General Hong Fei barked orders into a secure comm-crystal. "Elevate Code Yellow to Red in the outer provinces! Assign two A-Rankers to every convergence hub! If you don't have them, borrow, steal, or wake the retired ones!"
Mana operators scrambled across terminals, fingers flying over crystal-engraved keyboards.
Holographic maps projected above the table updated in real time. Each city blinked into red and gold, red where mana pools were confirmed compromised, gold where diagnostic teams were en route.
A separate wall screen displayed active data pulls from all 32 provincial capitals.
They showed the same thing.
The same slow siphoning signature.
The same rogue frequency signature.
The same military-grade construction fused into civilian infrastructure.
"It's nationwide," General Liang said grimly, staring at the rising tide of convergence points being flagged. "This isn't just sabotage anymore. This is pre-invasion softening."
