Chapter 6: The 99th Secret Base
The silence of the night was broken only by the rhythmic thudding of a surveillance helicopter circling high above the Starfall District. Inside the lead armored SUV, Lin Feng sat in a state of forced composure. The diamond-encrusted tracker around his neck—the "collar" Su Qingxue had so lovingly fastened—pulsed with a faint, violet light. It was a constant reminder that his heartbeat, his temperature, and even the subtle chemical shifts in his sweat were being fed directly into the Heroine's private terminal.
[**SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: OBSESSION SYNCHRONIZATION AT 88%.**]
[**WARNING: HOST'S HEART RATE IS ELEVATED. HEROINE IS BECOMING ANXIOUS.**]
Lin Feng ignored the screen. He turned his head to look at Su Qingxue, who was leaning against the leather upholstery, her eyes closed. She looked like a tired goddess, but he knew better. She was a Regressor with a thousand years of his own villainy burned into her memory. She wasn't resting; she was monitoring the web of power she had spun around him.
"You're thinking about running again," she said, her voice barely a whisper, yet it cut through the hum of the engine like a blade. She didn't open her eyes. "I can feel your pulse racing, Feng'er. Every time you think of 'home' or 'freedom,' your adrenaline spikes. It's quite intoxicating, really. Like watching a bird flap its wings against a cage it doesn't realize is made of air."
"I told you, I'm just hungry," Lin Feng lied, his voice a perfect mask of arrogance. "This hospital food and 'date' congee are insulting to my palate. I want real food. And I want to go to my own estate to get it."
Su Qingxue finally opened her eyes. The violet glow was faint but predatory. "Your estate? The one filled with hidden compartments and escape tunnels? No. We are going to the mountain villa. My villa."
"Actually," Lin Feng said, leaning forward to address the driver, "we're taking a detour. Change of plans, Ye Chen. Take me to the industrial sector, Warehouse 99."
Ye Chen, gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled intensity, glanced in the rearview mirror. His eyes met Lin Feng's—the eyes of a 'brother' he now worshipped because of a misunderstood act of heroism. Then he looked at Su Qingxue.
"President Su?" Ye Chen asked, his voice thick with the conflict of dual loyalties.
Su Qingxue smiled—a slow, dangerous curve of her lips. "Let him go, Ye Chen. I want to see what he's hidden there. I want to see the place where my villain thinks he's safe."
The convoy veered off the main highway, tires screaming as they turned toward the rusted, forgotten heart of the city's manufacturing district. Warehouse 99 was a hulking mass of corrugated steel and shadows. To the public, it was a condemned textile mill. To Lin Feng, it was the 99th Secret Base—a sanctuary he had built during his 12th life, a life where he had been a Techno-Lich king.
As the SUVs screeched to a halt, a thousand bodyguards poured out, forming a perimeter that would have made a fortress jealous. Ye Chen stepped out first, his hand on his sidearm, his eyes scanning the rooftops for the snipers he believed were stalking his 'Brother.'
Lin Feng stepped out, followed closely by Su Qingxue. The air here smelled of salt, rust, and ozone.
"Stay back," Lin Feng snapped at the guards. "This is private property. If anyone steps within ten feet of the door without my authorization, the automated turrets will turn this parking lot into a slaughterhouse."
Su Qingxue laughed softly, her silk dress fluttering in the damp wind. "Automated turrets? You really were a busy little bee in your past lives, weren't you? Go on then. Show me your 'home.'"
Lin Feng walked to the rusted iron door. He didn't use a key. He didn't use a code. He bit his thumb and smeared a drop of blood onto a nearly invisible sensor hidden behind a piece of peeling paint.
[**BIOMETRIC SCAN: RECOGNIZED.**]
[**WELCOME HOME, OVERLORD.**]
[**VILLAIN SYSTEM OVERRIDE: INITIATED.**]
The door groaned as it slid upward, revealing not a dusty warehouse, but a laboratory that defied modern physics. Rows of servers hummed with a deep, subsonic thrum. Glass vats filled with glowing, bioluminescent liquid lined the walls, and in the center sat a vintage motorcycle that looked like it had been forged in a volcano.
This was the only place on Earth where the world's "Logic" was thin. Here, Lin Feng's Villain System regained its teeth.
"Ye Chen, stay at the door," Su Qingxue commanded, her voice sharpening. She stepped inside, her eyes wide with a mix of wonder and something darker. "This... this is where you planned the 'Starfall Incident' in the 44th life, isn't it? I recognize the energy signatures."
Lin Feng didn't answer. He walked toward a central console, his fingers flying across a holographic keyboard. "I'm not interested in nostalgia, Qingxue. I'm interested in results."
[**DING! SYSTEM ACCESS GRANTED.**]
[**CURRENT MISSION: THE GREAT DISCONNECT.**]
[**STATUS: 12% COMPLETE.**]
"What are you doing, Feng'er?" she asked, walking toward him. Her heels clicked on the metal grating. "You can't hack the collar. It's bound to my soul. If you try to remove it, the feedback will stop your heart."
"I'm not hacking the collar," Lin Feng said, his eyes reflecting the blue light of the servers. "I'm hacking the World. You think you're the only one with a 'System'? You think you're the only one who can rewrite the rules?"
He slammed his hand onto a red physical button.
Suddenly, the lights in the warehouse turned blood-red. The servers screamed at a frequency that made the glass vats shatter. From the shadows, mechanical arms descended, carrying a suit of armor that looked less like protection and more like a weapon of mass destruction.
"Ye Chen! Protect the President!" a bodyguard screamed from the entrance.
"Stay back!" Ye Chen roared, confused. "He's my brother! He's just... he's just fixing something!"
"No, Ye Chen," Su Qingxue whispered, her face pale. "He's leaving."
Lin Feng grabbed a crystalline vial from a hidden drawer—the same vial he would later use to attempt his escape. He didn't use it yet. Instead, he turned to face her, the "God-Slayer" attributes of his system beginning to surge through his veins. For the first time since this world began, he wasn't just a victim. He was the Villain.
"999 lives, Qingxue," Lin Feng said, his voice dropping an octave, resonating with the power of a thousand deaths. "In every one of them, I was the one who decided when the story ended. You think because you have a 'Regret System' and a 'God of War' as a pet that you can keep me here? I built this world's foundations while you were still learning to cry."
He stepped toward her, and for the first time, Su Qingxue actually stepped back.
"You love me?" Lin Feng mocked, his eyes flashing with a cold, blue fire. "You don't love me. You love the idea of winning. You love the idea of the man who finally 'submitted' to you. But I'm a professional, Qingxue. And a professional villain never stays for the encore."
[**DING! VILLAINY LEVEL: SSS.**]
[**REPUTATION AMONG BODYGUARDS: 'DEMONIC ASCENDANT'.**]
[**YE CHEN'S LOYALTY: FALTERING... 99... 95... 90...**]
"Stop him!" Su Qingxue screamed, her composure finally breaking. "Ye Chen, use the 'Suppression Field'! Don't let him touch that console!"
Ye Chen moved. He was the God of War, a blur of motion and violence. He didn't draw his gun—he couldn't shoot his brother—but he reached for Lin Feng with a grip that could crush steel.
Lin Feng didn't flinch. He used his knowledge of the "God of War" protagonist tropes. He knew Ye Chen's combat style was based on 'Dominance' and 'Direct Force.' He stepped into the punch, using a redirection technique from his 112th life as a Grandmaster of the Forbidden Arts.
Ye Chen's massive fist sailed past Lin Feng's ear, smashing into a server rack with enough force to cause an electrical explosion.
"Forgive me, Brother!" Ye Chen shouted, his eyes tearing up even as he swung again. "I have to keep you safe! For your own good!"
"You're not protecting me, Ye Chen! You're protecting her ego!" Lin Feng countered, spinning and delivering a kick that sent the world's strongest soldier skidding across the floor.
Su Qingxue watched the chaos, her hands trembling as she pulled out her own System interface.
[**HEROINE SYSTEM: 'BOND OF BLOOD' ACTIVATED.**]
[**FORCING HEART RATE SYNCHRONIZATION...**]
Lin Feng felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. His heart rate, which had been steady, began to mimic the panicked, fluttering rhythm of Su Qingxue's. His vision blurred. The "Obsession Radiation" was being weaponized.
"If I hurt, you hurt," she gasped, clutching her chest. "If I die, you die. That is the bond I bought for us, Feng'er. There is no 'Secret Base' that can hide you from my soul."
Lin Feng fell to one knee, gasping for air. The mechanical arms stopped moving. The red lights began to flicker.
He looked up at her—this beautiful, broken woman who was willing to destroy herself just to ensure he couldn't leave. He saw the "Regret" she carried. He saw the thousand years of loneliness that had turned into this twisted, diamond-hard obsession.
And for a split second, the Villain felt a flicker of something that wasn't on his script.
*Pity.*
[**WARNING: HOST IS FEELING 'SYMPATHY'.**]
[**VILLAIN LEVEL DROPPING.**]
[**REMARK: ARE YOU A VILLAIN OR A ROMANTIC LEAD? CHOOSE.**]
Lin Feng gritted his teeth, forced the pity down into the dark abyss of his mind, and reached for the 'Spirit-Masking Vapor' vial. He wasn't going to use it to escape—not yet. He was going to use it to survive this synchronization.
"I choose... to be free," he wheezed.
He smashed a different vial on the floor—a 'Flash-Freeze' concoction. Instantly, the ground between him and the Heroine turned into a jagged wall of ice, five inches thick. It blocked her line of sight, and more importantly, it disrupted the 'Soul-Scent' tracking of her system for a heartbeat.
In that heartbeat, the pain in his chest vanished.
"Ye Chen! The ice! Break it!" Su Qingxue's voice was muffled by the frozen barrier.
Ye Chen roared, throwing his entire weight against the ice wall. It shattered like glass under the God of War's fury.
But when the dust settled and the ice cleared, Lin Feng was no longer at the console. He was standing by the vintage motorcycle, his hand on the throttle. He had a black leather jacket on now, his eyes hidden behind dark lenses.
"This was just a test, Qingxue," Lin Feng said, his voice amplified by the warehouse's intercom. "I wanted to see how far your 'System' could reach. Now I know. Your leash is 10 miles long. Your heart-sync has a 0.3-second delay. And your 'God of War' is too emotional to be a real threat."
"Lin Feng!" Su Qingxue screamed, reaching out toward him.
"I'll see you at the Villa," he said, a cold, predatory smirk appearing on his face. "But remember this: I'm not going there because you caught me. I'm going there because I haven't finished breaking your System yet."
He kicked the bike into gear. The roar of the engine drowned out her cries. He didn't ride out the door; he rode straight into a wall that shimmered with a blue, holographic light—a 'Phase-Shift' gate.
*VROOOOM!*
The bike and the rider vanished into a ripple of light just as Ye Chen's hand closed on the empty air where Lin Feng had been standing.
[**DING! MISSION: THE GREAT DISCONNECT — SUCCESSFUL.**]
[**VILLAIN LEVEL: OVERLORD.**]
[**CURRENT WORD COUNT MILESTONE REACHED: 10,103.**]
Su Qingxue fell to her knees in the middle of the ruined warehouse, surrounded by 1,000 bodyguards who didn't know who to protect. She looked at the empty space where the "Saint" of the city had just proven himself to be the most dangerous man on the planet.
She didn't cry. Instead, a slow, terrifying laugh escaped her lips.
"He's finally fighting back," she whispered, her eyes glowing with a violet light so bright it illuminated the entire warehouse. "He's finally being the man I remember. Ye Chen! Get the cars! We're going to the Villa. He's waiting for us."
Ye Chen saluted, his face pale with a mix of fear and awe. "Yes, President. We... we follow the Overlord."
As the convoy roared away from Warehouse 99, the servers in the back of the room flickered one last time. A hidden screen displayed a single message in red text:
**[PROJECT: THE FINAL FALL — ACTIVATED.]**
**[TARGET: THE HEROINE'S SANITY.]**
**[ESTIMATED TIME TO CONTRACT: 24 HOURS.]**
The warehouse went dark. The cage had been tested, the bird had shown its claws, and the game had officially moved from 'Capture' to 'Total War.'