Dissonance

In the meeting room, the CEO's brow was furrowed.

A very strange feeling welled up in his heart.

He couldn't quite put his finger on it.

But for a brief moment, he felt as if he had overlooked something extremely important.

He looked up, his gaze sweeping across both sides of the long table.

The young deputy beside him, who had just been promoted, wore a polite smile, but it looked somewhat stiff.

The middle-aged logistics manager was staring at the teacup in front of him, his eyes glazed.

Further away, the shrewd and capable CFO was unconsciously twirling a pen in his hand. The pen fell onto the table; he paused for a moment, picked it up, continued twirling, and then it fell again.

Something was wrong.

There was no lack of transcendents present, and their perceptions were sharp.

The CEO noticed several people look up at the same time. Their gazes met, and they all saw the same thing in each other's eyes.

Vigilance, and an unspeakable sense of dissonance.

It was as if something had happened right under their noses, yet they were completely unaware.

“Meeting adjourned.”

The CEO offered no further explanation, stood up, and strode toward the door.

The others were stunned for a second before they all rose and followed.

...

The entire island was silent.

There should have been personnel on duty at every post, but they were all empty now.

Occasionally, one or two people would pass by. Seeing the group of executives, they would nod respectfully and then continue with their duties.

There were too few people on the island.

The CEO and the executives walked to the main control room.

This place operated twenty-four hours a day. Currently, the control room was brightly lit, and the equipment was humming.

But there was no one at the consoles.

The duty personnel who should have been monitoring screens, operating equipment, and relaying commands were all gone.

Only a few robotic arms were still operating automatically, executing preset programs.

The CEO stopped in his tracks, looking around and scanning every corner.

The screens were still displaying various data, which continued to update in real-time, but no one was there to watch or process it.

“This...” someone whispered in shock.

In their memories, no one was supposed to be here.

Yet, many of the devices in the control room required manual operation and constant supervision.

Reality and memory were in logical conflict.

Something was spinning rapidly in the CEO's mind as he looked at one of the screens.

That screen was showing surveillance footage of the island.

In the footage, the armed ships at the port were docked quietly, their decks empty.

At the warehouse entrance, supplies that hadn't been moved yet were piled up, with no one around.

This was wrong; there should have been people on the ships.

In a corner of the control room was a photograph—the group's annual staff photo from last year, with every employee standing together.

The CEO's gaze swept over the photo and suddenly stopped.

He stared at a specific person in the photo.

It was a young man standing in the corner of the third row, smiling shyly.

A thought flashed through the CEO's mind: Who is this?

He couldn't remember.

But he knew this person should exist.

Because in the photo, the young man was wearing the group's uniform.

If he had existed, why couldn't he remember him?

“Has our memory been tampered with?” the CEO said, his voice uncertain.

The other executives were stunned for a moment, and then their expressions changed drastically.

They were the group's high-level management, and few of them were fools. Those selected to sit at this meeting table possessed sharp judgment at the very least.

Woken by the CEO's words, they immediately realized that there should have been many more people on the island.

Those people had mysteriously vanished from their memories.

But while the memories were gone, the items, photos, and traces they left behind still existed.

These details silently told them that people were missing—a very, very large number of people.

The CEO's face turned extremely grim.

It hadn't even been a day since the core lab was destroyed. They were in the middle of a meeting to deploy a response plan, and the island's combat preparations were in full swing.

He hadn't expected the enemy's strike to come so swiftly!

If only low-level employees had disappeared, he wouldn't have reacted so strongly. Low-level employees were plenty; they could be recruited at will.

But the problem now was that he didn't know who had disappeared.

Among those erased memories, were there any crucial figures?

For instance, experts holding key technologies, managers in charge of core secrets, or intelligence officers who knew vital information?

He didn't know.

“Investigate. Find out immediately who is missing.”

“Pull up all files, all photos, all records, and check them one by one.”

“Yes!” someone took the order and left.

The CEO felt incredibly frustrated. Anger burned within him, and he couldn't calm down at all.

Lerill stood at the edge of the crowd, having also understood the current situation, but he was thinking of something else.

So many people had disappeared?

Now that the group was in chaos, could he find an opportunity to fish in troubled waters and seize some benefits for himself?

Among those who had vanished, were there people he had long disliked? Were there vacant positions that his own people could now fill?

His gaze swept through the crowd.

Karo stood not far away, his expression solemn. Lerill noticed his eyes shifting as if he were also calculating something.

And there were others. Lerill suddenly felt that everyone present had a subtle expression.

Beneath the surface of worry, something else was hidden.

Countless dark and negative thoughts, as if catalyzed, were quietly swelling in everyone's hearts, even beginning to affect their reason.

Instead of investigating the missing people, the CEO should have been finding a way to deal with the unknown enemy.

Nor should the other executives be fixated on internal strife at a time like this.

...

Meanwhile, in a hidden corner on the outskirts of the island.

Three figures enveloped in a bubble appeared out of thin air.

The Captain of the Reincarnator squad, the demon man, and the vampire landed on the island to carry out a targeted hunt of the Deep Blue Route's high-level members.

The other two female members had consumed a lot of energy in the previous operation and were not suitable for the upcoming battle.

Especially the elf woman; if she lost consciousness, the curse of the Hobby-Hobby Fruit would be broken, so she had to remain in a safe area.

The demon man grinned, the horns on his forehead suddenly igniting with dark flames that smelled of sulfur.

“The environment on this island is great. I feel so refreshed. These capitalists really know how to enjoy themselves.”

“Is that so? Why do I feel a bit strange?” the vampire said from the side, his eyes glowing red and his fangs having already grown out.

The Captain glanced at them, his brow furrowed.

These two were acting a bit off.

While the demon man was usually a bit irritable, he wouldn't get this excited for no reason.

And the vampire's fangs didn't just pop out randomly; that only happened when he was extremely stimulated.

Yet the three of them had only just landed on the island.

The Captain scratched the back of his head in frustration, feeling a bit of disdain for his two idiot teammates' lack of caution—getting hit by an ambush so quickly.

So annoying.

“You two...” the Captain started to speak.

But the vampire and the demon man had already moved out on their own.