The sound was not thunder. It was the roar of a self-running firing squad reloading its chambers.
Deep inside the ceiling channel of the BIOS chamber, arcs of blinding purple sky-trial star-fire began to coalesce into a writhing serpent of raw high-voltage electricity.
Elder Wu scrambled backward on hands and knees, staring up in total horror.
“The Nine-Layer Purple Lightning of Heavenly Judgment!” Wu shrieked. “It kills ninety-nine out of every hundred students who try to step from Core Formation to Nascent Soul! Lin Ke, delete it! Purge the slaughterhouse from the laws of heaven!”
“I can’t simply delete it,” Lin Ke answered, his jaw tight.
“Why not?!” Shen Yue cried, her hands shaking as she shielded her eyes from the blinding purple flare. “It has murdered millions of innocent seekers for ten thousand years!”
“Because without a compiler linter,” Lin Ke said, speaking with grim, measured urgency, “any fool who cultivates a backward, poisonous manual will draw five hundred gallons of raw spirit fire into a two-inch earthen pipe.”
He pointed to the flashing stack trace on the end-post screen.
