All Chapters of Ashbone: The Record of Burning Heaven: Chapter 231
- Chapter 240
417 chapters
Chapter 232: Infrastructure
The Iron-Corpse Sect was built on a graveyard. It was designed to be dark, damp, and spooky. Lin Jin decided to renovate. "Too dim," Lin Jin rumbled, his new four-legged chassis crushing the stone floor of the main cavern. "Productivity drops in low light. The accident rate is 40%." "But Elder Furnace," Sect Master Ren squinted, shielding his eyes. "We are a Corpse Sect! We need Yin energy! Darkness nourishes the dead! If you make it too bright, the zombies will get confused!" "Zombies don't get confused. They get upgraded." Lin Jin pointed a massive, hydraulic finger at the center of the mountain—the former Earth-Fire Chamber. It was no longer a pit of lava. It was a Reactor Room. The Micro-Fusion Core they had dragged from the Abyss was now seated in a cradle of reinforced concrete and spirit-iron. It hummed with a sound that vibrated the teeth of every disciple within five miles. WUB-WUB-WUB. The blue light it emitted was so intense that the shadows in the cavern were raz
Chapter 233: The Meat Grinder
The sun rose over the Iron-Corpse Sect. But it wasn't the warm, yellow sun of nature. It was the cold, harsh glare of Lin Jin’s floodlights. The sect was unrecognizable. The ancient stone walls, once covered in moss and ghost talismans, were now reinforced with steel plating and razor wire. Atop the walls, standing perfectly still, were the sentries. They were dead. But they weren't sleeping. [Unit: Cyber-Ghoul (Mark I)] [Quantity: 3,000] [Status: Online.] Three thousand zombies stood in formation. They wore uniform grey armor pressed from the hydraulic lines. Their rotting faces were hidden behind iron masks with glowing red sensor eyes. Their right arms were fused to Type-1 Kinetic Rifles. Their left arms were welded to heavy riot shields. There was no moaning. No shuffling. No hunger. There was only the hum of servos and the static
Chapter 234: The Expo
The smoke cleared, but the smell of burnt ozone and copper remained. Zero sat on a pile of broken flying swords, crunching on a high-grade dagger like a carrot. Crunch. Snap. "This one is mint flavored," she mumbled, blue sparks dripping from her mouth. "That one was spicy." Lin Jin walked through the aftermath of the massacre. His four massive bone-legs moved carefully, avoiding stepping on the "resources." Su Qing and Little Mo followed him with clipboards and body bags. "Elder Furnace," Su Qing pointed to the corpse of a Blood-River elite. "This one... his skin is too tough. The scalpel broke. We can't harvest the meridians." "He practiced the Iron-Blood Body technique," Lin Jin scanned the corpse. [Material Grade: Reinforced Bio-Mesh.] [Tensile Strength: 4000 PSI.] "Don't cut him," Lin Jin ordered. "Melt him." He pointed to the Industrial Smelter they had built in the courtyard. "Throw the bodies into the acid vats. Dissolve the flesh. Recover the bones. The Blood-Riv
Chapter 235: The Railgun
The smell of roast meat was overwhelming. On the battlefield, the five thousand Blood-Beasts were no longer a horde. They were a bonfire. The Napalm (refined Corpse Oil thickened with polymrs) didn't go out. It clung to the beasts, burning green and hot, turning the valley into a screaming inferno. In the bleachers, the guests from the White-Cloud Sect and the Heavenly Sword Alliance were silent. Some were vomiting. Others were taking furious notes. "Disgusting," the White-Cloud Sect Master muttered, clutching his invitation. "But... effective. Five thousand beasts gone in three minutes. And not a single disciple lost?" "Cost efficiency," Lin Jin’s voice boomed over the speakers. He stood on the podium, his blue core pulsing. "A sword disciple takes ten years to train. If he dies, you lose ten years of investment." "A napalm canister costs fifty spirit stones. If it explodes, you buy another one." He pointed to the burning field. "Which one would you rather lose?" Suddenly,
Chapter 236: The Supply Chain
The dust from the Future of Warfare Expo had settled, but the noise had just begun. It was the sound of money. Spirit stones clinking. Jade slips cracking as contracts were sealed. The frantic scribbling of purchase orders. Sect Master Ren sat behind a desk made of welded tank treads. He looked exhausted but euphoric. "Elder Furnace," Ren waved a stack of papers. "The White-Cloud Sect ordered 500 rifles and 10,000 rounds of ammo. The Heavenly Sword Alliance wants two Railguns, but they want to pay in 'Spirit Vein Rights' instead of stones. The Black-Mountain Mercenaries just dropped a chest of gold and asked if we sell 'those exploding fire-sticks'." "Accept all of it," Lin Jin stood in the corner, his blue core humming as he recharged from the main grid. "Currency is fluid. We take stones, gold, ore, or land." "But Elder," Ren hesitated. "We have a problem. A big one." "We are out of iron." Lin Jin’s optical sensors narrowed. [Inventory Check: Critical Low.] The railgun sho
Chapter 237: Air Superiority
The sky above the Golden Abacus Trade Route was peaceful. Fluffy white clouds drifted lazily over the caravan of fifty heavy, gold-plated carriages. Treasurer Jin sat in the lead carriage, sipping wine from a jade cup. "That fool," Jin chuckled to his bodyguard, a scarred mercenary named Iron-Wing. "He thinks he can mine the air? Without my iron, his factory will rust. In a week, he will be begging me to buy his sect for pennies." Iron-Wing didn't laugh. He was a Foundation Establishment cultivator who specialized in aerial combat. His spirit sense was twitching. "Something is coming," Iron-Wing stood up, looking at the sky. "Fast." "A bird?" Jin waved his hand. "A lightning hawk?" "No," Iron-Wing drew his twin swords. "Too fast for a hawk." A sound began to build. Not a roar. A whine. A high-pitched scream that vibrated the fillings in Jin’s gold teeth. It was getting louder. And louder. Then, the sky tore open. BOOM. A black streak slammed through the cloud layer directl
Chapter 238: Terminal One
The East Valley of the Iron-Corpse Sect was sacred ground. For five hundred years, the ancestors of the sect had been buried here, their corpses nourishing the yin-soil, waiting for the day they would be refined into powerful puppets.Today, they were being refined into Foundation Material.[Machine: The Steam-Roller (Mark I)][Driver: Zombie Unit 734][Weight: 40 Tons]CRUNCH. CRUNCH.A massive iron drum, heated by internal coal fires, rolled over the graveyard. Tombstones snapped. Coffins were crushed. The bones of the ancestors were ground into a fine powder, mixed with gravel and cement, and flattened into a pristine grey surface.Sect Master Ren stood on the edge of the valley, clutching a spirit tablet. He was weeping."Grandmaster... I am sorry... but we needed the flat land... your femur makes excellent aggregate..."Lin Jin walked alongside the steamroller. His four massive legs poked holes in the dirt before the roller smoothed them over."Stop crying," Lin Jin’s blue core h
Chapter 239: The Payload
The Star-Shrike hung in the air above the Star-Fall Abyss, its engines idling with a low, predatory hum.Terminal One was far behind them. The noise of the factory, the grinding of the zombie-mixers, and the cheers of the disciples were gone.Here, at 30,000 feet, there was only the wind and the purple lightning of the Abyss.Lin Jin sat in the cockpit. He had disconnected his lower walker-chassis and was once again plugged directly into the jet’s avionics. His blue Fusion Core acted as the ship's heartbeat."Zero," Lin Jin spoke through the neural link. "System check.""The glitter box is full," Zero replied from the back seat, patting the chaff dispenser. "The engine is spicy. The radar is spinning."She looked down at the swirling vortex of the Abyss."And the hole is hungry.""We are going deeper than the Titan's Grave," Lin Jin pushed the stick forward.The jet nosed down."Physics Lesson 254," Lin Jin whispered as the G-force hit them."The Noise Floor."The jet screamed into th
Chapter 240: The Wrecking Ball
The Star-Shrike screamed. Not because it was fast, but because it was dying. The Mk-IV "Sun-Eater" warhead weighed four tons. The jet was designed for dogfights, not for hauling a city-killing apocalypse device on a steel cable. The engines were red-hot. The afterburners were sputtering. Lin Jin fought the stick. His neural interface was flooded with red warning lights. [Engine Temp: 120%.] [Structure: Critical.] [Cable Tension: 98%.] "Papa," Zero shouted from the back seat, her helmet rattling against the canopy. "The whales are coming! They smell the spicy sausage!" Lin Jin looked at his rear-view sensors. Breaking through the purple fog of the Abyss were three massive shapes. Void Whales. They weren't the small ones. These were Leviathans. Eighty meters long, translucent, with mouths full of spatial rifts. They sensed the radiation leaking from the dormant warhead. To them, it wasn't a bomb. It was a nutrient bar. "They want a snack," Lin Jin gritted his teeth. "Phys
Chapter 241: The Dead Man's Switch
The shadow of the Heavenly Sword Alliance fleet fell across the valley like a funeral shroud. Fifty Sword-Cruisers hovered in a perfect concentric circle above the Iron-Corpse Sect. The sky was no longer blue; it was a ceiling of jade hulls and shimmering defensive barriers. In the center, the Flagship [Heaven's Justice] descended. It was so massive that its displacement caused a hurricane on the ground. The newly poured concrete of Terminal One groaned under the spiritual pressure. Sect Master Ren was on his knees, vomiting from the sheer density of the Qi crushing down on them. The disciples were flat on the ground, unable to stand. Even the zombies were malfunctioning, their primitive souls terrified by the presence of a Nascent Soul (Yuanying) cultivator. Only Lin Jin remained standing. And Zero, who was hiding behind his leg, eating a piece of lead shielding. Lin Jin stood in the center of the main plaza. He wasn't wearing armor. He wasn't holding a weapon. He was sittin