The operators firmly but carefully pulled the young woman from the kitchen and placed her in the sa room as the old lady. She put up a brief, instinctive struggle—but it was soft, more out of shock than resistance.
Perhaps she was simply too stunned to see Spirit Fox operators storming her ho, reacting subconsciously before her mind could catch up.
anwhile, the rest of the team searched the apartnt thoroughly, looking for anything that might lead them to their target.
"Ma'am, where is your son?" the team leader asked directly.
Thanks to Athena's prior intelligence gathering, each operator already understood the context and the layout of the location.
"I… I don't know. Why?" the older woman stamred. "Did he do sothing wrong? He's a good boy—I raised him myself."
"What's going on? What did my little brother do?" the young woman asked, clutching her mother's hand for comfort. "I'm his sister. We have the right to know why you're raiding our ho!"
The operators exchanged looks. One of them stepped forward to explain.
"Just over an hour ago, eighteen coordinated attacks were launched against Spirit Fox units across Province N. There were casualties. We're currently tracking and apprehending those responsible."
"Your son—Person A—based on our intelligence, acted as a ssenger, helping to coordinate the attacks. Of course, he isn't the only one. Other teams are raiding safehouses and suspects' hos as we speak."
The operator paused slightly, adjusting her wording. She almost said "terrorists," but held back, careful with her language in front of the family.
In truth, every Spirit Fox operative was still reeling internally. Their emotions remained restrained only because none of their own sisters had fallen.
If it weren't for the heavy protection protocols in place, they dared not imagine the outco.
"Impossible!" the mother cried out, her voice cracking.
The operators didn't argue. They weren't here to accuse—they were here for information.
Sophia's psychological analysis had prepared them to detect micro-expressions. From what they saw, the mother and daughter seed genuinely unaware of the young man's involvent.
But ti was pressing.
"So where is he?" one of the operators asked again, this ti with sharper urgency. "Please don't lie to us."
The tone shifted subtly as they noticed a flicker—barely perceptible—cross the young woman's face.
They didn't want the family protecting soone out of misplaced loyalty. Pressure was necessary.
The sister wasn't trained for monts like these. There were no threats or raised weapons, but even the presence of Spirit Fox—trained, composed, deadly—was overwhelming.
Before she could respond, one operator made an educated guess.
"Your brother was here just before we arrived, wasn't he? Did he just leave?"
The reaction from both won—too slow, too tense—told them everything.
And just then, another operator called out from a nearby room.
"Found his phone!"
"It seems like he knew we were coming and escaped," the lead operator said grimly. "Soone must've warned him before we reached the apartnt."
"Or maybe soone saw us on the way in and tipped him off," another suggested.
"Could've been just a noisy passerby, too excited to keep their mouth shut," a third added. "People love to broadcast drama."
"No, he didn't," his sister argued, her voice shaking. "He would never do sothing like that. There's no way…"
Her voice faltered. She inhaled deeply, trying to steady herself. Emotional restraint was wise—especially in anything involving legal consequences.
"Either way," the operator said, steady and neutral, "we have confird links between him and the group that recently attacked us. If he truly did nothing wrong, there wouldn't be a need to run. And if his involvent was unintentional or minor, there's still ti. But fleeing only complicates things."
"I really don't know anything," the young woman murmured. "He just rushed out. We didn't talk. We've had… other family troubles."
The lead operator exhaled silently. They weren't getting anything more from these two.
Suddenly, Athena's voice cut in through their earpieces.
"Be advised: I've hacked into his phone. There was a call right before your breach. Likely a warning from soone. I've also traced the caller's number."
No one flinched. By now, Athena's sudden interjections were expected—part of the job.
Unfortunately, she continued, there were no functional CCTVs covering the building's imdiate periter. The suspect had left too fast.
Randomly kicking down doors was out of the question. The backlash would be enormous, both politically and publicly. Forceful entry had to be the last resort.
Athena understood the complexity and tried another route. She traced the caller's signal—originating from another building nearby.
Interesting, she mused silently, as she initiated one of her restricted protocols: tapping into all accessible electronic devices in the vicinity. It was a forbidden action unless absolutely necessary, a rule given by her mother—Ling Qingyu.
"Four of you, sweep each floor," the team leader ordered. "Look for anything suspicious."
"Understood," the four acknowledged and moved out imdiately.
The rest of the team stayed behind, combing through the man's room for any evidence or overlooked clues.
But most of them held the sa belief: the suspect hadn't escaped the building.
The downstairs containnt team had locked down all exits. Chances of slipping through were less than one percent.
More likely, he was hiding—maybe in a friend's apartnt, or sowhere he thought Spirit Fox wouldn't check.
Soon enough, with every trick at her disposal, Athena located both the caller and the fleeing suspect. Spirit Fox teams moved swiftly. One kicked down the suspect's door and finally took him into custody.
anwhile, another team downstairs shifted from containnt duty to knocking on the caller's door, initiating a direct interrogation.
It turned out the caller was simply a close friend of the suspect. They had been chatting casually, as they often did, when the caller noticed a strange convoy of vehicles pulling up. Curious and excited, he blurted out the news—especially after spotting Spirit Fox operatives.
When the operators knocked on his door, he wasn't scared or defensive. In fact, he looked ready to ask for autographs.
Later, Athena confird his innocence, quelling earlier suspicions that he might have posed as a fan to lower their guard.
The team retreated quickly, their expressions twitching. Dealing with overly enthusiastic fans was—by unanimous agreent—the most painful part of the job.
Similar operations played out across the province. So suspects were captured easily. Others, misguided by adrenaline and hope, tried to flee, giving rise to brief "action sequences"—at least in their own minds.
But against Spirit Fox's physical prowess, even Olympic champions would've been forced to surrender. Escape was a fantasy.
Several raids yielded nothing but empty hos. So targets had died during the earlier attacks against Spirit Fox.
Most of those who remained had kept their distance from family—ironically saving their lives. Spirit Fox needed live suspects. They needed answers.
With their "enhanced interrogation" thods, Spirit Fox extracted plenty of information.
Athena, however, played a limited role during these raids. She hadn't detected the attacks in ti, which ant the related data hadn't passed through any accessible network.
She could have picked it up—by passively listening through devices and analyzing environntal noise to forecast an attack—but that crossed a moral boundary.
Without those restraints, Athena would be a god, tracking every breath and heartbeat. But her mother, Ling Qingyu, had warned her against it.
And Athena trusted her mother's wisdom. There had to be a reason.
It wasn't a hardcoded limit—just restricted access. She could override it if the situation beca dire.
Like now. Her intervention had helped Spirit Fox lock down the suspects so swiftly that the enemy never had a chance to react.
Still, there were other sources of data she could exploit: purchase histories, past GPS logs from phones, even search records.
(…Ahem…)
In the modern world, data was king. If soone truly wanted to disappear, they'd have to cut off all contact with the digital realm.
In this era, you were always tracked. Everywhere. Every ti.
Most of the suspects were nothing more than ssengers—human LAN nodes—used to relay information between various parties.
Under interrogation, they all described being contacted by a masked individual who delivered orders and instructions. The voice was artificially altered, making it impossible to identify the speaker's gender.
Whether it was one person or several using the sa disguise, the operators couldn't say for sure.
Paynts were always in cash. Phones used for coordination were burner devices—one-ti tools with strict instructions to keep moving before and after delivery.
Whoever was behind this had clearly taken extre precautions to avoid any electronic trace. The mastermind—or masterminds—was cautious, disciplined, and likely experienced in espionage or underground operations.
Now, the trail had gone cold.
It wasn't that Spirit Fox or Athena couldn't investigate further, but that any delays would allow the enemy to vanish without a trace. By the ti new information was discovered, it might be irrelevant.
At present, Athena was rapidly scanning past CCTV footage, cross-referencing the known movents of the suspects to identify any monts of contact with the masked figure.
If this individual truly excelled in counter-surveillance, then spotting them would be extrely difficult…
But the one reviewing the footage was Athena.
And Athena didn't tire. She didn't get frustrated.
She was not only a super astro-class AI, but also found the entire process—this massive, tangled data web—both entertaining and engaging.
After all, she'd been idle for far too long.
The perpetrators behind tonight's attacks weren't professionally trained, but they managed to mimic tactical behavior—thanks to pre-recorded instruction videos and step-by-step orders.
That raised a troubling question:
Why now?
Why would the remnants of a gang—after successfully dodging Spirit Fox and lying low for so long—suddenly risk everything in one reckless move?
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