"Supervisor, we've thrown everything at them. The brute-force scripts, the logic bombs... nothing. We can't even touch their outer firewall."
"It's a startup! A library clerk's hobby!" the Supervisor roared, his face reddening. "What am I paying you for? Do I need to remind you that you were recruited from the top academies in the galaxy?"
He took a jagged breath, forcing his heart rate down. He was a professional; he knew when a situation didn't add up. His team was capable of paralyzing an entire star system's trade network if they were motivated. To be stone-walled by a "small company" meant one of two things: either the Xianzhou had deployed their core military-grade encryption... or something much worse was happening.
"Give me the logs," the Supervisor commanded. "Exactly what happened when you hit the 'Enter' key?"
"At first, it was like a hot knife through butter," the lead hacker stammered. "We thought we were in. But then we noticed the game was still live. Every layer we broke through just led to another. It was an infinite loop. Eventually... we realized we couldn't even find the Arceus servers anymore. We were lost in a maze of our own making."
A cold sweat broke out on the Supervisor's brow. This wasn't standard defense. This was Aether Editing. This was the work of a Genius.
"Report this to Pier Point," he whispered. "Tell them we've hit a wall we can't climb. We're not fighting a company anymore. We're fighting a Ghost."
High above in a cloaked Stellaron Hunter starship, Silver Wolf sat cross-legged in her gaming chair, popping a piece of candy into her mouth. Behind her, a dozen screens flickered with neon-green code, scrolling at speeds no human eye could follow.
She didn't even look at the "Attack Blocked" notifications.
"The IPC's talent pool is really drying up," she muttered, wiping her sticky fingers on her jacket. "They haven't even realized they're currently DDoS-ing their own internal payroll servers yet."
She swiped the screen, switching to her Pokémon team-builder. Julian's comment about her battles "lacking soul" still bothered her. She had spent the last week obsessing over move-synergy and held-item optimization. She had built a team that was mathematically perfect.
"Soul, huh?" she whispered. "I'll show him soul when I sweep his team in the open beta."
She checked her messages and sent a quick ping to Julian.
Silver Wolf: "The IPC tried to crash you. I sent their trash back to their own front yard. Your servers are clean."
Julian: "Thanks, Big Sis. I knew I could count on the best. (Thumbs-up.JPG)"
Silver Wolf: "Hmph. Just don't let some IPC suit trip over the power cable. (Sunglasses.JPG)"
Julian: "I heard several IPC games had 'technical difficulties' today. Any relation?"
Silver Wolf: "They did it to themselves. I just provided the mirror. (No-biggie.JPG)"
In the Arceus Studio office on the Luofu, Julian put down his Jade Abacus and looked at the analytics.
On paper, Pokémon's "official" popularity had dropped by seventy percent due to the IPC's signal blockade and shadow-banning. But Julian wasn't worried. The "official" numbers only counted people on the IPC's grid.
According to Cai Xing's reports from the hidden Xianzhou networks, the "Black-Market" anime downloads were surging. The Arceus Accelerator was being downloaded by the millions as players flocked to bypass the blockade.
"I should send the IPC a thank-you banner," Julian mused. "They're my best marketing department."
Without the IPC's initial suppression of the Alliance, he would never have gotten Yukong's 200 million Credit investment. And without this new blockade, Pokémon wouldn't have the "Forbidden Legend" status it now enjoyed in IPC space. People who didn't even like games were downloading the Accelerator just to see what the Corporation was so scared of.
"Cai Xing," Julian called out, "start the preparations for the Open Beta. I want the Mew Island event ready for day one. Don't announce it. Let the players find it themselves. Let's see who's lucky enough to find the world's first Mythical."
"Understood, Boss," Cai Xing smiled.
Julian leaned back. The trap was set. He was about to give the galaxy a surprise that no amount of corporate firewalls could hide.