"Connection Framework!"
Jin Wanchao's voice, carrying a power that could shake mountains, pierced the consciousness of all core members inside the Geothermal Terminal.
Lao Zhong, A Huo, Ban Shou, and even several of the most skilled craftsmen who had been "awakened" all placed their hands without hesitation on the icy runes surrounding the Resonance Framework.
The "flame" within them, like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea, was instantly drawn by the framework, converging into an unprecedented mighty torrent that surged entirely into Jin Wanchao's body!
Jin Wanchao's body shuddered violently, his eyes turning hollow at once, as if all vitality had left him. Yet at this moment, his consciousness ascended to divinity.
Boom!
An invisible spiritual flood, undetectable by any instrument, erupted violently from the Geothermal Terminal as its center.
It pierced through the thick crust, broke through the cold steel, ignored all physical barriers and signal jammers of the Black Steel Council, and instantly enveloped the entire Lower District.
In the minds of the feint troops fighting bloody battles in the Third Industrial Zone, Jin Wanchao's voice suddenly resounded.
In the minds of the workers toiling numbly in various factories, Jin Wanchao's voice also echoed.
In the minds of the poor lingering at home, trembling at the distant sound of artillery fire, the same voice rang out!
Immediately afterward, crystal-clear images were seared into everyone's consciousness like the deepest brand.
There were the inside scenes of the Breeding Factory, where children were confined like livestock.
There was the laboratory of the Chimera Project, where "subjects" writhed in agony, their flesh and machinery crudely fused together.
There was Valerius, his face bearing an elegant smile yet speaking the most vicious words.
And finally, inside the Geothermal Terminal, the newly rescued children, still with confusion and fear on their faces, surrounded by deafening cannon fire!
The truth was laid bare in the crudest, most direct way possible.
"That's… my son!" A worker on the assembly line suddenly threw down his wrench. Staring at the frail figure in his mind, he let out a heart-wrenching wail.
"Monsters! They're monsters!" A woman huddled at home with her child trembled violently at the hellish sight of the laboratory.
"They're… attacking those children!"
"Bastards! They lied to us! They've been lying to us all along!"
The anger suppressed for a hundred years ignited completely at this moment.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
In the No.2 Foundry of the Lower District, a worker slammed his hammer into the steam valve on the production line.
"Brothers! We've been tricked like dogs for years! Our children are being slaughtered! Can you still bear this?!"
His roar was a spark that instantly set the entire workshop ablaze.
"We can't take it anymore!"
"To hell with them!"
Countless workers abandoned their tools, grabbed hammers and steel pipes, and charged toward the overseers and the cold machinery.
The same scene unfolded in every corner of the Lower District.
Factory sirens blared in succession, merging into a symphony of rebellion.
Roars of the crowd surged from all directions like rolling thunder, shaking the very foundations of the city.
The sound of shattering glass, explosions, twisting metal… all intertwined, announcing that an unprecedented uprising had fully erupted.
The Black Iron Guards besieging the Geothermal Terminal suddenly found fierce flames breaking out behind them.
Countless enraged citizens, armed with crude weapons, poured from the streets, buildings, and every dark corner, surging toward them like a tide.
"Report! Sector Seven is out of control!"
"Report! Workers in the No.2 Foundry have revolted and seized the armory!"
"Report! Our supply lines have been cut off!"
Panic-stricken battle reports flooded into Valerius's command center like snowflakes.
Outside the terminal, the sound of besieging artillery fire gradually faded.
In its place rose the furious roar of the entire city.
Inside the terminal, everyone stared dumbfounded at the spreading red alerts on the screens, listening to the earth-shaking roars from outside.
They had won.
No — Jin Wanchao, and all of them, had won.
"Wanchao!" A Huo rushed to the Resonance Framework, looking at Jin Wanchao collapsed on the ground, then at the blazing red dots spreading across the screen. His tiger eyes filled with tears as he slammed a heavy fist into the nearby console.
Ban Shou leaned against the wall, watching the chaotic scene on the screen. For the first time, genuine shock appeared in her shrewd eyes. She knew that from this moment on, Jin Wanchao was no longer merely a rebel leader — he had become the god of all the common people in this city.
Jin Wanchao suddenly opened his eyes and slid down from the framework, his face as pale as paper. The immense mental exhaustion had left him nearly collapsed.
But he smiled.
He heard it — the echo from the entire city.
"We… are no longer alone," he whispered.
At that moment, Jin Wanchao's "flame" trembled violently.
Within his perception, infinitely amplified by the Resonance Framework, he caught a strange fluctuation.
It did not come from the chaotic Lower District, nor from the floating airship where Valerius resided.
It came from somewhere farther, deeper — the very core of the Council District, the black spire that symbolized the supreme authority of the Black Steel Council.
A powerful, ancient spiritual presence, cold and utterly rational, flickered and vanished in the deepest part of the Council District.
Its power far exceeded Valerius's.
It was as if a pair of invisible eyes, ten thousand meters high in the sky, stared indifferently at the chaos below, regarding it all as nothing more than… insignificant ants.