Isabelle Moon's voice was a shard of ice in his ear.
The conference room, which seconds before had been buzzing with the energy of a fragile new alliance, went dead silent. Everyone was staring at him, at the phone pressed to his ear, at the blood draining from his face.
...my cousin, Hana.
...I just had the strangest vision.
...A vision of a sun and a moon, trying to eclipse my stars.
The system's crimson warning flashed in his mind: New Variable has entered the field: The Oracle.
It wasn't a metaphor. It wasn't a lucky guess. Isabelle Moon, the untouchable SSS-Rank idol from Titan Entertainment, had a precognitive skill. She had seen his plan, the 'Sol & Luna' concept he had birthed in the secret confines of his own mind only hours ago.
The game had changed, fundamentally and terrifyingly. He wasn't just fighting corporate rivals anymore. He was fighting a prophet.
"I think you have the wrong number," Yoo-jin said, his voice a low, steady calm he did not feel. He had to deny, to deflect.
A cold, humorless laugh echoed down the line. "Don't insult my intelligence, Producer Han. I know exactly who I'm talking to. The puppet master from Starforce who thinks he can challenge the heavens."
He looked across the table at Hana. Her face was a mask of pale, shocked fury. The word 'cousin' had landed like a physical blow. This wasn't just a professional rivalry for her. It was a bitter family feud.
"Your little plan is clever," Isabelle continued, her tone dripping with condescension. "But it's also reckless. You're playing with forces you don't understand. Cancel it. Find another concept. This is your only warning."
The line went dead.
Yoo-jin slowly lowered the phone, his hand trembling slightly. The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the sound of his own heart hammering in his chest.
"What was that?" Kim Seo-yeon asked, her usual cheerful demeanor gone, replaced by a sharp, analytical intensity. "Who was on the phone?"
"It was Isabelle Moon," Hana answered before he could, her voice a low, venomous whisper. "My cousin."
Seo-yeon's jaw dropped. Mina gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. The legendary leader of Aurora was Hana's cousin? It was a secret of staggering proportions, a piece of industry lore that had never once been leaked.
"How is that possible?" Seo-yeon stammered. "How could she know about the 'Sol & Luna' plan? We just came up with it."
"She has a skill," Yoo-jin said, the words feeling heavy and dangerous. He was breaking the unspoken rule. He was about to introduce the mundane world to the supernatural. "A kind of foresight. She calls them visions."
He had to see their reactions, to know who knew what. He activated his skill, the low-grade psychic hum of their souls filling his mind.
Seo-yeon's 'sound' was a sharp, frantic staccato of disbelief and rapid calculation. She was a strategist. A new, impossible variable had been introduced, and her mind was racing to incorporate it.
Mina's cello-like hum was trembling with a simple, primal fear. The world was bigger and stranger than she had ever imagined.
But Hana's... Hana's soul was a quiet, seething storm of rage and something else. Resignation. She wasn't surprised.
"You knew," Yoo-jin stated, looking directly at her. "You knew about her 'visions'."
Hana met his gaze, her eyes cold. "It's a family secret. The 'Moon Oracle', they call it. She gets glimpses. Fragments. Feelings. It's why Titan Entertainment has never made a wrong move. She sees the path to success before they ever take the first step."
This was the source of Aurora's perfect record. Not just talent and money, but a cheat code. An SSS-Rank idol with the ability to see the future. They weren't just competing against a rival company. They were fighting against fate itself.
The sheer, crushing impossibility of their situation began to settle over the room.
"So that's it, then?" Seo-yeon said, her voice strained. "We scrap the plan? She gave a warning."
"It wasn't a warning," Hana spat, her voice laced with a lifetime of resentment. "It was a command. She's been doing that to me my entire life. Telling me which paths to take, which dreams to abandon. Treating me like a lesser star in her perfect constellation."
A fire ignited in her eyes, a blaze of pure, defiant pride. "I am not her pawn. And I will not be scared off by her little party tricks." She stood up, her regal posture returning. "We are not scrapping anything. We are going forward with the 'Sol & Luna' project. Full speed."
It was an act of pure rebellion. An act of war against her own blood.
Yoo-jin's mind was racing. This was a catastrophic development, but it was also an opportunity. Isabelle had overplayed her hand. Her threat, meant to intimidate, had instead galvanized her greatest rival.
But pride alone wouldn't win this war. They needed a new strategy. How do you fight an enemy who knows your every move before you make it?
You change the game so that seeing the moves doesn't matter.
"She's right," Yoo-jin said, his voice cutting through the tension. His own fear was solidifying into a cold, hard resolve. "We're not backing down. We're doubling down."
He looked at Seo-yeon. "Isabelle saw our plan. That means she will prepare for it. Titan will create a counter-narrative. They'll try to poison the well before we can even draw water. So we can't be secret about this anymore."
"What are you proposing?" Seo-yeon asked, her pen already poised over her tablet.
"We leak it," Yoo-jin said, a ruthless, predatory glint in his eyes. "We leak the entire 'Sol & Luna' concept. Today. Right now."
The shock in the room was palpable.
"Are you insane?" Seo-yeon shot back. "We'd be giving our entire strategy away! Titan would copy it, or worse, ridicule it before we even have a single song recorded!"
"No," Yoo-jin countered. "You can't copy a mythology. You can't steal a soul. We're not going to leak it to the press. We're going to leak it to the fans."
He started pacing, the plan forming in real-time. "We create an anonymous account. A 'Starforce insider'. And we release the core concept. The Sun and the Moon. The dual debut. The interconnected story. We present it not as a marketing plan, but as a secret, legendary project that the company is developing. We make the fans feel like they've discovered a hidden treasure."
"We make the narrative ours before Titan can even react," Seo-yeon finished, her eyes lighting up as she grasped the sheer audacity of the move. "By the time they try to counter it, they'll just look like they're responding to a fan rumor. We seize control of the story."
"Exactly," Yoo-jin confirmed. "Isabelle can see the future, but she can't control the present. She knows what we're planning to do. So we do it so fast, so publicly, that her knowledge becomes useless. We turn her greatest weapon into a liability."
It was a declaration of asymmetric warfare. They couldn't win a conventional fight against Titan's resources and foresight. So they had to become insurgents. Terrorists of the narrative.
Hana was watching him, a new, dangerous light in her eyes. It wasn't just respect anymore. It was the look of a fellow predator recognizing its own kind.
"And Mina?" Yoo-jin said, turning to her, his voice softening. "This will be hard on you. The moment this leaks, you and Hana will be the most talked-about trainees in the industry. The pressure will be immense."
Mina looked from Yoo-jin's determined face to Hana's defiant one. The fear was still in her eyes, but it was being eclipsed by something else. A sense of belonging. A sense of purpose.
She was no longer just a girl who wanted to sing. She was a soldier in a war she was just beginning to understand.
"I won't let you down," she said, her voice quiet but unshakable.
Yoo-jin nodded. The team was united. Not by trust, or friendship, but by the presence of a common, god-like enemy.
He pulled out his burner phone and sent a message to the one person who could make this insane plan a reality.
To: Ghost
Change of plans. I need your help. It's time to start a war.
The reply was instantaneous.
Took you long enough. Send me the details. This is going to be fun.