"Mission compromised. All groups, hold position!"
When Punk received this message, he was still facing off against his own team members, and he was completely stunned. For a moment, he even suspected that the ogre before him had used some kind of mental spell to make him hallucinate.
But after a simple self-examination of his soul, Punk confirmed the truth with absolute certainty—the notification declaring that the "mission was compromised" had been sent by the "Chairman."
Across from him, the ogre that had been brimming with aggression just a second ago was now standing there in a similarly dumbfounded state. Clearly, it too had received the Chairman's solemn warning.
"Could it be that the River of Fate was this ruthless? Making everyone suddenly exposed, and at such a perfectly timed moment?"
Silently taking a magic crystal card from his storage ring, Punk could not help but furrow his brow.
This sudden notification that the mission had been compromised was simply too unexpected. It was so unexpected that even Punk had never included a plan for dealing with such a situation in his considerations.
At the same time, this perfectly timed exposure was far too coincidental. Its timing was not measured in years or months, but in days. On the very second day after the Chairman announced that the mission had begun, this operation—whose members had only just gathered—was suddenly declared compromised. Based on the timeline and the reasoning of most Executor group leaders, this was almost exactly when the three Executor teams would have reached their rendezvous points and quietly begun their on-site investigations.
If this mission exposure had been an "inevitable" accidental product of the River of Fate's influence, then this so-called accident was far too forceful and unreasonable.
"...Considering deeper reasons is work for the Chairman. Right now,