White light from the illumination technique spread evenly across the ceiling of the northern side hall of Angkor Fortress. Zhi Li stood at the edge of the long table, the feedback panel in her hands having just completed its final data refresh. She ran her fingertips over several curves on its surface in sequence, confirming that the end-point data had all stabilized. Then she laid the panel flat on the table and turned toward Cang, seated at the other end.
"The causal loop involving Momoshiki and the other two has been completed," Zhi Li said. She adjusted the feedback panel's position on the table so that its data layer faced Cang. "Looking back from the end of the timeline, their search operation after leaving the valley lasted several days and nights. They made brief stops along the way to check their condition, but they did not investigate deeply at the time. They were only discovered and intercepted by the Ninja World's combined forces after resuming their movement plan. The battle lasted for a limited period of time. After it ended, the three of them left behind no Wedge and triggered no linked signal corresponding to long-range monitoring. The point at which their signals went offline falls precisely within a gap in the main family's standard communication window. There is an explainable discrepancy between the last standard status report received by the main family and the time they actually disappeared, so it will not provoke an immediate tracking response from the main family."
Cang sat at the other end of the table with his hands resting on his knees. He did not speak immediately after hearing Zhi Li's report. First, he looked over the sets of timeline data that had already run their course on the feedback panel, his gaze tracing