The silence in the safe house was absolute. The four core members of Project Zero were gathered around the Quantum-Entangled Resonance Emitter, their faces illuminated by the device's faint, pulsing crystal. The air was thick with a tension that was almost unbearable.
Then, the whispers began.
At first, they were distorted, filled with static, the sound of a broken man speaking from a world away. It was the voice of the captured Prometheus agent, one of Specter's elite team. Hephaestus made a fine adjustment to a receiver dish connected to the 'speaker' device, and the voice suddenly became terrifyingly clear.
"...I'll tell you everything," the agent's voice trembled, a stark contrast to the calm, professional tone of his government interrogator. "Just... just keep me out of their medical wards. I know what they do in there."
For the next hour, the members of Project Zero listened, silent and rapt, to a confession that painted a picture of a conspiracy far grander and more monstrous than they had ever imagined.
The agent, promised a lighter sentence and protection, confirmed everything Dr. Chen had told them. He spoke of the Prometheus Initiative, of their fanatical devotion to the Abyss, of their ultimate goal to achieve a twisted form of godhood by merging with it. He validated the existence of the three primary research hubs, giving them new, horrifying details about the experiments conducted within each.
Then, he gave them more.
He spoke of the Initiative's true scale. It was not just a regional faction. It was a global hydra with three major "Pillars," one hidden within each of the world's great super-states: their own Tianxia Concord, the Euro-American Federation, and the Pan-African Conglomerate. The man they had been fighting, the so-called Sector Chief, was a minor player, a regional manager in a worldwide corporate structure of treason.
Lin Mei's hands, resting on the table, clenched into white-knuckled fists. The enemy was bigger, more entrenched than she had feared. Old-Man-Jiang's eyes were narrowed in intense concentration, his mind already redrawing the strategic map of the entire planet. Hephaestus listened intently as the agent began to speak of Prometheus's secret technological advancements, his expression a mixture of disgust and professional curiosity.
Su Liying was the most focused of all. She was not just listening; she was analyzing. Her fingers flew across her tablet as she took meticulous notes, cross-referencing every word with the data from the Leech, building a profile of the enemy that was becoming more terrifying with every passing second.
The government interrogator's voice cut in, calm and probing. "Let's move on to your most critical operation. Tell us about 'Project Chimera'."
The captured agent let out a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. "Project Chimera... you think it's about making super-soldiers, don't you? That's what we tell the lower-level recruits. That's the lie that keeps the money flowing."
A heavy pause.
"The 'vessel' we're trying to create... it's not for some distant Abyssal entity we summon through a Rift," the agent whispered, his voice cracking with a fear that was bone-deep. "It's for the god that's already here."
Lin Mei exchanged a confused look with Jiang Wei. Here?
The agent continued, his confession tumbling out. "The Great Revival... the coming of spiritual energy a century ago... it wasn't a natural event. That's the greatest lie Prometheus ever told the world. It was a symptom. It was the first, deep breath of something waking up."
"What is waking up?" the interrogator pressed.
"A god," the agent whispered. "A dormant, world-sized Abyssal being that has been sleeping deep within the Earth's core for millions of years. The Rifts are not an invasion from another dimension. They are a side effect of its awakening, like the tremors before a volcano erupts. They are portals opening from the inside out."
The worldview of everyone listening in the safe house did not just crack; it shattered. The war wasn't about repelling invaders. It was about a ticking time bomb buried beneath their own feet. The Abyss wasn't an external enemy that could be kept out; it was a fundamental, growing part of their planet's new, terrifying reality.
"And Prometheus's goal?" the interrogator asked, his own voice now laced with a hint of awe and terror.
"They don't want to kill it," the agent said, his voice now a whimper. "They want to merge with it. Project Chimera is about creating a perfect hybrid vessel, a human-Abyssal body that can withstand the awakening. They intend to hijack the god as it is being born, to seize control of its world-bending power and become the absolute masters of a new, terraformed Abyssal Earth. They are not just traitors to humanity. They are its executioners."
Su Liying felt a profound, physical chill, a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. A dormant, sleeping god of immense power, buried deep beneath the world... an entity whose very breathing warped reality...
The concept resonated with a horrifying, sickening familiarity. It resonated with the feeling she got every time she was near Qin Mo. The impossible, silent, gravitational weight of his soul. An ancient, sleeping universe hidden behind the eyes of a teenage boy.
The connection was impossible. It was insane. And to her, in that moment, it felt terrifyingly, undeniably inevitable.
The confession finally ended. The agent had given them every secret he knew. The QERE device on the table fell silent, its central crystal dimming.
The four members of Project Zero were left in the ringing silence, each processing the horrifying new reality they had been shown. Their entire understanding of the war, of their world, had been a lie.
It was Old-Man-Jiang who spoke first into their private comms, his voice heavy. "Oracle must be informed."
Nomad-Lead: "A sleeping god... Oracle, is this... is this intelligence accurate?"
The Oracle username blinked to life in their private channel, his response as calm and simple as it was terrifying.
Oracle: The asset's testimony is consistent with my own predictive models. The intelligence is accurate.
Hephaestus slammed his fist on the table. Hephaestus: You knew?! You knew this whole time?!
Oracle: I possessed the raw data. I needed you to hear the truth from the mouth of the enemy to fully comprehend its implications.
The team fell silent again. The most terrifying realization of all was now dawning on them. Their mysterious leader was not just a genius strategist. He was not just a provider of impossible technology. He was something more. He was a being who had known the fundamental, world-ending truth of their reality all along and had been guiding them, preparing them, for this exact moment.
Su Liying stared at the name Oracle on her terminal. The mystery of Qin Mo was no longer an academic puzzle, a thrilling secret to be solved. It had become something far greater, and far more frightening.
It might just be the key to the entire planet's survival. Or its ultimate destruction.