The boardroom doors did not open; they parted like a seam under a blade.
The heavy steel plate groaned, its hydraulic hinges snapping like pistol shots as three automated security frames stepped through the dust. These weren't the mall guards from the ground floor. They were Solar Enforcers—seven-foot bipedal rigs of matte-white ceramic and brass, their chassis vibrating with the high-frequency whine of an industrial-grade turbine. Where their faces should have been, a single horizontal line of emerald laser-light swept the room, scanning the frost-covered table and the unconscious form of Director Vahl.
[Target Identified: Lin Wei.]
[Classification: Unregistered System Operator.]
[Threat Level: Tier-3 Corporate Saboteur.]
The center rig didn't speak. A pneumatic chamber on its right shoulder hissed open, deploying a multi-barreled Siphon-Gatling. The barrels didn't fire lead; they fired hyper-condensed loops of copper wiring designed to wrap around a cultivator's pressure points and ground their Qi back into the city's concrete foundations.
"Get behind the pillar," Lin Wei said, his voice dropping into that low, flat register that belonged to the stone, not the suit.
Lin Hao didn't argue. The silver thread of raw energy Lin Wei had forced into his chest was still burning in his ribs, making his heart hammer with a terrifying, un-algorithmic speed. He grabbed the nearest two Elders by their collars and dragged them behind the heavy structural column at the corner of the room just as the first volley tore through the air.
Thwack-thwack-thwack.
The copper wire loops slammed into the mahogany table, shattering the wood into a spray of splinters and ice. One of the loops grazed Lin Wei's shoulder, tearing the fabric of his tailored jacket and biting into his skin.
[Local Reality Stress: 58%]
[Warning: The Enforcer rigs are drawing power directly from the district's Central Battery Node. Your current vessel cannot withstand a grounding strike.]
Lin Wei didn't look at the warning. He felt the copper wire pressing against his arm, but instead of his Qi being drained into the floor, the wire began to glow a deep, violent purple. The Master's Battery in his marrow—the ancient, hungry remnant that had survived the transmigration—didn't recognize the concept of a "corporate utility grid." It only recognized prey.
"You want my capital?" Lin Wei whispered, his left eye pulsing with a sudden, jagged violet spark. "Come and take the lease."
He didn't use a forge technique. He didn't have the points within the local reality limit to manifest a Void-Glaive without tearing the room apart. Instead, he leaned forward, his bare, blistered left hand closing over the copper wire coiled around his arm.
With a brutal, manual wrench, he pulled.
The seven-foot Enforcer rig, weighing nearly half a ton, was violently jerked forward. Its hydraulic stabilizers shrieked against the marble floor, leaving twin black tracks in the carpet as Lin Wei dragged it toward him with the sheer, unyielding density of a mountain sentinel.
Before the rig's internal processors could recalibrate for the sudden weight shift, Lin Wei closed the distance. His right hand—the one that was already losing its human color, turning the shade of rain-soaked slate—slammed into the machine's central ceramic breastplate.
[Technique: 'The Warden's Eviction' — Allocating 2,200 Points.]
[Target: Local Battery Connection.]
He didn't break the ceramic with physical strength. He broke the logic of the machine. The 2,200 points he injected into the chassis acted as a foreign firmware update, instantly rewriting the rig's operational parameters from "Subdue Target" to "Isolate Node."
The horizontal emerald light on the rig's face flared white, then died. The turbine in its chest let out a long, dying whine as its internal batteries were violently isolated from the Central District's network. The white frame went rigid, its joints locking up instantly, turning the half-ton machine into a useless, ceramic statue in the middle of the room.
The remaining two Enforcer rigs hesitated. Their emerald scanners flickered, their tactical algorithms stalling as they tried to process how a 1-Star civilian had just decoupled a proprietary Solar Conglomerate unit from the grid using nothing but a physical touch.
"He's... he's overriding the hardware," one of the Elders whispered from behind the pillar, his old eyes wide with a mix of terror and an ancient, forgotten pride. "That's the old style. The way the grandfathers used to forge the locks before the Siphons came."
Lin Wei didn't give the machines time to update their database. He stepped behind the locked-up rig, using its dead weight as a shield as the second unit opened fire with its plasma cutter. The green laser hissed against the ceramic armor, melting it into a white, foul-smelling sludge, but Lin Wei was already moving through the steam.
His stone-grey fingers reached out, tapping the second unit's primary optical array.
[Points Expended: 2,000.]
[Status: Eviction Successful.]
The second rig collapsed sideways, its leg joints snapping under its own weight as the power was ripped from its circuits.
Lin Wei stood in the center of the ruined boardroom, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. The violet sand was rising in his throat again, a dry, metallic taste that made his chest feel like it was being lined with concrete. Every time he forced this mortal shell to channel the Warden's density, the vessel decayed further.
[Physical Integrity: 74%.]
[Alert: The 'Statue-Stasis' effect is accelerating. Your right lung is beginning to crystallize.]
He turned his head slowly to look at the final Enforcer rig. The machine had stopped firing. Its horizontal scanner was pulsing a frantic, rhythmic red, its internal speakers broadcasting a high-frequency data-stream back to the Central District.
"Lin Wei," the machine spoke, but the voice wasn't the automated tone of the system. It was a cold, cultured voice transmission from someone miles away, sitting in a high-rise in the Central Sector. "You are an expensive anomaly. But the Lin Clan's lease has expired. You can hold this room, but you cannot hold the city. The market opens in four hours. If the Eastern Park is not registered to our account by then, we will delete your family's financial footprint from the civic registry. You will be non-persons by dawn."
Lin Wei walked up to the machine, his slate-like right hand closing over the optical lens, blocking out the red light.
"Tell your Board to keep the ledger open," Lin Wei said, his voice a low, tectonic vibration that shattered the remaining glass in the boardroom windows. "The Jailer is coming to audit the main office."
He squeezed. The lens shattered into a spray of green glass, and the final rig went dark.