"Sphinx? You mean the Egyptian Sphinx?" General Liao asked instinctively.
"Yes, but not the statue sitting beside the pyramids. A living Sphinx." Sun Hang nodded. "I imagine everyone here heard this riddle as a child: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening... The answer is man, and the being that posed the riddle was the lion-bodied, human-faced monster known as the Sphinx."
"Anomaly Sphinx?" A Tianshu Tower executive narrowed his eyes. "There is no Sphinx listed in the known Anomaly registry... Although many creatures from myths and legends manifested as Anomalies during the first Anomaly War, there are neither sighting records nor any evidence proving that this Sphinx truly exists..."
Sun Hang ignored the executive and swept his gaze across every face at the conference table. He noticed that a small number of people showed subtle changes in their expressions and eyes.
Most of those whose expressions had changed had graying hair.
"It seems some people do know the Mainframe's true nature." Sun Hang smiled in satisfaction.
"Enough, young man. Don't continue." An old man wearing a worn jacket, seated in the farthest corner and silent since the meeting began, suddenly spoke. "I don't know why Elder Pei told you these things, but you should not tell them to more people... Haven't you considered the consequences of doing this?"
Information about the speaking elder appeared on Sun Hang's glasses through the Mainframe's AR projection—his name was Ji Yaohua, the most senior computer engineer still serving at Tianshu Tower, without equal.
Ji Yaohua's teacher had built the Mainframe alongside Pei Zongjun's group. As one of their successors, Ji Yaohua had inherited the task of maintaining the Mainframe's external facilities from his teacher, along with the Mainframe's secret.
His reason for