In the cramped, sterile confines of her mobile command hub, Su Liying was the conductor of a world-breaking symphony. Before her, a holographic display showed a dozen different data streams: the wind speed over the Sichuan mountains, the real-time status of Lin Mei's assault team, and most importantly, the feed from the Resonator deployment team.
Resonator Lead: "Charge is set and calibrated to the fault line's primary stress point. We are clear of the immediate seismic zone. Awaiting your command, Chief Analyst."
Su Liying took a slow, steadying breath, the weight of the entire operation settling on her young shoulders. She glanced at the mission clock. 02:59 AM. She cross-referenced the timing with the facility's internal patrol schedules, which Old-Man-Jiang had procured. The window was perfect.
"All Alliance teams, stand by for seismic event," she announced, her voice, crisp and clear, broadcast across all secure channels. "Resonator team... on my mark."
She paused, her finger hovering over the activation command. "Three... two... one..." "Execute."
On a desolate, windswept mountainside ten kilometers from the Prometheus facility, the Harmonic Resonator came to life.
It did not explode. It sang.
A deep, powerful, sub-sonic hum emanated from the device, a single, pure note that traveled not through the air, but through the bedrock of the planet itself. The ground beneath the deployment team's feet began to tremble, rocks vibrating and dancing as if alive. The hum intensified, the note perfectly matching the resonant frequency of the tectonic fault line deep beneath them.
It was an unnatural, focused, and terrifyingly controlled earthquake.
Inside the subterranean fortress of "The Forge," the world became a symphony of chaos. A violent, jarring tremor shook the entire facility, throwing technicians from their chairs and sending cascades of sparks down from the ceilings. Red lights flashed, and a cacophony of alarms blared through the corridors.
"Report! Report!" the facility's commander screamed into his comms, his face pale with panic. "Is it a natural earthquake or are we under attack?!"
"Sir, geological sensors are reading it as a natural but highly anomalous seismic event on the northern fault line!" an operator yelled back over the din.
Then came the report that sealed their fate. "COMMANDER! THE GEOTHERMAL TAP IS FLUCTUATING VIOLENTLY! WE HAVE A CRITICAL INSTABILITY WARNING IN THE REACTOR CORE! WE'RE RISKING A FULL MELTDOWN!"
The deception was perfect. The commander, faced with a perceived natural disaster of apocalyptic proportions, made the only logical choice. "All elite security teams, including Specter! Get your asses down to the geothermal plant NOW! Stabilize that reactor at all costs! Forget the surface, the entire mountain is about to come down on us!"
Their best soldiers, their most powerful assets, turned and sprinted deep underground, directly away from the true point of infiltration. Oracle's diversion was a spectacular, earth-shaking success.
High above, on the storm-lashed mountaintop, Lin Mei's assault team felt the tremor rumble beneath their feet. It was their cue.
"That's our ride," Lin Mei said, a grim, predatory smile on her face. "Chief Analyst, give me a status report on their surface defenses."
Su Liying's voice came back instantly through their earpieces, calm and clear despite the chaos she was remotely observing. Crystalline_Mind: "Their attention is completely focused on the geothermal emergency. All anti-air turrets are offline, their power rerouted to the core. Rooftop patrols have been recalled to assist underground. The eye of the hurricane is directly above you, Captain. You have a clean window of exactly twelve minutes before their command structure can even think about the surface. Go."
"You heard her," Lin Mei said to her team. "Let's ride the wave."
They moved. It was a top-down assault, fast and brutal. They rappelled down the sheer cliff face, the storm masking their descent. They reached a reinforced rooftop access hatch. Tien, the Vulture leader, placed a 'Kinetic Breaker' charge—Hephaestus's new toy—against its surface. With a low thump and a sound like tearing metal, a perfect, circular hole was blasted in the hatch.
They descended into the upper levels of the facility. The scene was one of controlled panic. Junior technicians and guards were running through the corridors, their attention focused on the blaring alarms from the sub-levels. Lin Mei's team, clad in their advanced stealth gear, moved against the current, ghosts in a river of chaos, heading for their objective: the central server room.
They found it on the fifth sub-level. But their luck had run out. A final, elite guard team—eight men, clad in the same black armor as Specter's squad—had been stationed here, a last line of defense for the facility's brain.
"Contact!" Swift yelled, as the guards spotted them and opened fire.
The corridor erupted in a storm of plasma bolts. Lin Mei's team was better, but they were pinned down, outnumbered. Their twelve-minute window was closing with terrifying speed.
From his silent perch across the multiverse, Qin Mo observed. He saw Lin Mei's team stalled. He saw the enemy commander, Specter, deep underground, finally realizing the earthquake was too localized, too convenient. He was beginning to turn back.
His team was out of time. His plan had reached a critical failure point. He felt the last vestiges of the Cybernetic God's inheritance fully integrate with his soul. His control was now absolute.
It was time for his first true act as an Inheritor.
Inside the chaotic, firefight-torn corridor of the Prometheus facility, the elite guards' tactical headsets suddenly crackled with a burst of pure, white static.
Then, a new voice spoke. It was not their commander. It was not their control room. It was a cold, calm, and perfectly androgynous voice that spoke directly inside their minds, a voice laced with an impossible, divine authority.
"You have sixty seconds to lay down your arms and surrender," the voice of Oracle said, cutting through the noise of the battle.
"Who the hell is that?!" the guard leader yelled, but his voice was trembling.
"Your commander has abandoned you," the voice continued, its tone flat and devoid of emotion. "Your facility is compromised. Your project is a failure. Your secrets are now mine."
Simultaneously, every single screen in the corridor—the wall-mounted status displays, the guards' own wrist-mounted tactical devices—flickered and changed.
They no longer showed system alerts. They showed personal information.
The lead guard stared in horror at a screen displaying the secret, offshore bank account he used to pay for his daughter's illegal medical treatments. The guard next to him saw a live feed from a hidden camera in his mistress's apartment. A third saw his own encrypted, treasonous communications with a rival guild.
It was a display of absolute, terrifying omniscience. A god had just peeled back their skulls and shown them the darkest secrets of their own souls.
Their will to fight did not just break; it evaporated. Weapons clattered to the floor. Hands went into the air. One of the guards, a hulking brute of a man, simply fell to his knees and began to sob.
They were not fighting soldiers anymore. They were fighting a god who knew everything.
Lin Mei and her team could only stare in stunned silence as their enemies completely surrendered before them. Her path to the server room was now clear. The Shepherd had just cleared the way for his flock.