Chapter 40: The New Objective

The silence that followed Oracle's confirmation was a heavy, suffocating thing. The truth of their world—a planet that was not a home but an egg, incubating a dormant Abyssal god—settled upon the four members of Project Zero like a physical weight, threatening to crush their spirits.

Lin Mei, a soldier who had dedicated her entire life to fighting the monsters at the gate, felt a profound, chilling sense of futility. Every monster she had killed, every comrade she had lost, every drop of blood and sweat she had spilled on the battlefield... what was it all for? Swatting flies in the shadow of a sleeping dragon? What could her guns and her knives possibly do against an enemy the size of a planet? For the first time since she was a terrified rookie, she felt a sliver of true, gut-wrenching despair.

In his workshop, Hephaestus stared at the glowing blueprint for a new energy shield on his screen. It was a masterpiece of engineering, but it now felt like a child's toy. The laws of physics, of biology, of everything he had dedicated his long life to mastering, were a footnote in a cosmic story he had never even known existed. A furious, intellectual rage burned within him. He was enraged at the sheer, insane arrogance of the Prometheus Initiative for thinking they could control such a force, and he was enraged at the universe itself for its cruel, magnificent deception.

General Jiang Wei, the grand strategist, saw the entire global chessboard he had spent his life studying dissolve into meaninglessness. All his plans, all his doctrines, were predicated on repelling an external threat. But how do you strategize against a war where the battlefield is the ground beneath your feet? How do you fight an enemy you cannot reach, an enemy whose very awakening would mean the end of everything? He felt the cold, bitter taste of a perfect checkmate.

And Su Liying... she was silent, her brilliant analytical mind a maelstrom of terror and logic. The connection, the hypothesis she had formed in the deepest, most terrified corner of her mind, now seemed less like a wild guess and more like an impending, undeniable truth. A dormant, sleeping god of immense, silent, gravitational power. A quiet, listless boy with a soul that felt like a silent, sleeping universe. Her fear was no longer for the world. It was for him. What was he? Was he connected to this god? Was he its enemy? Its jailer? Or was he... its nascent, waking form?

It was the General who finally broke the silence in [Channel: Zero], his question cutting through the despair, a plea for direction from a master strategist who had just realized he was utterly lost.

Old-Man-Jiang: Oracle... what is the objective now? All previous strategies are obsolete. We cannot fight a planet. We cannot win a war against a god. How... how do we proceed?

The entire future of their cause rested on the reply. They were soldiers without a war to fight, strategists without a board to play on. They needed a new purpose.

Oracle, as always, provided one. His response was not filled with false hope or empty reassurances. It was a cold, logical, and brilliant re-framing of their entire reality.

Oracle: You are correct, General. You cannot fight the entity in the planet's core. Not with your current capabilities. A direct confrontation would be nothing less than planetary suicide. Oracle: The entity is dormant. It is sleeping. Therefore, our new primary objective is to ensure it *remains* sleeping for as long as possible.

A new path forward. A sliver of hope.

Oracle: The actions of the Prometheus Initiative—their attempts to communicate, to control, to create a vessel—are the greatest threat. Their fumbling in the dark is like a man striking matches in a room filled with gas. They are accelerating the awakening. Therefore, the immediate enemy remains Prometheus.

Nomad-Lead: But what can we do? Gatecrasher was a success, but we can't launch a full-scale assault on all their facilities.

Oracle: Your strategic objective is no longer to simply disrupt them. It is to **absorb them**. They have been studying this sleeping god for decades. Their data, their methods for monitoring its awakening cycles, their failed attempts to create a vessel... all of it is now the single most valuable strategic asset on this world. Oracle: We will hunt the Prometheus Initiative not merely to destroy them, but to steal their research. We will seize their resources. We will turn their own knowledge against them. We will become the sole, self-appointed authority on this planetary crisis. We will become the jailers of our own world's sleeping god.

The new doctrine was audacious. It was terrifying. And it galvanized them, pulling them back from the brink of despair. It gave them a clear, achievable goal in the face of an impossible, cosmic reality. They were no longer just a rebellion. They were the planet's secret, self-appointed guardians.

Su Liying's mind, now armed with a new purpose, was the first to act. Crystalline_Mind: Based on Dr. Chen's testimony, the absolute heart of their 'awakening' research is the Sichuan Dam facility. Operation Gatecrasher was a success in stopping the expedition, but they will be rebuilding and reinforcing their defenses. Their core data must still be there. That is our next primary target.

Oracle: Correct. But a direct physical assault is no longer the optimal method. We do not need to destroy the facility; we need to own its secrets. Oracle: I am uploading a new item to The Archive. It is not a weapon for your hands. It is a weapon for their minds.

A new file appeared, its title innocuous. [VIRAL CODE: 'Janus' Infiltration Protocol]

Oracle: This is a new form of digital weapon. A cognitive virus. Once planted in their systems, it will not steal data in a way they can detect. It will subtly, over a period of months, begin to alter their research findings. It will introduce minute, cascading errors into their calculations. It will lead their experiments to inevitable failure, all while secretly copying the *real*, unaltered data and streaming it to us. Oracle: We will not just steal their secrets; we will sabotage their science from the inside out. We will let them destroy themselves with their own flawed ambition.

The sheer, insidious brilliance of the weapon left them speechless. It was a tool of absolute, long-term strategic warfare.

They now had their new, overarching mission: to steal and control all of Prometheus's research. And they had their first objective: plant the Janus virus in the Sichuan Dam facility's servers.

As the team began to furiously brainstorm a new infiltration plan, Su Liying stared at the name of the new weapon: "Janus." The ancient, two-faced god. The god of beginnings and endings, of doorways and transitions.

It reminded her, with a chilling certainty, of the quiet, listless boy who sat behind her in school. The boy with the face of a normal teenager, and the soul of... something else entirely.

Her resolve hardened into a diamond-like point. To protect the world, to understand this new, terrifying reality, she first had to understand him. And this new, insidious war was the only path to that truth.