The Amazon rainforest did not welcome Chen Feng with the serenity of an Ohio cornfield. It welcomed him with a humidity so thick it felt like breathing warm soup and a chorus of insects that sounded like a million tiny chainsaws.
Chen Feng hacked through a thicket of ferns using a ceremonial machete he had "borrowed" from a museum in Quito. He was wearing his red blazer over a sweat-wicking silk undershirt, looking entirely out of place in the emerald shadows of the canopy.
Between swatting away fist-sized mosquitoes, Chen Feng's satellite phone buzzed. It was Lin Xia.
"Chen Feng? The news is saying someone broke into the Apex vault and left a drawing of a stick figure with a crown," her voice was small, tinged with a mix of worry and that lingering, post-Isla de Sombra warmth. "The UN just declared a global 'Level 9' security alert. They're calling you the 'Phantom of the Reset.' Are you... are you okay?"
Chen Feng leaned against a mossy trunk, his expression softening for a fleeting second. "I'm just doing a bit of sightseeing, Xia. Tell your cousin to stop sending Interpol my coordinates. It's making my morning jogs very crowded."
"But they're putting sensors in the oceans! They're even re-tasking military satellites!" Xia whispered urgently. "The world is terrified because they don't know what you want with the Treasures."
"What I want," Chen Feng said, looking up at the sliver of sky above, "is to see if the world still has any secrets left worth keeping."
The treasures Chen Feng sought weren't just shiny trinkets; they were "glitches" in the reality he had reset—remnants of power that shouldn't exist in a stable timeline.
The Golden Sun-Disk (South America): Not made of gold, but solidified solar radiation. It acted as a terrestrial battery, capable of powering a continent—or incinerating one if handled by a non-Sovereign.
The Star of the Nile (Africa): A diamond that didn't reflect light, but absorbed time. To hold it was to see five minutes into your own future.
The Frozen Core (Antarctica): A literal piece of the previous universe's "Source Code" that had failed to delete during the last Reset.
As Chen Feng and Gary reached a hidden clearing, they weren't met with bowing devotees. Instead, they were surrounded by the warriors of a tribe that had guarded the Temple of the Lunar Eclipse for centuries.
The Elder stepped forward, not with a garland of flowers, but with a spear tipped in black obsidian. He didn't see a deity; he saw a Malassombre—a Bad Omen.
"You bring the scent of the End Times," the Elder hissed in a dialect that Gary's translation app struggled to follow. "The one who walks in the red coat comes to pluck the heart from the forest. When the Sun-Disk leaves its cradle, the shadows will grow teeth."
"I'm not here to start an apocalypse," Chen Feng said, his voice echoing with a low, Sovereign power that made the birds in the trees go silent. "I'm just here to make sure this thing doesn't fall into the hands of people like the Apex researchers. Besides, it'll look great on my mantle."
"To take it is to curse us!" the Elder roared, signaling the warriors to close in.
"Gary, the smoke!" Chen Feng commanded.
Gary fumbled with a canister. "Boss, this is the 'High-Altitude Alpine Scent' smoke. It's going to smell like a pine forest in the middle of a jungle!"
"Just throw it!"
As the clearing filled with a bizarre scent of mountain air, Chen Feng moved. He didn't strike the warriors; he moved between them like a ghost, his "Thief's Wit" guiding him toward the stone altar where the Sun-Disk hummed with a low, radioactive heat.
The security wasn't electronic here; it was a series of ancient, gravity-based pressure plates and venomous dart traps. Chen Feng danced through them, his red jacket a blur of motion. He snatched the Disk just as the moon began to slide over the sun, plunging the jungle into a terrifying, premature twilight.
The warriors collapsed in prayer, but not to him—they were praying for the world to survive his theft.
"Got it," Chen Feng said, tucking the glowing, warm disk under his arm. "Gary, call the pilot. We're going to Egypt. I hear the Nile is lovely this time of year."
As they vanished into the brush, leaving a confused tribe and a global military network in a state of frantic panic, Chen Feng felt a new text from Xia vibrate in his pocket: "Be careful. I think the 'Gala Five' just formed a joint task force with the Pentagon."
Chen Feng grinned. "Now it's a party."