The night of the operation fell on Seoul, heavy and electric. The air seemed charged with palpable tension, as before a thunderstorm. In the temporary safehouse, the team was making the final preparations.
Ji-eun was at his post, surrounded by four screens. His fingers were flying over the keyboards, lines of code were scrolling at breakneck speed. She had spent the last 24 hours preparing for her "deluge": a network of ghost servers, simulated energy signals, false Phoenix signatures generated from the data the System had provided her.
"The program is loaded," she announced, her eyes surrounded but shining with concentration. "I created 437 ghost emission points spread throughout the city. They will simulate surges of Phoenix energy, suspicious movements, and even... false roots of the Tree. As soon as I launch the attack, their net will receive more data than it can process."
"How long?" asked Min-ho, checking his equipment one last time: dart gun, silver blades, special smoke grenades.
At best, thirty minutes. At worst, ten. This thing learns quickly. It will filter out the noise sooner or later."
Do-hyun nodded. Thirty minutes. It was little. That was all they would have.
He took the Silver Link Fruit. He was gently pulsing in his hand, like a little heart of light. "As soon as the diversion begins, we move. Soo-ah, you're leading the way. Min-ho, cover and suppression of sentinels. I'm laying the fruit."
Soo-ah slid the blade of his spear, a dry rattling in the silence of the room.
Min-ho consulted his tablet. "The weak spot is located in the basement of an old disused Buddhist temple in old Seoul. It's symbolic. Or practical. Ancient places often have energetic residues that could mask their activity."
"Ready?" asked Do-hyun, looking at each of them.
Ji-eun looked up, a glimmer of anxiety in his eyes. "Be careful. All of them."
Do-hyun nodded to him. "Throw the flood."
Ji-eun pressed a finishing touch. On its screens, hundreds of green dots suddenly lit up on the map of Seoul, flashing frantically.
[ALERT: MULTIPLE PHENIX SIGNATURES DETEPTED - Reliability: 12%]
[ENERGY ANOMALIES ON 437 SITES.]
[Primidary monitoring system - in charge of processing.]
Outside, nothing seemed to change. But Do-hyun, with his Sense of Filament activated, saw the immediate reaction of the purple net. The filaments that woven the city began to vibrate, to stir in all directions, like a neural network overwhelmed by contradictory impulses. The controlled vampires, scattered across the streets, suddenly came to rest, confused, their purple connections becoming unstable.
"It's now," said Do-hyun.
They left the safehouse in silence, three shadows melting into the night.
The drive to the old temple was an obstacle course. The city was strangely quiet, as if even civilians felt it was better to stay at home. They ran into several groups of vampires, but they wandered aimlessly, spinning around, some bumping into each other's walls, their minds overwhelmed by the deluge of false data.
The temple stood on top of a small hill, surrounded by a decrepit stone wall. The wooden door was closed by a rusty chain. Min-ho blew it up with a silent hydraulic clamp.
The interior of the temple was a place of abandoned peace. The courtyard was overgrown with weeds, the main hall open to the starry sky, its roof partially collapsed. But the energy there was strange. Heavy.
Do-hyun activated his sense of filament. And he saw it.
In the center of the courtyard, where an old sacred tree should have been, there was a structure of purple light. It was not the Eye itself, but as a receptacle, an anchor of the net. It was a kind of inverted well, from which hundreds of purple filaments escaped that connected to the rest of the network. And in the center of this well, a small black crystal sphere was spinning slowly, absorbing the faint light from the moon.
"The core of the net," Soo-ah whispered.
[ENERGY ANALYSIS: PRIMORDIAL Anchor Point.]
[Function: Collection and redistribution of monitoring network data.]
[Vulnerability: HIGH IF DESSTABILED FROM THE INSIDE.]
"There are guards," Min-ho pointed to the shadows that stood out from the temple walls. Not vampires this time. Humanoid forms made of shadow and consolidated purple light. Energy golems, direct extensions of the will of the Eye.
There were six of them. Immobiles. But their eyeless "eyes" were focused on the well.
"No time for finesse," said Soo-ah. "I distracted them. You, Do-hyun, go to the center. Min-ho, cover it."
She didn't give them time to answer. She charged, her spear tracing a silver arc in the dark, aiming for the nearest golem.
The fight was immediate, violent and silent. The golems did not scream. They moved with fluid and preternatural speed, their limbs being able to lengthen into blades of purple energy. Soo-ah was a tornado, his spear spinning, parrying, striking. Each impact caused the golems" energy to sizzle, but did not completely destroy them.
Min-ho, stationed at the entrance to the courtyard, was shooting down darts charged with disruptive energy, aimed at the golems' connection points. This slowed them down, creating openings for Soo-ah.
Do-hyun, taking advantage of the diversion, rushed towards the purple well. The energy pressure was overwhelming. It was like walking through thick, icy water. Each step required a huge effort. The purple filaments around him vibrated, with some trying to wrap themselves around his limbs, feeling the intrusion.
He reached the edge of the well. Up close, the black crystal sphere was hypnotic. It turned on itself, and in its heart, you could see reflections, like bursts of distorted reality - images of the city, fragments of Mount Bukhan, even a fleeting vision of the Tree.
He raised the Fruit of the Links. The silver object reacted immediately, its pulsation accelerated. He seems attracted to the black crystal.
"Okay," Do-hyun whispered. "Makes connections. Link this net to something else. To something else."
He threw the fruit into the well.
The effect was immediate and chaotic.
The silver fruit did not fall. It floated above the black crystal, then melted into a silvery shower of light that fell on the sphere. Upon contact, the black crystal began to vibrate violently. The purple filaments that emanated from the well twisted, some changing colors, adopting silvery reflections.
The net was no longer a coherent network. He was reconfiguring himself.
[Interference detected in the PRIMORDIAL NETWORK.]
[REORIENTATION OF ENERGY Flows.]
[Creation of parasitic links...] RELATED TO: The Tree of Balance, THE CITY OF SOUL (human signatures), ANCIENT ENERGY RESIDUS, THE VAMPIRE HUNTER system...]
The well emitted a serious hum that shook the stones of the temple. The golems fighting Soo-ah suddenly froze, then began to disintegrate, their forms losing their coherence.
But the victory was short-lived.
Above the well, the air tore apart. Not a physical tear, but a crack in reality itself, a window that opened into a space of pure, cold purple light.
And in that window, the Eye appeared.
Not through Gorath. Not like a projection. He was there. A geometric entity of light and intent, of imposing size, floating in the fault. His "pupil" turned to Do-hyun.
A voice echoed, not in the air, but directly in their minds. It was a multiple, impersonal voice, charged with a chilling curiosity.
"Interference. Unexpected variable. The fruit of balance. A CREATION RESPOURCE IN A SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM. This changes the parameters of the experience."
The mental pressure was excruciating. Do-hyun felt his mind compress, as if trying to reduce it to a mere fact to be analyzed.
"The Bearer of the Phoenix. Its connection to the tree is stronger than expected. The tree resists isolation. The experience must be... Recalibrated."
The Eye turned slightly, and Do-hyun knew, with icy certainty, what he was going to do.
"If the bearer cannot be isolated... THEN the tree MUST be DESTRUSHED DIRECTLY. The parameters of the break will be violent enough to pierce the veil, even without the intended lever."
On the fault, a shape began to materialize. A creature of pure purple light, without a definite form, but emanating a devastating power. A weapon. A cosmic scalpel to cut the roots of the Tree.
The Eye was no longer going to play with intermediaries. He was going to act directly.
The net was disturbed. But they had just attracted the full attention of the experimenter.
And the price of their counterattack was going to be the very survival of the Tree.