Just then, the safe house's internal communication rang urgently.
Connecting, Andy's voice practically burst through, with clear trembling and lingering fear: "Hawk! What are you doing?! This time you've gone too... too far!"
In the background, the serious voice of a news anchor could still be heard; clearly, she was also watching the same "disaster live broadcast."
Hawk could even imagine Andy on the other end, her hands shaking so much she couldn't pick up her coffee cup, her eyes wide.
His tone was as relaxed as if discussing a weekend picnic: "Oh? You mean the Pennsylvania one? Saw it? The visual effect was pretty good, wasn't it?"
"Visual effect?!" Andy's voice rose eight octaves. "Is this about visual effects? The entire factory blew up! There are police, fire trucks, FBI, Homeland Security vehicles everywhere! And those experts analyzing 'suspected meteorite impact' 'industrial safety accident,' it's making my heart pound!"
She took a deep breath, her voice filled with worry: "Most importantly, Hawk! Are you... are you sure you didn't leave any traces? What if, I mean what if, they found some clues..."
Andy was one of the few who knew Hawk's abilities, so as soon as the news broke, she realized it was Hawk's doing!
Who would have thought?
To harvest TCRI in the financial market, Hawk actually made a move on the physical plane.
"Andy." Hawk interrupted her, speaking softly. "Relax. What traces do you think could be left in a place completely scoured by a Mach 3 shockwave, thousands of degrees Celsius of heat rays, plus a chemical chain explosion? Especially at that core location?"
He paused, then added in an almost teasing tone: "And, even if some high-definition satellite or drone captured some... well... blurry light and shadow, who would believe it was a person? They'd just classify it as an optical phenomenon caused by the explosion or a sensor malfunction. Don't worry."
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone; Andy seemed to be processing this "absolute confidence."
Hawk could even hear the sound of her vigorously chewing potato chips from her end.
"Really... won't be discovered?" Andy's voice finally steadied a bit, but still carried doubt.
"One hundred percent." Hawk's tone was decisive.
"Phew..." Andy let out a long sigh, the sound of chewing chips even louder. "But... seriously, Hawk, that was brutal! TCRI's stock price is plummeting like a free-falling object! Is Emilia making a fortune?"
In the background, a financial news anchor was excitedly reporting on TCRI's opening collapse and its instant evaporation of market value.
"Harvesting operation in progress." Hawk looked at the real-time profit data sent by Emilia on the screen; a string of numbers was frantically jumping. "This is just the beginning."
"Tsk tsk, poor TCRI. By the way, what's your beef with them? You never mentioned it." Andy's tone had completely shifted to that of someone enjoying a spectacle.
"What beef?"
Hawk recalled the scene two nights ago, being chased by a group of minions and a bunch of bio-engineered creatures.
As the saying goes, enduring for a moment leads to more regret, retreating a step leads to more anger.
When had Hawk ever suffered such a loss? He was so angry that he immediately stood up and cursed, "Damn it!"
"Pfft—" Andy on the other end burst out laughing and asked, "So... our esteemed CEO, where are you planning to take a stroll to next?"
Hawk looked at the "Houston" marker on the map, his tone casual: "Hmm... Texas barbecue is supposedly good. I hear there's a 'furnace' there that might not be hot enough; I'll go add some fuel to it."
Andy couldn't help but warn him: "Hawk Lane! Be careful not to roast yourself!"
"Don't worry," Hawk stood up, walked to the safe house's massive floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the gradually awakening city. "Remember, we know nothing, we're just happy spectators."
"Understood, mysterious big boss!" Andy drew out her words.
After hanging up the communication, silence returned to the safe house.
Late that night, on the outskirts of Houston, the "Precision Furnace" factory.
The same script played out again.
The factory interior was like it had been fed into an invisible shredder... precision production line equipment twisted into scrap metal;
The core laser etching center was completely melted down;
Server arrays storing critical manufacturing process data and molds were physically pulverized into dust;
Even the giant vehicles used for transport were blasted into a pile of twisted metal.
This time, even the news helicopter cameras trembled. In the shaky footage, that fortress symbolizing TCRI's cutting-edge manufacturing capability was declaring its end in the most tragic way.
The fig leaf of "safety accident," along with TCRI's last shred of market credibility, was completely burned to ashes.
Panic, like the deadliest virus, completely shattered investors' psychological defenses in the darkness before dawn.
The next day, Wall Street's opening bell sounded like TCRI's death knell.
Collapse!
A collapse right at market open!
No resistance, no hesitation, only hysterical flight.
On the screen, the curve representing TCRI's stock price was a completely out-of-control freefall, the cliff-like plummeting speed suffocating.
"Fall! Fall more! Faster!" In the Lane Capital trading floor, Emilia and a dozen traders' fingertips danced across multiple keyboards, moving so fast they were just blurs.
On the account management interface, the numbers representing profit jumped frantically at a dizzying speed, each refresh soaring a large increment upwards, the glaring green almost overflowing the screen.
Today's earnings once again easily broke nine digits and were still climbing tirelessly!
"Panic selling! All panic selling! Eat it! Eat it all up!"
"Rebound? Smash it down!"
"Block trade channel! Get me in! Sweep up as many circulating shares as possible! Premium? No, floor price! Sweep them up at floor price!"
One clear, cold, millisecond-precise command after another poured from her lips, transforming into invisible financial nooses, tightly cinching around TCRI's neck, accelerating its suffocation.
Lane Capital's massive cash flow, like deep-sea sharks smelling blood,
was seizing the heaven-sent opportunity of a complete market collapse and liquidity drying up, sweeping up all available TCRI circulating shares at an astonishingly fast, silent, yet domineering pace.
The price per share was as cheap as picking up waste paper from a trash can.
This lightning-fast capital hunt was astonishingly efficient.
While Wall Street's "elites" were still reeling from TCRI's continuous catastrophic events, still analyzing who the "unknown hostile force" truly was, Lane Capital had already completed the most crucial cutting amidst the chaos.
The dust settled.
*********
For those who don't know, this is just an amateur translation of a Chinese fanfic. Starting from the next chapter, I'll have to buy the paid chapters on Faloo, so if you like this fanfic, please help me out with some tasty stones, okay?
This is a fan translation. My original fanfic is: Marvel: Rise of the Shinobi God. My fanfic follows a slower pace at the beginning and will focus heavily on developing the abilities and forces of the mc, interactions, and other characters etc. I want to write something more believable and realistic despite it being fanfiction. I consider my writing weak and still in development, so please be patient with me if you want to give it a chance. Thank you.