A month passed.
In the grand scheme of the silent war, it was a period of eerie, deceptive quiet. To the outside world, nothing had changed. The Abyss Rifts continued to open, and the hunters continued to fight and die. But within the hidden networks of the Oracle Alliance and the Prometheus Initiative, a slow, invisible poison was doing its work.
The Janus Virus was a masterpiece of cognitive sabotage.
In the secure channel of the [Analysis_Core], Su Liying and her team watched the results trickle in. They were not watching explosions or battles, but the slow, agonizing death of scientific progress.
> DataGeek: "Chief, you need to see this. Prometheus's latest Rift stabilization test at the Sichuan facility just failed. Catastrophically. According to their internal logs, which they believe are secure, it was due to a 'minor, cascading miscalculation' in the energy-to-mass conversion ratio. The Janus virus is working. It's feeding them flawed data that looks completely real."
> Crystalline_Mind: "Keep monitoring. What about their biological research?"
> OldTimer: "It's even worse for them there, Chief. Their latest attempt to analyze the Devourer tissue has been a complete disaster. The virus is subtly altering the sensor readings from their electron microscopes. They're chasing ghosts, trying to map a protein structure that doesn't actually exist. They've wasted billions in resources and an entire month on a dead end."
Prometheus was being silently, surgically lobotomized from the inside out. Their brilliant scientists were being driven mad by their own failing experiments, never suspecting that the very data they trusted had become their greatest enemy. It was a new, terrifying form of warfare, and Su Liying was one of its commanders.
But this grand, strategic victory felt distant to her. Her mind was consumed by a much closer, more immediate mystery. The mystery of Qin Mo.
Her impossible hypothesis—that he was somehow connected to, or was the human vessel of, the dormant Abyssal god—had taken root in her soul. It was a terrifying, insane thought, but it was the only theory that fit all the facts. And now, every interaction with him at the academy was filtered through this new, terrifying lens.
The world of school had become a stage for her silent observation.
When he slept at his desk during a boring history lecture, his head resting on his arms, she no longer saw a lazy teenager. She saw a cosmic consciousness, momentarily disconnecting from its mortal shell to manage the affairs of a thousand other worlds. 'Is he sleeping,' she would wonder, her heart pounding, 'or is he commanding armies in another galaxy right now?'
When she saw him eating a simple lunch in the cafeteria, his expression placid and his movements economical, she saw a god performing a necessary, mundane ritual. 'Is he even tasting the food, or is he merely providing the required fuel for his physical vessel?'
When he stared out the classroom window at the passing clouds, she saw an observer watching the flow of planetary energies. 'Is he looking at the clouds, or is he perceiving the very heartbeat of the world?'
The obsession was maddening. She needed more data. She had to test him, to provoke a reaction, to see a flicker of the being she was convinced was hiding behind those calm, empty eyes.
One afternoon, in a relatively quiet hallway, she put a new plan into action. As he walked past, she "accidentally" stumbled, letting out a small, convincing cry of pain as she fell to the floor near him, deliberately twisting her ankle. As an A-Rank healer, faking the aura of a minor physical injury was a simple, trivial trick. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with carefully constructed pain.
"I think I sprained my ankle," she said, her voice trembling slightly.
She watched him, her empathic senses on high alert, searching for any reaction. Pity? Concern? Annoyance? Anything. She wanted to feel a flicker of genuine, human emotion.
Qin Mo stopped. He looked down at her, his face the same blank, indifferent canvas it always was. There was no change in his expression. But for a fraction of a second, Su Liying felt something through her talent, a ripple in his impossibly still aura.
It wasn't concern. It wasn't pity. It was... impatience. A profound, cosmic-level annoyance. The irritation of a grandmaster whose complex, multi-dimensional chess game had just been interrupted by a pawn inexplicably tipping itself over.
He bent down, helping her up with a motion that was mechanically efficient and utterly devoid of warmth. "You should be more careful," he said, his voice a flat monotone.
He then turned and walked away without a second glance, leaving her standing there, her feigned injury completely forgotten, her heart now cold with a new, terrifying certainty. He had felt nothing. No empathy. No concern. He had reacted to her pain as if it were a minor, inconvenient system error. He was not human.
As Qin Mo walked away, his own mind was processing the encounter. [Analysis: Subject Su Liying initiated a controlled physical distress scenario. Stated purpose: to request assistance. True purpose: to elicit and observe an emotional response.] [Observation: Her control over her own spiritual aura to convincingly mimic the energy signature of a cellular sprain is impressive. Her A-Rank talent is developing at an accelerated rate.] [Conclusion: Her new hypothesis regarding my fundamental nature is causing her to conduct increasingly direct behavioral experiments. This is a predictable but potentially destabilizing variable. Her obsession is making her reckless and could draw unwanted attention.]
He was not worried about her exposing him. He was worried that her clumsy attempts to understand him would get her killed. He needed to redirect her. He needed to give her a new, more demanding puzzle to solve, a grand problem that would consume her immense intellect and keep her out of trouble.
That evening, a new, private message appeared on Su Liying's terminal. It was from Oracle.
To: Chief Analyst Crystalline_Mind Subject: New Directive.
The Janus Virus is performing within expected parameters. However, Prometheus's internal security has correctly flagged the consistent research failures as 'statistical anomalies'. They are beginning a full, system-wide diagnostic, purging their networks and reinforcing their firewalls.
They will not find the virus. Its nature is beyond their comprehension. But their diagnostic will create a massive amount of digital noise and temporary chaos within their inter-facility communication network.
Within chaos, there is opportunity.
Your new task is to lead the Analysis Core in a 'deep dive' during this 48-hour diagnostic period. Their internal security will be focused inwards, leaving their long-range communication channels momentarily more vulnerable. I want the confirmed locations of their two other primary facilities: the Rift Mechanics lab in the Sichuan mountains, and the deep-sea Abyssal Biology station in the South China Sea. This is now our highest priority.
Su Liying stared at the message. It was a monumental, almost impossible task. Sifting through exabytes of chaotic data to find two needles in a digital haystack.
But she understood the real message. This was not just a mission. It was a challenge. It was a distraction. Oracle—Qin Mo—had seen her fumbling attempts to understand him and had responded by giving her a mountain to climb, a puzzle so vast it would consume all her attention.
He was redirecting her. He was managing her. The silent game continued.
A slow, determined smile spread across her face. "Challenge accepted," she whispered to her empty room.