The Aegis Tower, once a symbol of impenetrable stability, felt like a sinking ship. In the span of six hours, the global neural network—the "Oracle" I had spent a decade perfecting—began to cannibalize itself. It wasn't just a hack; it was a structural inversion. The algorithms that had predicted market trends were now actively creating chaos, selling off our most vital assets at the exact micro-second they reached peak value, then instantly shorting the very companies we owned.
"We've lost the Singapore trust," Yuna shouted over the sound of a dozen warning sirens. The command center was a sea of flashing red. "The encryption didn't break, Jiwoo—it evolved. The system recognized the intruder's key as a higher-priority administrator than you. It's like the AI is bowing to its true father."
I stood at the central console, watching my net worth evaporate in digital chunks of a hundred million dollars at a time. But I wasn't looking at the numbers. I was looking at the code.
"He's not just using future tech, Yuna," I said, my voice eerily calm. "He's using my own logic against me. These are the sub-routines I designed in the original 2026 timeline for the 'Omni-Protocol.' Sub-routines I haven't even written yet in this life."
"How is that possible?" Yuna asked, her hands trembling on the keyboard.
"Because he didn't just travel back," I said, a dark realization settling in my gut. "He stayed behind. He watched me die on that roof, then he waited. Or... he was the one who sent me back to do the dirty work of building the infrastructure, just so he could step in and claim the finished product."
My phone—the Aegis-7 prototype that shouldn't exist—vibrated. No caller ID.
"Hello, Jiwoo," the voice said. It wasn't the British accent of the Vanguard Group. It was a voice that sounded hauntingly familiar. It was the voice of the man I had seen in the Mirae Clinic feed, but older. More refined. "Do you like the house I had you build for me?"
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"In the timeline you remember, I was your mentor," the voice replied with a light chuckle. "The one who taught you about the 'glitch' in the KOSDAQ. The one who gave you the coordinates for the NetZone trade. You thought you were the protagonist of a miracle, Jiwoo. But you were just a high-fidelity bot, tasked with gathering the world's capital into a single, convenient bucket."
I looked at the screen. The Aegis Global map was turning grey as node after node went dark.
"The 2008 crash, the Apple acquisition, the blockchain node in Jeju... I needed someone with your specific brand of desperation to execute those moves," the voice continued. "A man who wanted to save his mother would work harder than any mercenary. And you did. You saved her. You built the empire. And now, I'm here to take the keys."
"The Mirae Clinic," I whispered. "You're not just there to watch. You're holding it hostage."
"Smart boy. Your mother is currently in the VIP suite. The life support and the automated medication dispensers are now tied to the same ledger as your bank accounts. If the Aegis balance hits zero, the dispensers stop. You have thirty minutes of liquidity left."
I felt the world tilt. For eleven years, I had been the hunter. Now, I was the one caught in a trap designed by the very person who had taught me how to hunt.
"Yuna," I said, turning to her with a look of absolute focus. "Initiate the Mirror Protocol."
"The Mirror Protocol? Jiwoo, that's a suicide switch. It destroys the entire Aegis server farm. It will wipe out everything—the data, the money, the patents."
"It's the only thing he hasn't predicted," I said. "He thinks I'll fight to keep the empire because he thinks I'm like him. He thinks I value the gold more than the ghost."
I leaned over her shoulder, my fingers flying across the terminal. "If I can't have the future I built, no one can. We're going back to zero. We're going back to the way it was before I woke up in that PC Bang."
"But your mother—"
"The Mirror Protocol doesn't just delete," I said, a wild, desperate plan forming in my mind. "It mirrors. It sends the entire system's energy into a single point. If I can't stop him from the outside, I'll crash the system while he's logged in. I'm going to pull him into the dark with me."
I grabbed my coat and the Nexus device. "Yuna, get to the airport. Take the private jet to Morocco. There's a hidden account in Erfoud that even I haven't touched. It's enough for you to live ten lives."
"What about you?"
I looked at the elevator. "I'm going to the clinic. I'm going to meet the man who pushed me."
As I stepped into the elevator, the lights of the Aegis Tower began to flicker. The mirror was cracking. The world's most powerful man was about to become a ghost once again.