The data flooded Qin Mo's consciousness, processed with a speed that defied the limits of human thought. The two men tailing Su Liying were not common thugs. Their faces, captured in high-resolution from a dozen different angles, were cross-referenced against global intelligence databases in a fraction of a second.
The results were as expected. The leader, Feng Liu. A disgraced former operative from the Red Dragon Special Forces, now a high-priced asset for "Blackwater Horizons"—a private military contractor known throughout the underworld as a primary recruitment pool for the Prometheus Initiative. His partner was a similar ghost, a specialist in wetwork and extraction. This was not a team you sent to intimidate someone. This was a team you sent to make a problem disappear.
Their objective was brutally clear: abduct Su Liying. Interrogate her. Extract the identity of Oracle and the secrets of his organization. She was no longer just a target; she was the key.
Qin Mo's mind, a fusion of a teenager's nascent protectiveness and the cold, calculating logic of his ninety thousand avatars, assessed the options. To warn her would be to invite panic. To alert the authorities would be to reveal his own hand. To deploy his core team would be a misuse of strategic assets.
There was only one optimal solution. He would handle this himself. Silently. He would not just be her protector. He would be her ghost, her guardian angel, the god in her machine. And he would send an unmistakable message to the wolves who dared to hunt on his territory.
The next day, as Su Liying left school, the silent war began. She was completely oblivious, her mind preoccupied with the data from the Silent Lab, trying to find the next thread to pull in the grand conspiracy.
In his bedroom miles away, Qin Mo's consciousness expanded, sinking into the digital nervous system of Shanghai. He was no longer just watching the city's surveillance cameras; he was the city's surveillance system. Every camera, every traffic light, every subway sensor, every smart device was a nerve ending, and he was the brain at the center of it all.
The Prometheus agents, confident and professional, began their operation. Their plan was simple: funnel the target into a secluded side alley, a known blind spot in the public surveillance grid, and make the grab.
Su Liying, following her usual shortcut home, turned towards the narrow alley. It was the perfect ambush point.
'Amateurs,' a cold thought echoed in Qin Mo's mind.
Just as her foot was about to cross the threshold into the alley, a large, automated street-sweeping drone nearby suddenly went haywire. Its motors whirred erratically, its warning lights flashed, and it swerved sharply, grinding to a halt directly in the alley's entrance. A synthesized voice blared from its speakers, "Error! Navigational matrix corrupted! Emergency shutdown engaged! Please stand clear!"
Su Liying sighed in annoyance at the inconvenience. She turned around and began the longer walk along the crowded main street. From a nearby rooftop, Feng Liu lowered his binoculars, a string of curses echoing in his mind. 'Impossible luck.'
Their next opportunity came at the maglev station. The platform was relatively sparse. It was the perfect hunting ground. As they began to close in from opposite ends, their movements casual, the station's PA system, which had been playing soft classical music, suddenly crackled to life.
"WARNING! LEVEL THREE STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY ALERT IN SECTOR B! ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE THE PLATFORM IMMEDIATELY! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"
Panic erupted. The commuters screamed and stampeded towards the exits. Alarms blared. Station security guards flooded the area. In the chaos, Feng Liu and his partner were swept away by the terrified crowd, forced to abandon their second attempt.
The agents grew increasingly frustrated. Their perfect plan was being dismantled by a string of bizarre, statistically improbable "coincidences." When they tried to follow her car in a taxi, a sudden, inexplicable multi-car pile-up blocked the entire street. When they tracked her to a multi-story parking garage, the elevator she entered inexplicably skipped their floor and went straight to the lobby, its doors opening to a group of patrolling police officers.
It wasn't bad luck anymore. It felt like the entire city, the very fabric of urban life, was conspiring to protect this one girl. It felt like they were being watched by a mocking, invisible god.
Su Liying finally arrived at the front door of her upscale apartment building, completely unaware that she had been the subject of a two-hour-long, high-stakes battle between unseen forces. She was just tired and annoyed. Her commute had been a cascade of urban failures.
"The city's infrastructure is really falling apart," she muttered to herself as she let herself in, her mind already shifting back to the fascinating puzzle of Oracle.
She was so focused on the grand, strategic game, she never realized she had just become the most important piece on the board, protected from capture by the very hand she was trying to understand.
Protection was not enough. A message had to be sent. A lesson had to be taught.
Qin Mo's consciousness followed Feng Liu back to the five-star hotel the agent was using as his base of operations. He watched through the hotel's security cameras as the man entered his suite on the 34th floor. He watched as Feng Liu initiated a secure, encrypted call to his Prometheus superior.
"The mission is a failure," Feng Liu reported, his voice tight with frustration. "The asset is… slippery. It's like she's surrounded by a field of bad luck. We will try again tomorrow with a new approach."
As he spoke, the military-grade, supposedly unhackable communication device in his hand flickered. The face of his superior vanished, replaced by a black screen.
"What the hell? A connection error?" Feng Liu muttered.
Then, a new image appeared on the small screen. It was a live video feed, perfectly clear, showing the back of his own head. It was being filmed from the perspective of the large television set on the wall in front of him.
Feng Liu's blood turned to ice. Every instinct from his years of special forces training screamed at him. Compromised. Watched. Hunted.
He spun around, his hand instinctively reaching for the concealed weapon at his side. The television was off, its screen a blank, black mirror. There was no camera.
He looked back at the device in his hand. The live feed was still playing, a mocking, impossible image of his own terrified face. Below the video, a single line of text typed itself out, each letter appearing with a slow, deliberate finality, like words being chiseled onto a tombstone.
Leave. Her. Alone.
A wave of pure, existential terror, colder and more profound than any fear he had ever felt on a battlefield, washed over Feng Liu. This was not a rival agency. This was not a government operation. This was something else. This was a power that defied the laws of physics, a shadow that could see into any room, hack any device, at any time. It was an invisible, omniscient god. And he had just threatened something it cared about.
He knew, with a certainty that settled into the very marrow of his bones, that this was not a threat. It was a final warning.
In his bedroom, Qin Mo severed the connection. The message was sent. The immediate threat was neutralized.
But he felt no satisfaction. This was a temporary fix. A warning. Prometheus would not be deterred so easily. They would be more careful next time. They would send a better team.
His low-key protocol had been breached, not by the enemy, but by his own decision to act. He had revealed a fraction of his capability to protect a single person.
He opened a new, encrypted file in the deepest, most secure corner of his own mind, a place separate even from the archives of his ninety thousand avatars. He gave the file a simple title.
[Project Sanctuary: Su Liying Protocol]
He had just started a new, secret operation within his own secret organization. Objective: to ensure the absolute safety of his Chief Analyst, by any means necessary. The silent, cosmic war had just become intensely personal.