The morning sun had barely breached the horizon when NovaSec's headquarters stirred with an intensity rarely seen. Employees clustered around monitors, whispering in hurried tones, scanning the live feed from the courthouse.
COURT RESCHEDULES INJUNCTION. HEARING IN PROGRESS.
"Wait—wait—that's today?" Mina, Level 3 engineer, nearly dropped her coffee as the live update flashed on her screen.
Her colleague, Ren, pushed his glasses up, hands trembling."They moved it without warning. Who reschedules an injunction overnight?"
Mina clicked the stream again."No… who has the power to reschedule it overnight?"
They exchanged a look.
- - -
Meanwhile, the courthouse felt different that morning.
As though the walls themselves were holding their breath.
A surprise announcement had gone out before dawn:
The continuation of Black Wall vs. NovaSec's injunction hearing had been rescheduled to the early morning. Effective immediately.
By 7:42 a.m., the courtroom was already packed.
Journalists squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder against the back wall, cameras raised, lenses trained toward the counsel tables. Investors who had managed to worm their way in sat stiffly in the pews, whispering with restless energy. Even the court clerks looked jumpy, the sudden rescheduling throwing everyone off balance.
Black Wall's legal team sat confidently near the front, crisp suits gleaming under the overhead lights. They looked like people who believed the win was already theirs—papers arranged in neat stacks, tablets loaded with "evidence," faces smooth with practiced arrogance.
But NovaSec's side…
The tension around their table was a living creature.
Documents lay scattered, as if they had been flipped through endlessly since the early hours. Their lead attorney, Seo Hye-Rim, stood tall but rigid, her fingers tapping a pen against the podium in a rhythm bordering on tremor. She looked like someone prepared to go to war.
A murmur rippled through the room when the judge entered.
"All rise."
Everyone rose.
Everyone exhaled.
Everyone braced.
"Your Honor," Black Wall's lead attorney, Mr. Kim Mun-Sik, began with a triumphant smile, "as previously demonstrated with extensive documentation, NovaSec engaged in direct infringement of our proprietary code and attempted to mask it behind falsified timestamps—"
"Objection," Ms. Seo cut in, her voice slicing clean through the air.
Mun-Sik blinked. "On what grounds?"
"On the grounds," she said, stepping forward, "that your entire argument hinges on evidence your team fabricated."
The courtroom erupted.
Gasps. Shouts. A journalist dropped his phone.
Mun-Sik sputtered, "Your Honor—"
"Silence," the judge snapped sharply. "Ms. Seo, you are alleging fabrication?"
"Yes, Your Honor." Her voice did not waver. "And I intend to prove it."
She tapped her tablet; the screen behind her lit up with a projection of an email chain.
"This is the correspondence Black Wall submitted as part of their injunction filing. But take note of the metadata." She zoomed in. "These emails were allegedly exchanged on June 4th. And yet—" she swiped— "the server they originate from did not exist until June 9th."
Another explosion of noise cracked through the courtroom.
The judge leaned forward. "Explain."
Hye-Rim lifted her chin. "Black Wall cloned a shadow server to fabricate a communication trail. They forged signatures, timestamps, and protocol routes. And they underestimated our ability to verify every single data point."
Mun-Sik shot to his feet. "Your Honor—this is absurd. They're grasping at—"
"Sit down, Mr. Kim," the judge barked. "Unless you have an explanation?"
Mun-Sik's mouth opened and closed. No sound came out.
Hye-Rim continued, voice gaining momentum—heat—precision. "The timestamps on three of Black Wall's screenshots were tampered with using an editing tool that leaves a specific artifact pattern. This pattern is visible here—" she highlighted pixel clusters "—and here. And here."
Every blow landed like a hammer strike.
"And finally…" Hye-Rim swiped to the next slide.
The entire room froze.
"This is the code segment they accuse NovaSec of stealing. Look at the compiler signature."
A new wave of murmurs.
"That signature belongs to a compiler that is only accessible internally at Black Wall." Seo turned, eyes sharp. "Meaning the ONLY way for NovaSec to have stolen this code… would be if we had access to their internal systems."
She let it hang.
Then—
"But that's not possible. Because Black Wall's security protocols block all external access. Unless, of course…" she raised a brow, "…Black Wall planted it."
Mun-Sik slammed a fist on the table. "This is outrageous!"
"No," Hye-Rim said with icy calm. "What's outrageous is forging company records and presenting them as truth."
The judge held up a hand. "Enough."
Silence swallowed the room.
He went through the documents again, flipping, scrolling, scanning. The tension was so thick the air felt weighted.
Finally—
The judge placed the papers aside and looked directly at Mun-Sik.
"This evidence is inconsistent. Manipulated. Fraudulent. The court rejects Black Wall's filings entirely."
Mun-Sik's face drained white.
Hye-Rim didn't even blink.
"With that," the judge continued, "I hereby lift the injunction on NovaSec effective immediately."
Chaos erupted.
Journalists stood at once, shouting questions.
"Is Black Wall being investigated for fraud?"
"What does this mean for NovaSec's halted contracts?"
"Did the CEO know this would happen?"
"Are counter-suits being filed?"
Security rushed forward to control the frenzy. Investors scrambled for their phones. Reporters tried to push past barriers. The judge slammed the gavel repeatedly.
"ORDER! ORDER IN THE COURT!"
But the room was no longer listening.
NovaSec had won. Completely. Decisively.
And no one—not even Black Wall—understood how.
The courthouse doors crashed open, and the humid morning air swallowed Mr. Oh whole.
For one second—just one—he dared to breathe. The hearing was over. The injunction was lifted. NovaSec was free.
But the world didn't give him even a heartbeat.
Because the moment his polished shoes touched the courthouse steps—
They descended.
A tidal wave of reporters.
A wall of microphones lunging toward him.Flashes erupting in staccato bursts. Voices overlapping in a violent, hungry storm.
"Mr. Oh! Mr. Oh! How do you respond to the judge's ruling?!"
"Did NovaSec anticipate the dismissal of Black Wall's evidence?!"
"Was this planned by your legal team?!"
"Was the injunction fabricated from the start?!"
"Black Wall is being accused of document forgery—was NovaSec aware?!"
"Are you pressing charges?!"
Questions slammed into him like physical blows, forcing him to raise an arm instinctively, shielding his face from the blinding white flashes.
Security guards surged around him, trying—and failing—to form a protective formation. Reporters pushed, shoved, practically climbed the stairs to get closer. A camera nearly collided with his shoulder.
"Mr. Oh!" a woman shouted from the front. "People are calling this a miraculous turnaround—how did NovaSec pull it off?!"
"Are rumors true that you manipulated the servers?!"
"Is this the work of a whistleblower inside Black Wall?!"
"Did someone tip you off—?"
Someone grabbed his sleeve. Someone else shoved a mic into his chin. He heard his own name screamed from half a dozen directions.
A reporter shoved forward, nearly stumbling into him. "Sir! Did NovaSec tamper with Black Wall's servers to uncover their forgery?! Who ordered the investigation—?"
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
Security finally managed to pry a path open, ushering him toward the waiting car at the curb.
But reporters surged again.
"Mr. Oh, one statement! Just one!"
"How will NovaSec retaliate?!"
"What is your next move?!"
He paused with one foot inside the car. His chest rose and fell with a breath sharp enough to cut. He turned just slightly—just enough for the nearest cameras to catch.
His voice was level. Measured. Controlled.
"NovaSec," he said, "does not fall to lies."
That was all.
He ducked into the car, the door slammed, the vehicle peeled away.
The reporters chased for several steps before dissolving into the chaos of their own echoing questions.
Inside the car, the silence was instant.
But inside his head?
Chaos.
He sank back against the seat, heart thudding in his ribs, the judge's words still ringing.
And one thought pulsed louder than all the rest:
He said 48 hours.
And he delivered.
He exhaled, pulled out his phone, and stared at the screen.
He should call him.
He should congratulate him.
He should ask for an explanation.
But his thumb hovered frozen over the call button.
What would he even say?
"Good work"?
"Thank you for saving us"?
"How did you turn a doomed hearing into a massacre"?
No.
He couldn't call.
Not yet.
Not until he saw him face-to-face.
Not until he understood just how deep the rabbit hole went.
He lowered the phone.
"Driver," he said quietly, "back to NovaSec. Now."
- - -
Across town, the announcement hit NovaSec like a thunderclap.
No warning. No buildup.
Just a sudden, system-wide alert that flashed across every monitor, tablet, phone, and glass panel in the building:
INJUNCTION LIFTED.
ALL CHARGES CLEARED.
COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF NOVASEC.
For a full second, no one moved.
The headquarters—which had been a storm of frantic monitoring and whispered fear for two days—fell into absolute, stunned silence.
Then—
A single gasp.
Another.
A chair scraped.
And suddenly—
The entire building erupted.
In the main engineering floor, Mina stood frozen in front of her monitor, hand covering her mouth.
"No way… no way, no way—WE WON?" she shouted so loudly the next floor could hear it.
Ren spun around in his chair, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Read it again—read it again—did it say cleared? All of it?"
Mina scrolled, voice trembling with disbelief.
"NovaSec exonerated… evidence proven forged… Black Wall's legal team under investigation… injunction lifted effective immediately—"
Her knees nearly buckled.
Ren threw his arms up. "oh my goodness—we're not getting shut down—we're fine—we're actually fine—"
Laughter burst from desks like popping fireworks.
Someone screamed.
Someone cried.
A group started hugging in a pile near the window.
The floor manager leaned against a desk, hand on his chest, muttering, "I aged ten years in one night… TEN YEARS…"
Another engineer spun his chair with a wild grin. "This is Chairman Jung Jae-Hyun. It has to be. Who else can overturn a court in less than twenty-four hours?!"
Someone else shouted back, "Of course it was him! Do you think he'd let NovaSec fall?"
Mina nodded fiercely through tears. "He wouldn't let this company go down. Not even for a second. Never."
The pride in her voice made several people tear up.
-
In the finance divisoion, spreadsheets were abandoned mid-calculation.
A junior accountant ran out of the copy room waving her phone. "It's trending! IT'S TRENDING EVERYWHERE! We cleared EVERYTHING!"
The usually expressionless CFO—who hadn't smiled in months—actually leaned back and laughed.
"We're alive," he whispered, then louder, "We're ALIVE!"
His team broke into applause so loud the soundproof doors barely held.
Someone yelled, "It HAS to be the chairman! Who else has that kind of pull?"
Another replied instantly: "He didn't just pull strings—he rewired the entire puppet show!"
Someone else laughed breathlessly, "He told us to trust him. AND LOOK. LOOK!"
-
In the operations wing, the supervisors had been midway through forming emergency contingency teams.
They dissolved the moment the alert arrived.
"Cancel everything," the department head ordered, voice cracking. "ALL of it. We're not dying today!"
His assistant wiped at her eyes with shaking hands. "I—I can't believe he actually managed it. Overnight."
One of the older employees, arms crossed, nodded with a proud little smirk.
"That's our chairman. He doesn't lose."
"Tch. Black Wall should've known better."
"He would NEVER let NovaSec fall. Not on his watch."
People nodded so fiercely they looked like they might sprain something.
-
In the cafeteria, the room exploded.
Someone had put the breaking news on the holo-TV, and staff crowded beneath the screens like fans watching a championship final.
Reporters' voices blared:
"Court rules in favor of NovaSec…"
"Forged documents submitted by Black Wall…"
"Injunction overturned in a shocking early-morning session…"
Every time NovaSec's name was mentioned, the entire cafeteria cheered like a stadium.
Trays clattered.
Coffee sloshed.
Someone jumped onto a bench and yelled, "WE'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!"
A cook burst out of the kitchen, apron flapping. "What happened?! Why is everyone screaming—"
"WE WON!" the crowd roared back at him.
He blinked, then laughed so hard he dropped the ladle.
"Of course we did! The chairman's a monster—they should've known better than to pick a fight with him!"
People shouted in agreement:
"He's too smart—"
"He would NEVER fail us—"
"What kind of idiot tries to corner HIM?"
The pride in the room was electric.
You could feel it buzzing under the skin—the sense that they belonged to something unstoppable. Untouchable.
-
In the executives floor, the executives tried—tried—to behave professionally.
It lasted forty seconds.
Then the department of Corporate Strategy burst into applause as soon as the internal memo confirmed the ruling.
Someone gasped, "The chairman… He really meant it… He said 48 hours and he delivered in exactly that."
Another executive murmured in awe, "He didn't save us. He restored us. Completely."
The Legal Director actually sat down on the floor, legs giving out. "I thought we were dead," he whispered. "I thought they got us this time."
The COO placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. "He was already ten steps ahead. That boy… he's terrifying."
Not a single person disagreed.
And across every floor, the unified whispers rang out:
"It was him."
"The chairman did it."
"He would never let anything happen to NovaSec."
"Never."
And for the first time in two days—the building didn't feel heavy anymore.
NovaSec didn't feel threatened. Didn't feel hunted.
It felt invincible.