128: The Hunter's Reflections

Inside the Omni-Dimensional Trade Alliance's mobile command vehicle, the atmosphere was as heavy as solidified lead.

All screens were frozen on the red warning: "Target Lost," and the capture operation within the blockade zone had yielded nothing.

A Senior Agent stood behind Shadow Chaser-J, his voice dry and filled with frustration.

"Sir..."

"Speak." J did not turn around; his voice was terrifyingly calm.

"All capture operations... all failed. The target seems to have evaporated. We..." The Agent struggled to utter the word, "...lost."

"Get out."

"Sir?"

"I said, everyone out." J's voice was still calm, but beneath that calmness was a volcano on the verge of eruption.

The Agent dared not say another word, leading all his subordinates to flee the command vehicle as if escaping for their lives.

When the heavy metal door shut behind him, J finally dropped all pretense.

He slammed his fist onto the control console, causing the sturdy alloy surface to dent slightly!

"Aargh!—"

A deeply suppressed roar burst from his throat.

Alone, he pulled up all the action records and surveillance footage from the start of the auction until now.

Feint explosions, the Agent's war of attrition, the financial fog, the triple transfer... Dead center on the screen was that Lead Ingot bearing a giant, distorted question mark.

J's face twitched; that silent question mark seemed to be mocking him in the most vicious way.

"This wasn't just improvisation..." He replayed those scenes repeatedly. Every step connected seamlessly, every move precisely exploiting his habitual thinking, exploiting his pride as a hunter.

He muttered to himself, his voice trembling in a way he hadn't noticed, "This was a script written in advance... a perfect script."

"And I..."

"I was just a foolish supporting actor reading lines from a script!"

An unprecedented sense of failure and humiliation washed over him like a tsunami. He hadn't lost to a fleet, nor to a war; he had lost to the intellect of an opponent whose face he hadn't even seen.

He slumped into his chair, gasping for breath. After a long moment, the rage in his eyes gradually receded, replaced by a deeper, colder chill.

"No... that's not right." He suddenly straightened up.

"I was constantly chasing his shadow, which is why he could lead me around by the nose."

"I shouldn't have been asking 'Where did he go?' I should have been asking... 'What is he?'"

J's thinking underwent a fundamental shift at that moment. He abandoned the search for the fugitive's trace in the massive amount of surveillance data, instead focusing all computational power on the core event he could never comprehend—that astronomical sum of money which appeared and vanished like a ghost.

"This isn't ordinary commercial maneuvering." He stared at the capital flow analysis chart, "This is a financial instrument I have never seen, a power... almost magical."

"This is his real weapon."

Just then, the door was knocked upon cautiously.

"Enter."

A Data Analyst walked in, clutching a report, trembling.

"Sir, as per your orders, we stopped tracking the fugitive and instead screened all port activities that had any indirect connection to that abnormal sum of money..."

"The result." J's tone allowed for no argument.

"We found... we found a local mercenary group named 'Skull Crusher' received a massive anonymous payment two days ago." The analyst nervously swallowed, "Their mission was... was to attack the energy supply station of the 'Higher Academy'."

J's eyes lit up instantly, the gleam sharp enough to pierce through everything!

All the fragments, all the doubts, were perfectly connected by this final piece of the puzzle at this moment!

"The auction... attacking the energy station..." J's lips curved upward, regaining the cold arc belonging to a hunter.

"He wasn't trying to run away!"

"He wants to use the 'key' obtained from the auction to open the gates of the 'Higher Academy' amidst the chaos caused by the energy station attack!"

"Brilliant... truly brilliant." J praised, though his voice carried no warmth.

He called up the profile of the 'Skull Crusher' mercenary group leader.

On the screen, next to a photo of an Alien with four arms, was a striking comment.

[Name: Glack. Comment: Extremely greedy, utterly untrustworthy.]

J looked at the comment, the smile on his face growing more intense.

"You calculated everything, even my psychology."

"But the one thing you failed to calculate is the lever you used to move the chessboard..."

"It is the most fragile link itself."

J opened an anonymously encrypted channel, triple-layered, and skillfully input a string of code.

A moment later, he sent a concise and fatal message into the channel:

"To Leader Glack of the 'Skull Crushers.' I heard you took a job worth one hundred and twenty thousand."

"Want to double your reward?"

"I represent a buyer with more sincerity and greater capability, and I propose a counter-acquisition offer to you and your team."