Unaware of what was happening above the mansion, several people deep inside the sealed underground laboratory were completely absorbed in their work.
Avinash stood in front of a table, carefully observing the complex machinery installed on it. At the center of the apparatus lay a burnt, square-shaped wristwatch, without any strap attached to it.
"Start the procedure once again, Dr. Nakamura,"
Avinash said, glancing toward the scientists standing beside him.
"Yes."
Dr. Fuji Nakamura replied and pressed a button on the control panel in front of him.
The next moment, thin robotic arms mounted on the table picked up the burnt watch and dropped it into a box fixed on the right side of the table, the watch had the number 24 marked on its back. Inside the box already lay a pile of burnt watches—clear evidence of their previous failures.
Then, from another identical box on the left side, a second watch—exactly the same but completely intact—was taken out and placed on the table. The number 24 was written behind that wristwatch as well.
Avinash put on a mask and switched on the camera mounted in front of the table.
"This is the 46th trial of Project 24. All previous tests have failed due to one error or another. But by continuously learning from those mistakes, we have come very close to success. And I believe that this time… we will definitely succeed."
Avinash glanced toward the box on the left side. Only fourteen watches remained inside it.
Behind the mask, a subtle expression crossed his face—as if he knew he now had only a limited number of chances left, and he had to succeed within those few opportunities.
"Let's begin the procedure,"
Avinash said, looking at everyone present.
Dr. Fuji Nakamura pressed another button on the panel. Instantly, the watch placed on the table in front of Avinash began to rise slightly into the air. A circular ring of electricity started circulating around it, clearly visible to the naked eye.
After a few moments, Dr. Nakamura studied the screen on the panel and said,
"The quantum signals are stable, and there is no unusual fluctuation for now."
"The chemical is completely ready,"
Dr. Shruti Verma replied while looking toward Avinash.
"The radius is stable,"
Dr. Ibrahim added, checking his own screen and reporting his status.
The rest of the people in the lab checked their instruments as well. Finding everything normal, they signaled that everything on their side was ready.
"Set the power to 500%,"
Avinash ordered Dr. Nakamura.
"But sir, that would—"
"It's fine. Just do what I said."
Dr. Nakamura pushed the lever and set the power to 500%.
The vague sphere of electricity that had been rotating around the wristwatch suddenly intensified. With the surge of power, it transformed into a blazing white sphere of plasma—a force capable of erasing anything from existence in an instant.
Yet the wristwatch inside it remained completely unchanged, as if the immense energy surrounding it made no difference at all.
At that very moment, the electricity across a 500-kilometer radius suddenly went out.
On the roof of the mansion, the two shadowy figures fighting each other suddenly turned their attention toward the mansion below for a brief moment—as if every secret hidden inside it had been laid open before their eyes like the pages of a book.
But the next instant, they returned to their battle.
"It seems something interesting is happening beneath that mansion… wouldn't you like to take a look, Warden?"
The black shadow taunted the golden one while fighting.
During their clash, the shadows would sometimes disappear and reappear deep within the forest, then suddenly materialize in the mansion's garden near the armed men advancing toward it—only to vanish again and appear inside one of the mansion's rooms.
Gradually, the black shadow and his black hawk began gaining the upper hand over the golden one.
From a distant tree branch, the purple hawk that had been watching everything let out a loud cry and suddenly flew toward them.
Both shadows, locked in battle, paused for a moment and looked toward the source of the sound. There they saw the same purple hawk approaching them.
"Hm… what is this, Warden? It seems the seven of you are playing some dirty game again,"
the black shadow said to the golden one.
But when he looked at the golden shadow, it became clear that he too had no idea about this mysterious bird.
"How interesting… so this is an unknown, wandering hawk—one that no one seems to know anything about."
The purple hawk swoops down close to the two figures and suddenly attacks the black hawk and the black shadow, clawing at them with its talons as if it despises the black shadow—or perhaps harbors a deep hatred toward him. This once again brings the golden shadow back to equal footing against the black one, and with the arrival of a third unknown entity, the conflict becomes even more intense and dangerous.
As the battle continues, the two shadows and the three hawks move inside the mansion. Slowly clashing with one another, they descend deeper until they reach the underground laboratory, as if the walls offered no obstacle to them at all. The three hawks fought relentlessly, and their feathers were being torn out and falling to the ground. The moment those feathers touched the floor—whether they were golden, black, or purple—they turned into particles of dust, and that dust soon vanished into the air, as if they had never existed at all.
Avinash and the rest of the scientists were startled by the sudden appearance of the shadows.
"Sir, I think we should stop. In this situation, we cannot continue the experiment,"
said Dr. Fuji Nakamura, noticing the unexpected fluctuations in the machines' signals caused by the presence of the shadows.
"No. If we stop the experiment in the middle now, the explosion will be so massive that not only the lab but this entire mountain will be blown apart,"
Avinash replied, noticing the growing tension on everyone's faces.
"And besides, we have already reached the final step. Dr. Shruti, load the chemical and launch it."
Dr. Shruti pulled the lever beneath the red chemical container. The red liquid began flowing through a narrow channel toward the watch that was surrounded by the white plasma sphere. But in the very next moment, Dr. Shruti noticed that a purple feather fell into the red chemical and instantly turned into particles of purple dust. In the next instant, the red chemical itself began turning purple. Even the chemical that had already traveled halfway through the tube changed its color to purple. All of this happened in less than a second.
"Sir… I think—"
"Yes, I saw it too," Avinash interrupted before Dr. Shruti could finish. "But we cannot stop the experiment midway. If we stop it now, the explosion is guaranteed. So we move forward—whatever happens, happens."
"Yes, sir,"
Dr. Shruti replied, nodding her head.
At that moment, an uneasy fear spread across the faces of everyone present in the lab.
The purple chemical continued flowing through the tube and finally poured onto the white plasma sphere surrounding the watch. Gradually, the entire chemical emptied onto it, causing the plasma to change color into a strange mixture of blue and purple.
"Khrr… Avina… kh… hello Avinash… khrr… khss…"
A broken voice began crackling from the walkie-talkie placed in the upper pocket of Avinash's lab coat.
"Avinash, some people are moving toward the mansion, and they have guns,"
Priya's voice came through once the frequency stabilized.
"Alright, I'm coming up."
After saying this, Avinash quickly placed the walkie-talkie back in his pocket. At the same time, he noticed that the plasma sphere in front of him was slowly shrinking inward until it was completely absorbed into the wristwatch. Purple sparks and thin streaks of lightning began flickering across the surface of the watch.
After everything that had happened, the watch—which had remained inactive until now—suddenly made a "tick… tick…" sound.
For a moment, everything around them seemed to freeze, as if a strange stillness had spread through the environment.
This sudden anomaly caught the attention of the two shadows. However, it had no effect on them or on their hawks.
The next moment, everything returned to normal, as if it had all been an illusion. The watch that had been floating in the air suddenly lost its support and fell onto the table. At the same time, the two shadows resumed their battle.
"Dr. Nakamura."
Hearing Avinash call his name, Dr. Nakamura pressed the power-off button on the control panel in front of him, cutting off all power to the worktable.
Avinash extended his hand and picked up the strapless wristwatch lying on the table. It looked exactly the same as it had before the experiment. But that was precisely what made it different—because in all the previous experiments, the watches had ended up completely burned, while this one remained perfectly intact.
"Have we succeeded this time?"
This thought crossed Avinash's mind as he stared at the watch in his hand. But the very next moment, remembering something, he quickly slipped the watch into his pocket and hurriedly ran out of the lab.