The pale light from the screen cast an eerie glow on the angular face of Ethan Caldwell, highlighting the sharp, cold contours of his features. In stark contrast to the extreme tension displayed by Helen Lloyd, his expression remained entirely unchanged, not even showing the slightest furrow of a brow.

However, it was precisely this absolute, unwavering calmness that suffocated those around him. The temperature inside the room seemed to plummet below freezing. The profound silence of Ethan Caldwell in this moment resembled the eerie calm of the ocean right before a superstorm strikes.

Ethan Caldwell casually handed the tablet back to Helen Lloyd.

"Lock down the entire internal network." His voice was deep and steady, neither rushed nor slow, yet every single word dropped with an oppressive, heavy weight: "Elevate the security system to level one. Completely detach the central server from all subsidiary branches."

Helen Lloyd hastily nodded her head: "Yes, Boss."

"At the same time..." A glint of sharp coldness flashed through Ethan Caldwell’s eyes: "Immediately extract the list of every individual who has touched that file today, including our own technical team. No matter who it is, block their access rights right this instant."

Helen Lloyd could only agree with another compliant response. Having followed Ethan Caldwell for a long time, she understood her boss to a certain extent. The less anger Ethan Caldwell displayed, the less he revealed, the more terrifying he truly was.

Julian Sterling stood off to the side, his eyes still fixated intensely on Helen Lloyd’s screen. It was patently obvious that just moments ago, Julian had lost control of himself, thrown into a chaotic state of confusion regarding his own true identity.

Yet, in no time at all, his lips curled into a smile that carried a heavy dose of blatant mockery. Sometimes, amidst a storm of panic, encountering a challenger could actually make a person feel their own existence much more vividly and clearly.

"Perhaps we have touched upon something..." Julian Sterling’s voice was slightly hoarse: "They are afraid."

The behavioral pattern of CORE was incredibly clear. If they possessed the capability, they would have ruthlessly eliminated the two of them directly, rather than resorting to sending a warning email like that. Unless they had genuinely touched upon something crucial...

"Previously, no matter how deep we dug, CORE always maintained a silent, observant stance, much like gods gazing down upon a colony of ants." Julian Sterling raised his eyes, meeting Ethan Caldwell’s gaze directly: "But this time, they hastily moved to wipe their tracks clean, and even went as far as sending a threatening email. A biting dog rarely barks. For them to bark this loudly, it definitively proves that we have struck a nerve."

For the very first time since the existence labeled "A-01" was exposed, Julian Sterling was no longer paralyzed by fear. The direct threat from their adversaries not only failed to strike him down, but conversely, it fully awakened his survival instincts and the deep-seated arrogance carved into the very bones of a person who had once stood at the absolute zenith of power in his previous world.

Helen Lloyd hugged the tablet, bowing her head to accept the commands before swiftly retreating outside to handle the tasks, thereby returning the private space to the two men.

The exact moment the door clicked shut was also the moment Julian Sterling collapsed into Ethan Caldwell’s embrace. The man’s hand stroked down the length of Julian’s spine in a coaxing, comforting manner, though his voice could not conceal an underlying trace of exhaustion.

"Leave everything to me. Be good and get some proper rest, your complexion looks absolutely terrible."

Ethan Caldwell wanted to hide his little world away for a while. He had no clear idea of what Julian Sterling had truly been forced to endure, or how agonizing those years in that "other world" had been, but the mere sight of the tear that had unconsciously rolled down Julian’s cheek made his heart ache with profound distress.

As a man, who would not desire to protect the sole, most precious treasure of his life from every stormy tempest. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

However, Julian Sterling gently shook his head. Both of his hands pressed against the man’s sturdy chest, maintaining a small sliver of distance so he could look straight into Ethan’s eyes.

"If I am A-01. If my very existence is the exact reason why they had to frantically rush to clean up the aftermath..." Julian Sterling’s gaze was incredibly resolute, not blinking even once: "Then from this moment onward, I can no longer sit idly on the sidelines."

"Julian, could we just ignore them? You do not understand those people, but I have been clashing with them for countless years. This treacherous quagmire is impossible to completely dredge clean. It merely causes a person to sink deeper and deeper, and no matter how much you thrash about, there is absolutely no way to escape."

"Then what about you, Ethan Caldwell? Can you simply let it go?" Julian Sterling meticulously smoothed out the wrinkles on Ethan Caldwell’s collar, the exact spot that his own hands had frantically crushed during his bout of panic just a moment ago. Only then did Julian slowly speak up: "You are confronting them, do you honestly think they will let me off the hook? No, even if both of us were to completely retreat, they would still never let me go."

Julian Sterling had no idea what the true reason for his arrival here was, nor whether this world was genuinely the novel he once knew. But there was one indisputable fact he understood remarkably well: in the eyes of CORE, he was a fully successful test subject.

Would those deranged lunatics, who had recklessly pursued an inhumane experiment without the slightest hesitation to sacrifice hundreds or thousands of lives, ever spare him?

It sounded utterly fantastical and completely absurd.

"I know you want to protect me, but..." Julian Sterling pressed a feather-light peck against the man’s lips: "...protect me while I am standing proudly right beside you, and not hiding behind your back, okay?"

He was no fragile flower in a greenhouse that needed constant watering and care. He was a thorny, resilient vine perfectly ready to brave the raging storms alongside this towering, mighty tree.

Ethan Caldwell stared deeply into the unyielding eyes of his lover. It seemed as though, in that fleeting moment, he saw a resilient spirit, just as madly driven as his own, contained within that slender frame. Ethan Caldwell let out a low, deep chuckle, lowering his head to press his forehead firmly against Julian’s.

"Alright. We will walk this path together."

In the early morning hours, Ethan Caldwell and Julian Sterling returned to their own home. It was not until this exact moment that Julian Sterling discovered that directly beneath Ethan Caldwell’s modest-sized villa lay an extremely high-security office workspace.

At this very moment, Helen Lloyd was standing in front of a massive projection screen, which was displaying a dense, tangled cascade of red and green code running vertically down the surface.

"Boss, Mr. Sterling." Helen Lloyd pointed a finger at the screen: "That email was transmitted through seventeen proxy nodes scattered all across the globe. They utilized an older generation, yet incredibly sophisticated, military-grade encryption algorithm. The technique they used to erase their tracks perfectly matches the exact method they employed to annihilate the hospital’s server last night."

"Get straight to the point."