Lin Feng grunted as he set Captain Chen onto the stainless steel medical table. The room was warm, filled with the soft hum of his private floor heating system, a sharp contrast to the killing frost outside. He unclipped her sidearm, a custom high-caliber pistol with custom carbon-fiber plating, and dropped it into a tray beside her combat knife and two smoke canisters.Her gear was far too advanced for standard frontline infantry. The stitching on her inner vest bore a silver emblem. Lin Feng paused, his gloved fingers tracing the braided thread. It was a winged hourglass above a broken sword. He knew that mark. It belonged to the Shadow Strike Syndicate, the exact mercenary outfit that had hunted him down and poisoned his tea in his previous life.He set the glowing silver case inside his secondary vault, slammed the six-inch steel door, and turned the manual wheel lock. The blue light faded into the darkness of the vault."You are a long way from home, Captain," Lin Feng said, pick

The digital timer on the silver case beeped with a sharp, piercing rhythm that made the hair on Lin Feng's arms stand up. The air in the medical bay was dropping rapidly, frost creeping across the metal table like spiderwebs.01:08... 01:07... 01:06...Lin Feng cursed under his breath, jamming his thumb against Captain Chen’s left eyelid to force it open. Her eye was glassy, the pupil dilated into a wide black pool that refused to shrink under the scanner's blue laser."Scan failed," the automated casing hummed in a synthetic, polite voice. "Pupil response non-reactive.""Come on," Lin Feng growled. He slapped her cheek, hard enough to leave a red handprint on her pale skin. "Chen! Wake up!"Her head flopped to the side, her lips turning a faint shade of purple. Her pulse under his fingers was a weak, erratic flutter."No time for gentle," he muttered.Lin Feng focused his mind, reaching into his spatial storage. A long, clear plastic tube topped with a heavy metallic needle materiali

The frost on the second floor hallway walls was two inches thick, glistening under the dim, flickering yellow light of an emergency emergency lantern. The stench in the corridor was suffocating, a sickening mixture of damp rot, old smoke, and raw blood.Director Zhao sat on a overturned plastic crate, his heavy fur coat smeared with dark grime. He was chewing slowly on a strip of dried meat, his eyes hollow and bloodshot as he watched his lead enforcer, Su Ming, check the iron padlock on the heavy basement door."Is the door secure?" Zhao asked, his voice gravelly and dry.Su Ming wiped a line of snot from his frozen nose with the back of his sleeve, his fingers stiff inside his fingerless gloves. "It is locked. But two of them inside stopped making noise an hour ago. The old man and his grandson.""Good," Zhao spat, tossing the small bone stub into the corner. "That means less trouble when we open the vault tomorrow morning. Tell the men to keep the fire going near the stairs. If the

The living room floor was buried under rows of galvanized steel trays, automated LED growth lamps, and bags of nutrient-rich soil harvested from the library bunker. The air inside the three-thousand-square-foot penthouse smelled of damp earth and warm ozone, a sharp contrast to the freezing copper scent of the lower corridors.Lin Feng wiped a smear of dirt from his forehead, adjusting the wiring on a purple LED panel.Captain Chen sat on a plastic crate near the kitchen island, her left arm strapped tightly to her chest with fresh medical gauze. She watched him work, her brow furrowed in deep skepticism."You are turning a multi-million-dollar luxury penthouse into a basement garden," Chen said, her voice hoarse from the lingering epinephrine shock. "You think these grow lights will produce enough wheat before the strike hits?""The soil is infused with the Hydra serum aura from my storage," Lin Feng replied without looking back. "The root systems are doubling in size every four hour

The massive steel doors of Vault 07 were recessed twenty feet into the granite cliffside, coated in a thick shell of wind-scoured ice. Above the lintel, a pair of heavy automated turrets sat dormant, their twin barrels pointing blankly at the snowbound ravine.Lin Feng pulled his thermal visor down, his gloved fingers tracing the seam where the six-inch steel plates met the rock."The concrete casing is reinforced with braided rebar," Lin Feng said, his voice quiet over the close-range comms. "It goes thirty yards into the mountain."Captain Chen stood five paces back, leaning her weight against a frost-covered granite boulder. She held her sidearm low against her thigh, her left arm strapped tightly over her tactical vest. "It is a Class-Three munitions depot. My unit was briefed on Vault 07 before the freeze. The doors are rated for ground-zero explosive shockwaves.""They are rated for conventional artillery," Lin Feng corrected. He reached out, touching the cold steel surface. He