Chapter 177: Tomb’s Final Lesson

Chapter 177: Tomb’s Final Lesson

Eli's fingers flew across the keyboard at lightning speed, data streams collapsing like dominoes falling one after another, deconstructing and unfolding layer by layer.

This was no longer dry code, but a final map that had been folded countless times and was now completely spread open in the blood-red light.

The first batch of unlocked data was the bottom-level security logic tree of the Arctic base.

No fancy monitoring parameters, just the most lethal killing mechanisms: millisecond-level trigger conditions for secondary defense response, physical switching sequence for backup nuclear power, the core permission deadlock allocation table, and... a full thirty-two high-voltage physical traps buried beneath the permafrost layer.

Next to the coordinates of three of these death traps, Tomb had quietly marked out three security blind spots that could bypass the sensors, using the most basic code language.

The second batch of data was the complete logic architecture of the pre-awakening protocol for all 4,700 "super soldiers."

The third batch of data arrived.

Eli's pupils suddenly contracted, his ten fingers suspended over the keyboard completely frozen.

It was a list.

The names on the list were unfamiliar and cold, but he knew the structure all too well—this was the core power map of The Shadow Council's "Ghost" nodes. Next to each name hung its corresponding apostle code name, real-time global positioning, and unique encrypted communication fingerprint.

This was a completely unguarded, stripped of all defenses, laid bare in broad daylight bottom-level routing table of the "Ghosts."

Eli scrolled to the last page of the list.

In an inconspicuous dark corner at the very bottom, a line of plain text annotation lay quietly:

"This is everything I have. Now, it's yours."

Eli stared hard at that line of text, as if he could see through the screen to the ghost imprisoned behind countless walls of code and data.

He leaned back in his chair, his throat heaving violently, exhaling a long, painful breath of stale air.

Just as he was about to cut off this extremely dangerous mirror channel, the monitoring interface in the center of the screen, which had already flattened out, suddenly rippled faintly, and a new line of text was slowly pushed out:

"I can't see the road ahead anymore. Walk it for me."

In that instant, Eli felt like barbed wire was stuck in his throat, burning with pain.

He slowly withdrew his hands from the keyboard and placed them on his knees. His palms tightened into death fists, knuckles turning a ghastly white from excessive force; then, as if giving up some kind of struggle, they opened powerlessly.

He sat up straight again, straightened his spine, and typed a line of plain text in the reply box without any anti-tracking or anti-interception:

"Brother, you're free."

He pressed [Send].

Dead silence on the other end of the channel, no more text jumped out.

In the upper right corner of the screen, the signal strength value on the monitoring interface began an irreversible plunge. From glaring fluorescent green, it faded to sickly pale yellow, then from pale yellow to gray-white, and finally, completely to zero.

Tomb had personally severed the umbilical cord that had been connected for years. Along with his last echo, he sank into eternal silence.

Eli sat dazed in the dim studio, staring at the pitch-black monitoring frame, motionless for a long time.

Outside the window, the deep night of the Mojave Desert began to recede like a tide. On the far horizon, a line of blade-like, ice-cold gray-blue dawn light emerged.

He slowly stood up, grabbed the encrypted phone on the desk, and tapped out eight words to Jack:

"Tomb handed over everything. Arctic, ready to move."

Washington DC, K Street. Late at night on the top office floor of the Howard Group, still shrouded in cold, bone-chilling white fluorescent light.

Arthur Howard sat in a narrow temporary command room. Before him, four high-performance laptops and two tablets were arranged in an arc, screens flickering at high frequency with global financial and political sentiment monitoring networks from different time zones.

The secure landline on his left erupted with urgent ringing every few minutes, but he didn't even lift an eyelid. In the next room, Pondy was using a cold mechanical voice to filter out all unnecessary interference.

Arthur gripped tightly in his hand an old steel pen with peeling paint, in front of him spread that handwritten kill list. He was using a red pen to cross out the items on it one by one.

The scratching sound of the lines was particularly harsh in the dead-silent room.

"Media matrix, triggered." He put a heavy check mark after the first item.

"Abdullah offshore fund chain, exposed." Another check mark.

"Judge marking records, synced to three top investigative media outlets." The red pen ruthlessly slashed through.

According to the Pantheon cracking plan submitted by Erin, Arthur was now transformed into an executioner hanging over the global undercurrent. Before the military's steel treads crushed the Arctic, he would first use truth and suspicion to completely demolish the wall of trust that The Shadow Council had maintained for decades.

Arthur picked up the tablet, his fingertip sliding across real-time data from the European time zone.

Four hours ago, the hunt had already begun. Several hardcore European media outlets simultaneously published an anonymously leaked money laundering ledger. The headline directly pointed to the "Bishop" who had always positioned himself as a moral standard-bearer—several giant charitable foundations under his control had, over the past six years, channeled over three billion dollars under the guise of medical aid, precisely flowing into shell companies under Kane Corp.

Although the comment section below the news was forcibly locked within ten minutes, panic had already spread. Two mainstream newspapers with international influence had already followed up with reprints.

Arthur sneered as he switched to the Southeast Asian interface.

The "Merchant" Billy's "accidentally leaked" black ledger had been delivered to a top financial information platform. Within just two hours, the opening stock price of Southeast Asian energy giant Lin Group had plummeted 7.3% like free fall.

North American interface.

A memo marked "internal top secret" was directly airdropped into the personal mailboxes of editors-in-chief at three major mainstream media outlets. Seventeen search warrants issued by the "Judge" over the past year were completely torn open, each one without exception targeting independent prosecutors who were secretly investigating Kane Corp.

Arthur put down the tablet, uncapped the pen, and crossed out another line on the list.

He placed the steel pen on the desk, leaned heavily back in the chair, closed his eyes, and pressed hard on his throbbing temples with thumb and forefinger.

Thirty-six continuous hours without a drop of water or closing his eyes had caused black spots to constantly jump before his retina. But he didn't dare stop. This global-level public opinion strangulation had a window measured in minutes—one wrong step meant eternal doom.

The door was pushed open silently. Pondy walked in carrying a cup of steaming black coffee, gently placed it beside Arthur's hand, then retreated like a ghost and locked the door.

Arthur picked up the coffee cup. He didn't drink, just pressed both hands tightly against the cool ceramic wall, greedily absorbing that faint warmth.

He turned his head, gazing through the floor-to-ceiling window at Washington's brilliant yet hypocritical neon lights in the deep night.

Many years ago, also on such a dead-silent late night, he and General Michael sat in a shabby military vehicle, discussing for the first time that behemoth looming over the top of the world.

Michael was smoking a cigar then, his eyes full of despair: "They're too rich, Arthur. Rich enough to buy congressmen, buy judges, buy entire laws."

Arthur at the time was just wiping the steel pen in his hand, calmly replying: "Then let them discover that when a blade is at their throat, the life that money can't buy back is the most expensive."

Now, this moment had finally arrived.

Data on the screen rolled wildly like a waterfall. Three listed companies associated with the apostles evaporated hundreds of billions in market value; police cars from the anti-corruption bureau were parked outside the private residences of two high-ranking apostles; a behind-the-scenes editor controlling a multinational news conglomerate had hastily submitted his resignation half an hour ago, with core channels under his control experiencing an unprecedented six-hour broadcast blackout.

Cracks appeared. Tiny, yet carrying a deadly chain collapse effect.

No need to demolish the entire castle with one shot—just make the scheming demons inside the castle start to suspect and betray each other, and this empire built on greed would collapse from within.

Arthur took a sip of the somewhat cooled coffee, bitterness spreading across his tongue.

He picked up his phone and sent General Michael the final signal:

"Cracks formed. You can move."

Instant reply. Just one cold sentence:

"In three days, see you in the Arctic."

Arthur put down his phone, returning his gaze to those screens that were continuously devouring reputation, wealth, and power.

He picked up that old steel pen and carefully wrote the final sentence at the very end of the handwritten list:

"Fear is the best catalyst."

After writing, he twisted the pen cap tightly shut with a click, placed it in the center of the desk, and turned once again to face that entire wall of screens scrolling with destruction data.