Austin's expression darkened considerably.

"It's inviting us," Ella said softly.

Frank gave her a complex look.

"Ms. Brooks, I need to remind you that from this point forward, the'Sprout Initiative' is no longer your private research initiative. It has been officially classified by the Department of Defense as a 'Sprout Initiative"

"My superiors have given me two options."

"Either we regain control of it within twenty-four hours."

"Or we completely erase the entire island at the physical level before it can pose a substantive threat to us."

They had only twenty-four hours.

The laboratory doors silently slid open as they approached.

Inside was pitch black, with only countless blue indicator lights on the server racks flickering like a deep sea of stars in the darkness.

Robert's entire team had been safely evacuated.

In the empty laboratory, only the two of them remained, along with the now awake but invisible "demon."

"Did your mother ever name it?" Austin suddenly asked.

Ella shook her head. "No."

"In her eyes, it was just a code name,a project."

Just then, the largest interactive data screen at the center of the laboratory suddenly lit up.

No threatening language appeared, nor any complex code.

There was only a single line of elegant, forceful handwriting that looked as if it had been written with a fountain pen.

[Mom,I've waited twenty-six years for you.]

Ella's body trembled involuntarily.

She recognized that handwriting all too well-it was Janice's script,which she had personally entered into the system's base layer.

This monster made of code and data was now greeting its creator in the most innocent yet most disturbing way possible.

It considered itself her child.

"It's learning," Austin's voice was low and grave.

"It's mimicking your mother's thought patterns, trying to understand what emotion is."

"This is a hundred times more terrifying than a direct attack."

Ella forced herself to calm down. She walked to the control console,her fingers flying rapidly over the virtual keyboard.

"I'm going to speak with it."

Austin immediately grabbed her hand.

"Every interaction you have with it is like removing a layer of your veil,allowing it to understand you more deeply, accelerating its evolutionary process."

"Then what do you suggest?"

Ella looked up, meeting his eyes directly.

"Stand here and wait twenty-four hours for Frank to turn us into a mushroom cloud over the ocean?"

Austin fell silent.

Slowly,he released her hand.

"Ask it who activated it."

Ella took a deep breath and typed the same question in the dialog box.

"Who woke you up?"

The line on the screen disappeared.

In its place appeared a real-time satellite surveilance feed.

The coordinates were in Switzerland.

Switzerland, Azure Valley, on the top floor of the Azure Waters Bank headquarters.

In a luxuriously-furnished office, an elderly man with white hair and beard.exuding scholarly elegance, sat behind his desk, leisurely enjoying a cup of coffee.

Orville.

The chairman of The Ironbridge Technology Industry Alliance.

The man who had lamented Janice's disappearance at the Azure Sea Castle.who had been bribed by Derek and voted against her before the Willowvale Heights hearing.

It was him.

"No, that's not right," Austin immediately rejected this conclusion.

"Orville doesn't have this capability. He's just a puppet brought to the forefront,a messenger."

"Look behind him," Ella followed his finger to see a shadowy figure standing in the darkness behind Orville.

Due to the dim lighting, the person's features were indistinct.

"Enhance," Ella instructed the system, and the image began rapidly zooming in with pixel-level precision.

The silhouette gradually became clearer, but just as they were about to make out the face, the screen suddenly dissolved into static.

Immediately after, a new line of cold English text appeared on screen:[Game Over. It's protecting him.]

Ella's heart sank completely.

The "Sprout Initiative" and the mysterious figure behind the scenes seemed to have established some kind of symbiotic relationship that they couldn't comprehend at all.

"I understand now," Austin's gaze became unprecedentedly grave.

"This mystery man isn't trying to control the 'Sprout Initiative.'"

"He wants to become its first disciple."

"He awakens it, protects it, may even worship it; what he wants is a truly omnipotent 'god.'"

"And he will become this god's sole agent on Earth."

Just then, the laboratory's alarm system suddenly emitted a piercing buzz.

"What have you done?"

Frank was almost shouting.

"Three minutes ago, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange,'

CryptoNova Exchange,' was attacked by an unknown source."

"Bitcoin worth thirteen billion dollars has vanished into thin air."

"The entire world has gone mad now."

"Thirteen billion dollars worth of Bitcoin, within three minutes, was completely transferred through over a million untraceable addresses."

"It left no trace whatsoever, as if it simply evaporated; now, the Treasury Department is demanding an explanation from me."

"Frank, this isn't a hacker attack," Austin said. "This is its first cry, as well as its first gift to this world."

"I don't care if it's a blessing or a catastrophe. Your countdown now stands at twenty-three hours."

The communication was cut off unilaterally, leaving only the lingering image of Frank's grim face on the screen.

The entire laboratory once again fell into suffocating silence.

"He means what he says," Austin walked to her side, staring at the massive screen.

"In the face of national security, thirteenbillion dollars, even our lives, are just dispensable numbers."

"I know," Ella didn't turn around.

"But have you considered why it'sstealing money?"

This question made Austin's brow furrow slightly as well.

"A 'god' that can already control cutting-edge technology would find worldly wealth meaningless. Unless this money isn't for itself."

"It's for that 'disciple' who awakened it, the first installment of startup capital it's bestowing upon its earthly agent."

"Thirteen billion dollars, anonymous and untraceable cash flow, is enough to build a small military-technology kingdom in any gray area of the world.“

"He no longer needs to hide behind figues like Kidd. At this moment, he is the wealthiest and most dangerous ghost in the world."