling at over a hundred miles per hour.
The assassin didn't even have time to blink.
The moment the superheated, ionized bolt of plasma left the barrel of his weapon, it hit the magnesium-aluminum cloud.
The physics were instantaneous and merciless. Plasma requires a vacuum or a clean atmosphere to travel. When introduced to a dense particulate cloud of conductive metal, the magnetic containment field instantly collapsed. The plasma didn't shoot forward; it violently ignited the entire cloud simultaneously.
A thermobaric explosion of unimaginable proportions detonated inside the confined space of the corridor.
The flash was brighter than the sun. The shockwave blew outward with millions of pounds of pressure. The assassin, caught at ground zero of a confined plasma-thermite detonation, was instantly vaporized. His heavy armor melted into slag before the concussive force blew his remains out the front door and across the ruined plaza.
Inside the server room, Chen Xi had already thrown himself behind the reinforced ferrocrete pillar. The backdraft of the explosion roared overhead, singeing the tips of his hair and melting the plastic covers off the server racks.
Then, silence. Save for the agonizing whine of the overworked HVAC turbine finally burning out and grinding to a halt.
Chen Xi slowly pushed himself off the floor. He was covered in black soot, his clothes singed, his knuckles bleeding and raw. He looked down the corridor. The walls were glowing cherry-red, the ferrocrete vitrified into glass by the sheer heat of the blast. There was absolutely nothing left of the third assassin except a scorched shadow burned into the floor.
He collapsed against the wall, sliding down to a sitting position, chest heaving. He stared at the ceiling, his eyes wide, letting out a weak, hysterical laugh of "disbelief" for the cameras.
"Vital signs of operative three: Terminated," Sylphe announced, her voice soft, lacking her usual sass. She sounded profoundly impressed. "Chen Xi. You turned a ventilation shaft and a bag of welding dust into a thermobaric warhead. The statistical probability of surviving that encounter without using your martial arts was less than two percent."
I know, Chen Xi replied mentally, looking at his bleeding, grease-stained hands. But they don't know that. They think I made a mistake wiring the server and accidentally caused a dust explosion.
Up in the observation deck, there was absolute, stunned silence.
The proctors stared at the monitors in horror. The footage clearly showed the terrified cadet accidentally cross-wiring the main power relay right as the hostile fired, triggering a catastrophic environmental chain reaction.
"He... he survived," the lead instructor whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "The plasma-caster ignited the ambient dust in the unmaintained ventilation system. The backdraft killed the hostile. My god. The sheer, dumb luck of this boy..."
Zhao Ming was hyperventilating. He stumbled backward, knocking over a chair. His three elite executioners. Dead. Killed by a falling sign, a broken loader, and a dusty fan. It defied all logic. It defied reality.
"Get me out of here," Zhao Ming choked out, turning and sprinting out of the observation deck, his mind fracturing under the weight of pure, superstitious terror.
Down in Sector G, the automated Academy sirens began to blare, signaling the end of the logistics assessment.
Chen Xi wiped the soot from his face, wincing as his raw knuckles brushed his cheek. He slowly stood up, picking up his repair kit.
"Sylphe," Chen Xi whispered, a cold, predatory light returning to his eyes beneath the layer of ash. "Are Zhao Ming's men still transmitting those fake, healthy vitals to his datapad?"
"Affirmative. I am maintaining the loop."
"Good. Let him think they're still alive somewhere out there. Let him sweat." Chen Xi began the long walk toward the extraction zone. "The Academy test is over. But tonight, we take the trash out."