[Three Days Later. New Babylon Upper Sector, Ruins of the Guild Power Group]

  Although the fire had been extinguished, the air still reeked of the pungent, acrid smell of burnt expensive insulation materials. The 108-story dispatch center, once looking down on the city with arrogance, now had half its outer wall scorched black. The massive holographic screen was reduced to a twisted metal skeleton, looking like the carcass of a giant beast picked clean of meat.

  A preliminary loss assessment report lay on Mordred's desk:

  Direct Economic Loss: 4.5 billion New Currency (including 3 main transformers and peripheral facilities).

  Indirect Loss: Data loss, production stagnation, and credit collapse caused by the 12-hour citywide blackout. Estimated over 20 billion.

  Casualties: Director Charlie has been executed for "Dereliction of Duty." 30 other engineers have been demoted to the Nuclear Waste Processing Plant for shifting blame.

  "Is this the answer you give me?"

  Mordred did not roar. He sat on that pitch-black throne, his voice calm, even gentle. But this gentleness was more terrifying than any rage.

  He lightly stroked the report, as if caressing a corpse.

  "An unlicensed, low-level mage, using a pile of junk picked from a landfill and a talisman of unknown origin, paralyzed the entire city's power grid."

  "And you..."

  Mordred looked up. The eyes behind the platinum mask swept over every executive present.

  "You elites with million-dollar annual salaries didn't even have a backup plan. In the first moments of the crisis, you thought not of disaster relief, but of how to pass the buck?"

  "High... High Priest..." The newly appointed Power Director (formerly the Vice Director) stood up, trembling, trying to explain. "That was ultra-high frequency resonance... it was... force majeure..."

  "There is no force majeure."

  Mordred cut him off, his fingers pinching lightly.

  CRACK.

  The holographic report shattered into countless particles of light at his fingertips.

  "Only incompetence."

  "Pass my order." Mordred stood up, his black robes rolling like dark clouds. "The entire Power Department will have their salaries cut by 50% until the losses are recovered. Also, activate the 'Special Engineering Team.'"

  "Since soft tactics failed, and hard tactics failed, we will use a 'Dull Knife.'"

  He pointed to the map, at the 13th Street that was still lit up.

  "Doesn't he like electricity? Then give him electricity. Give him light. And give him something else."

  "I want to turn that so-called 'fortress' into a sleepless hell. I want the people there to beg us to demolish their houses."

  [The 13th Street, John's Clinic]

  John Doe had no idea he was on the High Priest's blacklist again. He was currently busy dealing with another trouble—being too famous.

  Since the "Lights On" night, John's reputation in the 13th Street had skyrocketed from [Weird Neighbor] to [Community Guardian].

  Before, people would just nod at him. Now...

  "Dr. John! This is fresh sausage made by my family, try some!"

  "Brother John! My light bulb is broken, can you fix it? You don't need to replace it, just touch it, give it some of your magic!"

  "Uncle John! I want to be a Necromancer when I grow up!"

  Every day, piles of food and gifts (mostly cheap stuff like eggs or homemade wine) accumulated at the clinic door. Bone was grinning from earhole to earhole; he didn't even walk the turtle anymore, dedicating himself to receiving gifts and maintaining order.

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  "Boss, does this count as... returning home in glory?" Bone asked indistinctly, gnawing on a corn cob someone gave him (even though he couldn't eat it).

  John sat in the clinic, studying the fragment of the [Lightning Attraction Talisman].

  "It's temporary." John didn't let the false prosperity go to his head. "The Guild suffered such a big loss, they won't let it go. Tesla's tower can only last for a while. Once the energy in that talisman runs out, we're back in the dark."

  He looked at the pile of talismans on the table that he had been drawing day and night.

  [Immobilization Talisman x20]

  [Ignition Talisman x15]

  [Detonation Talisman x5 (Semi-finished)]

  This was his trump card. Since he had no money to call for backup, he had to rely on himself. His Psionic Power was low, but his creativity was high. He pasted these talismans in every corner of the block: under manhole covers, inside lampposts, even on the inner walls of trash cans.

  "If they dare to come hard..." John gripped the cinnabar brush tightly. "I'll show them what a 'Minefield' looks like."

  Suddenly.

  RUMBLE—!!!

  The ground began to vibrate. Not an earthquake, but a rhythmic, heavy mechanical impact.

  "They're here!"

  John jumped up and rushed out of the clinic.

  But the scene before him made him freeze.

  No bulldozers, no armored vehicles, no scavengers with guns.

  Next to the 13th Street, on the empty lot that used to be ruins, dozens of huge, black, tombstone-like metal pillars had been erected out of nowhere.

  At the top of these metal pillars were installed devices that looked like super-speakers, with diameters exceeding two meters.

  This was the Guild's "Special Engineering Team."

  They didn't cross the boundary line of the 13th Street. They simply built a "Great Wall of Sound" just outside that invisible red line.

  "What are they doing?" Bone scratched his head. "Holding a concert?"

  The next second, the answer was revealed.

  HUMMM—!!!

  The speakers activated simultaneously.

  No music. No human voice. Only a specially modulated [Industrial Noise] frantically jumping between 20Hz and 20000Hz.

  It was the roar of pile drivers, the screech of metal cutting, the sizzle of high-voltage currents, and a terrifying low-frequency vibration that sounded like fingernails scratching a blackboard.

  The sound wasn't deafening (the decibels were controlled right at the edge of the legal limit), but it was pervasive. It was like a rusty saw, cutting directly through eardrums and drilling into the brain marrow.

  "ARGH!!!"

  Neighbors on the street covered their ears and fell to the ground. Children began to cry, the elderly began to vomit. Even the rats hiding in their holes rushed out and banged their heads against the walls in madness.

  "Is this... a sonic weapon?" John felt his heart beating erratically along with that frequency. The dizziness of hemophobia struck again.

  "Grace! Can you hack in and shut them down?!"

  John shouted, covering his ears.

  "I can't, Boss!" Grace's holographic projection shook violently in the noise, looking like an old TV with bad reception. "Those speakers aren't networked! They are physically controlled! And the power is drawn directly from underground, not connected to our grid!"

  Physical Air-Gap.

  The Guild had gotten smarter. They left no backdoors for hackers.

  "Then physical destruction!"

  John gritted his teeth and pulled out the stack of unfinished talismans from his pocket.

  "Bone! Follow me! We're going to blow up those broken speakers!"

  "You got it!"

  One man and one skeleton braved the maddening noise and charged toward the construction site.

  But before they could get close to the metal pillars, an invisible barrier blocked them.

  ZZZT—!

  Bone reached out his hand and was immediately blasted back by a huge electric current.

  "Boss! There's electricity!" Bone's hand bones were scorched black.

  "It's a Phase Shield!" Grace exclaimed. "Those pillars are covered with a high-voltage electric field! And they have independent power supplies!"

  John didn't believe it. He threw out a [Detonation Talisman] and stuck it on a trash can closest to the pillar, trying to use the blast wave to knock it down.

  "Detonate!"

  BOOM!

  A muffled sound. The trash can exploded, shrapnel flying.

  But the pillar didn't budge. It was covered with a thick layer of sound-absorbing armor. John's meager spiritual power couldn't even scratch the paint.

  "It's useless..."

  John looked despairingly at the speakers that were still roaring.

  This was the technological gap.

  The beginner talismans in his hand, in front of the Guild's heavy industrial system, were like children throwing firecrackers at a tank.

  Night fell.

  The noise didn't stop; instead, it intensified. Searchlights swept across the windows of every household like sharp swords, making sleep impossible.

  John returned to the clinic.

  The room was a mess. Margaret's condition worsened again; she was shivering in the noise, her temperature fluctuating wildly. Although Bone had no ears, the resonance of his bones made him feel like he was falling apart. Even Xuanwu shrank into its shell and refused to come out.

  John looked at all this and clenched his fists.

  He had no money.

  Merit Points: 0.

  New Currency: 0.

  He couldn't afford to call for backup, and he couldn't afford better equipment.

  "What to do... what should I do..."

  John paced back and forth in the room, every step stepping on the rhythm of the noise, making him irritable.

  Grace looked at him and whispered, "Boss, how about... we move? We really can't handle this."

  "Move?" John stopped. "Move where? The sewers? Fight for territory with the rats?"

  "But..."

  "No buts."

  John walked to the window and looked at the group of roaring black monsters.

  His eyes gradually turned from anxious to calm, revealing a ruthlessness driven by desperation.

  "They want to drive us crazy with sound."

  "Then we will... make a louder sound."

  John turned around and looked at the pile of scrap appliances picked up from the dump in the corner that hadn't been thrown away yet.

  Old speakers, broken horns, and a few batteries removed from cars.

  "Bone, move all that stuff out."

  "Grace, calculate the resonance frequency of this building for me."

  John picked up a screwdriver, a crazy smile curling the corners of his mouth.

  "Although I can't afford to summon gods, I can still summon something else."

  "Like... Physics."

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