The gloomy sky was covered in pitch-black clouds, completely veiling the final rays of daylight. A bone-chilling breeze swept through the treetops, rustling them with a lonely murmur.
In the middle of the deserted cemetery, a solitary figure holding a bouquet of fresh flowers stood before a cold stone tombstone. Lu Xie slowly lowered himself, sinking both knees onto the soggy grass. He gently placed the fresh bouquet beside the photograph of his late mother, his voice raspy and choked with sobs:
— "Mom... I... I miss you so much... Why did you... leave me behind...? Those beasts out there... made you suffer like this... I swear... I swear I will kill every last one... of those failures of creation...!"
Tears burst forth, streaming down Lu Xie's ash-pale cheeks. He leaned forward, burying his head against the tombstone as he sobbed uncontrollably. Right then, heavy drops of early-season rain began to fall, mingling with the bitter tears of the orphan.
— "I've come to visit you ten times now...! Are you... over on the other side... happy? I miss you... I miss you so much...! You always taught me to show love and help those lower beings... But look what happened?! They killed you!
Mom... why...? Why did those half-breeds kill you?!"
TAP... TAP…
Gentle footsteps approached. A black umbrella opened up, shielding Lu Xie from the pouring rain drenching his body. Qin Wuhuang stood behind him, lowering his voice in reminder:
— "Young Master Lu Xie, staying out in the rain like this isn't good for your health."
Lu Xie kept his head buried by the tombstone, his voice hoarse:
— "I want to stay by my mother's side a little longer... Wuhuang, go ahead, leave me alone!"
Qin Wuhuang sighed, quietly leaving the umbrella behind to cover Lu Xie before turning to walk away, leaving the young master of the Lu family kneeling alone in the pouring rain.
At the same time, inside Zero Horizon's underground base.
In the computer room, Loona and Xie Xingchen were still typing away endlessly to decrypt files YX-03 and YX-04. Only a few final steps remained before the security system would be completely bypassed.
Just then, Seijuro's voice echoed in from the dining room:
— "Hey! Tae-Joon cooked something delicious, come out and eat a little, you two! Don't let it get cold and go to waste!"
Xingchen stretched and stood up. Seeing Loona still glued to the screen, he gently approached and patted her shoulder:
— "Come out and grab a bite to refuel, Loona!"
Loona narrowed her eyes, trying to type in another command:
— "Just a little more, please! We're almost done!"
— "Leave it for now, we can come back to it later. Brother Shin's group won't be back anytime soon. If Shin returns and sees you looking so worn out, he'll feel terrible! Let's go eat with everyone!"
Not giving Loona a chance to refuse, Xingchen pulled her up from her seat and guided her out of the room. He carefully shut the door so Loona could comfortably rest and eat to regain her energy.
At the dining table, the atmosphere was exceptionally cozy. Everyone gathered around, enjoying steaming bowls of soup cooked by Tae-Joon himself.
Tae-Joon brought out the dish with a smile, asking excitedly:
— "How does everyone like this French Onion Soup?"
Loona and Seijuro simultaneously gave a thumbs-up in approval:
— "Like!"
Seijuro took a sip and gasped in admiration:
— "Superb! Phenomenal!"
Loona nodded vigorously:
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— "Brother Tae-Joon truly is the squad's number one chef!"
Stolas, sitting nearby, nodded in satisfaction and silently raised a thumbs-up in praise. At the corner of the table, the Mikami brothers were served two large portions of soup, but they were squabbling over them:
Ren Mikami grumbled:
— "Hey, you bastard! Are you stealing the portion with more meat?!"
Rei Mikami grinned, quickly scooping up a big spoonful!
— "Hehe, it's just one bite, why so tense, big bro?"
— "Woah! Playing dirty, taking such a huge bite?!" Ren lunged to snatch it back.
— "That's what you get for being slow!" Rei stuck out his tongue playfully.
Tae-Joon, speechlessly watching the two brothers, shook his head:
— "Come on, you two, there's still plenty in the pot!"
Tae-Joon scooped a generous ladle of soup into Rei's bowl. Rei stood up and stretched:
— "I'm going to use the restroom for a bit. Touch my food while I'm gone and you're dead meat!"
Ren pouted:
— "Hmph, as if I care!"
With that, Rei slowly walked out of the dining room. But his destination was not the restroom at all—it was the computer room containing the data chip!
Rei gently pushed the door open and stepped inside. Before his eyes, the computer monitor displayed a decryption progress bar that had reached 98%.
A sinister smirk curled on Rei's lips. Sitting down in the chair, his fingers rapidly typed a series of override commands into the algorithm, intentionally creating a system conflict that triggered a severe decryption error. Next, Rei pulled an identical-looking secret chip from his pocket. Plugging the new chip in, he quickly copied all original data from files YX-01 through YX-04 over to his own chip, then executed a command to wipe every single file on the original chip clean!
Once the process was complete, Rei unplugged the chip containing the full data and tucked it back into his pocket. Now, the chip still plugged into the computer was nothing more than an empty shell locked down by system errors.
Rei muttered under his breath:
— "Hmph, after being lost for so long, this data should finally return to its rightful owner! Leaving it out like this makes it far too easy for these guys to hold leverage over us... Now, the next target to handle is Loona!"
However, just as he stepped into the hallway to return to the dining room, Rei suddenly ran straight into Stolas coming from the opposite direction. Rei startled for a split second before quickly regaining his composure, brushing past Stolas at a brisk pace.
After taking a few steps, Stolas paused. His hawkish, owl-like eyes turned to watch Rei's retreating back as he headed toward the dining table, a massive doubt swelling in his mind:
— "The direction he just came from... isn't toward the restroom?"
A moment later, Stolas returned to the dining table. Quietly sitting down, his searching gaze began meticulously scrutinizing every movement of the Mikami brothers. While everyone was merrily chatting, Stolas remained like a silent night owl, covertly taking note of every abnormality.
Right at that moment, lively footsteps echoed from the entrance. Shin's group had returned from the Ryuzaki Manor carrying countless expensive gifts!
Shin chimed in enthusiastically:
— "Hey everyone! What are you eating? Give me some, my stomach is growling up a storm!"
Shin quickly scooped himself a large bowl of French Onion Soup.
Xie Xingchen asked in surprise:
— "How come you guys came back so early today, brother?"
Seijuro looked at the piles of items in their hands:
— "Oh, you even brought back a haul of gifts!"
Roxy excitedly pulled out a high-grade toy bone designed for beast-folk from a gift bag. Her dog ears perked up straight, and her tail wagged wildly with joy. Seeing this, Loona grabbed the bone and tossed it far away; Roxy instantly sprinted after it, catching it tightly in her mouth with immense delight.
Meanwhile, Kento pulled out luxurious suits tailored from the finest materials sponsored by the Ryuzaki family:
— "Seijuro, try this one on! There are plenty more top-tier suits!"
Kento handed out remarkably sharp suits to the men in the group. Amidst the excitement of trying on clothes and lively laughter, Roxy and Loona walked hand in hand back to the computer room so Roxy could check the decryption progress.
However, the moment they stepped through the doorway, what hit Loona's eyes was a computer monitor wildly flashing bright red alongside a barrage of rushing error warnings (SYSTEM CRASH / ERROR)!
Panic-stricken, Loona rushed to the keyboard, frantically typing to stop it:
— "What is this?! How could this... Oh no, the system crashed completely!"
Seeing Loona's cheerful complexion turn deathly pale and panicked, Roxy sprinted out into the hallway, yelling at the top of her lungs:
— "XIE XINGCHEN! GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW! LOONA SAYS EVERYTHING IS CRASHED!!!"
Everyone instantly froze their clothes-trying and eating, rushing straight into the computer room alongside Xingchen.
Seeing Loona sweating profusely as she desperately tried to patch the errors, Xingchen immediately sat down beside her, slamming his hand on the desk and cursing:
— "What the hell is this?! It was running totally fine right before we went out to eat, how the hell did it crash now?!"
Loona whimpered, her voice trembling:
— "Brother Xingchen... everything is scrambled, and code is overwriting itself!"
Shin and the rest of the squad stood around in deep concern, watching attentively without daring to disturb the two during their data recovery attempt.
Shin frowned:
— "How did it end up like this? Did the chip suffer hardware damage?"
Kento folded his hands behind his back:
— "High-tech chips don't break that easily!"
Tae-Joon scratched his head, posing a naive question:
— "Or maybe... the chip got tired from running so much and wanted to rest?"
Everyone simultaneously turned to glare at Tae-Joon with exasperated looks. Seijuro stroked his chin in speculation:
— "Or could it be a dormant malware that just triggered now?"
— "That's very possible..." Shin nodded in thought.
Meanwhile, Ling Mo stood silently in the corner of the room. He happened to notice that Stolas's gaze wasn't fixed on the computer monitor or the panic of Xingchen and Loona at all, but was instead locked dead-center onto Rei Mikami.
Ling Mo immediately shifted his sight to follow Stolas's line of vision. Across from them, the Mikami brothers were trying hard to appear extremely anxious and tense, just like everyone else.
Ling Mo thought to himself:
'Stolas isn't looking at the screen like the others... Could he have discovered something? Is there really something suspicious about the Mikami brothers?'
After nearly half an hour of frantic data recovery efforts, the computer screen finally returned to normal. However, a new disaster struck, plunging everyone into utter shock.
Every single directory inside the chip was now completely empty!
Loona stared blankly, her voice cracking:
— "Huh...? The data... where is all the data?"
Xingchen shuddered, slamming his palm on the desk as he roared:
— "What in the bloody hell is this?! How could all the data in the chip vanish without leaving a single trace?!"
Shin stood frozen behind them:
— "Completely wiped out?! How could that be!"
Roxy clutched her head in confusion:
— "Could it be that when the system crashed, it automatically triggered a security purge mechanism?"
Loona was completely exhausted and heartbroken. She couldn't find a single fragment of data or recovery trace. Slumping her head onto the keyboard, her shoulders trembled violently as she burst into tears:
— "I can't find anything... sob... If I had just stayed a little longer when Brother Xingchen invited me to eat, everything would have succeeded... I'm sorry... I disappointed everyone again...!"
Heartbroken for her, Shin stepped closer and gently placed a hand on his little sister's shoulder to comfort her:
— "It's alright, Loona, it's just a file! We're hardly short of ways to confront and threaten the Federation! Rest assured, Zero Horizon isn't fighting alone anymore!"
Kento stepped up to pat her back, and Roxy leaned down to tightly embrace Loona, sharing in her pain.
However, what the Zero Horizon squad—engrossed in comforting Loona—completely failed to notice... were two extremely dangerous pairs of eyes quietly operating in the shadows. One as ice-cold as winter frost belonging to Ling Mo, and the other as deep and razor-sharp as an owl's belonging to Stolas—both locking onto every subtle change in expression across the faces of the Mikami brothers…
(To be continued)