Ye Mo stared at the monitor screen, his fingers flying across the keyboard. The chill from earlier still lingered in his spine; he knew it wasn't an illusion. The gray fragment in the system was still heating up, like a piece of iron just pulled from a fire.
He pulled up the screenshot of the green rune he had captured the night before and zoomed in to the maximum. This thing didn't resemble any code on Earth, nor did it look like the waveform traces left by Mutants abilities. He tried importing the rune data into the " Danger Sense " module three times, but there was no response. On the fourth attempt, he added " Quantum Sensing," and a string of garbled characters suddenly popped up on the screen, followed by a flash and a blurry image.
A golden hall, a towering throne, upon which sat a one-eyed old man. In the background, there was thunder and the sound of chains dragging on the ground.
Ye Mo immediately turned off the projector. His heart skipped a beat.
This wasn't a hallucination; it was information analyzed by the system. He saved the video into an encrypted folder, naming it [God System Match-01]. Then he opened the log records and found that at the very moment the video appeared, Thor's vital signs fluctuated slightly, synchronized with the thunder in the video.
He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and put them back on. "The system notification said it detected divine energy resonance, similarity 87.6%."
Emma Frost opened her eyes. "What did you see?"
"I've confirmed who he is." Ye Mo lowered his voice. "He's not an alien fugitive, nor an experimental subject; he's a genuine god from the legitimate mythological system. Odin's son from Asgard."
Emma Frost didn't speak, closing her eyes and entering her Mental Network state. After a few seconds, she nodded. "His memories do indeed contain images of palaces and war, and his emotions are complex, but not deceptive. He believes he is a god, even if he's just a vagrant now."
"That's the problem." Ye Mo switched interfaces, bringing up Thor's activity trajectory over the past twenty-four hours. "He's been stripped of his powers, but his identity is real. This means someone is conducting a purge test on him, and we've already been dragged into it."
He created a new protocol named " Silent Guard V2.0 ". Level 1 monitors sudden changes in vital signs, Level 2 detects spatial energy distortions, and Level 3 locks in the re-emergence of cross-dimensional signals. All three alarms are set to be triggered silently, and data travels through physically isolated channels.
"You're not planning to contact him?" Emma Frost asked.
"Not now." Ye Mo shook his head. "He's only just come to terms with being an ordinary person. If someone suddenly told him 'you're a god,' he'd either disbelieve it or break down. Besides..." He glanced at the timestamp in the corner of the screen, "That guy watching us hasn't gone far."
He replayed the data stream from 6:17 AM and found the unregistered protocol that lasted 0.07 seconds in the discarded logs. This time, he didn't open it directly, but first isolated it with a virtual sandbox, and then injected the " Mental Resonance " fragment into it. The system began to slowly decode it.
The progress bar stopped at 73% and a warning popped up. "Reverse tracing mechanism detected."
Ye Mo sneered and manually cut the connection. He left a fake signal in the sandbox, which was a blank surveillance video playing repeatedly, with some noise added to simulate equipment failure.
"When he comes to check again, he'll only find a bunch of useless data," he said.
Emma Frost sat cross-legged, her Mental Network re-established. "I will maintain emotional oversight of Thor and alert you should he exhibit any significant emotional fluctuations."
"It's not just him." Ye Mo opened the town's personnel files. "We need to monitor not only his condition, but also who else can influence him."
He turned to Jane Foster's profile. A female scientist, thirty years old, about to join the local observatory, researching Force Field of anomalous celestial bodies. In the photo, she was wearing glasses, holding a report, with a starry sky projection in the background.
"This person could be a turning point," Ye Mo said, pointing to her name. "What she's researching can explain why Thor fell. If they meet, it could change the whole dynamic."
"You're going to arrange for them to meet?"
"No." Ye Mo shook his head. "I won't do anything. I'll just... make it easier for her to appear where she needs to be. For example, have her car break down on a side road that Thor happens to pass by, or have the observatory's job posting posted on the bulletin board he passes by every day."
He starred Jane's information and added it to the potential collaboration list, but didn't act immediately. He just made a mark, like anticipating the next move in a game of chess.
"You're like a mastermind behind everything," Emma Frost said.
"I just don't want to be cannon fodder." Ye Mo leaned back in his chair. "The chill they felt last time wasn't something an ordinary threat could bring. I could sense that they wanted to see not only Thor, but also how we would react. If we rushed to save him, we'd only expose more weaknesses."
He closed all the analysis windows, leaving only a minimized red dot interface. The red dot bounced slightly on the map, representing Thor's location. His breathing rate was normal, his body temperature was stable, and he was still sleeping on the bench.
"The system notification just went off again," he said. "I suggest you don't rush to be a hero; be a shadow first."
Emma Frost chuckled softly, "When did you start listening to the system?"
"I'm not listening to it." Ye Mo stared at the red dot. "I've noticed that it's becoming less and less like a tool lately. It used to only collect abilities, but now it can even recreate high-dimensional images. This means it's also upgrading, probably because it's encountering more types of abilities."
He opened the internal view of the Gene Spiral Tower; the gray fragments on the 15th floor were still hot. Next to it, an unnamed node had appeared, shaped like a hammer, but obscured by a layer of fog.
"I didn't activate this new module," he said. "It just appeared on its own."
Emma Frost frowned. "You mean, the system has developed its own consciousness?"
"Not necessarily," Ye Mo shook his head. "It's more like it will unlock automatically once certain conditions are met. Like a phone system update, it pops up a notification when the time comes. Our problem now is that we don't know who will release the next update package."
He pulled up the energy readings of the Vibranium fragment and found that the resonant frequency had increased by 12% since last night. Not because of its proximity to Mjolnir, but because of some kind of external pull.
"Someone is using something else to calibrate the coordinates," he said. "It could be a teleportation device, or it could be a summoning circle. But we can't see the source."
Emma Frost closed her eyes and scanned the surrounding space, extending her Mental Network outwards three times. When she returned, she shook her head. "There's no unusual energy accumulation, nor any large-scale magical fluctuations. But if the opponent uses single-point infiltration, it would indeed be difficult to detect."
"Then let him think we know nothing." Ye Mo reconnected to the monitoring system and reset all the sensors to default mode. "We'll continue to play dumb, but if he moves even a little more, he'll leave more traces."
He set up an invisible recorder specifically to capture all seemingly invalid data fragments, including electromagnetic noise, temperature changes, and even fluctuations in the concentration of ions in the air.
"Next time he tries to spy on me, I won't stop him or hide from him." Ye Mo looked at the screen. "I'll let him look, let him look to his heart's content. But for every second he looks, I'll have one more piece of evidence."
Emma Frost nodded. "I will cooperate with you to adjust the monitoring weights, focusing on covering the mental activities within a 500-meter radius of Thor."
The two fell silent. Only the low hum of the equipment running could be heard in the room. Ye Mo took a sip of his cold coffee and put his glasses back on.
He knew this game had only just begun. The other side possessed magic, a higher-dimensional perspective, and possibly an even more advanced intelligence network. But they had one advantage—they weren't afraid to wait.
Thor was still asleep on the bench, breathing evenly. In his dream, he walked into a bakery, and the owner handed him an apron. As he took it, an old scar on his wrist flashed.
Ye Mo noticed this detail, took a screenshot, saved it, and marked it as a "physiological stress response observation point".
He didn't tell Emma Frost. Some things didn't need to be said yet.
The red dot in the bottom right corner of the monitoring interface is still flashing.
Ye Mo tapped his fingers lightly on the table.
Once, twice.
Then stop.