Nobody vanished.
FLASH.
He appeared at the attacker’s side. He gave one strike. Then another. The metallic reinforcement shattered. The metallic man collapsed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Enhanced Enemy Defeated]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked around.
Only a handful remained. They no longer looked confident. One began stepping backward.
Nobody pointed his crowbar toward him. "Don’t."
The man stopped.
Nobody walked forward. "You’ve already made tonight complicated enough."
The final enemies attacked together. Nobody took a breath. Then moved. His body slipped between them. One attacker missed. Another collided with him.
Nobody used the opening. A strike to the arm. A strike to the leg. A final blow to the chest. The metallic reinforcement fractured. The attacker fell.
The last man charged with everything he had. Nobody met him directly. Their weapons collided.
The force traveled through Nobody’s arms. He pushed forward. The man’s metallic body began cracking.
Nobody’s frost energy spread across the reinforcement. The man’s strength suddenly dropped.
Nobody struck once more. The man collapsed.
Silence returned to the underground facility. Nobody stood in the center of the room. His breathing was heavy. He looked around. No more enemies were standing.
The child slowly stepped out from behind him. "Is it over?"
Nobody looked around one more time. Then smiled. "Yeah." He lowered his crowbars. "It’s over."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Combat Encounter Complete]
All Enhanced Hostiles Defeated
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at it. Then remembered something. "Oh." He tapped the System window. "Rewards."
A new menu opened.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mission Rewards]
Primary Rescue Objective:
Completed
Targets Rescued:
85/85
Hostile Individuals Defeated:
200/200
Bonus Objective:
Completed
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rewards Available:
Experience
System Points
Live Scene Footage
Special Reward
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes immediately focused on the third reward. "The footage."
The System opened it. A large screen appeared in front of him. The footage began.
Nobody watched.
The first scene showed a private meeting room inside Eclipse Corporation. Several executives were sitting around a table. The chairman stood at the head. A document was placed in front of them.
Nobody’s expression became serious.
The footage continued.
One executive pointed toward a section of the contract. "This clause gives us access to several operational areas of Nathan Industries once the agreement becomes active."
Another executive nodded. "And the wording is vague enough that Aiden won’t immediately realize what it means."
Nobody’s eyes narrowed.
The chairman looked at the document. "Make sure the clause remains buried."
Nobody stared at the screen. "So that was intentional."
The footage continued.
Another file appeared. It showed internal communication between Eclipse employees. They had already prepared methods to gain access to Nathan Industries’ systems and operations once the contract was accepted.
Several steps had been planned in advance. The suspicious clauses were not mistakes. They were entry points.
Nobody clenched his fist. "That draft excuse..."
The footage showed another meeting.
An executive asked,"What if Aiden notices the clauses?"
The chairman calmly answered. "Then we’ll simply claim the contract was an incorrect draft."
Nobody’s expression darkened. "So they planned the excuse too."
The footage continued.
Then something unexpected appeared. A different group of people was shown. Nathan Industries employees. Nobody immediately recognized them as members of Aiden’s own company.
One of them was speaking with an Eclipse representative. "The chairman rejected the suspicious sections."
The Eclipse representative replied. "Then make sure he doesn’t see the revised version."
The Nathan employee nodded. "We can handle that."
Nobody froze. "...What?"
The footage continued.
The suspicious clauses Aiden had questioned were removed from the copy shown directly to him. But another version of the agreement was kept elsewhere. The Nathan employees involved in the scheme quietly altered the internal flow of the documents. They made it appear as though Aiden had approved the agreement.
Nobody watched silently.
The next scene showed the consequences. Nathan Industries began suffering losses. Eclipse gained access to areas they had been targeting. Several internal operations were disrupted.
Then the footage showed Aiden. He was confronted by authorities. Documents were presented. His name was attached to the agreement.
Aiden looked stunned. "I never approved this version."
But the evidence presented against him said otherwise.
Nobody’s jaw tightened. "They set him up."
The System continued playing.
The footage showed the Nathan employees who had helped Eclipse. They had concealed their involvement. They had kept Aiden unaware. By the time Aiden realized something was wrong, the damage had already been done.
The final scene showed the chairman sitting alone in his office. A glass of wine rested beside him. He watched the news reporting Aiden’s arrest.
The chairman smiled. "Everything went according to plan."
The screen went black.
Nobody remained silent. For several seconds, he didn’t move. Then he slowly looked at the System. "...So this is the truth."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Affirmative.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked back toward the child. "Someone inside Nathan Industries helped them."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Affirmative.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"And Aiden had no idea."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Correct.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody clenched his crowbar. "The contract wasn’t just a business proposal." He stared at the blank screen. "It was a trap."
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evidence Verified]
Eclipse Corporation:
Conspiracy Detected
Contract Manipulation:
Confirmed
Internal Infiltration:
Confirmed
Nathan Industries Internal Cooperation:
Confirmed
Aiden’s Direct Knowledge:
No Evidence Found
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the final line. "No evidence that Aiden knew." He slowly smiled. "Then we can clear him."
But the System immediately displayed another message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Evidence is currently stored within the System.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The System remained silent.
Nobody rubbed his forehead. "So I finally got the proof..." He looked at the screen.
The child looked up at him. "Bunny uncle?"
Nobody turned. "Yeah?"
"Are we going home now?"
Nobody smiled. "Yeah." He crouched beside the child. "But before that..." His eyes returned to the System. "...I have someone to save."
Aiden was sitting in jail for something he hadn’t done. Eclipse had already executed most of its plan. And somewhere inside Nathan Industries,the people who helped them were still walking freely.
Nobody stood. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes?]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Show me everything."
The System window opened again. This time, Nobody wasn’t looking for another rescue target. He was looking for names.
.......
Chapter 180 — The Message
The night had become unusually quiet.
Nobody stood at the entrance of a police station, watching the rescued child being taken inside by an officer.
The child looked back. "Bunny uncle!"
Nobody raised one hand. "Go on. You’re safe now."
The child smiled before disappearing through the entrance.
A police officer turned around. "Hey!"
Nobody immediately stepped backward.
The officer pointed toward him. "Wait! We need your statement!"
Nobody smiled beneath the darkness. "Sorry. I’m terrible at paperwork."
Before the officer could respond, Nobody activated Zig Zag Teleportation. A brief blue glow surrounded his body. Then he vanished.
The officer stared at the empty street. "...Again?"
Nobody reappeared several streets away. He landed quietly on the roof of a building and immediately opened the System window. The evidence footage remained stored inside. The names of the people involved were listed separately.
Nobody looked through them. "Alright."
He slowly nodded. "Names, evidence, videos." He tapped one of the files.
The recording appeared. Everything was there. The contract manipulation. The hidden clauses. The conversations between Eclipse executives. The cooperation of several Nathan Industries employees. And the deliberate attempt to make Aiden appear responsible.
Nobody closed the footage. "Now I just need to get this into the hands of someone who can actually use it."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Reminder]
Evidence has been successfully acquired.
Recommended action:
Deliver evidence to appropriate authorities.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the notification. "...You think?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Yes.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Very helpful."
The System disappeared.
Nobody looked toward the distant city lights. Tomorrow would be important. He just didn’t know how important yet.
.......
Morning arrived quickly.
The courthouse was surrounded by reporters. Cameras stood outside the entrance. News vans occupied both sides of the street. People had gathered behind the barriers,watching the courthouse with intense curiosity.
Inside, the courtroom was already crowded.
Aiden Sullivan stood before the judge. His expression was unusually calm.
Several lawyers stood around him. Documents covered the tables. The prosecution had prepared stacks of evidence. The defense had prepared their own.
But Aiden barely looked at any of it. His eyes remained lowered.
One lawyer stepped forward. "Mr.Sullivan, we need you to answer the question clearly."
Aiden raised his eyes. "Yes."
"Did you authorize the contract with Eclipse Corporation?"
Aiden paused. "I authorized the business discussion."
The lawyer continued. "Did you personally approve the clauses contained within this agreement?"
"No."
"Are you saying the contract was altered without your knowledge?"
"Yes."
The lawyer turned toward the judge.
"Your Honor,my client has consistently maintained that the suspicious clauses were never approved by him."
The prosecutor immediately stood. "Objection."
The judge looked toward him. "On what grounds?"
"The defense is presenting an unverified claim as fact."
The judge nodded. "Sustained."
The prosecutor approached Aiden. "Mr. Sullivan."
Aiden looked at him.
"You were the executive responsible for finalizing the agreement."
"I was."
"You reviewed the contract."
"I reviewed the version given to me."
The prosecutor raised a document. "And you signed?"
Aiden looked at the paper. "I signed a business agreement."
"Then you accept responsibility for its contents?"
Aiden remained silent for several seconds. "I accept responsibility for what I approved."
The prosecutor narrowed his eyes. "And yet you deny responsibility for the damage Nathan Industries suffered?"
Aiden looked toward him. "I deny approving anything intended to cause that damage."
Murmurs spread through the courtroom.
The judge immediately struck the bench. "Order."
The room became quiet. In the public seating area, Toma sat with tears in her eyes. Her hands were tightly clasped together. She had barely slept. She had spent the entire morning hoping that something would happen. Anything.
She looked toward Aiden. "Aiden is innocent..." Her voice trembled.
A person sitting beside her tried to calm her. "Toma, please."
"No." Toma wiped her eyes.
"I know him. He wouldn’t do this."
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